Chapter 14

THE OLD COUNTESS AND HER SERVANT.

The next morning Mrs. Yates was early at the park-gate. She found no trouble in passing through now, and was soon in the avenue, making slow progress toward the castle, under the shade of those vast oaks and chestnuts. The way was long, and the avenue swept upward with what, to the old woman, was a toilsome ascent. The bag, which she carried in her hand, was of some weight, too, and the cramped inaction of so many years had rendered walking a slow and painful process.

At last she stood in full view of that grand old building--a castle of the olden times--kept, so far as possible to elegance or comfort, in its ponderous mediæval grandeur. But Madam Art had softened all its ruder features. Plate-glass was sunk into those thick walls; circular rooms in those twin towers, commanded a splendid view of the valley, over which the castle was built. The broad stone terrace connecting the towers, and fronting the main building was connected with a velvet lawn by a forest of hot-house plants, that clung around the stone parapet in a sumptuous garland of vines and flowers, that shed a soft and delicious fragrance over everything in and around the building.

Across this lawn and over the stone terrace the old woman toiled toward the main entrance. She was beginning to tremble now with something beside weariness. Her satchel bore down the feeble hand that carried it, till it dragged along the stones with a low, rasping sound, as she climbed the terrace-steps. She lifted the ponderous bronze knocker, and let it fall from her shaking hand with a crash that startled herself, and brought a man, all glittering in silver gray and scarlet, to the door, where he stood, with his insolent lips ajar, waiting to know what miracle had brought that forlorn creature to the grand entrance of Houghton Castle.

"I wish to speak with the countess."

That sweet old voice could not counteract the effect of her dress and worn satchel. The parted lips of the man in scarlet fell together, and drooped scornfully down at the corners.

"There is a proper entrance for servants and village-people," said this high functionary, with his powdered head thrown back.

"I know," answered the woman, quietly; "but I wish to see my lady, and do not care to seek her from the servants' hall. Go to her and say that Hannah Yates, an old servant of the family, is below, waiting to see her."

The man hesitated. Then the old woman stepped softly into the hall, passing him so suddenly that he drew back aghast.

"If you will not go, I must find the way for myself," she said, still in a voice so gentle that he could take little offence at it.

Her composure rather disturbed the man, who gave his powdered head a toss, and mounted the broad oaken staircase, with an indignant swell of the chest. Through a long passage, carpeted with the thickness of forest turf, he went, giving forth no sound till he opened a door in one of the lower chambers, and, sweeping a curtain of crimson silk back with his arm, announced the name that old woman had given him at the door.

Something lying under the rich colors of a great India shawl moved quickly; the shawl dropped to the floor, and a little old woman sat up on the couch where she had been resting.

"Yates--Hannah Yates? Did you say Yates, Henry?"

"That was the name, my lady."

"An old woman like me?"

"Old enough, my lady; but Heaven forbid I should say like your ladyship. I could not force myself to do it."

"Bring her here, Henry."

The door closed, and the old countess drew herself gradually upright.

She was a pale, little woman, with hair as soft and white as the delicate lace that fell like a spider's web over it. The child-like hands, which lay in relief among the folds of her black-satin dress, were withered in their whiteness, like the leaves of a frost-bitten lily. They were quivering, too; and now that she was alone, you might have seen that delicate head begin to vibrate with a slow, perpetual motion, which had been stopped a moment by the surprise which had fallen upon her. She sat with her eyes on the curtain, which shut the door from view. The trembling of her head extended to her whole body, and her small feet pattered freely on the carpet, like those of a child in the impotence of sickness.

As she looked the red curtain was lifted, and into the luxurious splendor of that room came a tall, old woman, who was trembling like herself, and stood in her presence, apparently afraid to look up.

The old countess arose from her couch, trampling the India shawl under her feet, and moved with feeble slowness toward her strange visitor.

"Hannah Yates!"

At these words the down prison-look that had fallen upon Hannah was lifted from her, and those large gray eyes were bent on the little patrician with a look of intense mournfulness.

"My mistress!"

"Hannah Yates, I never expected to see you again on this earth, and now you come before me like a ghost."

"Ah, my mistress," answered the old servant, with pathetic humility. "I am a ghost of the woman who once loved and served you."

"And I? Look upon me, Yates. How have God and time dealt with your mistress? Has my head been respected more than yours?"

They stood for a moment looking solemnly at each other--that tall, stately woman, born a peasant, and the delicate, proud, sensitive peeress, whose blue blood rolled through a series of dead greatness back to the Conqueror. The contrast was touching. Both had begun to stoop at the shoulders, both had suffered, and they were as far apart in station as social power could place them; but a host of memories linked them together, and the common sympathies of humanity thrilled in the hearts of both with such pain and pleasure that, unconsciously, the little withered hand of the countess clasped that of her old servant.

