Milly Darrell
M. E. Braddon
Produced by Daniel Fromont
Mary Elizabeth Braddon (4 October 1835 - 4 February 1915), Milly Darrel(serialised in Belgravia November 1870 - January 1871), here taken fromMilly Darrel and other stories Asher's Collection Emile Galette Paris1873
ASHER'S COLLECTION
OF
ENGLISH AUTHORS.
BRITISH AND AMERICAN.
_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.
VOL. 72.
MILLY DARRELL AND OTHER STORIES
BY M. E. BRADDON.
IN ONE VOLUME.
PARIS
EMILE GALETTE, 12, RUE BONAPARTE.
1873.
_This Edition
is Copyright for Foreign Circulation only_.
ASHER'S COLLECTION
OF
ENGLISH AUTHORS
BRITISH AND AMERICAN.
_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.
VOL. 72.
MILLY DARRELL AND OTHER TALES
BY M.E. BRADDON.
IN ONE VOLUME.
ASHER'S EDITION
BY THE SAME AUTHOR:
ROBERT AINSLEIGH -- 3 VOL.
TO THE BITTER END -- 3 VOL.
MILLY DARRELL
AND OTHER TALES.
BY
M. E. BRADDON
AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET," "ROBERT AINSLEIGH," ETC.
_COPYRIGHT EDITION_.
BERLIN
A. ASHER & CO., PUBLISHERS,
1873.
TO
DR. AND MRS. BEAMAN,
THE AUTHOR'S OLD AND VALUED FRIENDS,
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
CONTENTS.
MILLY DARRELL -- PAGE 1
OLD RUDDERFORD HALL -- PAGE 179
THE SPLENDID STRANGER -- PAGE 235
MILLY DARRELL
CHAPTER I.
I BEGIN LIFE.
I was just nineteen years of age when I began my career as articledpupil with the Miss Bagshots of Albury Lodge, Fendale, Yorkshire. Myfather was a country curate, with a delicate wife and four children, ofwhom I was the eldest; and I had known from my childhood that the daymust come in which I should have to get my own living in almost theonly vocation open to a poor gentleman's daughter. I had been fairlyeducated near home, and the first opportunity that arose for placing meout in the world had been gladly seized upon by my poor father, whoconsented to pay the modest premium required by the Miss Bagshots, inorder that I might be taught the duties of a governess, and essay mypowers of tuition upon the younger pupils at Albury Lodge.
How well I remember the evening of my arrival!--a bleak dreary eveningat the close of January, made still more dismal by a drizzling rainthat had never ceased falling since I left my father's snug littlehouse at Briarwood in Warwickshire. I had had to change trains threetimes, and to wait during a blank and miserable hour and a quarter, orso, at small obscure stations, staring hopelessly at the advertisementson the walls--advertisements of somebody's life-sustaining cocoa, andsomebody else's health-restoring cod-liver oil, or trying to read thebig brown-backed Bible in the cheerless little waiting-room; andtrying, O so hard, not to think of home, and all the love and happinessI had left behind me. The journey had been altogether tiresome andfatiguing; but, for all that, the knowledge that I was near mydestination brought me no sense of pleasure. I think I should havewished that dismal journey prolonged indefinitely, if I could therebyhave escaped the beginning of my new life.
A lumbering omnibus conveyed me from the station to Albury Lodge, afterdepositing a grim-looking elderly lady at a house on the outskirts ofthe town, and a dapper-looking little man, whom I took for a commercialtraveller, at an inn in the market-place. I watched the road with akind of idle curiosity as the vehicle lumbered along. The town had acheerful prosperous air even on this wet winter night, and I saw thatthere were two fine old churches, and a large modern building which Isupposed to be the town-hall.
We left the town quite behind us before we came to Albury Lodge; a verylarge house on the high-road, a square red-brick house of the earlyGeorgian era, shut in from the road by high walls. The greatwrought-iron gates in the front had been boarded up, and Albury Lodgewas now approached by a little wooden side-door into a stone-flaggedcovered passage that led to a small door at the end of the house. Theomnibus-driver deposited me at this door, with all my worldlypossessions, which at this period of my life consisted of two rathersmall boxes and a japanned dressing-case, a receptacle that containedall my most sacred treasures.
