By Birth a Lady

“I should say it was as near as could be three o’clock,” said Edward punctiliously; “it might have been a little after, though I hadn’t heard it strike, or it might have been a little before: I ain’t certain. Anyhow, it was as near as could be to three o’clock when the front-door bell rings.

“‘Visitor for Miss Bedford,’ I says to myself, laughing like, and meaning it as a joke; for as we’d had one that day, I didn’t of course expect no more.”

“What time was it as Sir Philip Vining went away?” said cook, who was deeply interested.

“O, that was before lunch,” said Edward.

“To be sure, so it was,” said the housemaid.

“Well, I slips on my coat – for I was dusting the glasses over before going to lay the dinner-cloth – and up I goes.”

“And up you goes,” said cook; for Edward had paused to soften his hard face with a little more of the stewpan decoction.

“Yes, up I goes, to find it was Mr Charles Vining, looking as bright and happy as could be – quite another man to what he was when he come last week.

“‘Ah,’ I says to myself, ‘you don’t know about your governor being here afore lunch, young man, or you’d be laughing the other side of your mouth.’ But I says aloud:

“‘To see Miss Bedford, sir?’

“‘No, my man,’ he says; and he looked at me very curious and hesitating, as if he’d like to have said ‘yes.’

“‘Show me in to your mistress,’ he says.”

“Now it’s a-coming!” said cook, rocking herself to and fro with excitement, and rubbing her hands softly together.

“Now what’s a-coming, stoopid?” said Edward gruffly. “What d’ye mean?”

“I – I only meant that the interesting bit was now coming – the denowment, you know,” said cook humbly, and seeking to mollify the insulted narrator by emptying the little stewpan, cloves, bits of ginger, and all into his mug.

“If you’re so precious clever, you’d better tell it yourself,” growled Edward fiercely, “instead of keeping on interrupting like that. Who’s to go on, I should like to know?”

“O, I’m sure cook didn’t mean nothing, Mr Eddard,” said the interested housemaid. “Do go on!”

“What’s she want to say anything for, if she don’t mean anything then, eh?” grumbled Edward. “I hate such ways.”

Cook looked at housemaid, and slightly raised her hands, while the offended dignitary sipped and muttered, and muttered and sipped, and his audience waited, not daring to speak, lest they should miss the rest of the expected treat.

“I wouldn’t say another word if I hadn’t begun, that I wouldn’t!” growled the hard-faced one. “Now, then, where’d I got to?”

“‘Show me in to your mistress,’” exclaimed cook; when “Mr Eddard,” turning round upon her very sharply, she shrunk as it were into her shell, and nipped together her lips.

“I tell you what it is,” said Edward viciously; “if I’m to tell this here, I tells it, but I ain’t going to be driven wild with vexatious interruptions. Do you both want to know it, or don’t you?”

“O yes, please, Mr Eddard, we do indeed,” exclaimed the two domestics; “so please go on!”

Thus adjured, and apparently mollified by the respect paid to him, as much as by the stewpan essence, “Mr Eddard” continued: “Well, I shows him into the breakfast-room, and then goes in to missus, who had just come down from Miss Bedford’s room; and looking all white and troubled, she goes across the hall, and I opens the door for her, and up comes my gentleman with a rush, catches her hand in his, and kisses it.

“‘That’s making yourself at home anyhow, young man,’ I says to myself, backing-out of the room; and I can’t say how it happened, but the corner of the carpet got rucked up, so that I was ever so long before I could get the door shut, and they would keep talking, so that I couldn’t help hearing what they said.”

“And what did they say?” said cook.

“Ain’t I a-coming to it as fast as I can?” said Edward angrily. “What an outrageous hurry you always are in with everything, except getting the dinner ready in time!”

“Now don’t be cruel, Mr Eddard,” said the housemaid, tittering, when “Mr Eddard” himself condescended to laugh at what our Scotch brethren would call his own “wut,” to the great discomfiture of cook, who wanted to fire-up and give them a bit of her mind, but did not dare, for fear of losing the end of the coveted history. The consequence of her reticence, though, was that “Mr Eddard” grew exceedingly amiable, and went on with his account.

“That door being shut,” he said, with a grim smile, which was meant to be pleasant, but was the very reverse, “I didn’t want to go; for I put it to you now, under the circumstances, was it likely as he’d stay long?”

“Of course not!” said cook.