"Come in, Yates, and sit down. You are trembling, poor old soul! The world must have gone hard with you when the touch of my hand makes you shiver so. Sit down. We are both old women now, and may rest ourselves together."

So the woman, whose last home had been a convict's cell, and the lady whose head had always been sheltered beneath the roofs of a palace, sat down and looked, with sad timidity, at each other. Still the feeling of caste was strong in the servant. She had drawn an ottoman up to the couch, and placed herself on that; but not until she had taken the shawl from the carpet, and placed it around her mistress, did she thus sit down, as it were, at her feet.

"Where did you come from, Hannah Yates?"

"From America. I came from the ship three days ago."

At the word America the old countess shrank back, and held out her hands, as if to avoid a blow. After a little she spoke again, but it was now with a voice sharp with pain.

"Yates, did you in America ever know anything of my child?"

The anguish in that voice startled Hannah Yates, and her old face whitened. How much did the mistress know? If little, perfect candor might kill her. She had not come there to wound an old woman with the horrors that had darkened her life; so she answered, cautiously:

"Yes, I saw Lady Hope more than once after she came to America."

"Thank God!" exclaimed the countess. "I may now learn how and when she died."

"I was not with her when she died," answered the servant, in a low voice.

"But you saw her before?"

"Yes, I saw her often."

"And the child?"

"Yes; the child was with me a good deal."

"Yates, was my child happy in that strange land?"

"How can I answer that, my lady?"

"Did you see Hope there?"

"Once, only once, and that for a moment."

"And you can tell me no particulars. You have no information to give me with regard to the woman who is Lord Hope's wife?"

"Of her I know but little. Remember, my lady, I am but a servant."

"You were my child's nurse. I never looked on you as a common servant, but rather as a faithful friend. So did my poor child. When I learned she was in the same country with you and her foster-brother, my heart was somewhat at rest. But her letters were so studied, so unsatisfactory; yet there was nothing in them of sadness or complaint. Only this, Yates, she never mentioned her husband, not once! I should hardly have known that he was with her but for the letter in which he told me that I was a childless old woman."

Mrs. Yates drew a long, heavy sigh. She understood now that the secret of that awful tragedy in New York had been kept from her old mistress, and resolved that it never should reach her--never while her will could keep back the horrible truth.

"My lady," she said, with an effort, "there is one thing which our--which my young mistress bade me bring to you if--if she should not live to place them in your own hands herself. It is this which brought me across the ocean."

As she spoke, Mrs. Yates took up the leathern satchel, which lay against her feet, and opened its rusty clasp with her trembling hands. She drew forth a casket from the scant garments it contained, and, still kneeling on the floor, opened it. A blaze of diamonds broke up from the box. The old countess uttered a feeble cry, and clasped two quivering hands over her eyes.

"She was troubled about bringing them out of England, and sent them to her foster-mother with this letter."

"Is there a letter? Yates, give it to me!"

Mrs. Yates reached forth the letter, which had begun to turn yellow with age.

The countess took it, and attempted to open her glasses; but those little hands trembled so fearfully that she could not loosen the gold which clasped them in.

"Read it for me. I cannot! I cannot!"

Two great tears trembled out of the pain in that aged heart, and fell upon her cheeks like frost upon the white leaves of a withered rose.

Hannah Yates read the letter--a sweet, touching epistle, full of mournful affection, which that murdered lady had written only a few days before her death, when some presentiment of coming evil was no doubt upon her. The diamonds were her mother's, she wrote, and had only crossed the ocean with her because of the haste with which the voyage to America had been arranged. Fearing for their safety, she was about to intrust them to her foster-mother, who had promised to bring them back to England with her own hands, if any evil should fall upon her, or if her sojourn in America was protracted.

"The jewels which belong to the Carset estate, and the child, which will inherit them, I entrust to my dear foster-mother, when I am gone, and I sometimes think that we may never meet again, my mother. This good woman will bring the diamonds, which I will not have endangered, and will tell you about the child, dearer to me than my own life, nay, than my own soul! Tell Lord Hope, if he should seek to take her, that it was the dying wish of his wife that her child should pass at once into the protection of her own most beloved mother, when Hannah Yates brings her to England. I think he will not deny this to a woman who has loved him better, oh! how much better! than herself--who would die, if she could, rather than be in the way of his happiness. Give him this letter. I think he will not deny the last request I may ever make of him. I will not say farewell, my mother, because the gloom that is upon me in this strange land may be only the homesickness of a heart separated from those it loves. But, if this is given to you by my foster-mother, know that a cloud of gloom has settled down upon me forever."

This much fell upon the ears of the countess as she held her breath and listened.

