Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

She came down upon him in full sail. The moment Herbert saw her, he remembered having given her a half-promise the previous day to pay her a visit that evening. "Now for it," thought he to himself.

"Why you keep me waiting like this?" began she, when she was close to him.

"Have I kept you waiting?" civilly returned Herbert. "I am very sorry. The fact is, mademoiselle, I have a good deal of worry upon me, and I'm fit for nobody's company but my own to-night. You might not have thanked me for my visit, had I come."

"That is my own look-out," replied the governess. "When a gentleman makes a promise to me, I expect him to keep it. I go up to the school-room, and I wait, I wait, I wait! Ah, my poor patience, how I wait! I have that copy of Tasso, that you said you would like to see. Will you come?"

Herbert thought he was in for it. He glanced at the setting sun—at least, at the spot where the sun had gone down, for it had sunk below the horizon, leaving only crimson streaks in the grey sky to tell of what had been. Twilight was rapidly coming on, when he would depart to pay his usual evening visit: there was no time, he decided, for Tasso and the governess.

"I'll come another evening," said he. "I have an engagement, and I must go out to keep it."

A stony hardness settled on mademoiselle's face. "What engagement?" she imperatively demanded.

It might be thought that Herbert would have been justified in civilly declining to satisfy her curiosity. What was it to her? Apparently he thought otherwise. Possibly he was afraid of an outbreak.

"What engagement! Oh—I am going to play a pool at billiards with Lord Hawkesley. He is in Helstonleigh again."

"And that is what you go for, every evening—to play billiards with Lord Hawkesley?" she resumed, her eyes glistening ominously.

"Of course it is, mademoiselle. With Hawkesley or other fellows."

"A lie!" curtly responded mademoiselle.

"I say," cried Herbert, laughing good-humouredly: "do you call that orthodox language?"

"It nothing to you what I call it," she cried, clipping her words in her vehemence, as she would do when excited. "It not with Milord Hawkesley, not to billiards that you go! I know it is not."

"Then I tell you that I often play billiards," cried Herbert. "On my honour I do."

"May-be, may-be," answered she, very rapidly. "But it not to billiards that you go every evening. Every evening!—every evening! Not an evening now, but you go out, you go out! I bought Tasso—do you know that I bought Tasso?—that I have bought it with my money, that you may have the pleasure of hearing me read it, as you said—as you call it? Should I spend the money, had I thought you would not come when I had it—would not care to hear it read?"

Had she been in a more amiable mood, Herbert would have told her that she was a simpleton for spending her money; he would have told her that Tasso, read in the original, would have been to him unintelligible as Sanscrit. He had a faint remembrance of saying to mademoiselle that he should like to read Tasso, in answer to a remark that Tasso was her favourite of the Italian poets: but he had only made the observation carelessly, without seriously meaning anything. And she had been so foolish as to go and buy it!

"Will you come this evening and hear it begun?" she continued, breaking the pause, and speaking rather more graciously.

"Upon my word of honour, Bianca, I can't to-night," he answered, feeling himself, between the two—the engagement made, and the engagement sought to be made—somewhat embarrassed. "I will come another evening; you may depend upon me."

"You say to me yesterday that you would come this evening; that I might depend upon you. Much you care!"

"But I could not help myself. An engagement arose, and I was obliged to fall in with it. I was, indeed. I'll hear Tasso another evening."

"You will not break your paltry engagement at billiards to keep your word to a lady! C'est bien!"

"It—it is not altogether that," replied Herbert, getting out of the reproach in the best way he could. "I have some business as well."

She fastened her glistening eyes upon him. There was an expression in them which Herbert neither understood nor liked. "C'est très bien!" she slowly repeated. "I know where you are going, and for what!"

A smile—at her assumed knowledge, and what it was worth—flitted over Herbert Dare's face. "You are very wise," said he.

"Take care of yourself, mon ami! C'est tout ce que je vous dis."

"Now, mademoiselle, what is the matter, that you should look and speak in that manner?" he asked, still in the same good-humoured tone, as if he would fain pass the affair away in a joke. "I'm sure I have enough bother upon me, without your adding to it."

"What is your bother?"

"Never mind: it would give you no pleasure to know it. It is caused by Anthony—and be hanged to him!"

