'Upon you soul, sir?' she said solemnly.
'Upon my soul,' I answered.
What had I done to make the good old dame as reckless of consequences as I was, let others find out. 'Light your pipe,' she said; 'and I'll tell you all about it.'
VI 'A great deal of mischief is sometimes done, sir,' Mrs Jennet began, 'among pleasure parties who go to enjoy themselves at the seaside. It was in the Midsummer holidays, six or seven years ago (I don't rightly recollect which), that we went wrong. When I say We I only mean the eldest Miss Urban, who was then alive -- the youngest Miss Urban, now mistress of the school -- and my old self, in past days lady's maid, and afterwards keeper of the gate. My health was not as good in those days as it is now. So the two Misses Urban, as good creatures as ever lived, took me with them to the seaside. We had been about a fortnight in comfortable lodgings, when Miss Esther, (who was the eldest one) says to me: "I'm afraid my sister is going to do a very foolish thing." You will not be surprised to hear, sir, that a man was at the bottom of it. Also, that he was thought to be a perfect gentleman. Also, that he was handsome and clever and reputed to be well born. Also, that Miss Arabella (that is to say the present Miss Urban) was determined to marry him -- and did marry him.'
'And they are now separated,' I ventured to guess. 'And Miss Arabella has returned to her maiden name?'
'Worse than that, Mr Fencote. She never was married at all. A lady -- a perfect lady if ever there was one yet -- heard where the newly-married couple had gone for their honeymoon. She says to my mistress, breaking it very kindly to her: 'I am his victim, and you are his victim; look at my marriage certificate." You will ask if he was caught and punished. Not he! Early in the morning, the wretch said he was going out for a walk. He never came back, and has never been heard of since. It all happened within the six weeks of the Midsummer holidays; a hundred miles, and more, away from this place. We were saved, owing to those circumstances, from a scandal that might have ruined the school; and, like foolish women, we thought ourselves well out of it. Who could have foreseen, sir, that more misfortunes were going to fall on us? The first of them was the death of the eldest Miss Urban. The second -- well some people might blame me for calling it a misfortune. What else is it, I should be glad to know, when a single lady, left sole mistress of a thriving school for girls, finds herself in a way to be a mother -- cheated out of her lawful marriage by a villain who went to church with her, the husband of another woman?'
I thought of the little lovable boy whom I had left at work in his garden. But I had not courage enough to speak of him; remembering with shame how cruelly my headlong anger had injured Mira in my thoughts.
'There's but little more for me to say,' Mrs Jennet resumed. 'You don't need to be told that a time came when the "health" of the mistress obliged her to leave the management of the school, for a few weeks, to the teachers, and that I was the servant who attended her. But please notice this: I am not to blame for the story which Miss Urban's cleverness made up (when the child was put out at nurse) to save her reputation. From first to last, I was against that story. Miss Mira was then settled in America with her father and mother, and there was no prospect of the parents or the daughter returning to the old country. What does my mistress do but turn her niece into "Mrs Motherwell, a widow,' living abroad, and obliged by circumstances to confide her little boy to the care of her aunt in England. That lie succeeded very well. But I have had a good education, Mr Fencote; and I was taught to observe things, before family troubles forced me to take to domestic service. This I have noticed, that lies turn traitors, in the long run, against the very people whom they have served. Miss Urban found this to be true, when your young lady unexpectedly returned to England. Ah, sir, I see what you are thinking of!'
I was thinking of the first interview between the aunt and the niece -- and of how my intrusion must have complicated their deplorable position towards each other.
These were Mrs Jennet's last words:
'Miss Urban sent for me to bear witness, before her niece, to the cruel deception by which she had suffered. It was the only excuse she could offer by way of appeasing Miss Mira's indignation -- natural indignation, just indignation, I say! The next thing was to offer atonement, so far as it could be done. My mistress proposed to retire from the school, and to sell the business; and to live out her life (with her boy) among strangers. Until this could be done, she threw herself, as the saying is, on Miss Mira's mercy. "It rests with you," she said, going down on her knees, "to promise to keep up the deception for a few weeks, or to ruin me for life." You know how it ended. In having the chance of getting that noble young woman for your wife, I consider you, sir, to be the luckiest man I ever set eyes on.