Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ Parsleet had called the Duchess that.
Late that same evening, after the engagement had been announced, the happy couple's health drunk above and below stairs, and the ladies had gone into the drawing-room, the Duchess went upstairs. She wanted to find a miniature of her mother, to show her prospective son-in-law, for it was thought to be very like Susie.
As, alone, she hurried towards her bedroom, her mind turned to her old nurse.
It hurt her, somehow, to know, as know she did, that a woman of so fine and generous a nature should inspire such fear in those under her rule and care. ”

“ And after they had heard the firm step echoing down the stone passage, the Duchess whispered, "It's all owing to you, Parsy, that his Grace has given in! Your splendid generosity shook him into behaving as a father should! I'm going to tell Susie now, at once, that she owes it all to you."
"There's no call for your Grace to do that," murmured Mrs. Parsleet.
"Of course I am! And now I must go off and see the child. It's a wonderful thing to be able to change sadness into gladness, defeat into victory; that's what I'm going to do with that little girl of mine—and all thanks to you, Parsy!" ”

“ Instead she put her long thin arms round the Duchess.
"I've been thinking," she said, in a muffled tone, "a great deal of our little Lady Susie, and of that fine young gentleman of hers."
"So have I, Parsy. But what can I do? I told you yesterday what had been settled. The Duke feels sure that it won't do either of them any harm to wait a while if, that is, they truly care for one another."
"I don't believe much in waiting—not when one's young," said Mrs. Parsleet. "When a body's old 'tis easy-like to stand up to disappointment." ”

“ Parsleet, in that one matter of lovers, had always appeared so curiously soft. When it came to a question of matrimony the housekeeper would always do anything in her power to hasten the wedding.
"I agree with you, Parsy. Yet I don't see what I can do," she murmured distressfully. "The Duke does not feel that we are in a position to give our daughter a sufficient allowance to make her as comfortable as we both feel she ought to be. The loss of that really huge sum of money has quite upset his Grace." ”

“ Human nature is an incalculable thing. The Duchess was too intelligent a woman not to know that. Yet the thought that Parsy should think of leaving her, even if only to live close by in the town, filled her with an extraordinary sense of pain, of loneliness, and of loss.
"I wonder if your Grace can guess how much money I have?" Mrs. Parsleet was smiling mysteriously.
"I have no idea how much money you have, Parsy. How could I guess? This is the first time you and I have ever talked of money." ”

“ In the Duke's, if not in the Duchess's imagination, that vanished fifty thousand pounds had grown and grown until it had become a mountain of money, the loss of which must mean the condemnation to poverty of all their younger children. In vain did Lady Susie declare tearfully that she and Geoffrey would be able to manage very well on his pay joined to the good allowance her parents made her for her clothes, and for what her father called her fal-lals. ”

“ No doubt by now she had heard about Apollo.
"Mother?" she said irresolutely; and then she looked at the Duke. "Father? I—I have to say something to you."
The Duke answered, kindly enough, "Yes, my dear, what is it you want?"
He was telling himself that, after all, dreadful as it was to lose in these hard times three thousand a year, Providence had been very good in giving him such a wife as his Laura, and good, healthy, loving children who included the pretty, clever, high-spirited girl now looking at him with such an eager, confiding look in the dark eyes which were so like his own. ”

“ It was to Parsy, as she had always called her, and as she still called her, though never, now, in the presence of anyone else, not even in that of her children, that the Duchess had always gone with her troubles, her anxieties, and. what perhaps is the greatest test of love, her intimate joys.
Here in the castle, Mrs. Parsleet—for she had chosen to assume brevet rank when her young lady had done so—reigned as absolute sovereign over the great household. And as time went on, her power grew rather than diminished. ”

“ Lady Susie went and told Captain Geoffrey Brentlaw this morning that she will marry him!"
And then Mrs. Parsleet showed that she was indeed getting very old, for instead of appearing shocked, she murmured, "I always knew the Captain haspired to her little ladyship. And more than once I says to myself lately, when I noticed out of my window how friendly they seemed together, 'None but the brave deserve the fair.'"
"That's all very well," said the Duchess crossly, for she felt just a little irritated. "But not even the brave, let alone the fair, can live long on bread and cheese and kisses. ”

“ Her Cousin John—your Cousin John, not any relation of mine, thank Heaven!—diddled away on his own extravagant living the fifty thousand pounds he held in trust, with remainder to your brother Algy."
Now to Lady Susie fifty thousand pounds was very much the same as a million of money would have been, and she became very pale.
"Is that really true, mother?" she asked in a low voice.
"It's true that we've lost fifty thousand pounds," said the Duchess mildly. "But it's not true that we are quite ruined." ”

“ Parsleet had felt extremely gratified when one of the maids in attendance on a royal visitor had informed her that that very same wallpaper had lined the corridors of Windsor Castle in Queen Victoria's day! Mrs. Parsleet's ideal of womanhood had always been Queen Victoria. This was in a sense strange, as the Duchess, who was the bright sun round whom everything in Mrs. Parsleet's high little world revolved, was very unlike Queen Victoria in everything, save that both those great ladies had had a large family of children. ”

“ Why, she doesn't know the meaning of the word, love,—"
"One never knows what one's children know nowadays," said the Duchess feebly.
"You mayn't know, but I know! Only in July Susie told me she meant to remain single, like your Aunt Lolly. That was when she had refused that nice chap, Latterdale, after whom all the girls, and the mammies too, were in full cry."
"She didn't like him," said the Duchess quickly. "And apparently she does like poor Geoffrey."
"Stuff and nonsense! But Laura——"
"Yes?"
"Did you notice hat she said about Parsleet? I'm afraid the old woman has had a hand in this." ”

“ Though she was very, very old—no one knew her age even approximately, and it was the one question the Duchess had never dared, at any time of her life, to ask her—till last year Mrs. Parsleet had always insisted on taking certain tourist parties round not only the castle, on the two days when the state-rooms were shown, but also the keep. Among those who did not love the housekeeper some would whisper that she was uncommonly fond of money, and that though it was well known by those whom such matters interested, that Mrs. Parsleet must be a very warm woman indeed! ”

“ Thinking, as usual, only of herself. Let me see? That money was supposed to be invested, if I remember rightly, at five and a half per cent. That means a hole in our income of nearly three thousand a year. And your extravagant son, Algy, will have a very lean old age, unless he marries an heiress."
They looked at one another in dismay. "Well! This has blotted out poor Apollo, at any rate," said the Duke at last.
There came a knock at the door.
"Come in," cried the Duchess; and then her downcast face lit up, for it was only her darling Susie, looking very grave. ”

“ I've been going into my private affairs this very day, and I find that I shall be able to give Lady Susie an allowance quite sufficiently adequate for a poor man's wife—that, of course, she will be, and to the end of her life if she now marries Captain Brentlaw. ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1947, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 76 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”