Silverbeach Manor (4 page)

"Pansy," says
Mrs. Adair, conscious of the generous magnificence of the proposal,
"I have become attached to you, and my physicians advise for me to
mix in young society. I thought of advertising for a companion, but
I prefer to mould one for myself, and then I shall be sure to get
just what I wish. I am thinking of adopting you, Pansy, as my
companion, and if you give me satisfaction, probably as my heiress.
What do you say to the notion? Will you leave Polesheaton behind
for ever, and enter society under my care?"

"Oh, Mrs.
Adair!" The colour comes and goes in Pansy's face, and the dimples
shine joyously about the rosy lips as she takes in the meaning of
these momentous words. Leave Polesheaton behind, and enter a world
of Paris-made dresses and exquisite music and cushioned carriages
and hothouse flowers! Well, such a destiny is hers by right, for
was not her mother of aristocratic descent?

Who would have
thought, three weeks ago, that the magic gates of Fashion would
ever have opened to her vainly longing life? She is to be a society
heroine like the Duchess Montresor, or the lovely Lady Alexia
Seeton of last week's halfpenny novelette. Who will be the hero of
her life-romance? The rose flush deepens as before her eyes there
comes the exquisite vision of Cyril Langdale.

"It would be
useless for you to buy things here," says Mrs. Adair. "Polesheaton
drapery must have some out of the ark, but I will get you a
travelling costume at a Firlands shop, and an afternoon shopping
for clothes for a lady will set you up respectably. For a year or
two I think you will not need a maid, but when you really enter
society it will be different,"

Pansy agrees,
not having the slightest idea what a maid could do for her. She is
so excited and bewildered that she gives the heron a gold leg
instead of a crimson one, and spoils Mrs. Adair's pattern for a
while; but her hostess is graciously forgiving, and talks to her
about foreign music masters and dancing lessons, and a teacher of
languages, and a governess to read with her a couple of hours a
day. Pansy begins to feel quite accomplished already, and her heart
sinks within her when the dressing-bell rings, which is the signal
for her departure.

"I must go up
at once," says Mrs. Adair, consigning the heron to a quilted satin
work bag. "I am expecting friends to dinner. In a few days you will
have suitable dresses of your own, and dine with me every
evening."

"Mrs.
Adair," falters Pansy, "I quite forgot Aunt Temperance. Am I to
tell her what is going to happen?
"

"No, I think
not. I would rather speak to her myself, and enter at once on a
proper understanding. I am sure she is a most worthy, respectable
person, and will see things in a commonsense light. Tell her I will
call to see her tomorrow afternoon."

***

"I'm sorry Mrs.
Adair chose tomorrow, for it's washing-day. But she means to do the
polite thing, and seeing she has given you so much pleasure, Pansy,
I'll be honoured to make the lady's acquaintance," says Miss Piper,
cutting for her niece a slice of the homemade cake at tea. "We'll
make the washing a day later, and Deb will sweep out the parlour.
And you had better fill the vases, Pansy. There's a lot of pretty
leaves about even now."

"You haven't
told Miss Pansy the news, mistress," says Deb, venturing gently to
nudge her employer.

"No more I
have. There's real good news for us, Pansy. Now, just guess what
has happened today."

Pansy looks
with dazed eyes from one to the other. Can it be that some rumour
of the glory nearing her own changed existence has reached these
two, eating their humble meal with such congratulatory looks?

"The lodgings
is let," cries Deb triumphantly, taking a complacent bite as she
nods her little red head with the tiny cap. "Old Mrs. Mullins is
a-going to retire from the butter shop, her son out in Australy
a-settling of some money on her, and she's to be a permanent at ten
shillings a week, ain't it, mistress?"

"And coal and
lights extra," says Miss Piper. "It's more than Mr. Sotham paid,
Pansy, but we've always been friendly with Mrs. Mullins, and she
wants to be with someone she knows now she's getting infirm. The
rooms have been empty a long, long time, but it's a providential
mercy, my dear, we're letting them so well at last."

"And Mrs.
Mullins is deaf," says Deb, "so she won't mind your violin
practising, Miss Pansy."

Pansy
smiles a little, thinking how unimportant is this news which so
excites her aunt and Deb. Fancy caring about a new lodger -- a
common old woman from the dairy shop -- when very soon the lodgings
and this little kitchen, and the oil lamp, and the brown teapot and
the homemade bread will have vanished into the past, and the
reality
will be a mansion as grand as The
Grange, with liveried servants, late dinners, and all the
enchanting experiences of Lady Alexia and the Duchess from her
stories!

The
commencement of Pansy's grandeur is marked by a night of
sleeplessness, which leaves her with a headache and a rather cross
feeling. It irritates her to see Aunt Temperance display for Mrs.
Adair's benefit the wax flowers and the bits of coral, the pink
vases and the rosy-cheeked shepherdess, which only make their
appearance from the parlour cupboard on high days and holidays and
state occasions. As if Mrs. Adair would give two glances at the
waxen leaves and apples, or find any beauty in the speckled green
table-cover out of which Aunt Piper is smoothing the wrinkles! And
then she recognizes it is for
her
sake
and in gratitude for kindness shown to
her
that all this trouble is taken, and better feelings take the
place of the impatience.

"Dear
old Aunt Temperance!" she thinks. "What a careworn, anxious life
hers has been.
Her
days of cutting and
contriving are over now, thank Heaven. Mrs. Adair is so rich that,
of course, adopted by her, I shall have plenty of money to spare
for dear old auntie. She must give up the shop and take one of
those little villas at Firlands, and lead a calm, happy, cloudless
existence for the rest of her life. I am so glad I shall be able to
repay Aunt Temperance for her love and goodness to me, in some
measure at last."

About three
o'clock Mrs. Adair sails into the shop, and Temperance Piper,
curtseying, conducts her to the parlour and pulls forward for her
the easy chair with the crochet antimacassar, representative of the
Queen in her coronation robes.

"I am sure,
ma'am," she says, "I am more indebted to you than I can say for the
notice you have taken of our Pansy. She has never enjoyed herself
so much in her life before. I hear you're not staying much longer
in Polesheaton, ma'am, but I hope you'll do me the honour to take
away some of my blackberry preserve. It's a recipe I had from my
grandmother, and she used to be housekeeper at Tatlock Grange."

"Indeed, a
most respectable person, I am sure," says Mrs. Adair, elevating her
eyeglass, and turning a little wearily towards Temperance Piper,
"but I never eat preserve. What becomes of all that is made at
Silverbeach I am sure I do not know. I suppose the servants must
give it away. Well, Miss Piper, I cannot stay long, for
unfortunately I have to visit the dentist at Firlands; but I have
called to arrange, once and for all, about Pansy. You will be
surprised to hear that the best and greatest advantages are offered
to Pansy. I have made up my mind to adopt her. Ah, here she is. I
am just telling your worthy aunt, my dear, that you will accompany
me next week to town."

Miss
Temperance Piper gazes from one to the other in dazed bewildered
silence. She looks so white that Pansy is a little frightened and
clasps her in her arms. "Auntie, if you refuse your consent I will
never, never leave you. But I am so tired of this humdrum life, and
I should so like to see the world a little, and above all become a
great and famous violinist. If you will let me go, dear, darling
Aunt Temperance, I will write to you constantly, and come every now
and then to see you, and I will take care that you are rich and
happy -- your cares will be over for ever."

"I beg pardon,
Mrs. Adair," says Miss Piper, tremblingly, "my head is all
confused. I don't think I understand."

"I offer,"
says Mrs. Adair, "to adopt your niece, to treat her in all respects
as belonging to me, and to care for her future. She will receive
educational and social advantages that would be impossible here,
and that will prove costly and expensive. It may be that she will
even be my heiress if our attachment deepens with coming years. All
I require in return is that she shall belong to me absolutely and
entirely. She is to take my surname of Adair. She is to give up all
connection with Polesheaton, and entirely sever herself from
relations in a sphere quite removed from that which will be her
own."

"Do you
understand, Pansy?" says Miss Piper, in tones a little sharper than
her usual gentle accents. "This lady offers to adopt you, and make
you rich and clever and a grand lady, but you are to have nothing
more to do with Polesheaton. You are to give up your old home and
your Aunt Temperance for ever."

