AT one o'clock next day, Ashmead received a note from Mademoiselle Klosking, saying, “Arrange with Mr. X——to close my tour with Manchester. Pay the fortnight, if required.” She was with the company at a month's notice on either side, you must understand.
Instead of going to the manager, he went at once, in utter dismay, to Mademoiselle Klosking, and there learned in substance what I must now briefly relate.
Miss Gale found Edward Severne deposited on a sofa. Ina was on her knees by his side, sponging his bleeding temple, with looks of gentle pity. Strange to say, the wound was in the same place as his wife's, but more contused, and no large vein was divided. Miss Gale soon stanched that. She asked him where his pain was. He said it was in his head and his back; and he cast a haggard, anxious look on her.
“Take my arm,” said she. “Now, stand up.”
He tried, but could not, and said his legs were benumbed. Miss Gale looked grave.
“Lay him on my bed,” said La Klosking. “That is better than these hard couches.”
“You are right,” said Miss Gale. “Ring for the servants. He must be moved gently.”
He was carried in, and set upon the edge of the bed, and his coat and waistcoat taken off. Then he was laid gently down on the bed, and covered with a down quilt.
Doctress Gale then requested Ina to leave the room, while she questioned the patient.
Ina retired. In a moment or two Miss Gale came out to her softly.
At sight of her face, La Klosking said, “Oh, dear; it is more serious than we thought.”
“Very serious.
“Poor Edward!”
“Collect all your courage, for I cannot lie, either to patient or friend.”
“And you are right,” said La Klosking, trembling. “I see he is in danger.”
“Worse than that. Where there's danger there is hope. Here there is none. HE IS A DEAD MAN!”
“Oh, no! no!”
“He has broken his back, and nothing can save him. His lower limbs have already lost sensation. Death will creep over the rest. Do not disturb your mind with idle hopes. You have two things to thank God for—that you took him into your own house, and that he will die easily. Indeed, were he to suffer, I should stupefy him at once, for nothing canhurthim.”
Ina Klosking turned faint and her knees gave way under her. Rhoda ministered to her; and while she was so employed, Dr. Menteith was announced. He was shown in to the patient, and the accident described to him. He questioned the patient, and examined him alone.
He then came out, and said he would draw a prescription. He did so.
“Doctor,” said La Klosking, “tell me the truth. It cannot be worse than I fear.”
“Madam,” said the doctor, “medicine can do nothing for him. The spinal cord is divided. Give him anything he fancies, and my prescription if he suffers pain, not otherwise. Shall I send you a nurse?”
“No,” said Mademoiselle Klosking,“wewill nurse him night and day.”
He retired, and the friends entered on their sad duties.
When Severne saw them both by his bedside, with earnest looks of pity, he said, “Do not worry yourselves. I'm booked for the long journey. Ah, well, I shall die where I ought to have lived, and might have, if I had not been a fool.”
Ina wept bitterly.
They nursed him night and day. He suffered little, and when he did, Miss Gale stupefied the pain at once; for, as she truly said, “Nothing can hurt him.” Vitality gradually retired to his head, and lingered there a whole day. But, to his last moment, the art of pleasing never abandoned him. Instead of worrying for this or that every moment, he showed in this desperate condition singular patience and well-bred fortitude. He checked his wife's tears; assured her it was all for the best, and that he was reconciled to the inevitable. “I have had a happier time than I deserve,” said he, “and now I have a painless death, nursed by two sweet women. My only regret is that I shall not be able to repay your devotion, Ina, nor become worthy of your friendship, Miss Gale.”
He died without fear, it being his conviction that he should return after death to the precise condition in which he was before birth; and when they begged him to see a clergyman, he said, “Pray do not give yourselves or him that trouble. I can melt back into the universe without his assistance.”
He even died content; for this polished Bohemian had often foreseen that, if he lived long, he should die miserably.
But the main feature of his end was his extraordinary politeness. He paid Miss Gale compliments just as if he were at his ease on a sofa: and scarce an hour before his decease he said, faintly, “I declare—I have been so busy—dying—I have forgotten to send my kind regards to good Mr. Ashmead. