Chapter IV.

THIS conversation, of course, set my thoughts all into a ferment again. Little Sara was wonderfully quick-witted, if she was not very wise, as, indeed, was not to be expected at her years; and I confess her idea did return to my mind a great many times. Sarah might have known an Italian Countess in that obscure time of her life which I had no clue to; might even know some reason why persons from Italy might be looking for her, and might be nervous, for old acquaintance’ sake, of any one finding her out. When everything was so blank, any sort of sign-post was satisfactory. It was true that I don’t remember seeing Sarah display so much anxiety for any other person all her life before. But there might be reasons; and if it was a friendly feeling, I should certainly be the last person in the world to worry and aggravate my sister. I wish I could have composed my mind with all the reasonings I went through; but really, when I saw{120} poor Sarah sitting all watchful and conscious at her knitting, not getting on at all with her work, hearing the least rustle in the room, or touch at the door; starting, and trying to conceal her start every time the bell rung, with all the features of her face growing thinner, and her hands and head trembling more than they ever used to do, it was quite impossible for me to persuade myself that her mind was not busy with something which had happened, or which was about to happen. It might be something as completely unconnected with the poor Italian as possible; most likely it was; but something there was which agitated her most unaccountably, which I knew nothing about, and which she was determined I should not know. She was as conscious that I observed this strange change upon her as I was myself; and she faced me with such a resolution and defiance! No! I could read it in her eyes, and the full look she turned upon me whenever I looked at her—she would die rather than I should find it out.

It is quite impossible, however ignorant you may be of the causes of it, to live in the close presence of a person devoured by anxiety without being infected by it, more or less. One gets curious and excited, you know, in spite of one’s self; and all the more, of course, if the cause is quite inexplicable and the trouble sudden. I lived in the kind of feeling that you have just immediately before a thunderstorm—the air all of a hush, so that you could hear the faintest stir of a bird, or rustle of a branch, yet never knowing the moment when, instead of the bird’s motion or the leaves’ tremble, it might be the thunder itself that clamoured in your ears.

In this condition of mind Sara’s little side reference to Carson, and my sister’s acquaintance with everything that passed, did not fail to have its effect upon me, as well as other things. I don’t know that I would have been above questioning Carson if I could have got at her; but I did not see her once in three months, and could not have had any conversation with her without making quite an affair of it, and letting all the house know. Carson was not her right name. She had been Sarah’s maid when she was a young girl, and had married and lost her husband, and come back to the Park just in time to go abroad with her mistress, and being well known in the house by her maiden name, never got any other. I could not help wondering within myself if she knew, or how much she knew, of Sarah’s trouble, and its cause, whatever that might be. When the thought rose in my mind whether I might not try to get to private speech of Carson, I was out in the grounds{121} making a little survey, to see how everything was looking for spring, and had just been at the lodge to see poor little Mary, who (as I had foreseen from the beginning) was bad with the whooping-cough, but no worse than was to be expected, and nothing alarming or out of the way. The carriage had just gone up to take Sarah out for her drive, and I, all in shelter of a clump of holly bushes, became the witness, quite unawares and without any intention, of a most singular scene. A footstep went softly by me upon the gravel. I was just behind the lodge, and within sight of the gate and the road without. I saw Carson, in her cap and in-doors dress, go softly out at the gate. She went out into the road, pretending to hold out her hand and raise her face to see whether it rained; as if it were not perfectly clear to any one that it did not rain, nor would, either, till the glass fell. She looked up and down with an anxious look, and lingered five minutes or more in that same position. Then she came in, and met the carriage just inside the gate, which Williams had come to her cottage door to open. “All’s quite bright and clear, ma’am,” I heard Carson say; “no appearance of rain. I hope you’ll have a pleasant drive.” A moment after the carriage wheeled quickly out, the blind being drawn down just as it turned into the road. Carson stood looking after it with a kind of grieved, compassionate expression, which made me like her better. She answered Williams’ question, “Whatever had come over Miss Sarah to make her so particklar about the weather; in the carriage, too, as she wouldn’t be none the wiser, wet nor dry!” very shortly, sighed, and turned to go back, mincing with true lady’s-maid nicety, along the road. The sigh and the pitying look on her face determined me. I took a quick step through the bushes and came up to her. The holly branches tore a bit of trimming, as long as my finger, off my garden hood (I think a hood a great deal more suitable than a hat for a person of my years); but I did not mind. Here was a chance if I could only use it well.

“Carson,” said I, not to give her time to think, “my sister has surely grown very fidgety of late?”

Carson stared at me in an alarmed, confused way; but soon got back her self-possession. “My missis was always a bit fidgety, ma’am, though no more than she had a right to be,” said this one real, true, faithful adherent, whom Sarah had secured to her cause.

“I don’t know about such rights,” said I. “Now tell me, Carson;—you know a great deal more about her than I do.{122} Don’t you think I can see how nervous and disturbed she is?—what’s the matter with my sister? what is she afraid of? and what do you and she expect to see upon the road, that you go out to look that the way is clear, before she ventures beyond the gate? Don’t tell me about rain, I know better; what did you expect to see?”

Carson was taken entirely by surprise; she faltered, she grew red, she wrung her hands; she stammered forth something quite unintelligible, consisting of exclamations.—“Ma’am! Miss Milly!” and “My missis!” all confused and run into each other. She had no time to invent anything; and her fright and nervousness for the moment quite betrayed her.

“I don’t want you to be false to your mistress,” said I, getting excited, in my turn, at finding myself so near a clue to this mystery, as I thought. “I don’t want you to tell me her secret, if she has one—only let me know. Is there some danger apprehended? Is there some one in the country that Sarah is afraid to see? What is wrong? Her limbs are trembling under her, and her face growing thinner. Only think of her going out with the blinds down, poor forlorn soul; What is wrong? It would mend matters, somehow, if I knew.”

“Miss Milly,” said Carson, with a great many little coughs and clearings of her throat, “my missis has an attack on her nerves, that’s what it is; when she haves them attacks, she grows fidgety, as you say, ma’am. A little nice strengthening medicine, now, or a change of air, would be a nice thing. I said that to my missis just this very morning. I said ‘A few months at Brighton, now, or such like, would do you a world of good, ma’am.’ It’s on her nerves, that’s what it is.”

Carson had got quite glib and fluent before she ended this speech; the difficulty had only been how to begin.

“Now, Carson!” cried I, “if your mistress’s health suffers, and it turns out to be something you could have told me, you may be certain I shall call you to account for it. Think what you are saying. We Mortimers never have nervous attacks. I know you’re deceiving me. Think again. Will you tell me what is wrong?”

“Ma’am, Miss Milly, it’s an attack on the nerves,” cried Carson; “my missis has had them before. I couldn’t say more if I was to talk till to-morrow. I’ve got my caps to see to, I ask your pardon;—my missis is very particular about her caps.”{123}

Upon which Carson somehow managed to elude me, with a mixture of firmness and cunning quite extraordinary; and while I had still my eyes fixed on her, and was calling her to stay with all the authority of my position as acting mistress of the house, contrived to melt in at a back door and escape out of my hands, I never could explain how. Talk about controlling people with your eye, and swaying them by force of character, and all that! I defy anybody to sway a servant in a great house who is trained to the sort of thing, and knows how to recollect her work at a critical moment, and the nearest way to the back stairs. Carson had proved herself too many for me.