CHAPTER II.
_STEPMOTHER AND NURSE._
The rumour of sir Wilton's marriage was, as rumour seldom is, correct.
Before the year was out, lady Ann Hardy, sister to the earl of Torpavy,
representing an old family with a drop or two of very bad blood in it,
became lady Ann Lestrange How much love there may have been in the
affair, it is unnecessary to inquire, seeing the baronet was what he was,
and the lady understood the _what_ pretty well. She might have preferred
a husband not so much what sir Wilton was, but she was nine-and-twenty,
and her brother was poor. She said to herself, I suppose, that she might
as well as another undertake his reform: some one must! and married him.
She had not much of a trousseau, but was gorgeously attired for the
wedding. It is true she had to return to the earl three-fourths of the
jewels she wore; but they were family jewels, and why should she not have
some good of them? She started with fifty pounds of her own in her
pocket, and a demeanour in her person equal to fifty millions. When they
arrived at Mortgrange, the moon was indeed still in the sky, but the
honey-pot, to judge by the appearance of the twain, was empty: twain they
were, and twain would be. The man wore a look of careless all-rightness,
tinged with an expression of indifferent triumph: he had what he wanted;
what his lady might think of her side of the bargain, he neither thought
nor cared. As to the woman, let her reflections be what they might, not a
soul would come to the knowledge of them. Whatever it was to others, her
pale, handsome face was never false to herself, never betrayed what she
was thinking, never broke the shallow surface of its frozen dignity. Will
any man ever know how a woman of ordinary decency feels after selling
herself? I find the thing hardly safe to ponder. No trace, no shadow of
disappointment clouded the countenance of lady Ann that sultry summer
afternoon as she drove up the treeless avenue. The education she had
received--and education in the worst sense it was! for it had brought out
the worst in her--had rendered her less than human. The form of her
earthly presence had been trained to a fashionable perfection; her nature
had not been left unaided in its reversion toward the vague animal type
from which it was developed: in the curve of her thin lips as they
prepared to smile, one could discern the veiled snarl and bite. Her eyes
were grey, her eyebrows dark; her complexion was a clear fair, her nose
perfect, except for a sharp pinch at the end of the bone; her nostrils
were thin but motionless; her chin was defective, and her throat as
slender as her horrible waist; her hands and feet were large even for
"her tall personage."
After his lady had had a cup of tea, sir Wilton, for something to do,
proposed taking her over the house, which was old, and worthy of
inspection. In their progress they came to a door at the end of a long
and rather tortuous passage. Sir Wilton did not know how the room was
occupied, or he would doubtless have passed it by; but as its windows
gave a fine view of the park, he opened the door, and lady Ann entered.
Sudden displeasure shortened her first step; pride or something worse
lengthened the next, as she bore down on a woman too much occupied with a
child on her knee to look up at the sound of her entrance. When, a moment
after, she did look up, the dreaded stepmother was looking straight down
on her baby. Their eyes encountered. Jane met an icy stare, and lady Ann
a gaze of defiance--an expression by this time almost fixed on the face
of the nurse, for in her spirit she heard every unspoken remark on her
child. Not a word did the lady utter, but to Jane, her eyes, her very
breath seemed to say with scorn, "Is _that_ the heir?" Sir Wilton did not
venture a single look: he was ashamed of his son, and already a little
afraid of his wife, whom he had once seen close her rather large teeth
in a notable way. As she turned toward the window, however, he stole
a glance at his offspring: the creature was not quite so ugly as
before--not quite so repulsive as he had pictured him! But, good heavens!
he was on the lap of the same woman whose fierceness had upset him almost
as much as his child's ugliness! He walked to the window after his wife.
She gazed for a moment, turned with indifference, and left the room. Her
husband followed her. A glance of fear, dislike, and defiance, went after
them from Jane.
Stronger contrast than those two women it would be hard to find. Jane's
countenance was almost coarse, but its rugged outline was almost grand.
Her hair grew low down on her forehead, and she had deep-set eyes. Her
complexion was rough, her nose large and thick. Her mouth was large also,
but, when unaffected by her now almost habitual antagonism, the curve of
her lip was sweet, and occasionally humorous. Her chin was strong, and
the total of her face what we call masculine; but when she silently
regarded her child, it grew beautiful with the radiant tenderness of
protection.
