Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/254

 20, 1864.]

was a gloomy time at South Wennock. Usually a remarkably healthy place—indeed, had it not been, the few medical men established there could not have sufficed—it was something new to have an epidemic raging, and people took alarm. The fever was a severe one, and two or three patients had died; but still it was not so bad as it might have been, as it is occasionally in other places. The town was hurriedly adopting all sorts of sanitary precautions, and the doctors were worked off their legs.

Lady Jane Chesney regretted on Lucy’s account that it should have happened just now. Not that she was uneasy on the score of fear for her; Jane was one of those happy few who can put their full and entire trust in God’s good care, and so be calm in the midst of danger: “Whoso dwelleth under the defence of the most High, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” But she was sorry this sickness should prevail now, because it made the visit a dull one.

Jane lived in the same quiet style. Since the addition to her income through the money left her by old Lady Oakburn, she had added but one man servant to her modest household. The two maids, of whom Judith was one, and this man, comprised it. Not that Jane saved much. She dressed well, and her housekeeping was liberal; and she gave away a great deal in a quiet way. But the young, full of life, loving gaiety, might have called her house a dull one; she feared Lucy was finding it so; and it certainly did not want the sickness and alarm prevailing abroad to augment it.

Jane was saying this as she sat one night alone with Lucy. They had promised to spend the evening with some friends, but just as they were about to quit home, a note was delivered from the lady to whom they were engaged. One of her servants was taken ill, and she feared it might be the fever: perhaps therefore Lady Jane would prefer to put off her visit.

“I should not have minded for myself,” remarked Jane, as they sat down to a quiet evening at home, “but I will not risk it for you, Lucy. I am so sorry, my dear, that South Wennock should be in this uncertain state just now. You will have cause to remember your dull visit to me.”

Lucy laughed. She did not look very dull as she sat there. Her evening dress was of gay silk, and some sort of enamelled ornaments, a necklace and bracelets glistening with their steel mountings, were on her fair neck and arms. She had taken up some embroidery work, was already busy with its intricacies, and she looked up with a laughing eye at Jane.

“Indeed I am not sorry to be kept at home, Jane. Dull as you call my visit, all my work seems to get on badly: and you know I promised myself to do so much. But, Jane—if I may say one thing,” Lucy added, her gay tone changing to seriousness, “you seem dull. You have been so ever since we came from London.”

Jane paused a moment. “Not dull, Lucy, dear. I have been preoccupied: I acknowledge that.”

“What about?” asked Lucy.

“I would rather not tell you, Lucy. It is only a little matter on my mind: a little doubt: something I am trying to find out. I cannot help thinking of it constantly, and I suppose it has made me silent.”

You need not ask the source of Jane’s preoccupation. That it was connected with her sister Clarice you will have already divined. Since the information gained from Mrs. West, that Clarice had married, Lady Jane had been unable to divest herself of an impression that that little child at Tupper’s cottage was the child of Clarice. The only possible ground for her fancy was the extraordinary likeness (at least, as Jane saw it) in that child’s eyes and general expression of face to Clarice. The features were not like; quite unlike; but the eyes and their look were Clarice’s over again. Added to this—and perhaps the fact somewhat strengthened Jane’s doubts—was the manner of his ostensible mother, Mrs. Smith. From the very first, Jane had thought she looked old to be the mother of so young a child; but she had hard features, and such women, as Jane knew, are apt to look much older than they really are. Several times since her return from London Jane had passed the cottage and talked to the little boy over the gate. Once she had gone in—having been civilly invited by Mrs. Smith to rest herself—and she had indirectly tried to ascertain some particulars of the child’s past life: where he was born, and where he had lived. But Mrs. Smith grew uncommunicative and would not answer much. The boy was her own, she said; she