"Yes, that is
my meaning," says Mrs. Adair, decisively. "It never answers for
young people to belong to two different conditions of life. If you
wish to enter society, Pansy, you must turn your back completely on
your past. At the same time, to render Miss Piper's circumstances
more comfortable, I intend to present her, on your departure, with
a cheque for fifty pounds."

"Begging your
pardon, ma'am, I will take not so much as a farthing from you,"
says the little spinster lady, her breath coming and going rapidly.
"I see your offer is for my Pansy's good, but I beg you will not
offer money to make up for my child. I have loved her like my own,
and will not stand in her way now. Pansy, my darling, my child, you
must choose for yourself. It's a choice soon settled one way or the
other -- Polesheaton or society; your aunt and Deb and the shop, or
becoming one of the quality."

Pansy takes
her aunt in her arms and presses tender, tearful kisses upon the
prematurely wrinkled cheeks; but before Mrs. Adair goes to the
dentist the choice is made.

"I want to
rise in life, Aunt Temperance," says Pansy. "I cannot endure this
dull, common life at Polesheaton. I love you with all my heart, but
I never shall have such a choice again. I think it would be wicked
to turn my back on Mrs. Adair's most generous offer. It would be
like flying in the face of Providence."

Brilliant Prospects

THE last week
at Polesheaton is a restless, uncomfortable one, and Pansy heartily
wishes it over. Deb is in a constant state of wonder, admiration,
and incredulity, and it annoys her young mistress to find that her
admission into fashionable circles should excite such astonishment
around. All Polesheaton seems to gaze after her open mouthed and
open eyed when she ventures down the High Street.

"Are
you
really
going to be a lady, Pansy?"
asks Ellen Sotham, the farmer's daughter, who has made an errand
with her sister to the post office on purpose to interview
Pansy.

"I am adopted
by Mrs. Adair, of Silverbeach Manor -- the lady at The Grange,"
says Pansy, somewhat stiffly.

A short time
ago she enjoyed a chat with Ellen Sotham, who was sent by admiring
parents to the "finishing school" in the country town, and holds
her head rather high in Polesheaton in consequence. But in future
between herself and the Sothams there is a great gulf fixed. Pansy
feels they are not the kind of people society expects her to
know.

"Well, think
of that now -- you a fine lady, Pansy!" says Martha, the elder
sister. "They say Mrs. Adair is rolling in money, and has nobody to
leave it to. You might be a lady of property one of these days,
Pansy. Don't it seem funny to think of it?"

"Your Aunt
Temperance will be lonesome. Isn't she feeling it very much?" asks
Ellen, who is intensely jealous in her heart of Pansy's change of
fortune, and thinks Mrs. Adair might have made a far better choice
had she looked nearer Polesheaton Farm.

"No, she takes
it quite quietly," answers Pansy. "Of course, Aunt Temperance has
often said she wished she could do more for me, seeing my mother
was a lady; and now there is a chance of my getting on in life, she
would not for worlds stand in the way. I quite intend to make
Aunt's fortune one of these days, for she has been so good to me
all my life."

"Yes,"
says Martha, "your aunt
do
take it
wonderful quiet, Pansy. Folks are saying they should have thought
she'd have fretted a deal more over losing you."

"Aunt is very
busy preparing for our new lodger," says Pansy. "She is making new
chintzes for the chairs, and washing the blind, so her mind is full
of other things. And it wouldn't be like Aunt Temperance to fret
over anything that's for my good."

All the same,
Pansy is thankful in her heart when the week draws to an end, for
the look in Temperance Piper's eyes as they follow her here and
there brings the tears to her own, and sometimes the feeling rushes
upon her that her aunt's heart may quietly break when she is gone,
and that it is wicked to sever her life from the one that has
sacrificed days and nights for her.

If
nobody else understands what lies beneath Miss Temperance Piper's
quietude, little Deb comprehends her mistress. She lies awake in
her little attic, wondering if
she
could
learn the violin, and make tidies for the chairs, and fill the
vases, and thus in some degree make up for the absence of beautiful
Miss Pansy. Meanwhile, she keeps the shop like a new pin, and
polishes the counter till it shines, and surprises Miss Piper by
rising early so as to bring some look of pleasure to that pale,
bewildered face.