Verner's Pride. Mrs. Henry Wood
income was sadly limited. It was very little besides her pay as a colonel's widow; and to Lady Verner it seemed less than it really was, for her habits were somewhat expensive. She took this house, Deerham Court, then to be let without the land, had it embellished inside and out—which cost her more than she could afford, and had since resided in it. She would not have rented under Mr. Verner had he paid her to do it. She declined all intercourse with Verner's Pride; had never put her foot over its threshold. Decima went once in a way; but she, never. If she and Stephen Verner met abroad, she was coldly civil to him; she was indifferently haughty to Mrs. Verner, whom she despised in her heart for not being a lady. With all her deficiencies, Lady Verner was essentially a gentlewoman—not to be one amounted in her eyes to little less than a sin. No wonder that she, with her delicate beauty of person, her quiet refinements of dress, shrank within herself as she swept past poor Mrs. Verner, with her great person, her crimson face, and her flaunting colours! No wonder that Lady Verner, smarting under her wrongs, passed half her time giving utterance to them; or that her smooth face was acquiring premature wrinkles of discontent. Lionel had a somewhat difficult course to steer between Verner's Pride and Deerham Court, so as to keep friends with both.
Lucy Tempest appeared at the door. She stood there hesitating, after the manner of a timid school-girl. They turned round and saw her.
"If you please, may I come in?"
Lady Verner could have sighed over the deficiency of "style," or confidence, whichever you may like to term it. Lionel laughed, as he crossed the room to throw the door wider by way of welcome.
She wore a light shot pink dress of peculiar material, a sort of cashmere, very fine and soft. Looking at it one way it was pink, the other, mauve; the general shade of it was beautiful. Lady Verner could have sighed again: if the wearer was deficient in style, so also was the dress. A low body and short sleeves, perfectly simple, a narrow bit of white lace alone edging them: nothing on her neck, nothing on her arms, no gloves. A child of seven might have been so dressed. Lady Verner looked at her, her brow knit, and various thoughts running through her brain. She began to fear that Miss Tempest would require so much training as would give her trouble.
Lucy saw the look, and deemed that her attire was wrong.
"Ought I to have put on my best things—my new silk?" she asked.
My new silk! My best things! Lady Verner was almost at a loss for an answer. "You have not an extensive wardrobe, possibly, my dear?"
"Not very," replied Lucy. "This was my best dress, until I had my new silk. Mrs. Cust told me to put this one on for dinner to-day, and she said if Lady—if you and Miss Verner dressed very much, I could change it for the silk to-morrow. It is a beautiful dress," Lucy added, looking ingenuously at Lady Verner, "a pearl gray. Then I have my morning dresses, and then my white for dancing. Mrs. Cust said that anything you found deficient in my wardrobe it would be better for you to supply, than for her, as you would be the best judge of what I should require."
"Mrs. Cust does not pay much attention to dress, probably," observed Lady Verner coldly. "She is a clergyman's wife. It is sad taste when people neglect themselves, whatever may be the duties of their station."
"But Mrs. Cust does not neglect herself," spoke up Lucy, a surprised look upon her face. "She is always dressed nicely—not fine, you know. Mrs. Cust says that the lower classes have become so fine nowadays, that nearly the only way you may know a lady, until she speaks, is by her quiet simplicity."
"My dear, Mrs. Cust should say elegant simplicity," corrected Lady Verner. "She ought to know. She is of good family."
Lucy humbly acquiesced. She feared she herself must be too "quiet" to satisfy Lady Verner. "Will you be so kind, then, as to get me what you please?" she asked.
"My daughter will see to all these things, Lucy," replied Lady Verner. "She is not young like you, and she is remarkably steady, and experienced."
"She does not look old," said Lucy, in her open candour. "She is very pretty."
"She is turned five-and-twenty. Have you seen her?"
"I have been with her ever so long. We were talking about India. She remembers my dear mamma; and, do you know"—her bright expression fading to sadness—"I can scarcely remember her! I should have stayed with Decima—may I call her Decima?" broke off Lucy, with a faltering tongue, as if she had done wrong.
"Certainly you may."
"I should have stayed with Decima until now, talking about mamma, but a gentleman came in."
"A gentleman?" echoed Lady Verner.
"Yes. Some one tall and very thin. Decima called him Jan. After that, I went to my room again. I could not find it at first," she added, with a pleasant little laugh. "I looked into two; but neither was mine, for I could not see the boxes. Then I changed my dress, and came down."
"I hope you had my maid to assist you," quickly remarked Lady Verner.
"Some one assisted me. When I had my dress on, ready to be fastened, I looked out to see if I could find any one to do it, and I did. A servant was at the end of the corridor, by the window."
"But, my dear Miss Tempest, you should have rung," exclaimed Lady Verner, half petrified at the young lady's unformed manners, and privately speculating upon the sins Mrs. Cust must have to answer for. "Was it Thérèse?"
"I don't know," replied Lucy. "She was rather old, and had a broom in her hand."
"Old Catherine, I declare! Sweeping and dusting as usual! She might have soiled your dress."
"She wiped her hands on her apron," said Lucy simply. "She had a nice face: I liked it."
"I beg, my dear, that in future you will ring for Thérèse," emphatically returned Lady Verner, in her discomposure. "She understands that she is to wait upon you. Thérèse is my maid, and her time is not half occupied. Decima exacts very little of her. But take care that you do not allow her to lapse into English when with you. It is what she is apt to do unless checked. You speak French, of course?" added Lady Verner, the thought crossing her that Mrs. Cust's educational training might have been as deficient on that point, as she deemed it had been on that of "style."
"I speak it quite well," replied Lucy; "as well, or nearly as well, as a French girl. But I do not require anybody to wait on me," she continued. "There is never anything to do for me, but just to fasten these evening dresses that close behind. I am much obliged to you, all the same, for thinking of it, Lady Verner."
Lady Verner turned from the subject: it seemed to grow more and more unprofitable. "I shall go and hear what Jan says, if he is there," she remarked to Lionel.
"I wonder we did not see or hear him come in," was Lionel's answer.
"As if Jan could come into the house like a gentleman!" returned Lady Verner, with intense acrimony. "The back way is a step or two nearer, and therefore he patronises it."
She quitted the room as she spoke, and Lionel turned to Miss Tempest. He had been exceedingly amused and edified at the conversation between her and his mother; but while Lady Verner had been inclined to groan over it, he had rejoiced. That Lucy Tempest was thoroughly and genuinely unsophisticated; that she was of a nature too sincere and honest for her manners to be otherwise than of truthful simplicity, he was certain. A delightful child, he thought; one he could have taken to his heart and loved as a sister. Not with any other love: that was already given elsewhere by Lionel Verner.
The winter evening was drawing on, and little light was in the room, save that cast by the blaze of the fire. It flickered upon Lucy's face, as she stood near it. Lionel drew a chair towards her. "Will you not sit down, Miss Tempest?"
A formidable-looking chair, large and stately, as Lucy turned to look at it. Her eyes fell upon the low one which, earlier in the afternoon, had been occupied by Lady Verner. "May I sit in this one instead? I like it best."
"You 'may' sit in any chair that the room contains, or on an ottoman, or anywhere that you like," answered