Part 11

'Harry,--Now the last shelter is refused us. We must leave this house the day after to-morrow. That is, the day when the sale at Dolbeare takes place. We cannot go thither, we cannot stay here. We have none to look to for advice but you. You must give it us; you are bound to assist us. Remember, had the disclosure and death of my father taken place one hour later, everything would have been changed, and I should have been your wife; then I would have opened Trecarrel to my poor mother. You cannot take advantage of an accident which intervened to break off our marriage. I do not ask you now to renew that contract; I ask you only to come to the aid of a widow and an orphan, and to help them to find shelter for their heads.'

She sent this note to Trecarrel by a boy next morning. He brought answer that the reply would arrive later. Then Orange went out. She was not sanguine of success with the Captain, for she had failed in a personal interview, and it is easier to refuse by letter than by word of mouth. Still, some sort of hope fluttered in her heart. She could not believe that the Captain would be so mean as wholly to desert them, and deny them his advice. She had not asked in her letter for more than that. Perhaps she had been too exacting when she forced her presence upon him last night.

She went to visit her friend Miss Bowdler. If the Captain had failed her, Miss Bowdler would not. Miss Bowdler was a well-to-do young lady, who lived with her 'Pa' in a large, handsome, red-brick house of Queen Anne's period, a house rich within with plaster-work of exquisite design and wood-carving by Grinling Gibbons. The house was one of many rooms, and it was solely tenanted by the young lady with the red eyelashes and her 'Pa.' They were rich, but were not received into county society; a source of vexation to Miss Bowdler, though her 'Pa' was indifferent so long as his creature comforts were attended to. Surely Miss Bowdler would give her friends shelter for a few days. Orange was not aware that Miss Bowdler had reckoned on using her (Orange) when Mrs. Trecarrel as her door into society of a superior class; and that now the marriage was broken off and this door was shut, the disappointment was bitter.

Orange rang the bell, and the summons was answered by the footman, working himself into his coat, with unbuttoned waistcoat. He looked at Miss Trampleasure superciliously, and proceeded leisurely to button his waistcoat.

'Is Miss Bowdler at home?'

'I don't know.' Then, with a jerk, he brought a red hand through the sleeve.

'I asked if your mistress were in,' said Orange, with indignation.

'I ain't deaf--I heard,' replied the footman. 'I don't think she is what is called "At Home."'

'She is to be seen?'

'I can't take on myself to say that. You can stop in the 'all, and I'll go and inquire.'

Slowly, still buttoning himself, the serving man stalked away.

Orange's cheek flamed, and the tears mounted. This man had been all obsequiousness before the crash.

Suddenly a loud voice in her ear startled her.

'You're a beggar, you're a beggar! Oh, shock-ing, shock-ing! Not a penny. Cluck, cluck, cluck!'

Orange recovered herself at once. Near the door on a perch sat a white cockatoo with pink feathers on her face, and cold, hard, unsympathetic eyes, staring at her.

'Polly,' said Orange, bitterly, 'what you say is too true.'

'Oh, shock-ing! Does your mother know you are out? What o'clock, you beggar? Oh, oh! Notapen-ny! Hot cockles! Cluck, cluck!'

'Polly, Polly, don't make such a noise! Pa!--oh!'

A door opened, and a red-haired head appeared. It was that of Miss Bowdler. The moment she saw Orange she started back. The footman had gone to the greenhouse in quest of her.

'Oh, Sophy! dear Sophy!' exclaimed Orange, springing forward.

Miss Bowdler recoiled from the outstretched hands.

'Good gracious, Miss Trampleasure, what a time of day for a call! My dear Pa does not like to be interrupted at this time; I read to him his newspaper of a morning. You will not, I know, detain me. Yes, Pa! coming, Pa! coming in an instant! There have been disturbances in the North among the cotton-spinners. Pa is in a fever to hear the particulars.'

'Hot cockles!' said the parrot, sentimentally, putting her head on one side and winking.

'Oh, Sophie, do listen to me. I want so much to see you. I have a favour I wish to ask you.'

'Pa, Pa! I'm coming.'

