Chapter II

"I HAVE not a friend here but you, Sarah. I must leave this miserable place," said Joyce, between her sobs.

"The master is your friend, darling. He loves you."

"What can he do? He is worse off than I am. How can he bear my aunt's taunts about money, and all she has brought him? If I were a man, I would—"

"If you were a married man with a wife and daughters, you would not find it easy to run away from your home ties, though they may feel a little tight sometimes. And what could you do, dearie, if you left The Chase?"

"That is my trouble, Sarah. I would go as a governess, but they all make game, and sneer at the idea of such a thing. I am not accomplished, and people seem to advertise only for ladies who know everything. Servants with clever fingers like yours are much better off than the half-taught children of gentlemen. They get good wages, and are so independent. They generally spend a great deal on clothes, but they are not obliged to do so. Do you think any one would take me as a nursemaid? Not to tiny babies; I could not attend to them, though I should dearly love it, for I have never been amongst them. But I could look after older children, and I can sew well."

"What! Go as a servant. Only a servant! Oh, Miss Joyce, if the master could know!"

Sarah lifted her hands in horror; but Joyce said—

"If he could tell me what course to take, knowing all, he would say I was doing right; right to take any honest work whereby I might earn my bread. Right to undertake only what I am qualified to do."

"Well, then, darling, say nursery governess."

"Sarah, I have looked the papers through for weeks, and I have read plenty of advertisements of ladies offering to take such places for nothing but a home. They do not always get them, for the advertisements are repeated again and again. Now, I cannot go for nothing, for I need clothes, and I have not much money. But plenty of people offer good wages for nurses, so I will go as a nurse, if any one will have me. My clothes will do for a servant, though they are not nearly so good as yours, Sarah."

The girl glanced down at her poor, coarse black gown and burst into tears. It had been bought only as a makeshift, in the small country town near her old home, and her uncle had said, "Your aunt will see that you are properly provided as soon as we reach The Chase. She would not care for Welton dressmaking or materials."

But this first purchase proved the only one. When Mr. Evans said that Joyce would need other and better dresses, he was answered promptly enough.

"Joyce will not be expected to dress like my daughters. Remember, I have already had double expenses, owing to Mr. Minces' death having taken place just after I had bought everything in coloured dresses for the season. So if your niece wants finery, it will not come out of my pocket."

As to Adelaide and Augusta, they were far too eager for admiration to be sorry that their young cousin should appear at a disadvantage, even in the matter of dress material. In appearance, accomplishments—in fact, in all that could attract attention—they considered her immeasurably below them.

Thus Joyce was shut out of society, by lack of suitable clothing, when she had little inclination for it, and when, during her first days of sorrow, she cared only for quiet and sympathy. Of the former, she had enough as the months went by, and for the latter she had to go to Sarah Keene, as on the present occasion.

"Your uncle would never agree to your taking such a place, Miss Joyce."

"I shall be twenty-one in a month, Sarah, and my own mistress. I have money enough to take me to a good distance from The Chase, for I have not spent a penny that I could help. My uncle would have given me more, but I could not take it, since it would have really been out of Mrs. Evans' pocket. I have already advertised, and I have four answers. One seems likely to suit, but I shall need a character."

The girl uttered the last word somewhat scornfully, but Sarah, with her usual good sense, replied—

"Of course you will. What mother would trust her most precious jewels to a stranger without knowing anything about her? The nurse comes next to the mother herself with young children, and she cannot be too particular about the character of one."

"My pride spoke, Sarah. We were so respected, at Welton, though we were really poor people," replied Joyce, softly.

"Aye, darling. As Mrs. Evans will not be if she live to a hundred. I can just think I see you, as you went through the snow to church only last Christmas morning. You were looking as glad and happy as possible, for you knew that many a home would be bright that day, and many a table spread with plenty through what you had done."

"I had given very little, Sarah. I had not much to give."

"Not in money, dearie. But gold and silver are not everything. You had put in your little in that way, and a great deal that was more precious still—time and work. You had walked many a mile and pleaded for the poor with the rich, and induced them to give what you could not. And who could withstand you? Not those you had spent your life amongst."

"Sarah, they were all as willing to give as possible."

"Aye. Their giving was pretty easy work in most cases; they went without nothing, and would never miss their guineas, because they cost them no self-denial. There are lots of people who put their hands into their pockets and think they do a great deal when they give a gold piece out of a full purse; but if they had to go without something in order to spare the guinea, it would not be given. Catch your aunt or the young ladies going with a pair of gloves the less, to save a poor creature from starvation. Well, the mistress did me a kindness in letting me have my holidays at Welton last Christmas, but then it was because there was no work for me at The Chase, seeing they were wintering abroad."

"She gave you a whole month, Sarah, and it was delightful to have you at our house."

"Yes, and it saved the mistress four weeks' board wages she must have paid me if I had been at The Chase. I can see round a corner, dearie, though you cannot always. Never mind, it was a happy, blessed Christmas, and worth more than a year's wages to be with my own precious nursling."

The tears were streaming down Joyce's cheeks as she thought of that last Christmas in the one true home of her life.

"I little thought—" she said; then stopped, unable to continue.

