Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/727

 coldly civil tone. “It will not inconvenience you, I hope, to leave to-day.”

To say that Miss Lethwait gazed at Lady Jane in consternation, would be saying little. Never for a moment had she feared her to have been in any way cognisant of the previous night’s little episode in the smoking-room; she had but supposed this present summons had reference to some matter or other connected with Lucy. The words fell upon her like a shock, and she could only stand in astonishment.

“I beg your pardon, Lady Jane,” she said, when she found her tongue. "Leave, did you say? Leave to-day!”

“You will oblige me by so doing,” calmly replied Jane.

Miss Lethwait stood before Lady Jane in silence. That calmness is so difficult to contend against! She might have met it better had her ladyship only been in a passion.

“May I ask the reason of this sudden dismissal?” she at length murmured, with a rush of fear that Lady Jane must have been in some obscure corner of the smoking-room and seen the kiss.

“I would prefer that you did not ask me the reason,” replied Jane.

“Possibly you might find it in your own conscience if you searched. There are things which to the refined mind are derogatory even to think of, utterly obnoxious to speak upon. I had deemed you a gentlewoman, Miss Lethwait. I am grieved that I was mistaken and I bitterly regret having placed you in charge of Lady Lucy Chesney.”

All that Miss Lethwait possessed of fiery anger rose up to boiling heat. Lady Jane’s tone was so stinging, so quietly contemptuous: as if she, the governess, were no longer worthy of any other. The taunt as to the gentlewoman told home.

Retorting words rose to her tongue; but ere the lips gave utterance to them, prudence came to her, and they were choked down. A scene now with Lady Jane, and she might never be the Countess of Oakburn. The scarlet hue of emotion tinged her cheek, deep and glowing, as it had on the previous night; but she compelled herself to endure, and stood in silence.

“There is due to you a balance of six pounds,” resumed Jane; “and five pounds in lieu of the customary month’s warning will make it eleven. In justice I believe I ought also to advance to you money for the month’s board if you will name any sum you may deem suitable, I”

“I beg your pardon, that is not customary,” passionately interrupted Miss Lethwait. “I could not accept anything of the kind.”

“Then I believe you will find this correct,” said Jane, placing a ten-pound note and a sovereign on the table. And Miss Lethwait after a moment’s hesitation took them up.

“I am sorry to have incurred your displeasure, Lady Jane,” she said, her anger subsiding. “Perhaps you will think better of me sometime.”

The tone in spite of herself was one of deprecation. It grated on Jane Chesney’s ear. She raised her haughty eyelids and bent on the governess one long look of condemnation.

“Never,” she answered, with more temper than she had hitherto shown. “Your duties in this house are finished, Miss Lethwait. Any assistance that you may require in packing, I beg you will ring for. And I would prefer—I would very much prefer that you should not see Lady Lucy previous to your departure.”

“Put out of the house like a dog!” murmured the unlucky governess to her own rebellious spirit. “But the tables may be turned; yes, they may be turned ere many months shall have gone by!”

Jane moved her hand and bowed her from her presence, coldly civil, grandly courteous. She vouchsafed no other leave-taking, and the governess went forth from her presence, her cheeks hot with their scarlet tinge. Not many times in her life had that scarlet dyed the face of Eliza Lethwait.

Outside the door she paused in indecision. In spite of all that had passed, she was not deficient in maidenly reticence, and to search out Lord Oakburn went against her. But it was necessary he should know of this dismissal, if the past night’s offer were to be regarded as an earnest one.

She went swiftly down the stairs and found the earl in the small apartment that Lucy had called his smoking-room. He would go there sometimes in a morning if he had letters to write. The earl was seated leaning over an open letter, his stick lying on the table beside it. He looked up when she entered.

“Lady Jane has dismissed me, Lord Oakburn.”

She spoke in no complaining tone, in no voice of anger. Rather in sadness, as if she had merited the dismissal. The earl did not take in the sense of the words; he had been buried in a reverie, and it seemed that he could not at once awake from it.

“What?” cried he.

“I am sorry to say that Lady Jane has dismissed me,” she repeated.

“What’s that for?” he demanded, awaking fully to the words now, and his voice and his stick were alike raised.