'Tol-de-rol-de-rol!' said the parrot. Then, swinging herself round on her perch, she went into convulsions of laughter.

'I pray you excuse me,' said Miss Bowdler; 'I told John Thomas expressly to say I was not at home in the morning, because Pa is so particular.'

'Do you hear?' asked the footman, who had appeared on the scene, now in full condition, every button in its place. 'Miss Bowdler is NOT AT 'OME.' Then he opened the door pompously. The red-haired lady took the opportunity to dart back into her room.

'You're a beggar!' shouted the cockatoo, with a look of devilry in her eye; 'you're a beggar! Not a pen-ny! Shock-ing, shock-ing! Oh, oh!' and then screamed and ran round and round her perch, laughing.

The door shut with a slam behind Orange. She set her teeth and stamped her foot.

'Would that I were Mrs. Trecarrel for one day only,' she said, 'that I might insult this wretched girl before county people.'

Her mother had a friend in the town, a very intimate confidante, a stout old lady, Mrs. Trelake, widow of a mayor of Launceston, a brewer. Mrs. Trampleasure had insisted on her daughter going to this old lady, and asking her to receive them for a week. Orange went thither, with her heart on fire from the humiliations she had undergone at Miss Bowdler's house. Orange was received at once with cordiality by Mrs. Trelake. She was a lady of moderate stature, with an immense throat. The throat was not a column supporting the head, but the face was sculptured out of the column. There was something good-natured in the face. Possibly she may have been good-looking when young; but it was now impossible, on seeing her, to observe anything but the solid trunk of throat. The old lady was stout, but neither her stoutness nor her throat incommoded her; she moved with nimbleness. She was, moreover, robust in health. Mrs. Trelake was a woman destitute of vanity. She had a neat hand, and was ignorant of it. She was aware that her neck was ugly, but she took no pains to hide it. She was one of those persons who make no effort to please, and are themselves easily pleased. She liked every one with whom she was brought in contact, but she loved nobody. She was the same genial person with every one, rich and poor, with her servants and with her guests. All she asked of her acquaintances was that they should amuse her, and of her servants that they should give her no trouble. Her sympathy was superficial. If an acquaintance spoke to her of trouble or good fortune, of embarrassment or great expectations, she entered into the situation from the outside, and without the smallest internal appreciation. If she cried with a companion, it was not because her friend had occasion for tears, but because her friend was in tears. If she laughed, it was not at a joke which she made no effort to understand, but because the joker laughed.

If you who knew her so well had told her your wife was dead with inexpressive voice, she would have received the information with indifference; if you had told her the same news with broken utterance, she would have sobbed; if you had told her the same fact with a smile on your lips, she would have sniggered. And your wife, remember, was her intimate friend.

People of this description are more common than is generally supposed. We have occupied some time over the portrait of Mrs. Trelake, not because she acts a prominent part in this story, but because we desire to inform our readers what to expect from the Mrs. Trelakes of their acquaintance when they appeal to them for help in their troubles.

Mrs. Trelake received Orange with warmth and pity. She saw that the girl was in trouble. The heart of Orange was full of her reception at Miss Bowdler's, and she recounted it to the old lady. Mrs. Trelake was shocked: she held up her hands, she blessed her stars, she vowed she could never look on Miss Bowdler again with regard; she undertook to cut her in the streets. (Mrs. Trelake dined with Miss Bowdler the same evening, and, when Miss Sophy told her version of the story, Mrs. Trelake was indignant over the dinner table at the audacity of Orange in presuming to thrust herself upon the Bowdlerian privacy.)

'To-morrow is the sale at Dolbeare,' said Orange.

'The sale, my dear! How dreadful!' Mrs. Trelake looked round the room at her pretty china and her case of stuffed hummingbirds. 'I could not bear to part with my things. Every article sold, I suppose. Will those pretty china jars go, with the dragons on them? I wonder whether I could get them cheap?'

'Even to the beds and chairs. The house still belongs to us. That is, we have the lease, but we shall have to let it, so as to pay the rent.'

'Not able to let the house nor pay the rent! Oh, my dear, how dreadful!'

'I said that we should have to let it.'

'I understood perfectly, my sweet child.'

