Dynevor Terrace, vol 1 | Page 6

said Jane, 'girls used to think it only civility to say they had
a sweetheart!'
'Don't, Mrs. Beckett! I hate the word! I don't want no such thing! I
won't never speak to Tom Madison again, if such constructions is to be
put on it!'

'Well, after all, Charlotte dear, that will be the safest way. You are
young yet, and best not to think of settling, special if you aren't sure of
one that is steady and religious, and you'd better keep yourself up, and
not get a name for gossiping--though there's no harm done yet, so don't
make such a work. Bless me, if I don't hear his lordship's voice! He
ain't never come so early!'
'Yes, he is,' said Charlotte, recovering from her sobs; 'he rode up as I
came in.'
'Well, to be sure, he is come to breakfast! I hope nothin's amiss with
my young Lord! I must run up with a cup and plate, and you, make the
place tidy, in case Mr. Poynings comes in. You'd better run into the
scullery and wash your face; 'tis all tears! You're a terrible one to cry,
Charlotte!' with a kind, cheering smile and caress.
Mrs. Beckett bustled off, leaving Charlotte to restore herself to the little
handy piece of household mechanism which kind, patient, motherly
training had rendered her.
Charlotte Arnold had been fairly educated at a village school, and
tenderly brought up at home till left an orphan, when she had been
taken into her present place. She had much native refinement and
imagination, which, half cultivated, produced a curious mixture of
romance and simplicity. Her insatiable taste for reading was
meritorious in the eyes of Mrs. Beckett, who, unlearned herself,
thought any book better than 'gadding about,' and, after hearing her
daily portion of the Bible, listened to the most adventurous romances,
with a sense of pleasure and duty in keeping the girl to her book. She
loved the little fragile orphan, taught her, and had patience with her,
and trusted the true high sound principle which she recognised in
Charlotte, amid much that she could not fathom, and set down
alternately to the score of scholarship and youth.
Taste, modesty, and timidity were guards to Charlotte. A broad stare
was terror to her, and she had many a fictitious horror, as well as
better-founded ones. Truly she said, she hated the broad words Martha
had used. One who craved a true knight to be twitted with a sweetheart!
Martha and Tom Madison were almost equally distasteful, as connected
with such a reproach; and the little maiden drew into herself,
promenaded her fancy in castles and tournaments, kept under Jane's
wing, and was upheld by her as a sensible, prudent girl.

CHAPTER II
.

AN OLD SCHOOLMISTRESS.

I praise thee, matron, and thy due Is praise, heroic praise and true; With
admiration I behold Thy gladness unsubdued and bold. Thy looks and
gestures all present The picture of a life well spent; Our human nature
throws away Its second twilight and looks gay. WORDSWORTH.
Unconscious of Charlotte's flight and Tom's affront, the Earl of
Ormersfield rode along Dynevor Terrace--a row of houses with
handsome cemented fronts, tragic and comic masks alternating over the
downstairs windows, and the centre of the block adorned with a
pediment and colonnade; but there was an air as if something ailed the
place: the gardens were weedy, the glass doors hazy, the cement stained
and scarred, and many of the windows closed and dark, like eyes
wanting speculation, or with merely the dreary words 'To be let'
enlivening their blank gloom. At the house where Charlotte had
vanished, he drew his rein, and opened the gate--not one of the rusty
ones--he entered the garden, where all was trim and fresh, the shadow
of the house lying across the sward, and preserving the hoar-frost,
which, in the sunshine, was melting into diamond drops on the
lingering China roses.
Without ring or knock, he passed into a narrow, carpetless vestibule,
unadorned except by a beautiful blue Wedgewood vase, and laying
down hat and whip, mounted the bare staircase, long since divested of
all paint or polish. Avoiding the door of the principal room, he opened
another at the side, and stood in a flood of sunshine, pouring in from
the window, which looked over all the roofs of the town, to the
coppices and moorlands of Ormersfield. On the bright fire sung a kettle,
a white cat purred on the hearth, a canary twittered merrily in the
window, and the light smiled on a languishing Dresden shepherdess
and her lover on the mantelpiece, and danced on the ceiling, reflected
from a beautifully chased silver cream-jug--an inconsistent companion
for the homely black teapot and willow- patterned plates, though the

two cups of