CHAPTER X.
Parties ran high at Kensington and Notting Hill. Stella stood up for charades, Jane for tableaux. Mr. Hartley naturally sided with his wife, Miss Charlmont held back from volunteering any opinion, Mrs. Tyke voted for the last speaker, Dr. Tyke ridiculed each alternative; at last Mr. Durham ingeniously threw his weight into both scales, and won for both parties a partial triumph. ‘Why not,’ asked he,—‘why not let Pug speak, and Miss Jane be silent?’
This pacific suggestion once adopted, Dr. Tyke proposed that a charade word should be fixed upon, and performed by speech or spectacle, as might suit the rival stars; for instance, Love-apple.
But who was to be Love?
Everybody agreed in rejecting little boys; and Jane, when directly appealed to, refused to represent the Mother of love and laughter; ‘for,’ as she truly observed, ‘that would not be Love, after all.’ Mr. Durham, looking laboriously gallant, aimed at saying something neat and pointed; he failed, yet Jane beamed a smile upon his failure. Then Dr. Tyke proposed a plaster Cupid; this, after some disputing, was adopted, with vague accessories of processional Greek girls, to be definitely worked out afterwards. For ‘Apple’ Alan suggested Paris and the rival goddesses, volunteering himself as Paris: Jane should be Venus, and Catherine would make a capital Juno. Jane accepted her own part as a matter of course, but doubted about her sister. ‘Yes,’ put in Miss Charlmont, decisively, ‘I will be Juno, or anything else which will help us forward a little.’ So that was settled; but who should be Minerva.? Stella declined to figure as the patroness of wisdom, and Jane drily observed, that they ought all to be tall, or all to be short, in her idea. At last a handsome, not too handsome, friend, Lady Everett, was thought of to take the part. The last scene Dr. Tyke protested he should settle himself with Stella, and not be worried any more about it. So those two went into committee together, and Alan edged in ere long for consultation; finally, Miss Charlmont was appealed to, and the matter was arranged amongst them without being divulged to the rest.
But all was peace and plenty, smiles and wax-candles, at Kensington, when at last the evening came for the performance. Mrs. Hartley’s drawing-rooms being much more spacious than Mrs. Tyke’s, had been chosen for convenience, and about two hundred guests assembled to hear Stella declaim and see Jane attitudinize, as either faction expressed it. Goodnatured Mrs. Tyke played the hostess, whilst Mrs. Hartley remained occult in the green-room. Dr. Tyke was manager and prompter. Mr. Durham, vice Paris-Hartley, welcomed people in a cordial, fussy manner, apologising for the smallness of London rooms, and regretfully alluding to the vast scale of Orpingham Place, ‘where a man can be civil to his friends without treading on their toes or their tails—ha! ha!’
But there is a limit to all things, even fussiness has an end. At last every one worth waiting for had arrived, been received, been refreshed. Orpingham Place died out of the conversation. People exchanged commonplaces, and took their seats; having taken their seats they exchanged more commonplaces. ‘What’s the word?’—‘It’s such a bore guessing: I never guess anything’—‘People ought to tell the word beforehand.’—‘What a horrible man! Is that Mr. Hartley?’—‘No, old Durham; backbone Durham.’—‘Why backbone?’—‘Don’t know; hear him called so.’—‘Isn’t there a Beauty somewhere?’—‘Don’t know; there’s the Beast,’—and the hackneyed joke received the tribute of a hackneyed laugh.
The manager’s bell rang, the curtain drew up.
A plaster cast of Cupid, with fillet, bow, and quiver, on an upholstery pedestal, stood revealed. Music, commencing behind the scenes, approached; a file of English-Grecian maidens, singing and carrying garlands, passed across the stage towards a pasteboard temple, presumably their desired goal, although they glanced at their audience, and seemed very independent of Cupid on his pedestal. There were only six young ladies; but they moved slowly, with a tolerable space interposed between each and each, thus producing a processional effect. They sang, in time and in tune, words by Dr. Tyke; music (not in harmony, but in unison, to ensure correct execution) by Arthur Tresham:—
‘Love hath a name of Death:
He gives a breath
And takes away.
Lo we, beneath his sway,
Grow like a flower;
To bloom an hour,
To droop a day,
And fade away.’
The first Anglo-Greek had been chosen for her straight nose, the last for her elegant foot; the intermediate four, possessing good voices, bore the burden of the singing. They all moved and sang with self-complacent ease, but without much dramatic sentiment, except the plainest of the six, who assumed an air of languishment.
Some one suggested ‘cupid-ditty,’ but without universal acceptance. Some one else, on no obvious grounds, hazarded ‘Bore, Wild Boar:’ a remark which stung Dr. Tyke, as playwright, into retorting, ‘Boreas.’
The second scene was dumb show. Alan Hartley as Paris, looking very handsome in a tunic and sandals, and flanked by the largest sized, woolly toy lambs, sat, apple in hand, awaiting the rival goddesses. A flourish of trumpets announced the entrance of Miss Charlmont, a stately crowned Juno, robed in amber coloured cashmere, and leading in a leash a peacock, with train displayed, and ingeniously mounted on noiseless wheels. She swept grandly in, and held out one arm, with a studied gesture, for the apple; which, doubtless, would have been handed to her then and there, had not warning notes on a harp ushered in Lady Everett: a modest, sensible-looking Minerva, robed and stockinged in blue, with a funny Athenian owl perched on her shoulder, and a becoming helmet on her head. Paris hesitated visibly, and seemed debating whether or not to split the apple and the difference together, when a hubbub, as of birds singing, chirping, calling, cleverly imitated by Dr. Tyke and Stella on water-whistles, heralded the approach of Venus. In she came, beautiful Jane Charlmont, with a steady, gliding step, her eyes kindling with victory, both her small hands outstretched for the apple so indisputably hers, her lips parted in a triumphant smile. Her long, white robe flowed classically to the floor; two doves, seeming to nestle in her hair, billed and almost cooed; but her face eclipsed all beside it; and when Paris, on one knee, deposited the apple within her slim, white fingers, Juno forgot to look indignant and Minerva scornful.
After this the final scene fell dead and flat. In vain did Stella whisk about as the most coquettish of market-girls of an undefined epoch and country, balancing a fruit-basket on her head, and crying, ‘Grapes, melons, peaches, love-apples,’ with the most natural inflections. In vain did Arthur Tresham beat down the price of peaches, and Alan Hartley bid for love-apples:—Jane had attained one of her objects, and eclipsed her little friend for that evening.
The corps dramatique was to sit down to supper in costume; a point arranged ostensibly for convenience, secretly it may be for vanity’s sake: only Stella laid her fruit-basket aside, and Miss Charlmont released her peacock. Lady Everett continued to wear the helmet, which did not conceal her magnificent black hair (she had been a Miss Moss before marriage, Clara Lyon Moss), and Jane retained her pair of doves.
But during the winding up of the charade, more of moment had occurred off the stage than upon it. Jane, her part over, left the other performers to their own devices, and quietly made her way into a conservatory which opened out of the room devoted for that evening to cloaks and hoods.
