Airy Fairy Lilian. Duchess
asks, five minutes later, as they pass through the entrance gate. "What a charming avenue!" – putting her head out of the window, "and so dark. I like it dark; it reminds me of" – she pauses, and two large tears come slowly, slowly into her blue eyes and tremble there – "my home," she says in a low tone.
"You must try to be happy with us," Cyril says, kindly, taking one of her hands and pressing it gently, to enforce his sympathy; and then the horses draw up at the hall door, and he helps her to alight, and presently she finds herself within the doors of Chetwoode.
CHAPTER IV
"Ye scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollection
Embitters the present, compared with the past." – Byron.
When Lady Chetwoode, who is sitting in the drawing-room, hears the carriage draw up to the door, she straightens herself in her chair, smoothes down the folds of her black velvet gown with rather nervous fingers, and prepares for an unpleasant surprise. She hears Cyril's voice in the hall inquiring where his mother is, and, rising to her feet, she makes ready to receive her new ward.
She has put on what she fondly hopes is a particularly gracious air, but which is in reality a palpable mixture of fear and uncertainty. The door opens; there is a slight pause; and then Lilian, slight, and fair, and pretty, stands upon the threshold.
She is very pale, partly through fatigue, but much more through nervousness and the self-same feeling of uncertainty that is weighing down her hostess. As her eyes meet Lady Chetwoode's they take an appealing expression that goes straight to the heart of that kindest of women.
"You have arrived, my dear," she says, a ring of undeniable cordiality in her tone, while from her face all the unpleasant fear has vanished. She moves forward to greet her guest, and as Lilian comes up to her takes the fair sweet face between her hands and kisses her softly on each cheek.
"You are like your mother," she says, presently, holding the girl a little way from her and regarding her with earnest attention. "Yes, – very like your mother, and she was beautiful. You are welcome to Chetwoode, my dear child."
Lilian, who is feeling rather inclined to cry, does not trust herself to make any spoken rejoinder, but, putting up her lips of her own accord, presses them gratefully to Lady Chetwoode's, thereby ratifying the silent bond of friendship that without a word has on the instant been sealed between the old woman and the young one.
A great sense of relief has fallen upon Lady Chetwoode. Not until now, when her fears have been proved groundless, does she fully comprehend the amount of uneasiness and positive horror with which she has regarded the admittance of a stranger into her happy home circle. The thought that something unrefined, disagreeable, unbearable, might be coming has followed like a nightmare for the past week, but now, in the presence of this lovely child, it has fled away ashamed, never to return.
Lilian's delicate, well-bred face and figure, her small hands, her graceful movements, her whole air, proclaim her one of the world to which Lady Chetwoode belongs, and the old lady, who is aristocrat to her fingers' ends, hails the fact with delight. Her beauty alone had almost won her cause, when she cast that beseeching glance from the doorway; and now when she lets the heavy tears grow in her blue eyes, all doubt is at end, and "almost" gives way to "quite."
Henceforth she is altogether welcome at Chetwoode, as far as its present gentle mistress is concerned.
"Cyril took care of you, I hope?" says Lady Chetwoode, glancing over her guest's head at her second son, and smiling kindly.
"Great care of me," returning the smile.
"But you are tired, of course; it is a long journey, and no doubt you are glad to reach home," says Lady Chetwoode, using the word naturally. And though the mention of it causes Lilian a pang, still there is something tender and restful about it too, that gives some comfort to her heart.
"Perhaps you would like to go to your room," continues Lady Chetwoode, thoughtfully, "though I fear your maid cannot have arrived yet."
"Miss Chesney, like Juliet, boasts a nurse," says Cyril; "she scorns to travel with a mere maid."
"My nurse has always attended me," says Lilian, laughing and blushing. "She has waited on me since I was a month old. I should not know how to get on without her, and I am sure she could not get on without me. I think she is far better than any maid I could get."
"She must have an interest in you that no new-comer could possibly have," says Lady Chetwoode, who is in the humor to agree with anything Lilian may say, so thankful is she to her for being what she is. And yet so strong is habit that involuntarily, as she speaks, her eyes seek Lilian's hair, which is dressed to perfection. "I have no doubt she is a treasure," – with an air of conviction. "Come with me, my dear."
They leave the room together. In the hall the housekeeper, coming forward, says respectfully:
"Shall I take Miss Chesney to her room, my lady?"
"No, Matthews," says Lady Chetwoode, graciously; "it will give me pleasure to take her there myself."
By which speech all the servants are at once made aware that Miss Chesney is already in high favor with "my lady," who never, except on very rare occasions, takes the trouble to see personally after her visitors' comfort.
When Lilian has been ten minutes in her room Mrs. Tipping arrives, and is shown up-stairs, where she finds her small mistress evidently in the last stage of despondency. These ten lonely minutes have been fatal to her new-born hopes, and have reduced her once more to the melancholy frame of mind in which she left her home in the morning. All this the faithful Tipping sees at a glance, and instantly essays to cheer her.
Silently and with careful fingers she first removes her hat, then her jacket, then she induces her to stand up, and, taking off her dress, throws round her a white wrapper taken from a trunk, and prepares to brush the silky yellow hair that for eighteen years has been her own to dress and tend and admire.
"Eh, Miss Lilian, child, but it's a lovely place!" she says, presently, this speech being intended as a part of the cheering process.
"It seems a fine place," says the "child," indifferently.
"Fine it is indeed. Grander even than the Park, I'm thinking."
"'Grander than the Park'!" says Miss Chesney, rousing to unexpected fervor. "How can you say that? Have you grown fickle, nurse? There is no place to be compared to the Park, not one in all the world. You can think as you please, of course," – with reproachful scorn, – "but it is not grander than the Park."
"I meant larger, ninny," soothingly.
"It is not larger."
"But, darling, how can you say so when you haven't been round it?"
"How can you say so when you haven't been round it?"
This is a poser. Nurse meditates a minute and then says:
"Thomas – that's the groom that drove me – says it is."
"Thomas!" – with a look that, had the wretched Thomas been on the spot, would infallibly have reduced him to ashes; "and what does Thomas know about it? It is not larger."
Silence.
"Indeed, my bairn, I think you might well be happy here," says nurse, tenderly returning to the charge.
"I don't want you to think about me at all," says Miss Chesney, in trembling tones. "You agreed with Aunt Priscilla that I ought to leave my dear, dear home, and I shall never forgive you for it. I am not happy here. I shall never be happy here. I shall die of fretting for the Park, and when I am dead you will perhaps be satisfied."
"Miss Lilian!"
"You shan't brush my hair any more," says Miss Lilian, dexterously evading the descent of the brush. "I can do it for myself very well. You are a traitor."
"I am sorry, Miss Chesney, if I have displeased you," says nurse, with much dignity tempered with distress: only when deeply grieved and offended does she give her mistress her full title.
"How dare you call me Miss Chesney!"