"No more did any of us. Well, your father acted for the best, and you have happy years to look back on—years when you made poor homes brighter, and cheered downcast souls with words of love and hope. Now you must think of this. You are not forgotten at Welton. Every one loves you there; but they don't know how you are fixed. Depend on it they say, 'What a good thing it was that Miss Joyce had a grand rich uncle to take care of her when her father died!' They pray for you, and look to see you again some day. Better still, God never forgets. Think of this, my darling, you who cared for God's poor to the very outside of your power. He will care for you and repay you. As surely as the harvest follows seed-time, so surely will you, in His good time, receive full measure back for what you have meted out to others."

"I know, Sarah, I know; I am wrong to doubt, but everything is so different here. There is no love for me."

"Yes, darling, there is God's love, and there is your uncle's, I know, to say nothing of mine. I am only your old nurse, but you have all the best love of my heart, for who have I beside?"

"I am wickedly, horribly unthankful, both to God and the one friend to whom I can open my heart. I might speak to my uncle, but I do not care to make him feel more troubled on my account. About my character there will be no difficulty: Mrs. Caruth, of Fernsclough, will answer all inquiries."

"Is she home, dearie? She was abroad somewhere when your father was taken."

"Yes; but she returned. I heard from her ten days ago. I have told her just enough to show her that The Chase will never be a home for me. She urges me to go to her for a long visit, and says, that being alone, my presence would cheer her greatly."

"Then why not go, darling?"

"Because this invitation is really an offer of a home, very delicately made; but I could not again eat the bread of dependence, Sarah. Besides, fancy my meeting the guests at Fernsclough in such attire as this."

"But you can have anything, if you will let me get you thirty or fifty pounds of my savings. You may take all I have, for that matter, only you would not need that, I know."

Joyce threw her arms round Sarah's neck and kissed her passionately.

"Bless you, and thank you a thousand times!" she cried. "But I would not rob you of your hard earnings for the world. Do you think when the relatives on whom I have a claim care nothing about my clothes, I could bear to spend on myself what you have earned by years of toil?"

Sarah warmly returned the embrace, saying as she did so—

"You can have no such claim on any one as on the woman who nourished you as a baby. I would give my life for you, and what are a few pounds compared to that?"

"I need no money, Sarah, or I would owe the help to you sooner than to any one in the world. I have plenty of clothes, neat and simple, and such as I wore at Welton. They will last for a couple of years."

"They are not black, dearie."

"No matter. The one mourning suit will do for Sundays, and light printed gowns will befit a nurse-girl. I have turned one white muslin into aprons, which will do beautifully over my two plain cashmere frocks. As to the outside mourning, what does it mean in many cases? My aunt and cousins are wearing what they call mourning for my father, gowns of costly material laden with crape and jet. Did they put it on because they cared for my father? No, Sarah; and they long to throw it off as soon as they think society would see them do it without remark. One day, when my aunt was specially kind, she said: 'These gowns will come in for you, Joyce, when my girls are done with them.' I should not have minded wearing them, if only my aunt had offered them in real kindliness. But my mourning is no matter of outside show. Why should I care about externals? My Father in heaven knows."

"But stay a while at Fernsclough, darling; Mrs. Caruth was always fond of you."

"Always most kind. But I cannot go there, of all places in the world."

These last words were uttered with an emphasis which Sarah could not help noticing. She looked up from her ironing with an inquiring expression, but Joyce had turned away her head. She noted, however, that a crimson flush had spread even over the fair neck of her nursling, and she wondered, but said nothing. Joyce, too, remained silently gazing out of the window; but when she at length turned, Sarah noted traces of tears on her cheeks, though she began to speak cheerfully enough and to unfold her plans more fully.

"I have settled about clothes. I have enough money for my journey, and a little to spare. On the strength of Mrs. Caruth's recommendation, Mrs. Ross, of Springfield Park, is willing to engage me as the personal attendant of her two little girls, aged four and six years. I shall have no menial work, and the mother regards her children's nurse as of a rank above her kitchen-maid, and does not insist on caps."

"Oh, Miss Joyce. That I should live to hear you speak like that!" said Sarah, in a tone of deep distress.

"Be comforted, dear old nurse and kindest of friends. Honest labour has with it far more of dignity than dependence with idleness. Earned bread will taste sweet. The dainties here are always bitter, no matter how delicately flavoured. And now I shall tell you no more, and when the time comes for questioning, you can answer truly that you do not know where I am. This much you shall know. Mrs. Caruth's own maid, whom you have seen many a time, will meet me when I leave this house, and accompany me to the station nearest to my place of service. I will not tell you the name of it, or of the town next to Springfield Park, but it will comfort you to feel that the old friend of my parents insists on sending this good woman to travel with me. When I am at my journey's end, she will return. Now you know all that I can tell you, and you may trust me that my uncle shall not be long kept in suspense as to my safety and whereabouts; Mrs. Caruth has undertaken to enlighten him. She does blame me for my pride in refusing to go to her, not for finding dependence unbearable, or for wishing to earn my own bread. But she cares for me because I am my father's daughter, and is resolved to shield me from the possibility of harsh judgments, by providing me with a temporary attendant."

"I can only say, may God bless and guard you, my darling! And mind, if you want me, I will come to you at any time, night or day, for only a word."