If she expected to be followed she was not disappointed. A heavy step, and an embarrassed clearance of throat, announced Mr. Durham. He bustled up to her, where she sat fanning herself and showing white and brilliant against a background of flowers and leaves, whilst he looked at once sheepish and pompous, awkward and self-satisfied; not a lady’s man assuredly.
‘Hem—haw—Miss Jane, you surpassed yourself. I shall always think of you now as Venus; I ‘shall, indeed.’ Jane smiled benignantly. ‘Poor Pug’s nose is quite out of joint; it is, indeed But the chit has got a husband, and can snap her fingers at all of us.’ Jane surveyed him with grave interrogation, then cast down her lustrous eyes, and slightly turned her shoulder in his direction. Abashed, he resumed: ‘But really. Miss Jane, now wasn’t Venus a married lady too.’ and couldn’t we—?’ Jane interrupted him: ‘Pray give me your arm, Mr. Durham;’ she rose: ‘let us go back to the company. I don’t know what you are talking about, unless you mean to be rude and very unkind:’ the voice broke, the large, clear eye softened to tears; she drew back as he drew nearer. Then Mr. Durham, ill-bred, but neither scheming nor cold-hearted, pompous and fussy, but a not ungenerous man for all that,—then Mr. Durham spoke: ‘Don’t draw back from me. Miss Jane, but take my arm for once to lead you back to the company, and take my hand for good. For I love and admire you. Miss Jane; and if you will take an oldish man for your husband, you shall never want for money or for pleasure while my name is good in the City.’
Thus in one evening Jane Charlmont attained both her objects.
Supper was a very gay meal, as brilliant as lights, glass, and plate could make it. People were pleased with the night’s entertainment, with themselves, and with each other. Mr. Durham, with an obtrusive air of festivity, sat down beside Jane, and begged his neighbours not to inconvenience themselves, as they did not mind squeezing. Jane coloured, but judged it too early to frown. Mr. Durham, being somewhat old-fashioned, proposed healths: the fair actresses were toasted, the Anglo-Greeks in a bevy, the distinguished stars one by one. Mr. Tresham returned thanks for the processional six; Dr. Tyke for Miss Charlmont, Sir James Everett and Mr. Hartley for their respective wives.
Then Jane’s health was drunk: who would rise to return thanks? Mr. Durham rose: ‘Hem—haw—’ said he: ‘haw—hem—ladies and gentlemen, allow me to return thanks for the Venus of the evening—I mean for the Venus altogether, whose health you have done me the honour to drink’—knowing smiles circled round the table. ‘Done us, I should say: not that I unsay what I said; quite the contrary, and I’m not ashamed to have said it. I will only say one word more in thanking you for the honour you have done her and all of us: the champagne corks pop, and suggest popping; but after popping mum’s the word. Ladies and gentlemen, my very good friends, I drink your very good health.’
And the master of Orpingham Place sat down.
CHAPTER XI.
Lucy received the news of Jane’s engagement with genuine vexation, and then grew vexed with herself for feeling vexed. Conscience took alarm, and pronounced that envy and pride had a share in her vexation. Self retorted: It is not envy to see that Jane is mercenary, nor pride to dislike vulgarity. Conscience insisted: It is envy to be annoyed by Jane’s getting married before you, and it is pride to brand Mr. Durham as vulgar, and then taboo him as beyond the pale. Self pleaded: No one likes growing old and being made to feel it; and who would not deprecate a connection who will put one out of countenance at every turn? But Conscience secured the last word: If you were younger than Jane, you would make more allowances for her; and if Mr. Durham were engaged to any one except your sister, you would think it fair not to condemn him as destitute of every virtue because he is underbred.
Thus did Conscience get the better of Self. And Lucy gulped down dignity and disappointment together when, in reply to Miss Drum’s, ‘My dear, I hope your sisters are well, and enjoying their little gaieties,’ she said, cheerfully: ‘Now, really, you should give me something for such wonderful news: Jane is engaged to be married.’
There was nothing Miss Drum relished more than a wedding ‘between persons suited to each other, and not ridiculous on the score of age and appearance,’ as she would herself pointedly have defined it. Now Jane was obviously young enough and pretty enough to become a bride; so Miss Drum was delighted, and full of interest and of inquiries, which Lucy found it rather difficult to answer satisfactorily.
‘And who is the favoured gentleman, my dear?’
‘Mr. Durham, of Orpingham Place, in Gloucestershire. Very rich it seems, and a widower. His only daughter,’ Lucy hurried on with an imperceptible effort, ‘married that Mr. Hartley Catherine and I used to meet so often at Notting Hill. She was thought to be a great heiress; but I suppose this will make some difference.’
‘Then he is rather old for Jane?’
‘He is not yet fifty it seems, though of course that is full old. By what he says, Orpingham Place must be a very fine country-seat; and Jane appears cut out for wealth and pleasure, she has such a power of enjoying herself;’ and Lucy paused.
Miss Drum, dropping the point of age, resumed: ‘Now what Durham will this be, my dear. I used to know a Sir Marcus Durham—a gay, hunting Baronet. He was of a north-country family; but this may be a branch of the same stock. He married an Earl’s daughter, Lady Mary; and she used to take precedence, let who would be in the room, which was not thought to be in very good taste when the dowager Lady Durham was present. Still an Earl’s daughter ought to understand good breeding, and that was how she acted; I do not wish to express any opinion. Perhaps Mr. Durham may have a chance of the Baronetcy, for Sir Marcus left no children, but was succeeded by a bachelor brother; and then Jane will be “my lady” some day.’
‘No,’ replied Lucy; ‘I don’t think that likely. Mr. Durham is enormously wealthy, by what I hear; but not of a county family. He made his fortune in the City.’
Miss Drum persisted: ‘The cadets of even noble families have made money by commerce over and over again. It is no disgrace to make a fortune; and I see no reason why Mr. Durham should not be a baronet some day. Many a City man has been as fine a gentleman as any idler at court. Very likely Mr. Durham is an elegant man of talent, and well connected; if so, a fortune is no drawback, and the question of age may be left to the lady’s decision.’
Lucy said no more: only she foresaw and shrank from that approaching day of undeceiving which should bring Mr. Durham to Brompton-on-Sea.
Once set off on the subject of family, there was no stopping Miss Drum, who, having had no proveable great-grandfather, was sensitive on the score of pedigree.
‘You might not suppose it now, Lucy, but it is well known that our family name of Drum, though less euphonious than that of Durham, is in fact the same. I made the observation once to Sir Marcus, and he laughed with pleasure, and often afterwards addressed me as cousin. Lady Mary did not like the suggestion; but no one’s fancies can alter a fact:’ and the old lady looked stately, and as if the Drum-Durham theory had been adopted and emblazoned by the College of Heralds; whereas, in truth, no one besides herself, not even the easy-tempered Gawkins, held it.
Meanwhile, all went merrily and smoothly at Notting Hill. As Jane had said, she was old enough to know her own mind, and apparently she knew it. When Mr. Durham presented her with a set of fine diamonds, she dropped naturally into calling him George; and when he pressed her to name the day, she answered, with an assumption of girlishness, that he must talk over all those dreadful things with Catherine.