When Hannah Yates folded the letter, she felt that a gleam of angry fire broke into the eyes bent upon her.

"Yates," said the countess, sharply, "read the date of that letter."

The old servant read the date.

"Fourteen years and more! Why was that letter kept from me so long?"

"I could not bring it."

"I know you were not young even then, Yates; but your son, my own protege! Surely, when my poor child gave you this charge, she gave money also? Why was the child kept from me and sent to that man?"

"Yes, there was money; but my son could not come. We had no power to bring her."

"Then Hope took her from you by force?" questioned the countess. "Where is your son, Yates? He was wrong to permit it!"

"With my young lady."

"Dead! Then you, also, are childless?"

Hannah Yates remembered how the news of her bereavement had reached her in that stone cell which was cold as a grave, and shuddered while the lady in her palace questioned her. Then the old prison-look fell upon her, and she sat motionless, with her eyes upon the floor, saying nothing. How could she explain to that proud lady the bondage in which she had been held?

"Ah! if you had come earlier," said the countess, "the child of my child might have been here! That man would not have dared to keep her! She would not have been taught to return my advances with insolence by his evil wife."

"I _could_ not come before," repeated the old woman, humbly.

"And now it may be too late."

"God forbid!" said the old woman. "No! no! He will show me how to complete my task. It is for that I have been kept alive."

"Yates, you are brave and faithful. I was wrong to question you so. Forgive me, old servant."

Mrs. Yates took the child-like hand held out to her and pressed it to her lips.

"I have tried, dear mistress."

"Go, now, old friend, and let me have time to think. Only this is certain, we do not part again."

"Mistress, that cannot be. I have yet a task to perform. It may be many, many miles to travel. When that is done, I will come back and spend the few days left to me here. Oh, it seems like home--it seems like Heaven to sit within the sound of your voice once more! But I must depart at once."

"Where, old friend?"

"I do not know yet; but God will direct me."

"As I trust that He will direct me," answered the countess, lifting her eyes in momentary prayer. "Yates, you will never know what fearful suspicions have haunted me--how hard and bitter they have made me. Oh, had this letter come earlier!"

"I could not! I could not!"

"I know that, knowing you."

Hannah Yates lifted her grateful eyes for a moment, and dropped them again.

"Now that I am free from the weight of these," she said, lifting the casket in her hands, "the toil of my errand will be less."

The countess looked wistfully into the box, and shook her head.

"I have been unjust. I have accused that woman falsely. Until this moment, Yates, I have not hesitated to proclaim my belief that the woman they call Lady Hope had possessed herself of these diamonds as she had won my daughter's husband. This is a wrong which wounds me to the soul. It must be atoned for."

Hannah Yates moved toward the door, but heavily, and with the reluctance of a woman whose strength had been overtasked. The old countess sat gazing upon the jewels. How trivial and worthless they seemed to her now! Yet the retention of these very diamonds had been a great cause of offence against Lord Hope's second wife. How unjust, how cruel she had been in this! Was it possible that, in other things, she had been equally mistaken? She took up her daughter's letter and read it over. The first shock of its reception had passed away, and nothing but the quivering of the head remained of the fearful agitation that had shook her little form like a reed.

Hannah Yates stood near the curtain, regarding her with a look of yearning sympathy. How much she had suffered--how terribly she had struggled to save that delicate creature from deeper sorrow--no human being but herself would ever know; but the thought filled her heart with infinite tenderness. She stepped back to the couch, took the hand which lay in the lap of her old mistress, and kissed it.

The old lady lifted her eyes from the letter. They were full of tears--those painful, cold tears which come in such scant drops to the aged.

"Your hands are cold; you look tired. Ring for some wine and biscuit. That poor, white face is a reproach to your mistress, Yates."

"Yes, I will take some wine and bread before I go--it will make me strong; but not here! not here!"

Again the old countess turned to that letter, motioning with her hand that Yates should stay; but the old woman did not see that gentle motion of the hand--her eyes, also, were full of tears.

When the Countess of Carset had thrice perused her daughter's letter, she laid it down, and resting her hand tenderly upon it, fell into thought.

She was a proud but just woman, on whose haughty power old age had fallen like dew, softening all that was imperious, and shading down strong personal pride into thoughtful mercy.

But for some injustice that she had to repent of, this simple, affectionate letter, coming as it were from the grave, would have aroused nothing but tender grief. It contained no complaint of the man she had married--did not even mention the governess, who now filled her place; and the possibility that she had terribly wronged these two persons dawned steadily upon her.

She looked up at last, and spoke to Hannah Yates; but there was no answer. The old woman was on her road to the railroad station, burdened only with a secret she dared not reveal, and the gold which had been saved with the diamonds.