Silverbeach Manor (15 page)

She calls
Lizzie Russell, who is still a housemaid at the Manor, and to whom
she has become attached.

"See this
packet is registered and posted, Lizzie," she says. "Do it
yourself. I trust you to get it off by the early post."

"Certainly,
miss," says Lizzie; "but you do look so poorly, miss. Let me bring
up your breakfast."

Pansy
makes no reply, lest she should betray her tears. The girl brings
her a tempting tray, longing to cheer and comfort her, for she
imagines there has been some little disagreement between her young
mistress and her
fiancé.

"Is it
raining, Lizzie?" asks Pansy, who is looking for a waterproof
cloak.

"Yes,
miss, it
does
look gloomy this morning,
but 'rain before seven, clear by eleven' you know. It won't
keep
dull, miss, I'm sure. The skies are certain
to clear by and by."

Pansy's own
maid is away on a holiday, and she is relieved that such is the
case. She puts on her plainest hat, dons her waterproof, locks her
jewel case, and encloses the key in a letter to the solicitor. She
takes only such trinkets as Mrs. Adair gave her before she died --
none inherited by the will. Marlow's letters and a few special
treasures she puts into a hand portmanteau, and then she writes to
the lawyer, telling him she renounces her claim to her conditional
inheritance, for the stipulation is beyond her carrying out, and
she is now going to cast in her lot with the relation whose
acquaintance the will forbids.

"
If the one who inherits Silverbeach raises no
objection," she says, "I should like all the servants to be paid to
the end of the quarter and a month beyond, also Miss Ashburne the
same. Please arrange all this for me, as I am now leaving
Silverbeach Manor, never more to return."

Miss Ashburne
is breakfasting at her ease when she is startled by the apparition
of her employer, attired for out-of-doors, though it is raining
hard.

"My dear Miss
Adair, you are not surely thinking of going out. You will be
drenched. You are not looking well. I fear you have had a sleepless
night. Let me send the groom for the doctor."

"Oh, no, Miss
Ashburne, I am not ill. I have something to tell you -- something
that I fear will startle you. I am not Miss Adair any longer. My
name is Piper."

"It
used
to be, I know," says Miss
Ashburne, soothingly, for of late she has managed to glean a pretty
correct idea of the state of affairs; "but Mrs. Adair adopted you,
made you her heiress, and called you by her name. Your nerves are
excited by sleeplessness, I am sure. You are quite entitled to
consider yourself Miss Adair, of Silverbeach Manor. Now do take a
little hot chocolate and give up all thought of going out
today."

"No,
Miss Ashburne; my mind is made up. I have come to say goodbye. I am
sure Mrs. Adair's legal adviser will deal honourably with you, as I
have requested. Please wait here and preside here till he arrives.
With
me
he has nothing more to do, and I
do not suppose he will make any search for me. Mine is only a
conditional inheritance, and the condition I cannot keep. I hold
Silverbeach while I disown the aunt who brought me up. I have
decided now to give up my property and go back to my poor old
aunt."

"But, my dear
child," says Miss Ashburne, quite agitatedly, "this is
impracticable, absolutely irreligious. Would you actually fling
into a stranger's hands a splendid estate like this simply for the
sake of an old person who cannot have long to live? Providence has
provided for you an ample fortune. Think well before you turn your
back on it."

"I
have
thought well," is the quiet
reply, "and in the night I prayed about the matter, too. I know my
aunt cannot have long to live, so I have all the less time to prove
to her I am not the miserably selfish creature she must think me in
her heart."

With no more
ado, Pansy leaves Silverbeach Manor behind, the beautiful, restful
home which is to pass to a stranger. She wonders vaguely if he will
take care of the birds, the dogs, her own pet riding horse, the
ponies she has driven in the chaise. All these belong to the past.
Of the future she knows nothing, save that she is going back to a
heart that is breaking for her.