To Miss Charlmont he had already opened his mind on the subject of settlements: Jane should have everything handsome and ample, but Pug must not lose her fortune either. This Catherine, deeming it right and reasonable, undertook to explain to Jane. Jane sulked a little to her sister, but displayed only a smiling aspect to her lover, feeling in her secret heart that her own nest was being particularly well feathered: for not only were Mr. Durham’s new marriage settlements most liberal, in spite of Stella’s prospective twenty thousand pounds on coming of age, and twenty thousand at her father’s demise; but Catherine, of her own accord, provided that at her death all her share of their father’s property should descend to Jane, for her own separate use, and at her own absolute disposal. The younger sister, indeed, observed with safe generosity: ‘Suppose you should marry, too, some day?’ But Catherine, grateful for any gleam of unselfishness in her favourite sister, answered warmly and decisively: ‘I never meant to marry, and I always meant what fortune I had to be yours at last: only, dear, do not again think hardly of our poor father’s oversight.’
Mr. Durham was urgent to have the wedding day fixed, and Jane reluctant merely and barely for form’s sake. A day in August was named, and the honeymoon pre devoted to Paris and Switzerland. Then Miss Charlmont pronounced it time to return home; and was resolute that the wedding should take place at Brompton-on-Sea, not at Netting Hill as the hospitable Tykes proposed.
Jane was now nothing loth to quit town; Mr. Durham unwilling to lose her, yet willing as recognising the step for an unavoidable preliminary. Nevertheless, he felt hurt at Jane’s indifference to the short separation; whilst Jane, in her turn, felt worried at his expecting any show of sentiment from her, though, having once fathomed his feelings, she kept the worry to herself and produced the sentiment. He looked genuinely concerned when they parted at London Bridge Station; but Jane never in her life had experienced a greater relief than now, when the starting train left him behind on the platform. A few more days, and it would be too late to leave him behind: but she consoled herself by reflecting that without him she might despair of ever seeing Paris; Switzerland was secondary in her eyes.
Miss Drum had often set as a copy, ‘Manners make the Man,’ and explained to her deferential pupils how in that particular phrase ‘Man’ includes ‘Woman.’ Catherine in later life reflected that ‘Morals make the Man’ (including Woman) conveys a not inferior truth. Jane might have modified the sentence a trifle further, in employing it as an M copy, and have written, ‘Money makes the Man.’
CHAPTER XII.
Lucy welcomed her sisters home, after an absence of unprecedented duration, with warmhearted pleasure, but Jane went far to extinguish the feeling.
In the heyday of her blooming youth and satisfaction, she was not likely to acquire any tender tact lacking at other times; and an elder sister, mentally set down in her catalogue of old maids, was fair game.
‘Why, Lucy,’ she cried, as they sat together the first evening, herself the only idler of the three, ‘you look as old as George, and about as lively: Miss Drum must be catching.’
‘Do leave Miss Drum alone,’ Lucy answered, speaking hastily from a double annoyance. ‘And if,’—she forced a laugh,—‘surely if my looks recall George to your mind they ought to please you.’
But Jane was incorrigible. ‘My dear, George is Orpingham Place, and Orpingham Place is George; but your looks suggest some distinction between the two. Only think, he expected me to grow dismal at leaving him behind, and I did positively see his red pockethandkerchief fluttering in the breeze as we screamed out of the station. And he actually flattered himself I should not go out much till the wedding is over; catch me staying at home if I can help it! By-the-bye, did you mean a joke by wrapping his photograph up in the ten-pound note? It struck me afterwards as really neat in its way.’
‘Oh, Jane!’ put in Catherine, and more she might have added in reproof; but at that instant the door opened, and Mr. Ballantyne was announced.
Mr. Ballantyne was a solicitor, related to Mrs. Gawkins Drum, and taken into partnership by that lady’s husband shortly before their marriage. Judging by looks, Mr. Ballantyne might have been own nephew to Miss Drum rather than to her sister-in-law, so neutral was he in aspect and manner; if ever any one liked him at first sight, it was because there was nothing on the surface to stir a contrary feeling; and if any one volunteered a confidence to him, it was justified by his habitual taciturnity, which suggested a mechanical aptitude at keeping a secret; yet, however appearances were against him, he was a shrewd man of business, and not deficient in determination of character.
He arrived by appointment to show Miss Charlmont the draft of her settlement on her sister, and take, if need be, further instructions. She was one to see with her own eyes rather than merely to hear with her own ears, and, therefore, retired with the papers to the solitude of her own room, leaving her sisters to entertain the visitor.
Thus left, Mr. Ballantyne took a respectful look at Jane, whose good luck in securing the master of Orpingham Place he considered rare indeed. Looking at her he arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Durham also had been lucky. Jane just glanced at Mr. Ballantyne, mentally appraising him as a nonentity; but in that glance she saw his admiration; admiration always propitiated her, and she deigned to be gracious.
Various maiden ladies in Brompton-on-Sea would have been gracious to Mr. Ballantyne from a different motive. Though still a youngish man he was a widower, already in easy circumstances, and with a prospect of growing rich. His regard for his late wife’s memory was most decorous, but not such as to keep him inconsolable; and his only child, Frank, being no more than five years old and healthy, need scarcely be viewed as a domestic drawback; indeed, certain spinsters treated the boy with a somewhat demonstrative affection, but these ladies were obviously not in their teens.
Mr. Ballantyne meanwhile, though mildly courteous to all, had not singled out any one for avowed preference. Possibly he liked Miss Edith Sims, a doctor’s daughter, a bold equestrian, a first-rate croquet player; she hoped so sincerely, for she had unbecoming carroty hair and freckles; possibly he liked Lucy Charlmont, but she had never given the chance a thought. Of Miss Charlmont, whom he had seen twice, and both times exclusively on business, he stood in perceptible awe.
Catherine, finding nothing to object to in the draft, returned it to Mr. Ballantyne with her full assent. Then tea was brought in, and Mr. Ballantyne was asked to stay. His aptitude for carrying cups and plates, recognised and admired in other circles, here remained in abeyance; Miss Charlmont adhering to the old fashion of people sitting round the tea-table at tea no less formally than round the dining-table at dinner.
A plan for a picnic having been set on foot by the Gawkins Drums, Lucy had been invited, and had accepted before Jane’s engagement was announced. So now Mr. Ballantyne mentioned the picnic, taking for granted that Lucy would join, and empowered by the projectors to ask her sisters also; Jane brightened at the proposal, being secretly charmed at a prospect of appearing amongst her familiar s mistress elect of Orpingham Place; but Catherine demurred,—
‘Thank you, Mr. Ballantyne; I will call myself and thank Mrs. Drum, but Mr. Durham might object, and I will stay at home with my sister. No doubt we shall find future opportunities of all meeting.’
‘Dear me!’ cried Jane; ‘Mr. Durham isn’t Bluebeard; or, if he is, I had better get a little fun first. My compliments, please, and I shall be too glad to come.’
