The New Mistress: A Tale

“Mustn’t go after her and walk like that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because – because she’s – well, because she’s so nice, and young, and pretty,” whispered Miss Burge, who was at a loss for a reason.

“But that’s why I like to go and talk to her, Betsey,” exclaimed the man of fortune heartily. “She’s about the nicest young lady I think I ever did see.”

“But you mus’n’t, Bill,” said his sister in alarm, “people would talk.”

“Let ’em,” said the ex-butcher proudly. “I can afford it. Let ’em talk.”

“But it might be unpleasant for Miss Thorne, dear.”

“Oh! Hah! I didn’t think of that,” said the gentleman slowly; and, taking off his hat he drew his orange silk handkerchief from his pocket, and blew such a sonorous blast that little Jenny Straggalls, who was last in the rank, started in alarm.

After this Mr William Forth Burge held his hat in one hand, his orange handkerchief in the other, and looked at both in turn, scenting the morning air the while with “mill flowers,” and the essential oil in the pomade he used.

Custom caused this hesitation. For years past he had been in the habit of placing his handkerchief in his hat – the proper place for it, he said – but Miss Burge said that gentlemen did not carry their handkerchiefs in their ’ats. “And you are a gentleman, you know, now, Bill.”

So, with a sigh, Mr William Forth Burge refrained from burying the flaming orange silk in the hollow of his hat, thrust it into his pocket, and replaced his glossy head-piece, uttering another sigh the while, and looking very thoughtful the rest of the way.

Oh! the relief of reaching the church door, and following the children into the cool shadows of the empty building. Not quite empty though, for the Misses Lambent were in their places in the pew near the chancel, and the Reverend Henry Lambent, cold, calm, handsome, and stern of mien, was raising his head with a reproving frown at the girls who clattered so loudly up the stairs, in spite of Hazel’s efforts to keep them still.

“Why, Betsey,” said Mr William Forth Burge, “that chap seems to know our new mistress.”

“Ye-es, dear, perhaps he’s her brother,” whispered back Miss Burge, as they entered their richly-cushioned pew – one which used to belong to the old manor-house that was pulled down.

“Beatrice, did you see a strange gentleman go up to Miss Thorne and speak to her as she came into church?” said the Reverend Henry Lambent, as he and his sisters were going back to the vicarage after the morning service.

“Yes, brother Henry; we both saw it,” said Miss Beatrice, “and were going to mention it to you.”

The incident was this: —

Just as Hazel Thorne was going to her seat in the gallery, the tall gentleman came through the porch, hesitated a moment, and then, seeing that the church was nearly empty, he went quickly up to the young mistress.

“Hazel,” he whispered, “I have come down on purpose. I must – I will see you after church.”

“I beg your pardon,” she said coldly; “our acquaintance is at an end.”

“End! No. I have come to my senses. It must not – it shall not be.”

“It must and shall, Mr Graves,” she said, turning away.

“For Heaven’s sake, why?” he whispered excitedly, as she was going.

“Times are changed, sir. I am only a schoolmistress now.”

Just then Mr Chute entered with the boys, and he turned white as he saw the stranger there.

Chapter Three.

Hazel’s Troubles

About a year and a half before Hazel Thorne had the task of conducting her school for the first time to Plumton church, she was in her home at Kensington, leading the every-day pleasant life of the daughter of a stockbroker, who was reputed among his friends as being “warm,” that being the appropriate term for a man who is said to have a pretty good store of money well invested in solid securities.

“Fred Thorne will buy mining shares for you, or shares in any bubble that is popular at the time; but catch him putting his coin in anything doubtful.”

That is what people said; and as he had a good home at Kensington, and gave nice, quiet little dinners, he and his were pretty well courted.

“Well, yes, I don’t mind, Archy,” said old Graves, the wholesale cork merchant of Tower Hill. “Hazel Thorne is a very nice girl – very pretty and ladylike, so I suppose we must swallow the mother for her sake.”

The boa-constrictor-like proposition was naturally enough taken by Archibald Graves in its slango-metaphorical sense, and slango-metaphorically Mrs Frederick Thorne was swallowed by the whole of the Graves family, and she did not agree with them.

For Mrs Thorne was not a pleasant woman. Tall, handsome, and thoroughly ladylike in appearance, she was very proud of having been considered a beauty, and was not above reminding her husband of the fact that she might have married So-and-so and What’s-his-name, and You-know-whom, all of which gentlemen could have placed her in a better position than that she occupied; and as she grew older these references were more frequent. Each child she had seemed to be looked upon by her as a fresh grievance – a new cause for tears, and tears she accordingly shed to an extent that might have made any one fancy this was the reason why the Thorne home generally seemed damp and chilly, till Hazel entered the room like so much sunshine, when the chill immediately passed away.

Gradually growing weaker in act and speech, the unfortunate woman received a shock which completed the change that had been gradually heretofore advancing, for Fred Thorne – handsome, bright, cheery, and ever ready to laugh at mamma’s doldrums, as he called them – went out as usual one morning to the City, saying that he should be back a little earlier to dinner that day, as he had stalls for the opera.

“I’ll come back through Covent Garden, Hazel, and bring you a bouquet,” he cried merrily.

“You need not bring flowers for me, Frederick,” said Mrs Thorne, in an aggrieved tone. “I am growing too old for flowers now.”

“Too old? Ha, ha, ha!” he cried. “Why, you look younger than ever. Smithson asked me the other day if you and Hazel were my daughters.”

“Did he, Frederick,” said Mrs Thorne, in a rather less lachrymose tone.

“To be sure he did; and of course I am going to bring you a bouquet as well.”

He bought the two bouquets, and they were kept fresh in water, taken to pieces, and spread over his breast, as he lay cold and stern in his coffin: for as he was carefully bearing the box containing the flowers across Waterloo Place on his way home that evening, there was a cry, a shout, the rush of wheels, and the trampling of horses; a barouche came along Pall Mall at a furious rate, with two ladies therein clinging to the sides, and the coachman and footman panic-stricken on the box. One rein had broken, and the horses tore round the corner towards Regent Street as if mad with fear.

It was a gallant act, and people said at the inquest that it saved the ladies and the servants, but it was at the sacrifice of his own life. For, dropping the box he was carrying, Fred Thorne, a hale strong man of five-and-forty, dashed at the horses’ heads, caught one by the bit and held on, to be dragged fifty or sixty yards, and crushed against the railings of one of the houses.

He stopped the horses, and was picked up by the crowd that gathered round.

“Stop a moment, he wants to say something – he is only stunned – here, get some water – what say, sir!”

“My – poor – darlings!”

They were Fred Thorne’s last words, uttered almost with his last breath.

The shock was terrible.

Mrs Thorne took to her bed at once, and was seriously ill for weeks, while Hazel seemed to have been changed in one moment from a merry thoughtless girl to a saddened far-seeing woman.

For upon her the whole charge of the little household fell. There was the nursing of the sick mother, the care and guidance of Percy, a clever, wilful boy of sixteen, now at an expensive school, and the management of the two little girls, Cissy and Mabel.

For the first time in her life she learned the meaning of real trouble, and how dark the world can look at times to those who are under its clouds.

The tears had hardly ceased to flow for the affectionate indulgent father, when Hazel had to listen to business matters, a friend of her father calling one morning, and asking to see her.