I was admitted by a rather ill-tempered-looking housemaid, with a capof obtrusive respectability and a spotless white apron. I fancied thatshe looked just a little superciliously at my boxes, which I daresaywould not have contained her own wardrobe.
'O, it's the governess-pupil, I suppose?' she said. 'You was expectedearly this afternoon, miss. Miss Bagshot and Miss Susan are gone out totea; but I can show you where you are to sleep, if you'll please tostep this way. Do you think you could carry one of your trunks, if Icarry the other?'
I thought I could; so the housemaid and I lugged them all the way alongthe stone passage and up an uncarpeted back staircase which led fromthe lobby into which the door at the end of the passage opened. We wentvery high up, to the top story in fact, where the housemaid led me intoa long bare room with ten little beds in it. I was well enoughaccustomed to the dreariness of a school dormitory, but somehow thisroom looked unusually dismal.
There was a jet of gas burning at one end of the room, near a dooropening into a lavatory which was little more than a cupboard, but inwhich ten young ladies had to perform their daily ablutions. Here Iwashed my face and hands in icy-cold water, and arranged my hair aswell as I could without the aid of a looking-glass, that being a luxurynot provided at Albury Lodge. The servant stood watching me as I madethis brief toilet, waiting to conduct me to the schoolroom. I followedher, shivering as I went, to a great empty room on the first floor. Theholidays were not quite over, and none of the pupils had as yetreturned. There was an almost painful neatness and bareness in place ofthe usual litter of books and papers, and I could not help thinkingthat an apartment in a workhouse would have looked quite as cheerful.Even the fire behind the high wire guard seemed to burn in a differentmanner from all home fires: a fact which I attributed then to somesympathetic property in the coal, but which I afterwards found to becaused by a plentiful admixture of coke; a slow sulky smoke went upfrom the dull mass of fuel, brightened ever so little now and then by asickly yellow flame. One jet of gas dimly lighted this long drearyroom, in which there was no human creature but myself and my guide.
'I'll bring you some supper presently, miss,' the housemaid said, anddeparted before I could put in a timid plea for that feminine luxury, acup of tea.
I had not expected to find myself quite alone on this first night of myarrival, and a feeling of hopeless wretchedness came over me as I satdown at one end of a long green-baize-covered table, and rested my headupon my folded arms. Of course it was very weak and foolish, a badbeginning of my new life, but I was quite powerless to contend againstthat sense of utter misery. I thought of all I had left at home. Ithought of what my life might have been if my father had been only alittle better off: and then I burst out crying as if my heart werebreaking.
Suddenly, in the midst of that foolish paroxysm, I felt a light handupon my shoulder, and looking up, saw a face bending over me, a facefull of sympathy and compassion.
O Milly Darrell, my darling, my love, how am I to describe you as youappeared before my eyes that night? How poorly can any words of minepaint you in your girlish beauty, as you looked down upon me in thatdimly-lighted schoolroom with divine compassion in your dark eloquenteyes!
Just at that moment I was so miserable and so inclined to be sulky inmy wretc
hedness, that even the vision of that bright face gave melittle pleasure. I pushed away the gentle hand ungraciously, and rosehastily from my seat.
'Pray don't cry any more,' said the young lady; 'I can't bear to hearyou cry like that.'
'I'm not going to cry any more,' I answered, drying my eyes in a hasty,angry way. 'It was very foolish of me to cry at all; but this place didlook so cheerless and dreary, and I began to think of my father andmother, and all I had left behind me at home.'
'Of course it was only natural you should think of them. Everythingdoes seem so bleak and dismal the first night; but you are very happyto have so many at home. I have only papa.'
'Indeed!' I said, not feeling deeply interested in her affairs.
I looked at her as she stood leaning a little against the end of thetable, and playing idly with a bunch of charms and lockets hanging toher gold chain. She was very handsome, a brunette, with a smallstraight nose, hazel eyes, and dark-brown hair. Her mouth was theprettiest and most expressive I ever saw in my life, and gave anindescribable charm to her face. She was handsomely dressed in
