when ethel had read matthew thursby's letter to the last word she quietly refolded the paper and laid it on the table. the sisters were watching her every movement intently. she wished they would speak--that they would say something--anything. but it seemed as if they were waiting for her to break the silence. her eyes turned from one to the other. in their faces she read nothing save love and compassion. then, with a sob in her throat, she spoke.
"and i--the child of a stranger--a nobody's child, owe everything to you! but for you i might have starved, or found my only home in the workhouse! oh! how can i ever love you half enough? but now i have learnt this, i feel that i have no longer a right to call this place my home. i must go out into the world and earn my living. i must strive to----"
"ethel!" exclaimed an austere voice, that of miss matilda.
there was an inflection in it which the girl had not heard for years--not since some juvenile peccadillo had momentarily excited the spinster's ire. "nothing which has occurred this morning justifies you in adopting such a tone towards my sister and myself. you seem to forget that what comes as news to you has been known to us from the first. why, then, should you assume that the mere fact of your having learnt certain things to-day for the first time should have the effect of abrogating arrangements which have been in existence for a longer period than you can remember?" miss matilda's style in her more didactic moments was unconsciously modelled to some extent on that of her favourite authors, the english essayists of the eighteenth century.
"forgive me for speaking as i did," pleaded ethel, with eyes that were blinded with tears. "but, indeed, i am so overcome by what you have told me, and what i have just read, that i know not either what to say or what to do."
"there is nothing for you to do--nothing whatever," said miss matilda, still with a touch of peremptoriness.
"and perhaps, my dear, if you were to say as little as possible just now, it might be as well," interposed miss jane for the first time. then turning to her sister, she added: "the poor child needs a little time to recover herself."
"there i agree with you, and i think the best thing she can do is to go and lie down for an hour." then to ethel, with a sudden softening of the voice, she said: "child, child, cannot you understand that, despite all you have learnt to-day, nothing is to be changed--that you are still to be our niece, and we are still to be your aunts, and that everything is to go on precisely as before? vale view will continue to be your home, as it has been for as long as you can remember, and you must never again hint at such a thing as going out into the world to earn your living, unless you wish your aunts to believe that you have ceased to care for them."
"and," added miss jane, with one of her sweetest smiles, "that you are tired of living under the same roof with two humdrum old women."
what reply ethel would have made will never be known, because at this juncture there came a tap at the door, which was followed by the appearance of charlotte, the parlourmaid, carrying a salver with a card on it. "if you please, ma'am," said the girl, "i've shown the lady into the morning-room."
"tell mrs. lucas dexter that i and my sister will be with her almost immediately," answered miss matilda, after a glance at the card.
as the girl left the room by one door, ethel stole softly out by another.
the sisters looked at each other. it was a look which said, as plainly as words could have done, "how very fortunate that we happen to be wearing our puce lutestrings and our best caps this afternoon!"
the hon. mrs. lucas dexter was one of the great ladies of the neighbourhood, and had never condescended to call at vale view but twice before, on both of which occasions she had contrived to extract a small cheque from the sisters. indeed, it was a peculiarity of hers never to call upon anyone who was not quite in her own set, or whose position in the social scale, which in small provincial centres is marked by so many gradations, was admittedly below her own, without making them pay for the privilege in the shape of a subscription to one or other of the benevolent schemes in which she professed to be interested. those among the small gentry of st. oswyth's, and such of the professional people as were tolerably well-to-do, would have been pleased to have the hon. mrs. lucas dexter call upon them twice as often as she did, and would have looked upon the two or three guineas of which each of her visits depleted them as money well laid out, in so far as it had been the means of securing her presence for a quarter of an hour in their drawing-rooms. but there were others, to whom every guinea was an object, who would have been glad if she had passed them by altogether, and who groaned in spirit, while smiling a sickly smile, when the inevitable tablets and pencil were produced, and mrs. dexter, fixing her victim through her pince-nez, said, with that stand-and-deliver air which few people were found bold enough to resist: "and pray, what sum shall i have the pleasure of putting down opposite your name?"