Her visitors left the door open behind them; Jane rose and shut it, sat
down again, and gazed motionless at the infant. Perhaps he vaguely
understood the sorrow and dread of her countenance, for he pulled a long
face of his own, and was about to cry. Jane clasped him to her bosom in
an agony: she felt certain she would not long be permitted to hold him
there. In the silent speech of my lady's mouth, her jealous love saw the
doom of her darling. What precise doom she dared not ask herself; it was
more than enough that she, indubitably his guardian as if sent from
heaven to shield him, must abandon him to his natural enemy, one who
looked upon him as the adversary of her own children. It was a thought
not to be thought, an idea for which there should be no place in her
bosom! Unfathomable as the love between man and woman is the love of
woman to child.
She spent a wakeful night. From the decree of banishment sure to go forth
against her, there was no appeal! Go she must! Yet her heart cried out
that he was her own. In the same lap his mother had lain before him! She
had carried her by day, and at night folded her in the same arms, herself
but six years old--old enough to remember yet the richness unspeakable of
her new possession. Never had come difference betwixt them until Robina
began to give ear to sir Wilton, whom Jane could not endure. When she
responded, as she did at once, to her sister's cry for her help, she made
her promise that no one should understand who she was, but that she
should in the house be taken for and treated as a hired nurse. Why Jane
stipulated thus, it were hard to say, but so careful were they both, that
no one at Mortgrange suspected the nurse as personally interested in the
ugly heir left in her charge! No one dreamed that the child's aunt had
forsaken her husband to nurse him, and was living _for_ him day and
night. She, in her turn, had promised her sister never to leave him, and
this pledge strengthened the bond of her passion. The only question was
_how_ she was to be faithful to her pledge, _how_ to carry matters when
she was turned away. With those thin, close-pressed lips in her mind's
eye, she could not count on remaining where she was beyond a few days.
She was not only a woman capable of making up her mind, but a woman of
resource, with the advantage of having foreseen and often pondered the
possibility of that which was now imminent. The same night, silent above
the sleep of her darling, she sat at work with needle and scissors far
into the morning, remodelling an old print dress. For nights after, she
was similarly occupied, though not a scrap or sign of the labour was
visible in the morning.
The crisis anticipated came within a fortnight. Lady Ann did not show
herself a second time in the nursery, but sending for Jane, informed her
that an experienced nurse was on her way from London to take charge of
the child, and her services would not be required after the next morning.
"For, of course," concluded her ladyship, "I could not expect a woman of
your years to take an under-nurse's place!"
"Please your ladyship, I will gladly," said Jane, eager to avoid or at
least postpone the necessity forcing itself upon her.
"I intend you to go--and _at once_," replied her ladyship; "--that is,
the moment Mrs. Thornycroft arrives. The housekeeper will take care that
you have your month's wages in lieu of warning."
"Very well, my lady!--Please, your ladyship, when may I come and see the
child?"
"Not at all. There is no necessity."
"Never, my lady?"
"Decidedly."
"Then at least I may ask why you send me away so suddenly!"
"I told you that I want a properly qualified nurse to take your place. My
wish is to have the child more immediately under my own eye than would be
agreeable if you kept your place. I hope I speak plainly!"
"Quite, my lady."
"And let me, for your own sake, recommend you to behave more respectfully
when you find another place."
What she was doing lady Ann was incapable of knowing. A woman
love-brooding over a child is at the gate of heaven; to take her child
from her is to turn her away from more than paradise.
Jane went in silence, seeming to accept the inevitable, too proud to wipe
away the tear whose rising she could not help--a tear not for herself,
nor yet for the child, but for the dead mother in whose place she left
such a woman. She walked slowly back to the nursery, where her charge was
asleep, closed the door, sat down by the cot, and sat for a while without
moving. Then her countenance began to change, and slowly went on
changing, until at last, as through a mist of troubled emotion, out upon
the strong, rugged face broke, with strange suggestion of a sunset, the
glow of resolve and justified desire. A maid more friendly than the rest
brought her some tea, but Jane said nothing of what had occurred. When
the child awoke, she fed him, and played with him a long time--till he
was thoroughly tired, when she undressed him, and laying him down, set
about preparing his evening meal. No one could have perceived in her any
difference, except indeed it were a subdued excitement in her glowing
eyes. When it was ready, she went to her box, took from it a small
bottle, and poured a few dark-coloured drops into the food.
"God forgive me! it's but this once!" she murmured.
The child seemed not quite to relish his supper, but did not refuse it,
and was presently asleep in her arms. She laid him down, took a book, and
began to read.