“Not likely!” said the housemaid.

“Well, then,” continued Edward, “where was the use of me going back to my pantry only to be called directly? So I took his hat and brushed it, and when I’d brushed it and set it down, I set to and brushed it again, and so on half a dozen times, while – it was very foolish of them if they didn’t want other people to hear – they kept on talking louder and louder.

“‘Mr Vining,’ says missus, ‘I must ask you as a gentleman to come no more.’

“‘But, in ’evin’s name,’ he says, ‘what have I done that you should turn upon me like this?’

“‘Nothing,’ says missus; ‘nothing at all. I pity you from the bottom of my heart, as much as I pity that sweet girl; but it cannot be. You must come here no more.’

“‘Are you a woman?’ he says. ‘Have you feeling? Can you form any idea of the pain your words are giving me?’

“‘Yes, yes, yes,’ says missus. ‘Mr Vining, why do you force me to speak? I do not wish to cause trouble, but you drive me to do so.’

“‘Speak, then,’ he says, quite in another voice, ‘unless you wish to drive me mad, or to something worse – ’ There, I’m blessed,” continued Edward, breaking short off in his narrative, and pointing to the cook, “did you ever see such a woman? Why, what are you snivelling about?”

“I – I – I c-c-c-can’t help it, Eddard, when I think of what those poor things must be suffering,” sobbed cook, with a liberal application of her apron to her eyes.

“Suffer, indeed – such stuff!” said Edward.

“Ah, Eddard,” said cook, turning upon him a languishing look, “if I have saved up forty-seven pound ten in the savings bank, I’ve a heart still, and know what it is for it to bleed when some one says a hard word to me.”

The housemaid sniffed.

“I’m a going on,” said Edward, who was evidently moved by the culinary lady’s remarks.

“‘Drive you,’ says Mr Vining, ‘to speak! Why, stay!’ he says excitedly, as if a thought had struck him. ‘Why, yes; I’m sure of it. My father has been here to-day.’

“‘He has,’ says missus solemnly.

“‘It was cowardly and cruel!’ cries Mr Vining, quite shouting now, for his monkey was evidently up. ‘And pray, madam, what is the result of his visit? There, I can answer it myself: Miss Bedford refuses to see me; you decline to receive me into your house.’

“‘Mr Vining,’ says missus softly, and I could fancy that she took his hand, ‘I grieve for you, as I do for that suffering girl.’

“‘What!’ cries Mr Vining, ‘is she ill? Let me – let me see her – only once – for a minute, dear Mrs Brandon! Pray – on my knees I beg it of you! You cannot be so cruel, so hardhearted, as to refuse!’ And then I heard a loud sobbing wail as of a woman crying, and – There, I’m blest if I go on, if you will keep on snivelling. Why, blame the women, you’re both on you at it!”

“We – we – we – we – we’re – only a-blowin’ our noses,” sobbed the housemaid.

“Never see such noses!” growled Edward, who then continued:

“Well, directly after, as if in a passion, Mr Vining says:

“‘Mrs Brandon, this is cruel and harsh. I left you last week with my hopes raised; to-day you dash them to the ground.’

“‘Mr Vining – Mr Vining!’ she says softly.

“‘I tell you this,’ he says, shouting again; and hearing his words, you could almost see him stamping up and down the breakfast-room – ‘I tell you this. Mrs Brandon: the ties of duty are strong, but the ties formed by the heart of a man newly-awakened to love are stronger. To win Ella Bedford, my own love, I will give all – time, hope, everything; I will leave no stone unturned – I will stop at nothing! I see that she has been coerced – that she has been, as it were, cruelly stolen from me by external pressure; and it shall be my task to win her back. I had hoped to have had you on my side; as it is, I must begin my battle by myself. I thank you for your patient hearing of my words; but before I go I tell you this – that till I learn that, by her own act, she gives herself to another, I will never cease from my pursuit.’

“The next minute he was in the hall, and I handed him his hat, brushed as he never had it brushed before; when, even then, upset as he was, he puts his hand in his pocket, and pushed something into my fist.

“‘Sixpence,’ I says to myself, as I shut the door after him, and him a-walking away like mad.”

“Sixpence!” echoed the cook.

“Sixpence!” squeaked the housemaid.

“Well, it did feel like it, sutternly,” said Edward; “but it was arf a suffrin’.”