although miss matilda had advised ethel to go and lie down awhile, the latter had no inclination for anything of the sort. instead, she went in search of tamsin, and found her in her own room, an apartment situated between the dressing-rooms of the sisters, and having a door which opened into each of them. tamsin had been on board the pandora, when ethel's supposed mother had lost her life, and had a knowledge of all the events connected with that far-off time. ethel could talk to her and question her, as she could not talk to or question her "aunts," and there were half-a-score things she was burning to hear about.
tamsin was sitting in her favourite spot, on the broad, low, cushioned window-seat of her room. she was crooning to herself one of the quaint hymns she had learnt at her mother's knee half a century before. she had a short, rather dumpy figure, and very homely features. her eyes were at once shrewd and good-humoured, and she had a very pleasant smile. her still plentiful grey hair was crowned by a plain net cap, with goffered frills, bound over the crown of the head with a broad black ribbon. in age she was some three or four years older than her mistresses, whose service she had entered soon after they left school, and with whom she had remained ever since. tamsin was famed for her skill as a needlewoman, and this afternoon she was engaged on some fine sewing, which it was her pride to be still able to see to do without the aid of spectacles.
ethel burst into the room, and before tamsin knew what had happened, she found herself being violently hugged.
"i know all!" exclaimed the girl. next moment she corrected herself. "no, not quite all, but much--a great deal. i have just been reading uncle matthew's letter, written a little while before he died, with directions that it should be opened by me on my nineteenth birthday. and to think that you--you dear, but artful old thing--have known all these years everything there is in the letter, and yet have never breathed the least hint that i was somebody altogether different from the ethel thursby i have always believed myself to be!"
"the secret was not mine, dearie," replied tamsin, as she pulled her cap into shape. "what would my mistresses have thought, if by as much as a single word, i had betrayed their trust in me? no, no, it was far better for you in every way, that you should be told nothing about these things till you were grown up. you would only have kept on bothering your child's brain to no good purpose."
"but, oh! tamsin, to think that my aunts are not my aunts, and that i have no more right to bear their name than the veriest beggar that walks the streets!" there was that in her voice which told the elder woman that her tears were very close to the surface.
"listen, honey," said tamsin, as she stroked the girl's brown hair fondly. and thereupon, only in different words, and homelier phraseology, she proceeded to state the case to almost the same effect that it had been stated by miss matilda already. the mere fact that a certain piece of information, hitherto, for wise reasons, kept from her, had been told her to-day, did not and could not in the remotest degree affect the relations which had existed for so long a time between herself and her supposed aunts. they had chosen to adopt her as their niece when she was an infant, and such she would continue to be to them so long as it should please providence to leave unsevered the thread of their earthly existence. she, ethel, must strive to forget that miss matilda and miss jane were not her aunts in reality, and must continue to regard them in precisely the same light that she had always done.
ethel sat awhile in silence after tamsin had finished speaking. then she said: "just now it all seems so strange and incredible to me, that i find it almost as hard to believe as i should one of the fairy tales i used to read when a girl. in time, no doubt, i shall get used to it, so that it will seem as if i must have known of it all along; but that will not be to-day, nor to-morrow." a sigh broke from her. she sat staring out of the window without seeing anything of that which her eyes rested upon.
presently she resumed: "but now that i have been told so much, i want to know more. there are several questions, tamsin, which i do not care to ask my aunts, but which i don't in the least mind asking you."
tamsin screwed up her mouth, but said nothing. it altogether depended on the nature of the girl's questions whether they would be answered by her or no.
"first of all," resumed ethel, "uncle matthew, in his letter, states it as his belief that the--the person who passed me off on board ship as being her child was not in reality my mother, but he omits to give any reason for such a belief. you were there. can you tell me what his reasons were, or what was your own belief in the matter?"
tamsin's needle stopped in the middle of a stitch. she did not reply at once, but seemed to be considering within herself in what terms she should answer the question.
"my belief was the same as mr. matthew's," at length she replied. "mrs. vane had not been two days on board before i said to myself, 'it's very strange to me if that woman is that child's mother.' it was not merely that she didn't seem to care about you, and was never so pleased as when you were out of her sight, but from a score of different things, each a trifle in itself, that i so judged her."
