great misfortune! What was it?”
I noticed a sort of cloud pass over Mary Blair’s face, a hesitation in her manner before she replied. Mrs. Todhetley was sitting by her on the sofa; the Squire was in the armchair opposite them, and I at the table, as I had sat at our tea-dinner.
“Mr. Peahern was in business once—a wholesale druggist, I believe; but he made a fortune, and retired some years ago,” began Mary. “Mrs. Peahern has bad health and is a little lame. She was very kind to me also—very good and kind indeed. They had one son—no other children; I think he was studying for the Bar; I am not sure; but he lived in London, and came down here occasionally. My young maid-servant, Susan, got acquainted with their servants, and she gathered from their gossip that he, Edmund Peahern, a very handsome young man, was in some way a trouble to his parents. He was down at Easter, and stayed three weeks; and in May he came down again. What happened I don’t know; I believe there was some scene with his father the day he arrived; anyway, Mr. Peahern was heard talking angrily to him; and that night he—he died.”
She had dropped her voice to a whisper. The Squire spoke.
“Died! Was it a natural death?”
“No. A jury decided that he was insane; and he was buried here in the churchyard. Such a heap of claims and debts came to light, it was said. Mr. Peahern left his lawyer to pay them all, and went abroad with his poor wife for change of scene. It has been a great grief to me. I feel so sorry for them.”
“Then, is the house shut up?”
“No. Two servants are left in it—the two housemaids. The cook, who had lived with them five and twenty years and was dreadfully affected at the calamity, went with her mistress. Nice, good-natured young women are these two that are left, running in most days to ask if they can do anything for me.”
“It is good to have such neighbours,” said the Squire. “And I hope you’ll get on, my dear. How came you to be at this place at all?”
“It was through Mr. Lockett,” she answered—the clergyman who had been so much with her husband before he died, and who had kept up a correspondence with her. Mr. Lockett’s brother was in practice as a doctor at Saltwater, and they thought she might perhaps do well if she came to it. So Mary’s friends had screwed a point or two to put her into the house, and gave her besides a ten-pound note to start with.
“I tell you what it is, young Joe: if you run and reve yourself into that scarlet heat, you shan’t come here with me again.”
“But I like to race with the donkeys,” replied young Joe. “I can run almost as fast as they, Johnny. I like to see the donkeys.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to ride a donkey, lad?”
He shook his head. “I have never had a ride but once,” he answered: “I’ve no sixpences for it. That once Matilda treated me. She brings me on the sands.”
“Who is Matilda?”
“Matilda at No. 7—Mr. Peahern’s.”
“Well, if you are a good boy, young Joe, and stay by me, you shall have a ride as soon as the donkeys come back.”
They were fine sands. I sat down on a bench with a book; little Joe strained his eyes to look after the donkeys in the distance, cantering off with some young shavers like himself on their backs, their nursemaids walking quickly after them. Poor little Joe!—he had the gentlest, meekest face in the world, with his thoughtful look and nice eyes—waited and watched in quiet patience. The sands were crowded with people this afternoon; organs were playing, dancing dolls exhibiting; and vessels with their white sails spread glided smoothly up and down on the sparkling sea.
“And will you really pay the sixpence?” asked the little fellow presently. “They won’t let me get on for less.”
“Really and truly, Joe. I’ll take you for a row in a boat some calm day, if mamma will allow you to go.”
Joe looked grave. “I don’t much like the water, please,” said he, timidly. “Alfred Dale went on it in a boat and fell in, and was nearly drowned. He comes to mamma’s school.”
“Then we’ll let the boats alone, Joe. There’s Punch! He is going to set himself up yonder: wouldn’t you like to run and see him?”
“But I might miss the donkeys,” answered Joe.
He stood by me quietly, gazing in the direction taken by the donkeys; evidently they were his primary attraction. The other child, Mary, who was a baby when her father died (poor Baked Pie, as we boys used to call him at Frost’s), was in Wales with Mrs. Blair’s people. They had taken the child for a few months, until she saw whether she should get along at Saltwater.
But we thought she would get along. Her school was a morning school for little boys of good parentage, all of whom paid liberal terms; and she would be able to let her best rooms for at least six months in the year.
“There’s Matilda! Oh, there’s Matilda!”
It was quite a loud shout for little Joe. Looking up, I saw him rush to a rather good-looking young woman, neatly dressed in a black-and-white print gown and small shawl of the same, with black ribbons crossed on her straw bonnet. Servants did not dress fine enough to set the Thames on fire in those days. Joe dragged her triumphantly up to me. She was one of the housemaids at No. 7.
“It’s Matilda,” he said; and the young woman curtsied. “And I am going to have a donkey-ride, Matilda; Mr. Johnny Ludlow’s going to give the sixpence for me!”
“I know you by sight, sir,” observed Matilda to me. “I have seen you go in and out of No. 6.”
She had a pale olive complexion, with magnificent, melancholy dark eyes. Many persons would have called her handsome. I took a sort of liking for the girl—if only for her kindness to poor little fatherless Joe. In manner she was particularly quiet, subdued, and patient.
“You had a sad misfortune at your house not long ago,” I observed to her, at a loss for something to say.
“Oh, sir, don’t talk of it, please!” she answered, catching her breath. “I seem to have had the shivers at times ever since. It was me that found him.”
Up cantered the donkeys; and presently away went Joe on the back of one, Matilda attending him. The ride was just over, and Joe beginning to enlarge on its delights to me, when another young woman, dressed precisely similar to Matilda, even to the zigzag white running pattern on the prim gown, and the black cotton gloves, was seen making her way towards us. She was nice-looking also, in a different way—fair, with blue eyes, and a laughing, arch face.
“Why, there’s Jane Cross!” exclaimed Matilda. “What in the world have you come out for, Jane? Have you left the house safe?”
“As if I should leave it unsafe!” lightly retorted the one they had called Jane Cross. “The back door’s locked, and here’s the key of the front”—showing a huge key. “Why shouldn’t I go out if you do, Matilda? The house is none so lively a one now, to stop in all alone.”
“And that’s true enough,” was Matilda’s quiet answer. “Little master Joe’s here; he has been having a donkey-ride.”
The two servants, fellow-housemaids, strolled off towards the sea, taking Joe with them. At the edge of the beach they encountered Hannah, who had just come on with our two children, Hugh and Lena. The maids sat down for a gossip, while the children took off their shoes and stockings to dabble in the gently rising tide.
And that was my introductory acquaintanceship with the servant-maids at No. 7. Unfortunately it did not end there.
Twilight was coming on. We had been out and about all day, had dined as usual at one o’clock (not to give unnecessary trouble), and had just finished tea in Mrs. Blair’s parlour. It was where we generally took tea, and supper also. The Squire liked to sit in the open bay window and watch the passers-by as long as ever a glimmer of daylight lasted; and he could not see them so well in the drawing-room above. I was at the other corner of the bay window. The Mater