‘Oh, Jane!’ remonstrated Miss Charlmont; but it was a hopeless remonstrance. Jane, once bent on amusement, was not to be deterred by doubtful questions of propriety; and the elder sister, mortified, but more anxious for the offender’s credit than for her own dignity, changed her mind perforce, and, with a sigh, accepted the invitation. If Jane was determined to go, she had better go under a middle-aged sister’s eye; but the party promised to be a large one, including various strange gentlemen, and Catherine honestly judged it objectionable.
Jane, however, was overflowing with glee, and questioned Mr. Ballantyne energetically as to who were coming. When he was gone she held forth to her sisters,—
‘That hideous Edith Sims, of course she will ride over on Brunette, to show her figure and her bridle hand. I shall wear pink, and sit next her to bring out her freckles. I’ve not forgotten her telling people I had no fortune. Don’t you see she’s trying to hook Mr. Ballantyne? you heard him say she has been consulting him about something or other. Let’s drive Mr. Ballantyne over in our carriage, and the baby can perch on the box.’
Lucy said, ‘Nonsense, Jane; Mr. Ballantyne has his own dog-cart, and he is tiresome enough without keeping him all to ourselves.’
And Catherine added, this time peremptorily, ‘My dear, that is not to be thought of; I could not justify it to Mr. Durham. Either you will drive over with Lucy and me, and any other person I may select, or you must find a carriage for yourself, as I shall not go to the picnic.’
CHAPTER XIII.
The environs of Brompton-on-Sea were rich in spots adapted to picnics, and the Gawkins Drums had chosen the very prettiest of these eligible spots. Rocky Drumble, a green glen of the floweriest, but with fragments of rock showing here and there, possessed an echo point and a dripping well: it was, moreover, accredited by popular tradition with a love-legend, and, on the same authority, with a ghost for moonlight nights. Rocky Drumble was threaded from end to end by a stream which nourished watercresses; at one season its banks produced wild strawberries, at another nuts, sometimes mushrooms. All the year round the glen was frequented by song-birds; not seldom a squirrel would scamper up a tree, or a rabbit sit upright on the turf, winking his nose. Rocky Drumble on a sunny summer-day was a bower of cool shade, and of a silence heightened, not broken, by sounds of birds and of water, the stream at hand, the sea not far off; a bower of sun-chequered shade, breaths of wind every moment shifting the shadows, and the sun making its way in, now here, now there, with an endless, monotonous changeableness.
On such a day the Charlmonts drove to their rendezvous in Rocky Drumble. The carriage held four inside; Miss Drum and Catherine sitting forward, with Lucy and Jane opposite. On the box beside the driver perched little Frank Ballantyne, very chatty and merry at first; but to be taken inside and let fall asleep when, as was foreseen, he should grow tired. The child had set his heart on going to the picnic, and good Miss Drum had promised to take care of him—Miss Drum nominally, Lucy by secret understanding, for the relief of her old friend.
Miss Drum wore a drawn silk bonnet, which had much in common with the awning of a bathing-machine. Catherine surmounted her inevitable cap by a broad-brimmed brown straw hat. Lucy wore a similar hat without any cap under it, but looked, in fact, the elder of the two. Jane, who never sacrificed complexion to fashion, also appeared in a shady hat, dovecoloured, trimmed with green leaves, under which she produced a sort of apple-blossom effect, in a cloud of pink muslin over white, and white appliquée again over the pink. Catherine had wished her to dress soberly, but Jane had no notion of obscuring her beauties. She had bargained with Mr. Durham that he was not to come down to Brompton-on-Sea till the afternoon before the wedding; and when he looked hurt at her urgency, had assumed an air at once affectionate and reserved, assuring him that this course seemed to her due to the delicacy of their mutual relations. Five days were still wanting to the wedding-day, George was not yet inalienably at her elbow, and no moment could appear more favourable for enjoyment. Surely if a skeleton promised to preside at the next banquet, this present feast was all the more to be relished: for though, according to Jane’s definition, ion, George was Orpingham Place, she would certainly have entered upon Orpingham Place with added zest had it not entailed George.
Miss Charlmont had delayed starting till the very last moment, not wishing to make more of the picnic than could be helped; and when she with her party reached the Drumble, they found their friends already on the spot. The last-comers were welcomed with a good deal of friendly bustle, and half-a-dozen gentlemen, in scarcely more than as many minutes, were presented to Jane by genial little Mrs. Drum, who had never seen her before, and was charmed at first sight. Jane, happily for Catherine’s peace of mind, assumed an air of dignity in unison with her distinguished prospects: she was gracious rather than coquettish—gracious to all, but flattering to none; a change from former days, when her manner used to savour of coaxing. Edith Sims had ridden over on Brunette, and Jane, keeping her word as to sitting next her, produced the desired effect.
The Charlmonts coming late, every one was ready for luncheon on their arrival, and no strolling was permitted before the meal. As to the luncheon, it included everything usual and nothing unusual, and most of the company consuming it displayed fine, healthy appetites. Great attention was paid to Jane, who was beyond all comparison the best-looking woman present; whilst two or three individuals made mistakes between Catherine and Lucy, as to which was Miss Charlmont.
Poor Lucy! she had seldom felt more heavyhearted than now, as she sat talking and laughing. She felt herself getting more and more worn-looking as she talked and laughed on, getting visibly older and more faded. How she wished that Frank, who had fallen asleep on a plaid after stuffing unknown sweets into his system—how she wished that Frank would wake and become troublesome, to give her some occupation less intolerable than ‘grinning and bearing!’
Luncheon over, the party broke up, splitting into twos and threes, and scattering themselves here and there through the Drumble. Miss Charlmont attaching herself doggedly to Jane, found herself clambering up and down banks and stony excrescences in company with a very young Viscount and his tutor: as she clambered exasperation waxed within her at the futility of the young men’s conversation and the complacency of Jane’s rejoinders; certainly, had any one been studying Catherine’s face (which nobody was), he would have beheld an unwonted aspect at a picnic.
Miss Drum, ostentatiously aged because in company with her brother and his bride, had chosen before luncheon was well over to wrap herself up very warmly, and ensconce herself for an avowed nap inside one of the flys. ‘You can call me for tea,’ she observed to Lucy; ‘and when Frank tires you, you can leave him in the carriage with me.’ But Frank was Lucy’s one resource: minding him served as an excuse for not joining Mr. Drum, who joked, or Mr. Ballantyne, who covertly stared at her, or Edith Sims, who lingering near Mr. Ballantyne talked of horses, or any other person whose conversation was more tedious than silence.
When Frank woke, he recollected that nurse had told him strawberries grew in the Drumble; a fact grasped by him without the drawback of any particular season. Off he started in quest of strawberries, and Lucy zealously started in his wake, not deeming it necessary to undeceive him. The little fellow wandered and peered about diligently awhile after imaginary strawberries; failing these, he suddenly clamoured for a game at hide-and-seek: he would hide, and Lucy must not look.