She dreads
being recognized at Silverbeach station, but few of her
acquaintances are travelling so early, and soon she will be whirled
away to her new life. Her idea is to seek out David Rumsay, the
gardener, whose address at Lower Road Cottages in Firlands she
obtained at the hotel before she left. If Miss Piper has been
placed in some institute now, or if she has resolutely gone to the
workhouse, Pansy will follow her even there, and take her to some
lodging where her musical powers may earn money for them both.

Waiting
for the Firlands train is a trying experience. Pansy has just
missed one, and sits tired, hungry, yet too sad to eat, in the
third-class waiting room where she has time and leisure to reflect
on all that has gone out of her life by her decision to choose Aunt
Temperance before Silverbeach Manor. Her headache is not improved
by the screaming of a neighbouring babe and the quarrelling of a
couple angry with each other for missing the train. To complete her
discomfiture she sees some people she knows sailing down the
platform. They are going by the express, which is only first-class,
and Pansy notes their cushions, and wraps, and papers, and luncheon
basket, and the attentions of guards and porters. Henceforth
she
must expect nothing of the sort.

She knows she
has chosen to belong to the women who earn their living, and she
hopes that her life will be a blessed, and happy, and contented
one. Surely, nobody is really poorer for doing what they believe to
be right. Even now, she thinks that perhaps Marlow may refuse to
accept his freedom, seek her out, demand her reasons, and tell her
he can trust her and care for her, even though she hid from him
that secret of her early life.

But when once
the train has started for Firlands, and she is really on her way to
the scenes of old, she forgets even her losses, thinking of the joy
she is bearing to her aunt. Oh, that she be yet alive, that God in
Heaven may permit the meeting, and allow the future to atone for
the past, since her heart surely repents of her thanklessness.

It is evening
before Firlands is reached. Last time, Marlow was on the platform
-- now, nobody comes forward to help. She feels a little desolate,
and asks a porter to direct her to Lower Road Cottages. The man is
busy and does not answer. Already Pansy feels a difference between
travelling third-class and first. Her second request, made to a lad
cleaning lamps, is more successful.

"It's the
third turning to the right across the railway bridge, miss, bearing
round to the left by the public house. That's where I live. Were
you wanting my mother, Mrs. Pillings?"

"No, I want a
gardener of the name of Rumsay.'

"Ah, he lodges
in the house with the flowers in the window. You bear round by the
public house, miss, and you'll be all right."

After one or
two mistakes, Pansy's wearied steps reach the tavern in question,
and the barman, taking an airing on the steps, shows her which is
Rumsay's dwelling. The gardener himself opens the door in answer to
her knock, and salutes her respectfully.

"Good evening,
Mr. Rumsay," says Pansy, rather brokenly. "You spoke to me once
about an old lady you wanted to get into Thanksgiving
Cottages."

"Begging your
ladyship's pardon," says Rumsay, "I did not recognise you. Will you
please to walk in? I've had an extra job or two of late, ma'am, and
the poor old lady hasn't been fretting quite so much about being
burdensome, so we've thought no more just now of her finding
another home. Mind the step, please, my lady. Let me get the lamp
-- 'tis a very dark entry. Deb, where are you, wife? Here's the
lady as sent Miss Piper that money from the Wilberforce."

A comely,
bright-faced young wife comes forward with a welcome, and places a
chair. Deb does not recognize Pansy at first. The years have
brought changes to both. But there is someone in the corner by the
fire whose eyes are fixed on Pansy. The old lady's lips are parted,
and the colour is coming and going in her withered face. Deb sees
Pansy looking towards her.

"Her
head is better than it used to be, ma'am," she says softly, "but I
don't know that she could converse with you, for she's nervous of
strangers. All day long she's had such a strange fancy that one she
lost years ago is coming back to her, and the idea has made her
quite lively today. See how straight she's sitting up this evening.
I don't know, ma'am, as how we
could
ever
spare her, even to the almshouses."

"Don't you
know me, Deb?" asks Pansy.

The gardener
opens his eyes and mouth very widely, Deb stares and gives a little
cry of rapture, but Pansy has flown to her aunt's side and covered
the aged face with kisses.