“But what did he mean by never ceasing from the pursuit till she gave herself to another? Would she give herself to another?” said cook, who was very moist of eye.

“No, I should say not – never!” said the housemaid.

And so said, mentally, Charley Vining as, disappointed and half maddened, he galloped homeward that afternoon; but the day came when, bitterly laughing to himself, he said otherwise, and hummed with aching heart the words of the old song:

“Shall I, wasting in despair,Die because a woman’s fair?”

And then he turned over and over in his hand – what?

A wedding-ring!

Volume Two – Chapter Twelve.

More Passion and Little Progress

“Bai Jove! she’s about the most skittish little filly I ever met with in the whole course of my experience,” muttered Max Bray; and then he went over mentally the many rebuffs he had encountered. Forbidden Mrs Brandon’s house, he had all the same gone over day after day to Laneton, for the purpose of impressing Ella with a sense of the value of his attentions; but still, though he displayed as much effrontery as a London rough, all went against him, and he found that, so far from meeting with a kindly greeting, his appearance was ever the signal for an immediate retreat.

“But you won’t tire me – bai Jove, you won’t!” said Max. “I’ve set my mind, and it will keep set.”

And still day after day he rode over to Laneton, till not a walk could Ella take without catching sight of his mincing step and gracefully-attired figure; while, in spite of every effort, there were times when she could not avoid his addresses, as he stubbornly persisted in walking by her side.

“Bai Jove! it’s of no use for you to harry and worry me,” drawled Max to Laura. “I’m getting on as fast as I can.”

“But are your visits having any effect?” said Laura eagerly.

“Well, I’ll be candid with you,” said Max. “Not so much as I could wish in one quarter; but, bai Jove! I’m doing you a good turn in the other direction. He’s as jealous as Othello – he is, bai Jove! He meets me now with a scowl like a stage villain, confound him! But he gets on no better there than I do.”

Max Bray was very decided in what he said; but though debarred from visiting, like himself, at Copse Hall, Charley Vining was under the impression that he did get on much better than friend Max. The very sight of Ella, even at a distance, was to him a pleasure; and in spite of many disappointments, he was never weary of his twenty-four-mile ride, counting himself a happier man when, by a lucky chance, he was able to catch a glimpse of Ella, if but for a minute. While upon the day when Max made the above remarks, Charley Vining had not only seen, but spoken to Ella – not only spoken to, but won from her – But stay – we are premature.

Weeks had passed since, exactly as had been described by Edward the hard-faced footman, Charley Vining had had an interview with Mrs Brandon, to learn that in future he must never call there, nor expect the slightest aid to be given to him, or even to have his suit countenanced; and then it was that, angry and determined, the young man had left, the house with the intention of leaving no stone unturned to win an answer to his love.

To this end, day after day he would watch the house, thinking nothing of the weary waiting hours, though it seemed that as little heed was paid to the distance by Max Bray, who now made no secret of his pursuit, carrying it on in open defiance of his rival – the two meeting constantly, but never speaking. In fact, Charley was rather glad of this; for after the last interview with Laura, it had seemed to him that he must be for the future upon unfriendly terms with the Bray family, though Laura, whenever they met, was more gentle and pleading than ever, although she must have seen that Charley shrank from her.

“Nil desperandum” seemed to be the motto adopted by all; and at length came the day when Charley’s heart leaped, for he told himself that his perseverance was to have its reward.

He had ridden over as was his custom, put up his horse at Laneton, and was then listlessly strolling towards Copse Hall, in the hope that he might be favoured by, at all events, a glimpse of Ella, when he turned from the road, leaped a stile, and took a path which led through the copse from which the Hall was named.

There was no especial reason for going that way, only that he was as likely to encounter Ella walking – which was not often – in one direction as another; so he made up his mind to go through the copse by the broad winding path which led round the back of the Hall, then to make his way into the lane by Croppley Magna, walk on and see the old lady who had received him into her house when he had his bad hunting fall, and then return to where his horse awaited him.

He had entered the copse, walking very slowly, and thinking deeply of the unsatisfactory state of affairs, when suddenly he was awakened from his musing by the sound of merry childlike laughter. A little girl dashed round a bend of the walk, closely followed by another, and then, passing him quickly, they were out of sight in an instant, just as, dreamy and thoughtful, Ella, with her head bent down, came round the bend of the path – came slowly on, nearer and nearer to where Charley stood, with palpitating heart; and the next moment, as she started from her reverie, it was with Charley holding her hand tightly in his.