"was she--was she a lady?"
tamsin shook her head. "she was not what i should call a lady, and i think i know a real lady when i see one as well as most people. she was not at all bad-looking, but as full of vanity as a peacock. even at breakfast-time she always appeared in a silk or satin gown, with a lot of jewellery about her, which is not what ladies are in the habit of doing. then, she used to make little slips in her talk, so that one could form a pretty good guess that her bringing up had been nothing particular. her greatest delight was to flirt and carry on with the unmarried gentlemen on board, who used to encourage her in every way they could think of; just to make fun of her afterwards among themselves. but, with all her faults, hers was a dreadful fate--poor thing! to be laughing and giggling one minute, and playing off; as she supposed, one admirer against another, and the next to be overboard in the great black waste of waters! one wild despairing shriek came borne to our ears, and then all was silence. oh, it was terrible!"
there was a long pause, and then tamsin said: "i suppose, dearie, that mr. matthew in his letter told you about a certain person coming to the ship and inquiring for his sister, and of his recognising her in a photograph of mrs. vane which was shown him?"
ethel nodded assent.
"and you would also be told how the man in question stated that his sister had gone out as lady's-maid only a little while before, that she was unmarried, and that it was impossible you should be her child?"
"uncle matthew's letter told me all that."
"then, do you think, yourself, that any further evidence is needed to prove that, whoever else's daughter you may be, you are not the child of the woman who called herself mrs. montmorenci-vane?"
"i suppose it must be as you say," replied ethel. "so that the mystery of my birth remains as much a mystery as ever, and, after all these years, there is very little likelihood of its ever being solved."
"and if it has been kept from you, you may rely upon it that it has been for the best. how can you tell from what unhappiness, from what unknown dangers, you may have been saved? instead of encouraging vain dreams about a past which is locked up from you, try to reckon up by how many blessings you are surrounded. think what a happy girl you are, or ought to be, in comparison with what you might have been, and----"
"oh, you dear old tamsin, don't for one moment get it into your head that i am anything but grateful and thankful from the bottom of my heart for--for--oh, for everything!"
she had flung her arms round tamsin's neck, and she now cried softly on her shoulder for a minute or two.
presently she looked up with an april smile. "what a weak, foolish girl you must think me," she said. "but i have shed my last tear now for ever so long to come. i feel as if there's not another left for anybody. so, now tell me this: if nobody knows whose child i am, nor where i came from, how is it known that to-day is my nineteenth birthday?"
"that is very easily answered. it was on the 14th of november that mrs. vane brought you on board the pandora. she told more than one person that you were just six months old, so that, if she spoke the truth, you were born sometime about the 14th of may in the same year, and that was the date which mr. matthew afterwards decided should be kept as your birthday."
"so that, besides so many other things, i owe my birthdays to uncle matthew. and what happy days they have always been! how i wish he had lived to see the child grow up on whose head he showered so many kindnesses! and now, tamsin, the next thing i want to know is, who it was that gave me the name of ethel."
"it was the name mrs. vane called you by, so, of course, there was no thought of changing it later on; but whether it was your real name, or only one the poor woman had taken a fancy to call you by, she alone could have told us. but see, there goes mrs. lucas dexter's carriage! you had better run away now, honey. the bell will be almost sure to ring for me in a minute or two."
it is still the same day. the early dinner is over, and ethel is again strolling by herself in the grounds. she feels that she wants to be alone. as yet, she can scarcely realise the news her birthday has brought her. as yet, it all seems so strange and incomprehensible. it is as if an earthquake had shaken the foundations of her life, leaving nothing stable or steadfast around her. her aunts have said that everything is to go on as before, that not a word is to be said to any one. but one exception there must be--she must tell her lover--she must have no secrets from him. perhaps, when he learns that she is a waif, a child of unknown parentage, and without a home other than that which charity has afforded her, he will---- but no; not even in her inmost thoughts will she so far wrong him as to deem him capable of that.
there is a hillock in the grounds, from the summit of which, a stretch of high road leading to the town is visible. more than once she climbs it to look out for her lover. at length she discerns him in the distance and her heart begins to flutter like a frightened bird in its cage. presently she takes out her handkerchief, and waves it as a signal to him. he sees it and waves his hat in return. then she runs down the hillock, and so times herself that at the moment he opens the side door, which admits people on foot to the grounds of vale view, she is there to meet him.
