less, than nineteen years, in whose manner there was a certain confidence strongly suggestive of her entertaining an idea that the house which she was evidently about to enter was her own, and not that of the quiet, but not well-pleased, looking person who asked her civilly enough, yet not with any cordiality of tone, whom she wished to see.
"Is Mr. Lloyd not at home? This is his address, I know," was the enigmatical reply of the young lady.
"A Mr. Lloyd is lodging here, miss," returned Mrs. Bush, with a glance of anything but approbation at her questioner, and planting herself rather demonstratively in the doorway; "but he isn't in. Did you wish to see him?"
"I am Mrs. Lloyd," replied the young lady with a frown, and depositing her little travelling-bag within the threshold; "did you not know I was coming? Let me in, please."
And the next minute--Mrs. Bush could not tell exactly how it happened--she found the hall-door shut, and she was standing in the passage, while the young lady who had announced herself as Mrs. Lloyd was calmly walking into the parlour. Mrs. Bush was confounded by the sudden and unexpected nature of this occurrence; but the only thing she could do was to follow the unlooked-for visitor into the parlour, and she did it. The young lady had already seated herself on a small hard sofa, covered with crimson moreen to match the window-curtains, had put off her very becoming and fashionable bonnet, and was then taking off her gloves. She looked annoyed, but not in the least embarrassed.
"That is Mr. Lloyd's room, I presume?" she said, as she pointed to the folding-doors which connected the parlours, and which stood slightly open.
"Yes, m'm; but--"
Mrs. Bush hesitated; but as the young lady rose, took up her bag, and instantly pushed the door she had indicated quite open, and walked into the apartment, Mrs. Bush felt that the case was getting desperate. Though a depressed woman habitually, she was not by any means a timid one, and had fought many scores of highly successful battles with lodgers in her time. But this was quite a novel experience, and Mrs. Bush was greatly at a loss how to act. Something must be done, that was quite clear. Not so what that something was to be; and more than ever did Mrs. Bush resent the tarrying of Betsy's feet on her return from Beulah Chapel.
"She would have shut the door in her face, and kept her out until I saw how things really were," thought the aggrieved landlady; but she said boldly enough, as she closely followed the intruder, and glanced at her left hand, on which the symbol of lawful matrimony duly shone:
"If you please, m'm, you wasn't expected. Mr. Lloyd nor the other gentleman never mentioned that there was a lady coming; and I don't in general let my parlours to ladies."
"Indeed! that is very awkward," said the young lady, who had opened her bag, taken out her combs and brushes, and was drawing a chair to the dressing-table; "but it cannot be helped. Mr. Lloyd quite expected me, I know; he arranged that I should come down to-morrow before he left town; but it suited me better to come to-day. I can't think why he did not tell you."
"I suppose he forgot it, m'm," said Mrs. Bush, utterly regardless of the uncomplimentary nature of the suggestion, "on account of the sick gentleman; but it's rather unfortunate, for I never do take in ladies, not in my parlours; and Mr. Lloyd not having mentioned it, I--"
"Do you mean to say that I cannot remain here with my husband?" said the young lady, turning an astonished glance upon Mrs. Bush.
"Well, m'm," said the nervous landlady, "as it's for a short time only as Mr. Lloyd has taken the rooms, and as it's Sunday, I shall see, when he conies in. You see, m'm, I've rather particular people in my drawing-rooms, and it's different about ladies; and--" Here she glanced once more at the light girlish figure, in the well-fitting, fashionable dress, standing before the dressing-table, and at the white hand adorned with the orthodox ring.
"I think I understand you," said the intruder gravely; "you did not know Mr. Lloyd was married, and you are not sure that I am his wife. It is a difficulty, and I really don't see how it is to be gotten over. Will you take his word?--at all events I may remain here until he comes in presently?"
Something winning, something convincing, in the tone of her voice caused a sudden revulsion of feeling in Mrs. Bush. The good woman--for she was a good woman in the main--began to feel rather ashamed of herself, and she commenced a bungling sort of apology. Of course the lady could stay, but it was awkward Mr. Lloyd not having told her; and there was but one servant, a good-for-nothing hussy as ever stepped--and over-staying her time now to that degree, that she expected the "drawing-rooms" would not have their dinner till ever so late; but at this point the young lady interrupted her.
"If I may stay for to-night," she said gently, and with a very frank smile, which made Mrs. Bush feel indignant with herself, as well as ashamed, "some other arrangement can be made to-morrow; and I require no waiting-on. I shall give you no trouble, or as little as possible."
Mrs. Bush could not hold out any longer. She told the young lady she could certainly stay for that day and night, and as for to-morrow, she would "see about it;" and then, at the dreaded summons of the impatient "drawing-rooms," bustled away, saying she would return presently, and "see to" the stranger herself.
Pretty girls in pretty dresses are not rarities in the lodging-houses of Brighton; indeed, it would perhaps be difficult to name any place where they are to be seen more frequently, or in greater numbers; but the toilet-glass on the table in the back bedroom of Mrs. Bush's lodging-house, a heavy article of furniture, with a preponderance of frame, had probably reflected few such faces as that of the lady calling herself Mrs. Lloyd, who looked attentively into it when she found herself alone, and decided that she was not so very dusty, considering.
She was rather tall, and her figure was slight and girlish, but firm and well-developed. She carried her head gracefully; and something in her attitude and air suggested to the beholder that she was not more commonplace in character than in appearance. Her complexion was very fair and clear, but not either rosy or milky; very young as she was, she looked as if she had thought too much and lived too much to retain the ruddiness and whiteness of colouring which rarely coexist with intellectual activity or sensitive feelings. Her features were well-formed; but the face was one in which a charm existed different from and superior to any which merely lies in regularity of feature. It was to be found mainly in the eyes and mouth. The eyes were brown in colour--the soft rich deep brown in which the pupil confounds itself with the iris; and the curling lashes harmonised with both; eyes not widely opened, but yet with nothing sly or hidden in their semi-veiled habitual look--eyes which, when suddenly lifted up, and opened in surprise, pleasure, anger, or any other emotion, instantly convinced the person who received the glance that they were the most beautiful he had ever seen. The eyebrows were dark and arched, and the forehead, of that peculiar formation and width above the brow which phrenologists hold to indicate a talent for music, was framed in rippling bands of dark chestnut hair.
She was a beautiful and yet more a remarkable-looking young woman, girlish in some points of her appearance, and in her light lithe movements, but with something ungirlish, and even hard, in her expression. This something was in the mouth: not small enough to be silly, not large enough to be defective in point of proportion; the line of the lips was sharp, decisive, and cold; richly coloured, as befitted her youth, they were not young lips--they did not smile spontaneously, or move above the small white teeth with every thought and fancy, but moved deliberately, opening and closing at her will only. What it was in Mrs. Lloyd's face which contradicted the general expression of youth which it wore, would have been seen at once if she had placed her hand across her eyes. The beaming brown eyes, the faintly-tinted rounded cheeks, were the features of a girl--the forehead and the mouth were the features of a woman who had left girlhood a good way behind her, and travelled over some rough roads and winding ways since she had lost sight of it.
When Mrs. Bush returned, she found the stranger in the front parlour, but not standing at the window, looking out for the return of her husband; on the contrary, she was seated at the prim round table, listlessly turning over some newspapers and railway literature left there by Gilbert Lloyd. Once again Mrs. Bush looked at her with sharp suspicion; once again she was disarmed by her beauty, her composure, and the sweetness of her smile.