"Anthony is worth ten of you!" fiercely responded mademoiselle.

"Every one to his own liking," carelessly remarked Herbert. "It's well for me that all the world does not think as you do, mademoiselle."

Mademoiselle looked as though she would like to beat him. "So!" she foamed, drawing back her bloodless lips; "now that your turn is served, Bianca Varsini may just be sent to the enfer! Garde-toi, mon camarade!"

"Garde your voice," replied Herbert. "The cows yonder will think it's a tempest. I wish my turn was served, in more ways than one. What particular turn do you mean? If it's buying Tasso, I'll purchase it from you at double price."

He could not help giving her a little chaff. It was what he would have called it: chaff. Exacting people fretted his generally easy temper, and he was beginning to fear that she would detain him until it was too late to see Anna.

But, on the latter score, he was set at rest. With a few words, spoken in Italian, she nodded her head angrily at him, and turned away. Fierce words, in spite of their low tone, Herbert was sure they were, but he could not catch one of them. Had he caught them all, it would have come to the same, so far as his understanding went. Excellent as Signora Varsini's method of teaching Italian may have been, her lessons had not as yet been very efficient for Herbert Dare.

She crossed her hands before her, and went down the walk, taking the path to the house. Proceeding straight up to the school-room, she met Cyril on the stairs. He had apparently been dressing himself for the evening, and was going out to spend it. The governess caught him abruptly, pulled him inside the school-room, and closed the door.

"I say, mademoiselle, what's that for?" asked Cyril, believing, by the fierce look of the young lady, that she was about to take some summary vengeance upon him.

"Cyril! you tell me. Where is it that Herbert goes to of an evening? Every evening—every evening?"

Cyril stared excessively. "What does it concern you to know where he goes, mademoiselle?" returned he.

"I want to know for my own reasons, and that's enough for you, Monsieur Cyril. Where does he go?"

"He goes out," responded Cyril.

The governess stamped her foot petulantly. "I could tell you that he goes out. I ask you where it is that he goes?"

"How should I know?" was Cyril's answer. "It's not my business."

"Don't you know?" demanded mademoiselle.

"No, that I don't," heartily spoke Cyril. "Do you suppose I watch him, mademoiselle? He'd pretty soon pitch into me, if he caught me at that game. I dare say he goes to billiards."

The suggestion excited the ire of the governess. "He has been telling you to say so!" she said, menace in every tone of her voice, every gesture of her lifted hand.

Cyril opened his eyes to their utmost width. He could not understand why the governess should be asking him this, or why Herbert's movements should concern her. "I know nothing at all about it," he answered; and, so far, he spoke the truth. "I don't know that Herbert goes anywhere in particular of an evening. If he does, he would not tell me."

She laid her hand heavily on his shoulder; she brought her face—terrible in its livid earnestness—almost into contact with his. "Ecoutez, mon ami," she whispered to the amazed Cyril. "If you are going to play this game with me, I will play one with you. Who wore the cloak to that boucherie, and got the money?—who ripped out the écossais side afterwards, leaving it all mangled and open? Think you, I don't know? Ah, ha! Monsieur Cyril, you cannot play the farce with me!"

Cyril's face turned ghastly, drops of sweat broke out over his forehead. "Hush!" he cried, looking round in the instinct of terror, lest listeners should be at hand.

"Yes; you say, 'Hush!'" she resumed. "I will hush if you don't make me speak. I have hushed ever since. You tell me what I want to know, and I'll hush always."

"Mademoiselle Varsini!" he cried, his manner too painfully earnest for her to doubt now that he spoke the truth: "I declare that I know nothing of Herbert's movements. I don't know where he goes or what he does. When I told you I supposed he went to billiards, I said what I thought might be the case. He may go to fifty places of an evening, for all I can tell. Tell me what it is you want found out, and I will try and do it."

Cyril was not one to play the spy on his brother; in fact, as he had just classically observed to the young lady, Herbert would have "pitched into" him, had he found him attempting it. And serve him right! But Cyril saw that he was in her power; and that made all the difference. He would now have tracked Herbert to the ends of the earth at her bidding.

But she did not bid him. Quite the contrary. She took her hand from Cyril's shoulder, opened the door, and said she did not want him any longer. "It is no matter," cried she; "I wanted to learn something about Monsieur Herbert, for a reason; but if you do not know it, let it pass. It is no matter."