'We cannot go into the house stripped of everything. We cannot stay longer at Mr. Flamank's. It was very good of him to take us in, but we are unable to trespass further on his kindness.'

'Certainly, my poor child, it would not do.'

'Then--to-morrow, whither are we to go?'

'Really, my dear, I don't know. I have a bad head at guessing conundrums. Is it a conundrum, though?' asked Mrs. Trelake, doubtfully. She had not been listening. She was calculating her chance of securing the dragon vases at the sale.

'You knew and loved my mother. I am sure you love her now.'

'Ardently, tenderly,' said Mrs. Trelake, effusively.

'Will you take it ill if I ask a favour of you?'

'Not at all.'

'Would you receive us for a week? I do not ask for more. In a week we shall have had time to settle something as to our future.'

'Oh, Orange! don't say a week; say a month. My house is at your disposal. I really have a fair cook; and now tell me, what does your mother like? For breakfast, now? Is it grilled kidneys? You must put me up to all her little fancies, and I will instruct my cook to meet them. She is a good soul and does what I desire. When will you come? To-morrow? Oh, try to come this evening. Well--if not, at what o'clock? Tell me the time and I will have a dainty meal ready. Orange! I have a pheasant in the larder. I hope you like pheasant.'

'We shall be with you at noon. How good and kind you are, Mrs. Trelake!'

'Not at all. I am delighted.'

Then Orange left. Ten minutes later Mrs. Trelake wrote an elaborate note of apology, to say that her servants objected to receiving so large a party at once. The cook would not stay, and how could she replace so valuable and obliging a servant? The housemaid said that three persons extra would throw too much work upon her, and she would go. So, she, Mrs. Trelake, was very sorry, but for peace and quietness sake, she had to yield, and must withdraw the promise to receive the Trampleasure party. She herself had nothing to do with this, but servants were becoming so masterful that the only way in which she, an elderly lady, could get on was to yield to them in every point.

'We live in the world, we didn't make it,' concluded Mrs. Trelake; 'we must shape ourselves to the world, not force the world to fit us.'

Whilst Orange was standing at the window, reading this letter to her mother, she saw a woman whom she knew coming to the back door. This was a rough girl who did the scullery work at Trecarrel. She brought the answer from the Captain.

Orange at once darted into the garden and intercepted the girl on her way to the kitchen.

'You bear a letter for me.'

'Yes, miss.'

She handed her a letter. Orange turned it in her hands. The address was badly written by some uneducated person.

'Who gave you this?'

'Mrs. Kneebone, the housekeeper.'

'Is there nothing from Captain Trecarrel?'

The girl hesitated.

Orange tore the note open. It was written in the same hand as the address.

'Please, miss, the Captain be very serius indispodged, and heve a took to his bed. He carnt rite, according hev axed me to say so. Your's full of respex, JOANNA KNEEBONE.'

Orange looked up, angry, her heart beating violently. The girl was still there, but moving towards the kitchen.

'What do you want in the house?' asked Orange.

'There be another letter, miss, I hev to deliver.'

'Well, give it to me.'

'It be for the other young lady,' answered the girl; 'and I hev to give it only into her hand.'

'You cannot do that,' said Orange; 'she is gone out.'

'Please, miss, will she be gone for long?'

'She will not return till late at night. Give it me.'

'But, miss, I were told by the Cap'n partickler not to let nobody hev it but the young lady herself; it were very partickler.'

'Then you must wait here till night. This is not my house. I cannot ask you into the kitchen to sit down; you must wait about in the road. It is raining, and you will be wet through. I cannot help it; it must be so unless you let me have the letter.'

'You'll be sure to give it, miss?'

'Of course I will. Do you mistrust me?'

'There it be, miss; but I doubt if the Captain will be best pleased I haven't waited and let the lady have it herself.'

The letter was delivered. The address was in the Captain's handwriting. The seal was large, in red wax, stamped with the Trecarrel arms; Orange knew them well--two chevronels, a crescent for a difference. The girl turned to go away.

'Good afternoon, miss.'

Orange took no notice of the salutation. She was looking at the letter. As the girl departed, she glanced back. Orange was turning the letter, and examining, first the superscription, then the seal. There was an expression in her face which made the girl say, 'I doubt if I have done right now in giving her thicky letter.'

