Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/697

 without a battle. "Do consider it for an instant, papa; will it not be best that, under the circumstances, I should go quietly without the parade of servants and a carriage?"

"What do you mean by 'under the circumstances'?"

Jane unconsciously dropped her voice. "As Clarice has stooped to take upon herself the office of a governess, I think she should come away from her place as such."

"No," said the earl, decisively. "She shall come away as Lady Clarice Chesney."

"There is one thing to be remembered," observed Jane, feeling that further opposition to the carriage would be useless. "She may not be able to come away with me. She may have to give warning first—a week's or a month's."

The suggestion angered the earl, and he lifted his stick menacingly.

"Not leave without warning! Let them dare to keep her. Tell the people who she is. Tell them who I am, and that I demand her."

"Dearest papa," Jane ventured to remonstrate, "courtesy is due and must be observed to Clarice's employers. She has contracted to perform certain duties in their house; and to quit them at a moment's notice may be scarcely practicable. They may concede the point to me as a favour, but it will not do to demand it as a right."

"But I want her here," said the earl, who, now that he had broken the ice, was longing for Clarice's return with all the impatience of a child.

"And so do I want her," returned Jane; "and I will bring her away with me if I can. If not, the period of her return shall be fixed."

Jane quitted the room. She put on her things, a white bonnet and black mantle trimmed with crape, and then went to the study where sat Lucy and Miss Lethwait: the former wishing that the German language had never been invented for her especial torment; the latter showing up the faults in a certain exercise in the most uncompromising manner.

"Oh Jane! are you going out?" came the weary plaint, "You said I was to go with you to-day to the Botanical Gardens!"

"Yes, later; I will not forget."

"Lucy says you wish the hour for her walking changed, Lady Jane," spoke up the governess.

"I think it would be more agreeable to you and to her," said Jane, "now that the weather has set in so hot. Lady Lucy is one who feels the heat much."

Jane was conscious that her tone was cold, that her words were haughty. Lady Lucy! She could not account for the feeling of reserve that was stealing over her in regard to Miss Lethwait, or why it should be so strong.

She went down to the carriage, which waited at the door, and was driven away. A grand carriage, resplendent in its coroneted panels, its hammer-cloth, and its servants with their wigs, their powder, their gold-headed canes. Jane quite shrank from the display, considering the errand upon which she was bent.

She had no difficulty whatever in finding the library she was in search of, and was driven to it. But she had a difficulty in her way of another sort: she knew not by what name to inquire for her sister. Clarice had desired her to address her letters "Miss Chesney," but told her at the same time that it was not the name by which she was known. Jane went into the shop and the proprietor came forward.

"Can you tell me where a young lady resides of the name of Chesney?" she inquired. "She is a governess in a family."

"Chesney?—Chesney?" was the answer, spoken in consideration, "No, ma'am; I do not know any one of the name."

Jane paused. "Some letters have been occasionally addressed here for her; for Miss Chesney; and I believe she used to fetch them away herself."

"Oh, yes, that was Miss Beauchamp," was the answer, the speaker's face lighting up with awakened remembrance. "I beg your pardon, ma'am; I thought you said Miss Chesney. The letters were addressed to a Miss Chesney, and Miss Beauchamp used to come for them."

Beauchamp! The problem was solved at once, and Jane wondered at her own stupidity in not solving it before. What more natural than that Clarice should take her second name—Beauchamp? She was named Clarice Beauchamp Chesney. And Jane had strayed amid a whole directory of names over and over again, without the most probable one ever occurring to her mind.

"Thank you, yes;" she said; "Miss Beauchamp. Can you direct me to her residence?"

"No, ma'am, I really cannot," was the reply. "Miss Beauchamp was governess in two families in succession, both of them residing in Gloucester Terrace, but I do not think she stayed long at either. She was at Mrs. Lorton's first, and at Mrs. West's afterwards."

Jane had not known that; Clarice had never told her of having changed her situation.

"I suppose we must both be speaking of the same person!" she suddenly cried. "Perhaps you will describe her to me?"

"Willingly," answered the librarian. And the description was so accurate that Jane instantly recognised it for her sister's.