Now as, by an all-wise dispensation of Providence, it is not possible for one person so to hate another without that other having a vague consciousness of the deadly sentiment, Aurora felt that Mrs. Powell’s attachment to her was of no very profound nature. But the reckless girl did not seek to fathom the depth of any inimical feeling which might lurk in her dependent’s breast.
“She is not very fond of me, poor soul!” she said; “and I dare say I torment and annoy her with my careless follies. If I were like that dear considerate little Lucy, now—” And with a shrug of her shoulders, and an unfinished sentence such as this, Mrs. Mellish dismissed the insignificant subject from her mind.
You cannot expect these grand, courageous creatures to be frightened of quiet people. And yet, in the great dramas of life, it is the quiet people who do the mischief. Iago was not a noisy person; though, thank Heaven! it is no longer the fashion to represent him as an oily sneak, whom even the most foolish of Moors could not have trusted.
Aurora was at peace. The storms that had so nearly shipwrecked her young life had passed away, leaving her upon a fair and fertile shore. Whatever griefs she had inflicted upon her father’s devoted heart had not been mortal; and the old banker seemed a very happy man when he came, in the bright April weather, to see the young couple at Mellish Park. Amongst all the hangers-on of that large establishment there was only one person who did not join in the general voice when Mrs. Mellish was spoken of, and that one person was so very insignificant that his fellow-servants scarcely cared to ascertain his opinion. He was a man of about forty, who had been born at Mellish Park, and had pottered about the stables from his babyhood, doing odd jobs for the grooms, and being reckoned, although a little “fond” upon common matters, a very acute judge of horseflesh. This man was called Stephen, or, more commonly, Steeve Hargraves. He was a squat, broad-shouldered fellow, with a big head, a pale haggard face—a face whose ghastly pallor seemed almost unnatural—reddish-brown eyes, and bushy, sandy eyebrows, which formed a species of penthouse over those sinister-looking eyes. He was the sort of man who is generally called repulsive—a man from whom you recoil with a feeling of instinctive dislike, which is, no doubt, both wicked and unjust; for we have no right to take objection to a man because he has an ugly glitter in his eyes, and shaggy tufts of red hair meeting on the bridge of his nose, and big splay feet, which seem made to crush and destroy whatever comes in their way. This was what Aurora Mellish thought when, a few days after her arrival at the Park, she saw Steeve Hargraves for the first time, coming out of the harness-room with a bridle across his arm. She was angry with herself for the involuntary shudder with which she drew back at the sight of this man, who stood at a little distance polishing the brass ornaments upon a set of harness, and furtively regarding Mrs. Mellish as she leaned on her husband’s arm, talking to the trainer about the foals at grass in the meadows outside the Park.
Aurora asked who the man was.
“Why, his name is Hargraves, ma’am,” answered the trainer; “but we call him Steeve. He’s a little bit touched in the upper story—a little bit ‘fond,’ as we call it here; but he’s useful about the stables when he pleases; that arnt always though, for he’s rather a queer temper, and there’s none of us has ever been able to get the upper hand of him, as master knows.”
John Mellish laughed.
“No,” he said; “Steeve has pretty much his own way in the stables, I fancy. He was a favourite groom of my father’s twenty years ago; but he got a fall in the hunting-field, which did him some injury about the head, and he’s never been quite right since. Of course this, with my poor father’s regard for him, gives him a claim upon us, and we put up with his queer ways, don’t we, Langley?”
“Well, we do, sir,” said the trainer; “though, upon my honour, I’m sometimes half afraid of him, and begin to think he’ll get up in the middle of the night and murder some of us.”
“Not till some of you have won a hatful of money, Langley. Steeve’s a little too fond of the brass to murder any of you for nothing. You shall see his face light up presently, Aurora,” said John, beckoning to the stableman. “Come here, Steeve. Mrs. Mellish wishes you to drink her health.”
He dropped a sovereign into the man’s broad muscular palm—the hand of a gladiator, with horny flesh and sinews of iron. Steeve’s red eyes glistened as his fingers closed upon the money.
“Thank you kindly, my lady,” he said, touching his cap.
He