They were now among the main fragments of rock found in the Drumble, out of sight of their companions. Lucy had scarcely shut her eyes as desired, when a shout of delight made her open them still more quickly, in time to see Frank scampering, as fast as his short legs would carry him, after a scampering rabbit. He was running—she recollected it in an instant—headlong towards the stream, and was already some yards from her. She called after him, but he did not turn, only cried out some unintelligible answer in his babyish treble. Fear lent her speed; she bounded after him, clearing huge stones and brushwood with instinctive accuracy. She caught at his frock—missed it—caught at it again—barely grasped it—and fell, throwing him also down in her fall. She fell on stones and brambles, bruising and scratching herself severely: but the child was safe, and she knew it, before she fainted away, whilst even in fainting her hand remained tightly clenched on his frock.
Frank’s frightened cries soon brought friends to their assistance. Lucy, still insensible, was lifted on to smooth turf, and then sprinkled with water till she came to herself. In few words, for she felt giddy and hysterical but was resolute not to give way, she accounted for the accident, blaming herself for having carelessly let the child run into danger. It was impossible for any carriage to drive so far along the Drumble, so she had to take some one’s arm to steady her in walking to meet the fly. Mr. Ballantyne, as pale as a sheet, offered his arm; but she preferred Mr. Drum’s, and leaned heavily on it for support.
Lucy was soon safe in the fly by Miss Drum’s side, whose nap was brought to a sudden end, and who, waking scared and fidgety, was disposed to lay blame on every one impartially, beginning with herself, and ending, in a tempered form, with Lucy. The sufferer thus disposed of, and packed for transmission home, the remaining picnickers, influenced by Mrs. Drum’s obvious bias, declined to linger for rustic tea or other pleasures, and elected then and there to return to their several destinations. The party mustered round the carriages ready to take their seats: but where were Catherine and Jane, Viscount and tutor? Shouting was tried, whistling was tried, ‘Cooee’ was tried by amateur Australians for the nonce: all in vain. At last Dr. Sims stepped into the fly with Lucy, promising to see her safe home; Miss Drum, smelling-bottle in hand, sat sternly beside her; Frank, after undergoing a paternal box on the ear, was degraded from the coachman’s box to the back seat, opposite the old lady, who turned towards him the aspect as of an ogress: and thus the first carriage started, with Edith reining in Brunette beside it. The others followed without much delay, one carriage being left for the truants; and its driver charged to explain, if possible without alarming the sisters, what had happened to cut short the picnic.
CHAPTER XIV.
The day before the wedding Lucy announced that she still felt too much bruised and shaken “to make one of the party,” either at church or at breakfast. Neither sister contradicted her: Catherine, because she thought the excuse valid; Jane, because Lucy, not having yet lost the traces of her accident, must have made but a sorry bridesmaid: and, as Jane truly observed, there were enough without her, for her defection still left a bevy of eight bridesmaids in capital working order.
Brompton-on-Sea possessed only one hotel of any pretensions,—‘The Duke’s Head,’ so designated in memory of that solitary Royal Duke who had once made brief sojourn beneath its roof. He found it a simple inn, bearing the name and sign of ‘The Three Mermaids;’ the mermaids appearing in paint as young persons, with yellow hair and combs, and faces of a type which failed to account for their uninterrupted self-ogling in hand-mirrors; tails were shadowily indicated beneath waves of deepest blue. After the august visit this signboard was superseded by one representing the Duke as a gentleman of inane aspect, pointing towards nothing discoverable; and this work of art, in its turn, gave place to a simple inscription, ‘The Duke’s Head Hotel.’
Call it by what name you would, it was as snug a house of entertainment as rational man or reasonable beast need desire, with odd little rooms opening out of larger rooms and off staircases; the only trace now visible of the Royal Duke’s sojourn (beyond the bare inscription of his title) being Royal Sentries in coloured pasteboard effigy, the size of life, posted on certain landings and at certain entrances. All the windowsills bore green boxes of flowering plants, whence a sweet smell, mostly of mignonette, made its way within doors. The best apartments looked into a square courtyard, turfed along three sides, and frequented by pigeons; and the pigeon-house, standing in a turfy corner, was topped by a bright silvered ball.
The landlord of the ‘Duke’s Head,’ a thin, tallowy-complexioned man, with a manner which might also be described as unpleasantly oily or tallowy, was in a bustle that same day, and all his household was bustling around him: for not merely had the ‘Duke’s Head’ undertaken to furnish the Durham-Charlmont wedding-breakfast with richness and elegance, but the bridegroom elect, whom report endowed with a pocketful of plums, the great Mr. Durham himself, with sundry fashionable friends, was coming down to Brompton-on-Sea by the 5.30 train, and would put up for one night at the ‘Duke’s Head.’ The waiters donned their whitest neckcloths, the waitresses their pinkest caps; the landlady, in crimson gown and gold chain, loomed like a local Mayor; the landlord shone, as it were, snuffed and trimmed: never, since the era of that actual Royal Duke, had the ‘Duke’s Head’ smiled such a welcome.
Mr. Durham, stepping out of the carriage on to the railway platform, and followed by Alan Hartley, Stella, and Arthur Tresham, indulged hopes that Jane might be there to meet him, and was disappointed. Not that the matter had undergone no discussion. Miss Charlmont, that unavoidable drive home from the picnic with a young Viscount and a tutor for vis-à-vis still rankling in her mind, had said, ‘My dear, there would be no impropriety in our meeting George at the Station, and he would certainly be gratified.’ But Jane had answered, ‘Dear me, sister! George will keep, and I’ve not a moment to spare; only don’t stay at home for me.’
So no one met Mr. Durham. But when he presented himself at the private house on the Esplanade, Jane showed herself all smiling welcome, and made him quite happy by her pretty ways. True, she insisted on his not spending the evening with her; but she hinted so tenderly at such restrictions vanishing on the morrow, and so modestly at remarks people might make if he did stay, that he was compelled to yield the point and depart in great admiration of her reserve, though he could not help recollecting that his first wooing had progressed and prospered without any such amazing proprieties. But then the mother of Everilda Stella had seen the light in a second-floor back room at Gateshead, and had married out of a circle where polite forms were not in the ascendant; whereas Jane Charlmont looked like a Duchess, or an Angel, or Queen Venus herself, and was altogether a different person. So Mr. Durham, discomfited, but acquiescent, retreated to the ‘Duke’s Head,’ and there consoled himself with more turtle-soup and crusty old port than Dr. Tyke would have sanctioned. Unfortunately Dr. and Mrs. Tyke were not coming down till the latest train that night from London, so Mr. Durham gorged unrebuked. He had seen Lucy, and taken rather a fancy to her, in spite of her blemished face, and had pressed her to visit Orpingham Place as soon as ever he and Jane should have returned from the Continent. He preferred Lucy to Catherine, with whom he never felt quite at ease; she was so decided and self-possessed, and so much better bred than himself. Not that Backbone Durham admitted this last point of superiority; he did not acknowledge, but he winced under it. Lucy on her side had found him better than his photograph; and that was something.