“Ella!” he said, the word being as it were forced from his panting breast.

“Mr Vining!” she exclaimed softly, as for a moment she met his gaze, starting not from him, neither struggling to release her hands, but looking up at him with a soft pleading look, that seemed to say, “You know all that I have promised. Why do you persecute me?”

“Ella,” he said again, “at last!”

“Mr Vining,” she said wearily, “please loose my hands and let me return. This is folly; it is unjust to me and to Sir Philip Vining. You know what I have promised to him.”

“I know what was cruelly wrung from you,” he said bitterly; “but I cannot think that you will adhere to it. Ella, dearest Ella, do you doubt my love?”

She turned her eyes sadly to his for a moment, as he still held her a prisoner.

“You believe me, then! You know how earnest I am!” cried Charley.

“Yes – yes!” she answered, her face bearing still the same sad weary expression.

“Listen to me, then,” continued Charley, his words sounding deep and husky. “If we were what you would call equals in station – an utterly false position – if I were some poor penniless tutor or curate telling you of my love, pleading to you earnestly, showing you in every way how dear you were to me, would you then – could you then – return that love?”

There was a silence for a few moments, and then, in a weak unguarded moment, Ella raised her eyes once more to his, to gaze, in spite of herself, fondly and earnestly, as she faintly breathed the one word “Yes.”

The next moment she had repented; for he had clasped her in his arms, to kiss her fondly again and again, as frightened and struggling she strove to escape.

“Pray – pray, Mr Vining,” she sobbed; “this is cruel – it is unfair to me;” and then she upbraided herself for her weakness.

But the next moment he was walking by her side, holding one hand still captive, as he urged and pleaded with a love-awakened earnestness, while Ella thought of all she had promised to Sir Philip Vining, and upbraided herself bitterly for not leaving Copse Hall, though the blame, if any, was not hers, since Mrs Brandon had again and again refused to hear of her departure. At last she roused herself, and for the next five minutes it was another spirit that contended with that of Charles Vining.

“Mr Vining,” she said, as quietly but firmly she withdrew her hand; and he saw that, though deeply moved, there was a quiet determined will in existence – “Mr Vining, you tell me that you love me.”

“And you believe me,” cried Charley hastily.

“And I believe you,” said Ella steadily and hurriedly. “For the sake, then, of that love – for my sake and my future welfare in this world, leave me – try to see me no more – strive to forget all the past, and let these words of yours be to you as some sad dream.”

“If I forget all this – ”

“Hush!” she exclaimed firmly; “and remember my prayer to you. I ask you to do all this for my sake – for the sake of the love you bear me. I have promised that I would meet you no more, and that promise I must keep.”

“Stop!” cried Charley angrily, for she had turned to go. “I love you well, as you know – too well to accede to what you ask – and I tell you now, as I have told those who have importuned me so to do, that I will never, so long as I can see the faintest spark of affection for me, give you up. I go now, Ella, to wait – to wait patiently, even if it be for years. If rumours, set afloat by interested people, meet your ears, credit nothing that tells of want of faith on my part to you. I will be patient, and wait till you are less cruel – till you relent towards me: for now you are to me, I may say, harsh. But recollect this: by your treatment you condemn me to a life of misery and wretchedness, for I can never again know peace. You wish me to leave you?”

“Yes,” said Ella hoarsely; and without another word, he turned and strode away, his brow knit, and the veins swollen and knotted; but had he turned then, in the midst of his hot anger and disappointment at what he called her cold heartless cruelty, he would have seen so pitiful, so longing a look in Ella’s eyes, that he would the next moment have been asking pardon at her feet.

But he did not turn; and the next moment the bend in the pathway hid him from her sight, as with a sigh that seemed to cut its way from her heart, she, too, slowly turned, pressed her hands together, and walked sadly back to Mrs Brandon’s, closely followed by her charge.

Volume Two – Chapter Thirteen.

For Another Campaign

Three months had glided away with, at the end of that time, matters still in the same unsatisfactory state. There had been no open collision between Max Bray and his sturdy rival; but Laura had long since learned that, while Max persisted in his present course, there was no prospect for her to be even on friendly terms with Charley Vining. She had told her brother this; but he had angrily bade her be silent and wait, when all would be right in the end.

So Laura waited, to find that Charley now totally ignored her existence, spending his time either in sitting moodily in his own room, or else in riding over to Laneton.

But Max Bray was not idle: he literally haunted Laneton; so that at last Ella was quite confined to the house, and Mrs Brandon had looked grave.

Then came a visit from Sir Philip Vining, who again saw Ella, to part from her with a kind, gentle, fatherly farewell; and this was the result:

There were tears flowing fast at Copse Hall; for her few months’ stay at Mrs Brandon’s had been sufficient to endear Ella to all there.

Edward, the hard-faced, had confided to cook that he didn’t know how things would go now; while upon cook weeping, and drying her eyes with her apron, he told her that her conduct was “childish, and wus.”

The housemaid looked as if she had a violent cold in her head; while the children sobbed aloud; for the day had arrived when Ella Bedford was to leave Copse Hall; Mrs Brandon, though knowing well enough for some time past that such a course would be the better, yet only now having given her consent, and that too most unwillingly.

Ella Bedford was to leave Copse Hall, but only for a year. Mrs Brandon declared a twelvemonth would no doubt serve to alter the state of affairs, and then she could return.

“For I shall never be happy till I get you back again, child!” Mrs Brandon exclaimed. “And mind this, my love: I hope that you will be happy with Mrs Marter, who is a distant relative of my late husband; but, come what may in the future, there is always a home for you here. Write and say you are coming, or come without writing, and you shall always find a warm welcome. These are no unmeaning words, child, but the utterances of one whom you have made to feel sincerely attached to you.”

“I know that,” said Ella softly, as she clung to the motherly arm at her side.

“I would never have consented to your going, only I cannot help thinking that it may be for the best in the end; though really, now it has come to the point, I don’t know what I can have been thinking about, not to decide and leave here myself for a few months. But you promise me faithfully that you will write often, and that at any time, if there is any unpleasantry, you will acquaint me?”

“Yes,” said Ella, smiling sadly, “I promise.”

“I think you will find Mrs Marter kind to you; and I have said everything that I could.”

There was an affectionate leave-taking; and then, once more, Ella awoke to the fact that she was driven from the home where she had hoped to be at rest. But this time she bore up bravely, in the hope that the end of a year would again find her an occupant of Mrs Brandon’s pleasant home, where unvarying kindness and consideration had been her portion from the day when, low-spirited and desponding, she had first entered what seemed to be the gloomy portals of a prison.

She told herself that, with the battle of life to fight, she must not give way to despondency; and nerving herself for all that she might have to encounter, she sat back in the fly, glancing anxiously from side to side, to see if she were observed, and in spite of her efforts trembling excessively, lest at any moment a turn of the road should reveal the figure of Max Bray or Charley Vining. It did not matter which should appear, she felt equal dread of the encounter; but upon that occasion she was not called upon to summon up her often-tested resolution.

The station was reached in safety, her modest luggage labelled for London; and this time she had taken the precaution of having no farther address, to act as a clue for those who sought her.

The train sped on, and in due course, and without farther adventure, she reached the terminus, engaged a cab, when, breathing freely, under the impression that she had thoroughly escaped pursuit, she was soon being rattled over the stones of the great metropolis.

Volume Two – Chapter Fourteen.

A New Home

Poor Ella! in her happy innocence she did not know that she was as surely leaving a trail by which she could be tracked, as did the child in the story, who sprinkled a few ashes behind her from time to time as she went through the wood. Poor girl! she did not even notice the railway company’s official, book in hand, taking the number of each cab, and asking the drivers where they were to set down.

No, she was free this time; but she said those words with a strange feeling of sadness as she leaned back. But the next minute she summoned resolution to her aid, and sat gazing from the window at the hurry and bustle around.

Crescent Villas, Regents-park, the residence of Mrs Saint Clair Marter, was Ella’s destination. By rights it was Mr Saint Clair Marter’s house, but his lady always spoke of it as her place; and as he dared not contradict her, so the matter rested.

Ella entered a pleasantly-furnished hall neatly floorclothed, and with groups of flowers and statuary, all in excellent taste. There was an air of luxury and refinement in the place, which was, however, totally spoiled by the tawdry livery of the footman, who muttered and grumbled a good deal about having to lift in the boxes, to the great amusement of cabby, who kindly advised him not to over-exert himself, for the reason that good people were very scarce.