CHAPTER XXXIX

THE BATH ASSEMBLY

The maid-servant at the house round the corner opened the door in response to a sharp ring and an imperious rap, though they came at an unprecedented hour at night.

She saw before her, by the flicker of the oil lamp overhead, a woman standing on the step.

On asking her business, she answered, 'I want to see Winefred Holwood.'

'_Miss_ Holwood,' said the maid, with emphasis. 'Miss Holwood is not at home. She has gone with our ladies to the Assembly Ball.'

'Assembly Ball! Where is that?'

'In the Assembly Rooms, of course.'

'But where are they?'

'Near the Circus.'

'How am I to find them?'

'You must go along Gay Street till you reach the Circus, then you turn to the right and see a building with pillars, between Bennett Street and Alfred Street.'

'I am a stranger in the place.'

'Can't you put off seeing Miss Holwood till to-morrow?'

'I cannot. I must see her. It is important.'

'What do you want with her?'

'I have come from Axmouth.'

'If you positively must,' said the maid, 'then there's no help for it. You will have to do one of two things, either wait till our ladies come home after midnight. They will not be late as our mistress is gone, and it is the first time for years――or else you can go with me to the Rooms. Did you say you had come from a great distance?'

'Yes, from Axmouth. I have walked all day, and more than one day.'

'Are you not tired?'

'I am too anxious to see her to be tired.'

'Well, you may step inside and sit down. I shall be going to the Assembly Rooms shortly myself with the shawls and clogs. Our ladies drove there, but are going to walk home.'

'How long before you go?'

'In an hour. I have a mind to see what I can of the dancers in their gay dresses and jewellery.'

'I would wish to go with you.'

'Come in, then, and be seated. Shall I give you a mouthful first? You must be hungry. We are about to have our supper, and you shall join us. That done, we will go.'

Jane Marley consented.

The girl was good-natured, simple, and fresh, but not devoid of curiosity. In the kitchen she observed the stranger woman, how dirt-soiled, weary, and dishevelled she was. Her clothes were of good material, in cut above those of the class of the domestic, and there was a distinction in the manner, and nobility in the face, that imposed on the girl.

'You will do up your hair and be shaken down a bit before you go,' said she, 'and slip off your shoes and I'll give them a brush up. You see――unless tidied, they are not likely to admit you.'

The girl endeavoured to extract some particulars from the stranger concerning herself and relative to her purpose in coming to Bath. But Jane was reticent. Her impatience was so manifest that the maid hurried over her work so as to be ready to start for the Assembly Rooms. And when she was prepared, she made Mrs. Marley assist in carrying the mantles and shawls.

'You see there are four of them,' she explained; 'the old lady I thought never would have gone out into Society again, but with this Miss Holwood she has made an exception. They say she's a regular beauty, and Mr. Wardroper comes here a lot, but whether it be after Miss Jesse or she――that's more than I can guess. Miss Holwood has a power of fine dresses――O my! you should see them, and they set her off beautiful. Her father, he's never tired of making her pretty presents, and she has the beautifullest gold watch.'

Mrs. Marley listened eagerly, as the girl ran on. And it was thus talking that they arrived at the Rooms, where they readily obtained admission as servants of Mrs. Tomkin-Jones.

Jane was bewildered at the light, the sound of music, the buzz of voices and tramp of feet, and the, to her, unwonted splendour of the surroundings.

The Bath Assembly Rooms are, perhaps, the best constructed in England. There is not a step or staircase throughout. Ballroom, octagon, card and tea rooms, all are on one level; and the suite is so contrived as to have four exits in the event of fire. A central cross with an octagonal vestibule adorned with columns gives access to the ballroom, great octagon, and tea-room. The whole was gilded, and sparkled with wax lights. We have advanced vast strides in illumination, but no amount of glare can compensate for the mellowness and beauty of the light that came from innumerable wax candles.

Into the principal portions of the building, the servants were not admitted; but they hung about the entrance to the vestibule, and were even allowed to encroach somewhat further, to invade the vestibule itself.

Jane penetrated to the pillars sustaining the entablature, and stood there, seeing the gleam of dresses as they flashed by the open door of the ballroom, and observing the dancers, who, heated or thirsty, came forth to sit or become cool, or enter the tea-room for refreshment.

There were benches in the octagonal vestibule against the wall, and near where Jane stood were a couple of elderly bucks, commenting on those who swept by, or exchanging opinions on the difference in style in the woman of the present from the past.

'By the way, Gorges,' said one of these in a blue coat with brass buttons and white waistcoat, 'what is your opinion of the newcomer?'

'I should say that Audrey had slipped into Rosalind's cast clothes.'

'Ah! a case of female Christopher Sly.'