After tea she was lying alone on the drawing-room sofa in the pleasant summer twilight; alone, because her sisters were busy over Jane’s matters upstairs; alone with her own thoughts. She was thinking of very old days, and of days not so old and much more full of interest. She tried to think of Jane and her prospects; but against her will Alan Hartley’s image intruded itself on her reverie, and she could not banish it. She knew from Mr. Durham that he had come down for the wedding; she foresaw that they must meet, and shrank from the ordeal, even whilst she wondered how he would behave and how, she herself should behave. Alone, and in the half darkness, she burned with shamefaced dread of her own possible weakness, and mortified self-love wrung tears from her eyes as she inwardly prayed for help.
The door opened, the maid announced Mr. and Mrs. Hartley.
Lucy, startled, would have risen to receive them, but Stella was too quick for her, and seizing both her hands, pressed her gently backwards on the sofa. ‘Dear Miss Charlmont, you must not make a stranger of me, and my husband is an old friend. Mayn’t I call you Lucy?’
So this was Alan’s wife, this little, winning woman, still almost a child; this winning woman, who had won the only man Lucy ever cared for. It cost Lucy an effort to answer, and to make her welcome by her name of Stella.
Then Alan came forward and shook hands, looking cordial and handsome, with that kind tone of voice and tenderness of manner which had deceived poor Lucy once, but must never deceive her again. He began talking of their pleasant acquaintanceship in days of yore, of amusements they had shared, of things done together, and things spoken and not forgotten; it required the proof positive of Stella seated there smiling in her hat and scarlet feather, and with the wedding-ring on her small hand, to show even now that Alan only meant friendliness, when he might seem to mean so much more.
Lucy revolted under the fascination of his manner; feeling angry with herself that he still could wield power over her fancy, and angry a little with him for having made himself so much to her and no more. She insisted on leaving the sofa, rang the bell for a second edition of tea, and sent up the visitors’ names to her sisters. When they came down she turned as much shoulder as good breeding tolerated towards Alan, and devoted all the attention she could command to Stella. Soon the two were laughing together over some feminine little bit of fun; then Lucy brought out an intricate piece of tatting, which, when completed, was to find its way to Notting Hill—the antimacassar of Mr. Durham’s first visit there being, in fact, her handiwork; and, lastly, Lucy, once more for the moment with pretty pink cheeks and brightened eyes, convoyed her new friend upstairs to inspect Jane’s bridal dress, white satin, under Honiton lace.
When the visit was over, and Lucy safe in the privacy of her own room, a sigh of relief escaped her, followed by a sentiment of deep thankfulness; she had met Alan again, and he had disappointed her. Yes, the spectre which had haunted her for weeks past had, at length, been brought face to face and had vanished. Perhaps surprise at his marriage had magnified her apparent disappointment, perhaps dread of continuing to love another woman’s husband had imparted a morbid and unreal sensitiveness to her feelings; be this as it might, she had now seen Alan again, and had felt irritated by the very manner that used to charm. In the revulsion of her feelings she was almost ready to deem herself fortunate and Stella pitiable.
She felt excited, exalted, triumphant rather than happy; a little pained, and, withal, very glad. Life seemed to glow within her, her blood to course faster and fuller, her heart to throb, lightened of a load. Recollections which she had not dared face alone, Mr. Hartley, by recalling, had stripped of their dangerous charm; had stripped of the tenderness she had dreaded, and the sting under which she had writhed; for he was the same, yet not the same. Now, for the first time, she suspected him not indeed of hollowness, but of shallowness.
She threw open her window to the glorious August moon and stars, and, leaning out, drank deep of the cool night air. She ceased to think of persons, of events, of feelings.; her whole heart swelled, and became uplifted with a thankfulness altogether new to her, profound, transporting. When at length she slept, it was with moist eyes and smiling lips.
CHAPTER XV.
The wedding was over. Jane might have looked still prettier but for an unmistakable expression of gratified vanity; Mr. Durham might have borne himself still more pompously but for a deep-seated, wordless conviction, that his bride and her family looked down upon him. Months of scheming and weeks of fuss had ended in a marriage, to which the one party brought neither refinement nor tact, and the other neither respect nor affection.
Wedding guests, however, do not assemble to witness exhibitions of respect or affection, and may well dispense with tact and refinement when delicacies not in season are provided; therefore, the party on the Esplanade waxed gay as befitted the occasion, and expressed itself in toasts of highly improbable import.
The going off was, perhaps, the least successful point of the show. Catherine viewed flinging shoes as superstitious, Jane as vulgar; therefore no shoes were to be flung. Mr. Durham might have made head against ‘superstitious,’ but dared not brave ‘vulgar;’ so he kept to himself the fact that he should hardly feel thoroughly married without a tributary shoe, and meanly echoed Jane’s scorn. But Stella, who knew her father’s genuine sentiment, chose to ignore ‘superstition’ and ‘vulgarity’ alike; so, at the last moment, she snatched off her own slipper, and dexterously hurled it over the carriage, to Jane’s disgust (no love was lost between the two young ladies), and to Mr. Durham’s inward satisfaction.
Lucy had not joined the wedding party, not caring overmuch to see Jane marry the man who served her as a butt; but she peeped wistfully at the going off, with forebodings in her heart, which turned naturally into prayers, for the ill-matched couple. In the evening, however, when many of the party had returned to London, the few real friends and familiar acquaintances who reassembled as Miss Charlmont’s guests found Lucy in the drawing-room, wrapped up in something gauzily becoming to indicate that she had been ill, and looking thin under her wraps.
In Miss Charlmont’s idea a wedding-party should be at once mirthful and grave, neither dull nor frivolous. Dancing and cards were frivolous, conversation might prove dull; games were all frivolous except chess, which, being exclusive, favoured general dulness. These points she had impressed several times on Lucy, who was suspected of an inopportune hankering after bagatelle; and who now sat in the snuggest corner of the sofa, feeling shy, and at a loss what topic to start that should appear neither dull nor frivolous.
Dr. Tyke relieved her by turning her embarrassment into a fresh channel: what had she been doing to make herself ‘look like a turnip-ghost before its candle is lighted?’
‘My dear Lucy!’ cried Mrs. Tyke, loud enough for everybody to hear her, ‘you really do look dreadful, as if you were moped to death. You had much better come with the Doctor and me to the Lakes. Now I beg you to say yes, and come.’
Alan heard with good-natured concern; Arthur Tresham heard as if he heard not. But the first greeting had been very cordial between him and Lucy, and he had not seemed to remark her faded face.
‘Yes,’ resumed Dr. Tyke. ‘Now that’s settled. You pack up to-night and start with us to-morrow, and you shall be doctored with the cream of drugs for nothing.’
But Lucy said the plan was preposterous, and she felt old and lazy.
Mrs. Tyke caught her up: ‘Old? my dear child! and I feeling young to this day!’
And the Doctor added: ‘Why not be preposterous and happy? “Quel che piace giova,” as our sunny neighbours say. Besides, your excuses are incredible: “Not at home,” as the snail answered to the woodpecker’s rap.’