Orange went in. She ascended the stairs to her own room, or rather, to the room she shared with Mirelle. Mirelle was there. That which Orange had told the girl was not true; Orange had told an untruth deliberately, knowing it was an untruth. Orange stood in the doorway and looked at Mirelle, and a flash shot from her dark eyes. Mirelle had not raised her head to see who entered, and she did not therefore encounter and observe the glance of hatred and jealousy flung at her.

Orange quickly shut the door and descended the stairs again.

She took her bonnet and went out,--went out into the rain. What cared she for rain? She went into a lane where she saw no one, and would be unobserved. Then she tore the letter open. It was written in Captain Trecarrel's best hand, and ran as follows:--

'My dear Mirelle,--Indisposition prevents my calling and paying my respects to you as I should have desired. I am in profound distress to learn the predicament in which you have been placed by the unscrupulousness of a man whom I will not designate as he deserves, because he is dead. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum_. Observe this maxim strictly, and Mr. Trampleasure will never be heard of again. I write now to entreat you to accept the asylum of my aunt's house. She lives at Penzance, and is both a charming old lady and a strict Catholic. I have written to her to-day, stating your case, and by the middle of the week will have her reply. I make no question but that she will open her house and her heart to you. One little bit of advice I know you will excuse my offering. I saw, on the night of the ball at Dolbeare, that you wore a very valuable set of diamonds, worth, I dare say, over a thousand pounds. On no account allow the vultures--you know to whom I allude--to set their claws in them. Mrs. T. and Miss O. are at the present moment impecunious, and impecuniosity is a temptation to unscrupulousness,--an infirmity that runs in the blood of a family that I will not name. You do not know the value of these stones, and might be sorely taken in if you disposed of them to a country jeweller. Moreover, I presume they belonged to your dear mother, and it would be unjust to her memory to get rid of them to relieve the present pressing necessities of persons in whom she could feel no possible interest. If you doubt being able to keep them safely--I feel convinced that you will be besieged with entreaties to sell them--trust them to my aunt or to me. I remain, my dear Mirelle, yours very faithfully,

'HARRY TRECARREL.'

Mirelle never saw that letter. Orange tore it with her teeth, and then trampled the fragments into the mire. She walked up and down that lane in a fever, regardless of the rain that fell and drenched her.

Her faith in Trecarrel was gone. She was a girl who had been brought up to believe in nothing; neither in truth, nor honesty, nor sincerity. But she had believed in Trecarrel, and now that one faith was in fragments. She saw him as he really was, in all his despicable meanness. She scorned him, she hated him, but with that hate was mingled love, or rather that hate was but wounded, writhing, anguished love. During the night she rose from her bed. Mirelle slept with her. The rain had ceased, the clouds had broken, and the moon shone into the room. She left her bed because she could not endure the silver glare over her face. As she stood by the bed she looked down on the face of the sleeping Mirelle. It was like the face of a dead woman sculptured in the purest Carrara marble, and lovely as the noblest chisel could cut.

Orange drew the pillow from the bed. and held it up, that the pillow might shadow the white face. The heart of Orange beat furiously. She hated Mirelle. She had but to put that pillow over her mouth, throw herself upon it, and with her strong arms hold down the tossing figure,--that figure so frail and feeble, and then she could laugh at the schemes of Captain Trecarrel.

But no. Orange put the pillow back with a curl of the lip. She could not do that, easy as it was to do. But as she stood over Mirelle she vowed never to permit Captain Trecarrel to take that pale girl to the hearth from which he had cast Orange Tramplara.

'You're a beggar! you're a beggar!' that terrible screech of the parrot came back in her ear at that moment. 'True, true!' said Orange, between her teeth, 'I am a beggar. I have asked for love! I have begged for help! I have begged for sympathy! I have implored advice! I have been refused everything, and given rebuffs and insults. I have but one thing remaining to me, a hold on Mirelle, beggar though I be, and never shall he who has refused me all I asked, give to her what he has denied to me, his betrothed.'

