Anne Hereford. Mrs. Henry Wood
of sight, Anne?"
The questioner was my aunt, for it was at her window I stood, peeping beside the blind. It had been out of sight some minutes, I told her, and must have passed the lodge.
"Then you go downstairs, Anne, and open the hall-door. Stand there until Mr. Gregg comes; he will have a clerk with him: bring them up here. Do all this quietly, child."
In five minutes Mr. Gregg came, a young man accompanying him. I shut the hall-door and took them upstairs. They trod so softly! just as though they would avoid being heard. Selina held out her hand to Mr. Gregg.
"How are you to-day, Mrs. Edwin Barley?"
"They say I am better," she replied; "I hope I am. Is it quite ready?"
"Quite," said he, taking a parchment from one of his pockets. "You will hear it read?"
"Yes; that I may see whether you understood my imperfect letter. I hope it is not long. The church, you know, is not so far-off; they will be back soon."
"It is quite short," Mr. Gregg replied, having bent his ear to catch her speech, for she spoke low and imperfectly. "Where shall my clerk wait while I read it?"
She sent us into her dressing-room, the clerk and I, whence we could hear Mr. Gregg's voice slowly reading something, but could not distinguish the words or sense; once I caught the name "Anne Ursula Hereford." And then we were called in again.
"Anne, go downstairs and find Jemima," were the next orders. "Bring her up here."
"Is it to give her her medicine?" asked Jemima, as she followed me upstairs.
"I don't know."
"My girl," began the attorney to Jemima, "can you be discreet, and hold your tongue?"
Jemima stared very much: first at seeing them there, next at the question. She gave no answer in her surprise, and Mrs. Edwin Barley made a sign that she should come close to her.
"Jemima, I am sure you know that I have been a good mistress to you, and I ask you to render me a slight service in return. In my present state of health, I have thought it necessary to make my will; to devise away the trifle of property I possess of my own. I am about to sign it, and you and Mr. Gregg's clerk will witness my signature. The service I require of you is, that you will not speak of this to any one. Can I rely upon you?"
"Yes, ma'am, certainly you may," replied the servant, speaking in an earnest tone; and she evidently meant to keep her word honestly.
"And my clerk I have answered to you for," put in Mr. Gregg, as he raised Mrs. Edwin Barley and placed the open parchment before her.
She signed her name, "Selina Barley;" the clerk signed his, "William Dixon;" and Jemima hers, "Jemima Lea." Mr. Gregg remarked that Jemima's writing might be read, and it was as much as could be said of it. She quitted the room, and soon afterwards Mr. Gregg and his clerk took their departure in the same quiet manner that they had come.
I was closing the hall-door after them, when the sound of silk, rustling up, fell on my startled ears, and Charlotte Delves stepped into the hall from one of the passages. She had been shut up in her parlour.
"Who is it that has gone out?"
But I was already half way up to Selina's room, and would not hear. Miss Delves opened the door and looked after them. And at that moment Jemima appeared. Charlotte Delves laid hold of her, and no doubt turned her inside out.
"Anne, my dear, if I die you are now provided for. At least----"
"Oh, Selina! Selina! You cannot be going to die!"
"Perhaps not. I hope not. Yes, I do hope it, Anne, in spite of my fancied warning--which, I suppose, was only a dream after all. My mind must have dwelt on what you said about Ursula. If you ever relate to me anything of the sort again, Anne, I'll beat you."
I stood conscience-stricken. But in telling her what I did, I had only obeyed my mother. I like to repeat this over and over.
"At least, as well provided for as I have it in my power to provide," she continued, just as though there had been no interruption. "I have left you my four thousand pounds. It is out at good interest--five per cent.; and I have directed it to accumulate until you are eighteen. Then it goes to you. This will just keep you; just be enough to keep you from going out as a governess. If I live, you will have your home with me after leaving school. Of course, that governess scheme was all a farce; Ursula could only have meant it as such. The world would stare to see a governess in a granddaughter of Carew of Keppe-Carew."
The will lay on the bed. She told me to lock it up in the opposite cabinet, taking the keys from underneath the pillow, and I obeyed her. By her directions, I took the cabinet key off the bunch, locked it up alone in a drawer, and she returned the bunch underneath her pillow. By that time she could not speak at all. Charlotte Delves, happening to come in, asked what she had been doing to reduce her strength like that.
It was a miserable day after they came in from the funeral. Mr. Edwin Barley did not seem to know what to do with himself; and the other people had gone home. Mr. Martin was alone with Selina for a great portion of the afternoon. At first I did not know he was there, and looked in. The clergyman was kneeling down by the bed, praying aloud. I shut the door again, hoping they had not heard it open. In the evening Selina appeared considerably better. She sat up in bed, and ate a few spoonfuls of arrowroot. Mr. Edwin Barley, who was in the arm-chair near the fire, said it was poor stuff, and she ought to take either brandy or wine, or both.
"Let me give you some in that, Selina," he cried. And indeed he had been wanting to give it her all along.
"I should be afraid to take it; don't tease me," she feebly answered, and it was astonishing how low her voice was getting. "You know what the doctors say, Edwin. When once the inflammation (or whatever it is) in the throat has passed, then I may be fed up every hour. Perhaps they will let me begin to-morrow."
"If they don't mind, they'll keep you so low that----that we shall have to give you a bottle of brandy a day." I think the concluding words, after the pause, had been quite changed from what he had been going to say, and he spoke half-jokingly. "I know that the proper treatment for you would have been stimulants. I told Lowe so again to-day, but he would not have it. But for one thing, I'd take the case into my own hands, and give you a wine-glass of brandy now."
"And that one thing?" she asked, in her scarcely perceptible voice.
"The doubt that I might do wrong."
Jemima appeared at the door with a candle: it was my signal. Selina kissed me twice, and said she should hope to get up on the morrow. I went round to Mr. Edwin Barley.
"Good night, sir."
"Is it your bedtime, child? Good night."
CHAPTER VI.
DEAD!
Eight o'clock the next morning, and the church-bells ringing out on the sunshiny air! Everything looked joyous as I drew up the blind--kept down for a week previously. I dressed myself, without waiting for Jemima, in my Sunday frock with its deep crape trimmings. The house would be open again to-day; Selina be sitting up.
I scrambled over my dressing; I fear I scrambled over my prayers. Everything was so still below I thought they had forgotten me. Going down, I knocked at Selina's door, and was waiting to hear her answer, when one of the maids came running up the stairs in a flurry. It was Sarah.
"You cannot go in there, Miss Hereford."
"I want to see how my aunt is."
"Oh, she--she--you must not go in, Miss I say. Your aunt cannot see you just now; you must please go down into Miss Delves's parlour."
Dropping the handle of the door in obedience, I went down a few steps. Sarah ascended to the upper flights. But the girl's manner had alarmed me; and, without any thought of doing