Cyril departed; first of all lifting his cowardly face. It looked a coward's then. "You'll keep counsel, mademoiselle?"

"Yes. When people don't offend me, I don't offend them."

She stood at the door after he had gone down, half in, half out of the room, apparently in deep thought. Presently footsteps were heard coming up, and she retreated and closed the door.

They were those of Herbert. He went on to his room, remained there a few minutes, and then came out again. Mademoiselle had the door ajar as he descended. Her quick eye detected that he had been giving a few finishing touches to his toilette—brushing his hair, pulling down his wristbands, and various other little odds and ends of dandyism.

"And you do that to play billiards!" nodded she, inwardly, as she looked after him. "I'll see, monsieur."

Upstairs with a soft step, went she, to her own chamber. She reached from her box a long and loose dark-green cloak, similar to those worn by the women of France and Flanders, and a black silk quilted bonnet. It was her travelling attire, and she put it on now. Then she locked her chamber door behind her, and slipped down into the dining-room, with as soft a step as she had gone up.

Passing out at the open window, she kept tolerably under cover of the trees, and gained the road. It was quite dusk then, but she recognized Herbert before her, walking with a quick step. She put on a quick step also, keeping a safe distance between herself and him. He went through the town, to the London road, and turned into Atterly's field. The governess turned into it after him.

There she stopped under the hedge, to reconnoitre. A few minutes, and she could distinguish that he was joined by some young girl, whom he met with every token of respect and confidence. A strange cry went forth on the evening air.

Herbert Dare was startled. "What noise was that?" he exclaimed.

Anna had heard nothing. "It must have been one of the lambs in the field, Herbert."

"It was more like a human voice in pain," observed Herbert. But they heard no more.

They began their usual walk—a few paces backward and forward, beneath the most sheltered part of the hedge, Anna taking his arm. Mademoiselle could see, as well as the darkness allowed her; but she could not hear. Her face, peeping out of the shadowy bonnet, was not unlike the face of a tiger.

She crawled away. She had noticed as she turned into the field an iron gate that led into the garden, which the hedge skirted. She crept round to it, found it locked, and mounted it. It had spikes on the top, but the signora would not have cared just then had she found herself impaled. She got safe over it, and then considered how to reach the spot where they stood without their hearing her.

Would she be baffled? She be baffled! No. She stooped down, unlaced her boots, and stole softly on in her stockings. And there she was! almost as close to them as they were to each other.

Where had the signora heard those gentle, timid tones before? A lovely girl, looking little more than a child, in her modest Quaker dress, rose to her mind's eye. She had seen her with Miss Ashley. She—the signora—knelt down upon the earth, the better to catch what was said.

"Listeners never hear any good of themselves." It is a proverb too often exemplified, as the signora could have told that night. Herbert Dare was accounting for his late appearance, which he laid to the charge of the governess. He gave a description of the interview she had volunteered him in the garden at home—more ludicrous, perhaps, than true, but certainly not complimentary to the signora. Anna laughed; and the lady on the other side gathered that this was not the first time she had formed a topic of merriment between them. You should have seen her face. Pour plaisir, as she herself might have said.

She stayed out the interview. When it was over, and Herbert Dare had departed, she put on her boots and mounted the gate again; but she was not so agile this time, and a spike entered her wrist. Binding her handkerchief round it, to arrest the blood, she returned to Pomeranian Knoll.

Five hundred questions were showered upon her when she entered the drawing-room, looking calm and impassible as ever. Not a tress of her elaborate braids of hair was out of place; not a fold awry in her dress. Much wonder had been excited by her failing to appear at tea; Minny had drummed a waltz on her chamber door, but mademoiselle would not open it, and would not speak.

"I cannot speak when I am lying down with those vilaine headaches," remarked mademoiselle.

"Have you a headache, mademoiselle?" asked Mrs. Dare. "Will you have a cup of tea brought up?"

Mademoiselle declined the tea. She was not thirsty.

"What have you done to your wrist, mademoiselle?" called out Herbert, who was stretched on a sofa, at the far end of the room.

"My wrist? Oh, I scratched it."

"How did you manage that?"

"Ah, bah! it's nothing," responded mademoiselle.