The sleeping girl turned her head away. The fierce eyes of Orange stabbed her and distressed her, even in sleep.

Orange put her hands over her heart. It was bounding noisily, the moonlight throbbed in her eyes, the thoughts beat in her brain. That horrible idea of the pillow, and Mirelle under it, came over her again. She saw the feet beating in the bed in rhythm with the pulsation of her heart, and her hands clenched as though gripping the delicate wrists. As one at the edge of a precipice turns giddy and feels impelled to throw himself where he fears to fall, so was it now with Orange. A dread--a dread was on her lest this horrible thought might in a moment become a fact. She turned away. She paced the room; she could not rest in a bed. She was like a wild beast in a cage.

'Orange!'

She started. Mirelle was sitting up.

'What do you want?' asked Orange hoarsely, and stood between Mirelle and the moonlight, that her face might not be seen and betray her heart.

'He is coming.'

'Who is coming?' asked Orange, fiercely.

'I knew he would.'

'Who? who? who?' Orange clutched the pillow convulsively.

'John Herring. I wrote to him. I have been dreaming, and I saw him open my letter, and he started up and cried, "I am coming to you, Mirelle. I am coming to you with help."'

*CHAPTER XXXVI.*

*MIRELLE'S GUESTS.*

A truce was concluded between the Reverend Israel and his wife. He undertook to depart on a missionary circuit during the remainder of the time that the ladies were in her house. Mrs. Flamank very unreasonably charged her husband with encouraging Orange in disorderly ways, the encouragement consisting in privately combating his wife's attack on Orange's character, and finding a charitable explanation for her leaving the house at night. Mr. Flamank departed early in the morning as a deputation for the parent missionary society of the religious community to which he belonged, to advocate the claims of a very promising mission to the heathen in the Imaginary Islands.

Hitherto this station had been promising rather than performing, but now it had real cause for congratulation and for appealing to the charitable. A native chieftain, with his entire family, consisting of several wives and a tail of children like the tail of a comet, had become a convert.

Ho-hum was the capital of the Imaginary Isles, situated in the largest of them, with a good port at which vessels from England called with gowns and novels for the missionaries' wives and daughters. At Ho-hum there were four rival missionary churches. The Imaginary group formed an archipelago, but as Ho-hum was most considerable of all the islands, not one of the churches would be content with evangelising a smaller island, and thereby confess itself inferior in pretensions to those communities which occupied the major island. Penelope by night unravelled her embroidery of the day. The work of Christian missions is like that of Penelope, with this difference, that each is engaged in unravelling the work of all the others.

In the island of Ho-ha, a chieflet of indifferent character, Hokee-Pokee-Wankee-Fum by name, had proved himself such a nuisance to the heathen society that he was expelled the island with his family and took refuge in that of Ho-hum, where, however, he met with a chilling reception from his native friends. Finding himself destitute of means, and cold-shouldered by his own people, he lent a ready ear to the solicitations of the One-and-Only-Christian missionary to receive instructions in his catechetical school. As this instruction was supplemented with mealies, he listened and ate. He liked the chapel of the station, because it was adorned with pictures and gilding and much frippery. Then the Reverend the Superior of the establishment wrote home to the 'Annals of the Faith' a letter in the most remarkable English ever penned. It was to this effect, 'that Ho-kee, a chieftain of the island of Ho-ha, having heard the verities which were at this time now inculcated at the mission of the Immaculate Joseph in Ho-hum, had left, like Abraham, his home, and had come, to seek the verity. This aborigine, passionated with a vivid desire to apprehend, had commenced to receive the holy instructions into a heart truly recognisant,' &c.

But, presently, the rival station of the Pure and Reformed Christians drew away the 'recognisant aborigine,' having offered him meat as well as mealies with its instructions. At this station the missionary laboured to divest his catechumen of the imprimitive and erroneous teaching in which his mind had been enveloped by the One-and-Onlies. And he wrote home, in good English, an account of the enlightened 'native chief Pokee, who had been unable to digest the erroneous doctrines of the sister Church of the One-and-Onlies, and whose soul was refreshed by the pure and primitive truths (divested of human accretions); but as some expense had been incurred,' &c. &c.