Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/506

 not always be contending. “What was the jelly made of, Jane, calves’ feet, or cow-heel?”

“Cow-heel.”

“There! papa found it out, or thought he did though I am sure the nicest palate in the world cannot tell the difference, when it’s well flavoured with wine and lemon. He said he wondered at you, Jane, putting him off with cow-heel. I was obliged to tell him it was calves’ foot, just to pacify him.”

Jane Chesney sighed deeply. “Calves’ feet are so very dear!” she said. “I did it for the best. If papa only knew the difficulty I have to go on at all.”

“And any one but you would let him know of the difficulty,” boldly returned Laura. But Jane only shook her head.

“Jane, have you heard from Clarice lately?” resumed Laura.

Miss Chesney lifted her eyes, somewhat in surprise. “Had I heard, Laura, I should not be likely to keep the fact from you. Why do you ask that question?”

“Papa says that you heard from her on Tuesday: that you told him so. I said you had not heard, and he immediately accused me of wanting to hide the news from him.”

“Papa says I told him I had heard from Clarice!” repeated Jane Chesney in astonishment.

“He says that you told him you heard on Tuesday.”

“Why, what can have caused papa to fancy such a thing? Stay,” she added, as a recollection seemed to come to her, “I know how the mistake must have arisen, I mentioned Clarice’s name to papa, hoping that he might be induced to break the barrier of silence and speak of her. I said I thought we should soon be hearing from her. That was on Tuesday.”

“Why do you think we shall soon be hearing from her?”

“Because—because”—Miss Chesney spoke with marked hesitation—“I had on Monday night so extraordinary a dream. I feel sure we shall hear from her before long.”

Laura Chesney burst into a laugh. “Oh, Jane, you’ll make me die of laughter some day, with those dreams of yours. Let us hear what it was.”

“No, Laura; you would only ridicule it.”

Lucy Chesney stole up to her eldest sister.

“Jane, tell me, do tell me; I shall not ridicule it, and I like to hear dreams.”

Jane shook her head in that decisive manner from which Lucy knew there was no appeal.

“It was not a pleasant dream, Lucy, and I shall not tell it. I was thinking very much of Clarice on Tuesday, in consequence of the dream, and I mentioned her name before papa. That is how the misapprehension must have occurred.”

“Was the dream about her?” asked Laura; and Jane Chesney did not detect the covert irony of the tone.

“Yes. But I should be sorry to tell it to any one: in fact, I could not. It was a dreadful dream; an awful dream.”

They were interrupted. A maid-servant opened the drawing-room door and put her head in. Rather a surly-looking sort of head.

“Miss Chesney, here’s that coachman come again. He is asking to see the captain.”

“Captain Chesney is ill, and cannot see any one,” imperiously answered Laura before Jane could speak. “Tell him so, Rhode.”

“It’s of little good my telling him, Miss Laura. He declares that he’ll stop there all night, but what he’ll see the captain, or some of the family. He bade me go in, and not waste my breath over him, for he shouldn’t take an answer from me.”

“I will go to him, Rhode,” said Jane, in a faint voice. “O Laura,” she added, sinking into her chair again as the maid retired, “how sick these things make me! I could almost rather die, than see these creditors whom I cannot pay.”

At that moment Captain Chesney’s stick was heard in full play, and his voice with it, shouting for Jane. He brooked no delay when he called, and Jane knew that she must run to him. “He may keep me a long while, Laura; I do not know what it may be for—I do wish he would let me sit with him, to be at hand. Laura, could you, for once, go out to this man?”

“If I must, I must,” replied Laura Chesney; “but I’d rather go a mile the other way. Though indeed, Jane, I have no more right to be exempt from these unpleasantnesses than you.”

“You could not manage with them as I do; you would grow angry and haughty with them,” returned Jane, as she ran up-stairs.

“Coming, coming, coming, dear papa,” she called out, for the stick was clattering furiously.

Miss Laura Chesney proceeded down the gravel walk which swept round the lawn, and looked over the gate. There stood a respectable-looking man in a velveteen dress. He was the proprietor of a fly in the neighbourhood, which Captain Chesney had extensively patronised, being rather given to driving about the country; but the captain had not been found so ready to pay. Apart from his straitened means, Captain Chesney possessed a sailor’s proverbial carelessness with regard to money it was not so much that he ran