'For shame! That is not fair. There is nothing coarse about her――only rustic and piquante.'

'Piquante she is, I hear――with her tongue.'

'Do you know her father?'

'Holwood,' replied Gorges. 'Can't say I do――he is or has been in the Foreign Office. Eminently fitted for his post, I should say.'

'I hear he has come in for money, through the death of an aunt.'

'It is a deuced shame that some men have all the luck in this world and some none. Why should he come in for money and a beautiful daughter? By Gad! Look at my three rose-buds! Old and cankered every one. I can't dispose of them, because I cannot, like the Pope, offer my roses of gold.'

'I am like Henry IV. of Germany. Thank God I have none to dispose of. I find it difficult enough to dispose of myself in an easy-chair.'

Jane but partially understood what was said. The allusions escaped her altogether.

Turning to the girl who had accompanied her, she whispered: 'I shall never know her――never in the dress she will be wearing.'

'I will point her out to you,' said the maid. 'Here come some. The waltz is over. Stand back, they will pass this way.'

'Hang it, Gorges,' said the man in blue; 'we shall have to vacate our seats. I'd go into the cardroom, but, dem it, I dare not touch cards――I never win, never; and to lose eternally is not fun.'

The maid touched Jane. 'She is coming on her father's arm.'

Mrs. Marley drew back, a spike as of ice pierced her heart. For a moment she said nothing. Before her rose a blue vapour, like wood smoke, and the lights died away to mere sparks.

She was about to see him, after a lapse of many years, whom she had once loved with her passionate heart, but now abhorred; the man who had desolated her life and now proposed to render it absolutely desert by bereaving her of her child.

It was as though a vast gulf opened before her, and she looked across it at the man who had once been so near to her――the gulf of time that had swallowed up her youth and all her happiness.

She could dimly perceive in the haze a middle-aged man, spruce, with hair curled and shining, high white collars, and a spotless neckcloth, a cream silk uncrumpled waistcoat, and a face bland, with a fine complexion. Slowly, as from a swoon, she rallied. It was the pressure on her arm of the maid's hand that recovered her and brought her back from the region of dream.

'There, there!'

She saw before her a beautiful girl, with low dress and bare arms, gloved hands, in white, with no other colour about her than a rose in her hair and a coral and gold necklet――a girl, lovely, far surpassing all that Jane could have imagined.

A cry of joy; and, in a moment――

'Mother! mother!'

She was clasped in the arms of this girl, her burning cheeks were kissed, and she was enveloped in a cloud of white muslin, and in an atmosphere of heliotrope.

Jane Marley hastily disengaged herself and thrust Winefred aside. She looked about her with flashing eye, and had reared herself proudly.

A circle had formed around them, a second ring was behind, composed of others looking over the shoulders of those in the first row, then again others, packing in from behind――a circle, a mass, a rising wave of faces and forms, beaux with eyeglasses lifted, ladies in ball dresses, fans fluttering. The orchestra had ceased. The drift was through the vestibule to the tea-room. There were curiosity, malice, surprise in every face.

Jane looked from one to another.

'It is not true,' she said slowly, distinctly, deliberately. 'I am _not_ her mother. I am her old nurse. I am nothing but the nurse. But she has a good heart, a heart of gold, and she loves me. Look at me, then look at her. It is her condescension to stoop to such as me. I thank you, miss. I am obleeged for the flattering recognition.'

'For mercy's sake, not a scene!' exclaimed Jesse Jones, thrusting herself through the ring. 'Here, quick. Into this little room; it is empty. You obstruct the promenaders.' And with tact and energy, the girl pressed Winefred, her father and Mrs. Marley into a small apartment, shut the door, and planted herself without as a guard.

Then with a laugh Jesse said to those who looked and whispered and wondered, 'The old goodie is delighted to see the child she nursed. Give them leave a while. It will be a dream of delight for the woman's after-life. Pray move on.'

The room into which the three had been thrust so unceremoniously was poorly illumined by two wax candles on the table. It had been intended as a place to which cronies might retreat to gossip or talk politics, and perhaps also to which couples might retire for the making and answering the eventful proposal.

There was stillness within, after the noise without. Jane looked hastily around, and seeing that there was no one else present, said to Winefred with vehemence, 'My child! my child! They shall not take you from me that I never see you more.'

'Mother, no. They shall not.'

'And you did not write that it was with your consent?'

'With my consent!'

'That I should be pensioned off and moved away, so that we might never, never meet again, that I might never, never see your face more.'

'Mother, I could not write that, you know it. Nothing would make me do such a thing.'