"
You
knew me, didn't you, auntie?"
sobs Pansy. "I have come to ask you to forgive me, and take me back
for your own again. I am not rich now, auntie darling. I am poor,
but my heart is more at rest than when I was away from you. I will
never leave you again, God willing, as long as I live. Let our home
be together, dear, dear Aunt Temperance."

David Rumsay
seems to have caught cold suddenly, for he goes to use his
handkerchief and to beat a retreat. Deb is crying close beside her
old mistress, and exclaiming at the beauty and goodness of Miss
Pansy, and Pansy turns round and kisses her.

"Oh,
Deb, you have been faithful where I have failed. What can I say to
you for your care of my own aunt? She was like my
mother.
But for you, perhaps I never should have
looked again on her loving face, never have heard her words of
forgiveness. You will be happy now, Aunt Temperance -- happy, and
at rest with your Pansy."

The old lady
only says, brokenly, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is
within me, bless His holy name!"

Slowly Deb
learns privately how it comes to pass that Pansy is poor. She
earnestly applauds the decision that has been made, and leaves aunt
and niece alone awhile to rejoice and give thanks in being together
again after years of change and estrangement.

Deb,
meanwhile, has prepared a little meal of tea and toast and a fresh
egg, and Pansy is sorely in need of the food. When she is
refreshed, and sitting with her aunt's wrinkled hands held closely
in her own, she asks Deb to tell her something of her own and Miss
Piper's experiences since she left Polesheaton.

"Ah,
Miss Pansy, dear," says Deb, who is busy at the ironing board,
"things never prospered at the shop after you went away. Mistress
lost heart, and I wasn't clever at the books like
you
were, and nothing seemed to go right.
Mistress just fretted inwardly. That's what she did, Miss
Pansy."

"It was my
illness spoilt the business," falters Miss Piper. "Some that owed
me money left Polesheaton while I was ill, and I began to see it
was time I gave up shop keeping. Deb did the work of six, poor
child. Ah, my dearie, no words can tell what Deb has been to
me."

"
Well,"
says Deb, rather sharply,
"who was it took me from the workhouse and took me first to the
Sunday school? I never had no home till I came to Polesheaton post
office, so don't say as
you
owes
me
anything, ma'am. It's all the other way
round. Still, they were dark days, Miss Pansy, and I never passes
the old shop now without thanking the Lord those days are
over."

"But life is
not easy for you now, is it, Deb?"

"Ah,
Miss Pansy, but all the burden isn't on one pair of shoulders now.
My David -- I may say it, miss, for he's out of hearing, by the
back door -- my David is one in a thousand.
He's
not afraid of hard work. We rubs on day by
day, and though it would be hard for us if he got quite out of
work, still we can trust the Lord God that has kept us from
starving up to this time to provide for us."

"But, Deb,
when Aunt Temperance went away, however did you find her?"

"I just
kept on trying, Miss Pansy -- and praying -- till I
did.
Mistress were laid up in the hospital, for
she'd been took ill on the London road, and she were in hospital at
Panfield, about thirty miles from here. They were very kind at
Panfield police station, and helped me to find her. Just then they
required a girl in the hospital kitchen, and I worked there for
them, and got many a sight of mistress, who was in there for some
time. Then I got a job in the hospital laundry, and there I kept,
except when they were slack of work, and then we
were
put to it to get along. But mistress and me
had two little rooms in Panfield, and she sewed a little, and I
went every day to the laundry, for she never spoke no more of
finding you."

"What
troubles you have seen," says Pansy, her heart full of sorrow and
shame.
"
And all the while I had pleasure
and luxury enough to tire me sometimes. What a selfish creature I
am."

"No,
that you ain't, Miss Pansy," says Deb. "It isn't what we've
been
that we need keep on thinking
about, but what the Lord is going to
make
us. That's what I heard only last Sunday in the sermon. There
isn't much selfishness
left
in you, miss,
seeing you've chosen our poor place before Silverbeach Manor.
Mistress's dark days are over, I'm thinking, though she's truly had
her share of them."