'We will leave that to be considered when I come home to-night,' she said. 'I must hear what father says.'
After dark the same evening a woman, dressed in plain black and wearing a hood, went to the servants' entrance of Mr. Doncastle's house, and inquired for Mr. Chickerel. Ethelberta found him in a room by himself, and on entering she closed the door behind her, and unwrapped her face.
'Can you sit with me a few minutes, father?' she said.
'Yes, for a quarter of an hour or so,' said the butler. 'Has anything happened? I thought it might be Picotee.'
'No. All's well yet. But I thought it best to see you upon one or two matters which are harassing me a little just now. The first is, that stupid boy Joey has got entangled in some way with the lady's-maid at this house; a ridiculous affair it must be by all account, but it is too serious for me to treat lightly. She will worm everything out of him, and a pretty business it will be then.'
'God bless my soul! why, the woman is old enough to be his mother!
I have never heard a sound of it till now. What do you propose to do?'
'I have hardly thought: I cannot tell at all. But we will consider that after I have done. The next thing is, I am to dine here Thursday--that is, to-morrow.'
'You going to dine here, are you?' said her father in surprise.
'Dear me, that's news. We have a dinner-party to-morrow, but I was not aware that you knew our people.'
'I have accepted the invitation,' said Ethelberta. 'But if you think I had better stay away, I will get out of it by some means.
Heavens! what does that mean--will anybody come in?' she added, rapidly pulling up her hood and jumping from the seat as the loud tones of a bell clanged forth in startling proximity.
'O no--it is all safe,' said her father. 'It is the area door--nothing to do with me. About the dinner: I don't see why you may not come. Of course you will take no notice of me, nor shall I of you. It is to be rather a large party. Lord What's-his-name is coming, and several good people.'
'Yes; he is coming to meet me, it appears. But, father,' she said more softly and slowly, 'how wrong it will be for me to come so close to you, and never recognize you! I don't like it. I wish you could have given up service by this time; it would have been so much less painful for us all round. I thought we might have been able to manage it somehow.'
'Nonsense, nonsense,' said Mr. Chickerel crossly. 'There is not the least reason why I should give up. I want to save a little money first. If you don't like me as I am, you must keep away from me.
Don't be uneasy about my comfort; I am right enough, thank God. Ican mind myself for many a year yet.'
Ethelberta looked at him with tears in her eyes, but she did not speak. She never could help crying when she met her father here.
'I have been in service now for more than seven-and-thirty years,' her father went on. 'It is an honourable calling; and why should you maintain me because you can earn a few pounds by your gifts, and an old woman left you her house and a few sticks of furniture? If she had left you any money it would have been a different thing, but as you have to work for every penny you get, I cannot think of it.
Suppose I should agree to come and live with you, and then you should be ill, or such like, and I no longer able to help myself? Ono, I'll stick where I am, for here I am safe as to food and shelter at any rate. Surely, Ethelberta, it is only right that I, who ought to keep you all, should at least keep your mother and myself? As to our position, that we cannot help; and I don't mind that you are unable to own me.'
'I wish I could own you--all of you.'
'Well, you chose your course, my dear; and you must abide by it.
Having put your hand to the plough, it will be foolish to turn back.'
'It would, I suppose. Yet I wish I could get a living by some simple humble occupation, and drop the name of Petherwin, and be Berta Chickerel again, and live in a green cottage as we used to do when I was small. I am miserable to a pitiable degree sometimes, and sink into regrets that I ever fell into such a groove as this.
I don't like covert deeds, such as coming here to-night, and many are necessary with me from time to time. There is something without which splendid energies are a drug; and that is a cold heart. There is another thing necessary to energy, too--the power of distinguishing your visions from your reasonable forecasts when looking into the future, so as to allow your energy to lay hold of the forecasts only. I begin to have a fear that mother is right when she implies that I undertook to carry out visions and all. But ten of us are so many to cope with. If God Almighty had only killed off three-quarters of us when we were little, a body might have done something for the rest; but as we are it is hopeless!'
'There is no use in your going into high doctrine like that,' said Chickerel. 'As I said before, you chose your course. You have begun to fly high, and you had better keep there.'
'And to do that there is only one way--that is, to do it surely, so that I have some groundwork to enable me to keep up to the mark in my profession. That way is marriage.'
'Marriage? Who are you going to marry?'
'God knows. Perhaps Lord Mountclere. Stranger things have happened.'