'I felt here,' said the woman, surging up, as she pressed her hands to her heart, 'I felt here that it could not be. But yet I was uneasy. I could not say――among grand folk, what had been spoken and done to wean you away. I thought that you might feel that I lowered you.'

'Never,' exclaimed Winefred, and turned sharply about to face her father. 'Who wrote that?'

'It was he, then,' said Mrs. Marley, 'he who has been my woe from the moment I came to know him.'

'I――I wrote nothing,' faltered Mr. Holwood; 'I am quite innocent in this matter. I believe it was Mrs. Tomkin-Jones who wrote.'

'You did not write with your hand, but with hers,' said Jane wrathfully. 'You admit, you know that she wrote. It was you. Cursed be the tongue that proved my undoing, cursed be the heart that devised this new cruelty.'

'Mother!' entreated Winefred, and she put her hand on Jane Marley's mouth.

'Look, look!' cried the outraged woman, thrusting her aside, 'see him sidle towards the door, instead of facing what is unpleasing. That has ever been his way. He has thrust himself into situations that were uncomfortable, into associations that proved irksome, has contracted ties that galled him, and he has never had the courage to accept the consequences of his own acts. As soon as all is not easy and troubles begin, he sneaks away like a coward――a coward that he is. He will never do that which is right, if right weighs over a couple of ounces. Coward! you who took from me my young hopes will take from me now my child. He contrived it; he is too mean to admit it. No!' She threw herself between the man and the door. 'He now seeks only how he may slip away. Coward, listen to what I have to say. Hide behind the window curtains, will you! I rejoice there is so much shame left in you. Listen. I ask of you one thing alone, and with that alone will I be content. I do not say acknowledge me! Whether I be your wife or no, God and the law alone can tell. Not that. That I do not desire. Nothing on earth would bring me to acknowledge _you_. That is what it has arrived at now, I scorn, hate you, so that no power could make me hold out this right hand and say "husband!" to so despicable a wretch. See. I have on the wedding-ring that you once gave me in the ruined church, blessed by the unfrocked parson. I pluck it off and cast it from me.'

With trembling fingers she suited the action to the word, and the little gold hoop rolled to his feet.

'I should despise myself to think that I were linked for the remainder of my life to such as you. No, no, no! I desire nothing of you, not your name, not your money, not your protection. I can elbow my way along without aid from such a grasshopper as you. But there is one thing I will not endure, that you should tear my child from me. I know that she is a lady, and a lady let her remain. I will never do a thing to lower her before the world. And it is because I will not be parted from her that I humble myself to make one request of you. I do not ask you to let her acknowledge me as her mother. I am undeserving of that. But I do ask, let me see her, let me hear her talk, let me be near her, and for that I will be a scullery-maid in your house.'

'Mother!'

'Let me speak. My heart is bursting. I shall die if you interrupt. You say that I am a violent woman, unfit to be with other servants, impossible in a house. Try me. Let me be near her, and you shall see. You will find me docile and meek. I will give no offence. I will do nothing, nothing to render myself unendurable. You say I am a raging fire. I have been, I am now but a heap of grey ash with one spark in it――my love for Winefred. Let me smoulder away where she can breathe on the spark; it will only flame into more love for her. I ask no more. I will be speechless in your house if you will――but see her I must. I must look on her, as she moves, like a lady that she is――but I will not approach her to soil her with my touch. Only now and then, when there be none to see, let me kiss the tip of her fingers. I will go down on my knees to ask for this――but I will take nothing less.' Her voice was hoarse with emotion. 'Part from her I will not.'

'Mother,' interposed Winefred, 'I have a word to say. My father had not the purpose that you attribute to him. He spoke no word about it. He never hinted at any such thing. There has been a mistake somewhere. You are hard upon him, too hard. He has been indulgent to me, he could not have been more kind. Whenever he has spoken of you, it has been with a tremble in his voice, and I know that his heart has been full. I do not believe that he has ever forgotten you, ever ceased to love you. Now, dear mother, set your mind at rest. Parted we shall not be, and in token of that I will go home with you to-morrow.'

Mr. Holwood came hesitatingly forward and raised his hand in deprecation.

'There is no occasion,' said Mrs. Marley. 'I have seen you. That suffices. Stay on. You are learning much here.'

'Mother, I also have a longing to be with you――if for a few weeks only. I have spent some little time with my father. It is right that now I should be with you. If he loves me, and he finds that he also cannot do without me, then he will come to Bindon Undercliff and fetch me thence, to take me back to Bath.'

Then Winefred put her arms round her mother and kissed her.

'How you love me!' she said.

She disengaged herself, and putting her arms round the neck of her father she said: 'And you, father, have come to love me.'

'Yes.'

'Surely, father, if you love me; and you, mother, if you also love me, you cannot hate each other.'