Lucy laughed, but stood firm; Catherine protesting that she should please herself. At last a compromise was struck: Lucy, on her cousins’ return from their tour, should go to Notting Hill, and winter there if the change did her good. ‘If not,’ said she, wearily, ‘I shall come home again, to be nursed by Catherine.’
‘If not,’ said Dr. Tyke, gravely for once, ‘we may think about our all seeing Naples together.’
Edith Sims, her hair and complexion toned down by candlelight, sat wishing Mr. Ballantyne would come and talk to her; and Mr. Ballantyne, unmindful of Edith at the other end of the room, sat making up his mind. Before the accident in the Drumble he had thought of Lucy with a certain distinction, since that accident he had felt uncomfortably in her debt, and now he sat reflecting that, once gone for the winter, she might be gone for good so far as himself was concerned. She was nice-looking and amiable; she was tender towards little motherless Frank; her fortune stood above rather than below what he had proposed to himself in a second wife:—if Edith could have read his thoughts, she would have smiled less complacently when at last he crossed over to talk to her of Brunette and investments, and when later still he handed her in to supper. As it was, candlelight and content became her, and she looked her best.
Mrs. Gawkins Drum, beaming with good will, and harmonious in silver-grey moire under old point lace, contrasted favourably with her angular sister-in-law, whose strict truthfulness forbade her looking congratulatory: for now that she had seen the ‘elegant man of talent’ of her previsions, she could not but think that Jane had married his money-bags rather than himself: therefore Miss Drum looked severe, and when viewed in the light of a wedding guest, ominous.
Catherine, no less conscientious than her old friend, took an opposite line, and laboured her very utmost to hide mortification and misgivings, and to show forth that cheerful hospitality which befitted the occasion when contemplated from an ideal point of view; but ease was not amongst her natural gifts, and she failed to acquire it on the spur of an uneasy moment. ‘Manners make the Man,’ ‘Morals make the Man,’ kept running obstinately in her head, and she could not fit Mr. Durham to either sentence. In all Brompton-on-Sea there was no heavier heart that night than Catherine Charlmont’s.
CHAPTER XVI.
November had come, the Tykes were settled at home again, and Lucy Charlmont sat in a railway-carriage on her way from Brompton-on Sea to Notting Hill. Wrapped up in furs, and with a novel open on her lap, she looked very snug in her corner; she looked, moreover, plumper and brighter than at Jane’s wedding-party. But her expression of unmistakable amusement was not derived from the novel lying unread in her lap: it had its source in recollections of Mr. Ballantyne, who had made her an offer the day before, and who had obviously been taken aback when she rejected his suit. All her proneness to bring herself in in the wrong could not make her fear that she had even for one moment said or done, looked or thought, what ought to have misled him: therefore conscience felt at ease, and the comic side of his demeanour remained to amuse her, despite a decorous wish to feel sorry for him. He had looked so particularly unimpulsive in the act of proposing, and then had appeared so much more disconcerted than grieved at her positive ‘No,’ and had hinted so broadly that he hoped she would not talk about his offer, that she could not imagine the matter very serious to him: and if not to him assuredly to nobody else. ‘I dare say it will be Edith Sims at last,’ mused she, and wished them both well.
A year earlier his offer might have been a matter of mere indifference to her, but not now; for her birthday was just over, and it was gratifying to find herself not obsolete even at thirty. This birthday had loomed before her threateningly for months past, but now it was over; and it became a sensible relief to feel and look at thirty very much as she had felt and looked at twenty-nine. Her mirror bore witness to no glaring accession of age having come upon her in a single night. ‘After all,’ she mused, ‘life isn’t over at thirty.’ Her thoughts flew before her to Notting Hill; if they dwelt on any one in especial, it was not on Alan Hartley.
Not on Alan Hartley, though she foresaw that they must meet frequently; for he and Stella were at Kensington again, planning to stay there over Christmas. Stella she rather liked than disliked; and as she no longer deemed her lot enviable, to see more of her would be no grievance. Mr. Tresham also was in London, and likely to remain there; for since his return from the East he had taken himself to task for idleness, and had joined a band of good men in an effort to visit and relieve the East-end poor in their squalid homes. His hobby happened to be emigration, but he did not ride his hobby rough-shod over his destitute neighbours. He was in London hard at work, and by no means faring sumptuously every day; but glad sometimes to get a mouthful of pure night air and of something more substantial at Notting Hill. He and Lucy had not merely renewed acquaintance at the wedding-party, but had met more than once afterwards during a week’s holiday he gave himself at the seaside; had met on the beach, or in country lanes, or down in some of the many drumbles. They had botanised in company; and one day had captured a cuttle-fish together, which Lucy insisted on putting safe back into the sea before they turned homewards. They had talked of what grew at their feet or lay before their eyes; but neither of them had alluded to those old days when first they had known and liked each other, though they obviously liked each other still.
Lucy, her thoughts running on some one who was not Alan, would have made a very pretty picture. A sort of latent smile pervaded her features without deranging them, and her eyes, gazing out at the dreary autumn branches, looked absent and soft; soft, tender, and pleased, though with a wistful expression through all.
The short, winter-like day had darkened by the time London Bridge was reached. Lucy stepped on to the platform in hopes of being claimed by Dr. Tyke’s man; but no such functionary appeared, neither was the fat coach-man discernible along the line of vehicles awaiting occupants. It was the first time Lucy had arrived in London without being either accompanied or met at the Station, and the novel position made her feel shy and a little nervous; so she was glad to stand unobtrusively against a wall, whilst more enterprising individuals found or missed their luggage. She preferred waiting, and she had to wait whilst passengers craned their necks, elbowed their neighbours, blundered, bawled, worried the Company’s servants, and found everything correct after all. At last the huge mass of luggage dwindled to three boxes, one carpet-bag, and one hamper, which were Lucy’s own; and which, with herself, a porter consigned to a cab. Thus ended her anxieties.
From London Bridge to Notting Hill the cabman of course knew his way, but in the mazes of Notting Hill he appealed to his fare for guidance. Lucy informed him that Appletrees House stood in its own large garden, and was sure to be well lighted up; and that it lay somewhere to the left, up a steepish hill. A few wrong turnings first made and next retrieved, a few lucky guesses, brought them to a garden-wall, which a passing postman told them belonged to Dr. Tyke’s premises. Lucy thrust her head out, and thought it all looked very like, except that the house itself stood enveloped in grim darkness; she had never noticed it look so dark before: could it be that she had been forgotten and every one had gone out?
They drove round the little sweep and knocked; waited, and knocked again. It was not till the grumbling cabman had knocked loud and long a third time that the door was opened by a crying maid-servant, who admitted Lucy into the unlighted hall with the explanation: ‘O Miss, Miss, master has had a fit, and mistress is taking on so you can hear her all over the place.’ At the same instant a peal of screaming, hysterical laughter rang through the house.
Without waiting for a candle, Lucy ran stumbling up the broad staircase, guided at once by her familiarity with the house and by her cousin’s screams. On the second-floor landing one door stood open revealing light at last, and Lucy ran straight in amongst the lights and the people. For a moment she was dazzled, and distinguished nothing clearly: in another moment she saw and understood all. Arthur Tresham and a strange gentleman were standing pale and silent at the fireplace, an old servant, stooping over the pillows, was busied in some noiseless way, and Mrs. Tyke had flung herself face downwards on the bed beside her husband.
Her husband? No, not her husband any longer, for she was a widow.
CHAPTER XVII.
A week of darkened windows, of condolence-cards and hushed inquiries, of voices and faces saddened, of footsteps treading softly on one landing. A week of many tears and quiet sorrow; of many words, for in some persons grief speaks; and of half-silent sympathy, for in some even sympathy is silent. A week wherein to weigh this world and find it wanting, wherein also to realise the far more exceeding weight of the other. A week begun with the hope whose blossom goes up as dust, and ending with the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.
In goods and chattels, Mrs. Tyke remained none the poorer for her husband’s death. He had left almost everything to her and absolutely at her disposal, well knowing that their old faithful servants were no less dear to her than to himself, and having on his side no poor relations to provide for. His nephew Alan Hartley, and Mr. Tresham, were appointed his executors. Alan the good-natured, addicted to shirking trouble in general, consistently shirked this official trouble in particular. Arthur Tresham did, what little work there was to do, and did it in such a way as veiled his friend’s shortcomings. Mrs. Tyke, with a life-long habit of leaning on some one, came, as a matter of course, to lean on him, and appealed to him as to all sorts of details, without once considering whether the time he devoted to her service was reclaimed out of his work, or leisure, or rest; he best knew, and the knowledge remained with him. Alan, though sincerely sorry for his uncle’s death, cut private jokes with Stella about his co-executor’s frequent visits to Appletrees House, and ignored the shortcomings which entailed their necessity.
Mrs. Tyke, in her bereavement, clung to Lucy, and was thoroughly amiable and helpless. She would sit for hours over the fire, talking and crying her eyes and her nose red, whilst Lucy wrote her letters, or grappled with her bills. Then they would both grow sleepy, and doze off in opposite chimney-corners. So the maid might find them when she brought up tea, or so Arthur when he dropped in on business, or possibly on pleasure. Mrs. Tyke would sometimes merely open sleepy eyes, shake hands, and doze off again; but Lucy would sit up wide awake in a moment, ready to listen to all his long stories about his poor people. Soon she took to making things for them, which he carried away in his pocket, or, when too bulky for his pocket, in a parcel under his arm. At last it happened, that they began talking of old days, before he went to the East, and then each found that the other remembered a great deal about those old days. So gradually it came to pass that, from looking back together, they took also to looking forward together.
Lucy’s courtship was most prosaic. Old women’s flannel and old men’s rheumatism alternated with some more usual details of love-making, and the exchange of rings was avowedly an exchange of old rings. Arthur presented Lucy with his mother’s wedding-guard; but Lucy gave him a fine diamond solitaire which had been her father’s, and the romantic corner of her heart was gratified by the inequality of the gifts. She would have preferred a little more romance certainly on his side; if not less sense, at least more sentiment; something reasonable enough to be relied upon, yet unreasonable enough to be flattering. ‘But one cannot have everything,’ she reflected, meekly remembering her own thirty years; and she felt what a deep resting-place she had found in Arthur’s trusty heart, and how shallow a grace had been the flattering charm of Alan’s manner. Till, weighing her second love against her first, tears, at once proud and humble, filled her eyes, and ‘one cannot have everything’ was forgotten in ‘I can never give him back half enough.’
After the exchange of rings, she announced her engagement to Catherine and Mrs. Tyke; to Jane also and Mr. Durham in few words and as all business connected with Dr. Tyke’s will was already satisfactorily settled, and Appletrees House about to pass into fresh hands, she prepared to return home. Mrs. Tyke, too purposeless to be abandoned to her own resources, begged an invitation to Brompton-on-Sea, and received a cordial welcome down from both sisters. Arthur was to remain at work in London till after Easter; and then to join his friends at the seaside, claim his bride, and take her away to spend their honey-moon beside that beautiful blue Bosphorus which had not made him forget her.
If there was a romantic moment in their courtship, it was the moment of parting at the noisy, dirty, crowded railway-station, when Arthur terrified Lucy, to her great delight, by standing on the carriage-step, and holding her hand locked fast in his own, an instant after the train had started.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A short chapter makes fitting close to a short story.
In mid May, on a morning which set forth the perfection either of sunny spring warmth or of breezy summer freshness, Arthur Tresham and Lucy Charlmont took each other for better for worse, till death should them part. Mr. Gawkins Drum gave away the bride; Miss Drum appeared auspicious as a rainbow; Catherine glowed and expanded with unselfish happiness; Mrs. Gawkins Drum pronounced the bride graceful, elegant, but old-looking; Mr. Durham contributed a costly wedding present, accompanied by a speech both ostentatious and affectionate; Jane displayed herself a little disdainful, a little cross, and supremely handsome; Alan and Stella—there was a young Alan now, a comical little fright, more like mother than father—Alan and Stella seemed to enjoy their friend’s wedding as light-heartedly as they had enjoyed their own. No tears were shed, no stereotyped hypocrisies uttered, no shoes flung; this time a true man and a true woman who loved and honoured each other, and whom no man should put asunder, were joined together; and thus the case did not lend itself to any tribute of lies, miscalled white.
Four months after their marriage Mr.Tresham was hard at work again in London among his East-end poor; while Lucy, taking a day’s holiday at Brompton-on Sea, sat in the old familiar drawing-room, Catherine’s exclusively now. She had returned from the East blooming, vigorous, full of gentle fun and kindly happiness: so happy, that she would not have exchanged her present lot for aught except her own future; so happy, that it saddened her to believe Catherine less happy than herself.
The two sisters sat at the open window, alike yet unlike: the elder handsome, resolute, composed; the younger with the old wistful expression in her tender beautiful eyes. They had talked of Jane, who, though not dissatisfied with her lot, too obviously despised her husband; once lately, she had written of him as the ‘habitation-tax’ paid for Orpingham Place: of Jane, who was too worldly either to keep right in the spirit, or go wrong in the letter. They had talked, and they had fallen silent; for Catherine, who loved no one on earth as she loved her frivolous sister, could best bear in silence the sting of shame and grief for her sake.
Full in view of the drawing-room windows spread the sea, beautiful, strong, resistless, murmuring; the sea which had cast a burden on Catherine’s life, and from which she now never meant to absent herself; the sea from which Lucy had fled in the paroxysm of her nervous misery.
At last Lucy spoke again very earnestly,—‘Oh, Catherine, I cannot bear to be so happy when I think of you! If only you, too, had a future.’
Catherine leaned over her happy sister and gave her one kiss, a rare sign with her of affectionate emotion. Then she turned to face the open sky and sea.—‘My dear,’ she answered, whilst her eyes gazed beyond clouds and waves, and rested on one narrow streak of sunlight which glowed at the horizon,—‘My dear, my future seems further off than yours; but I certainly have a future, and I can wait.’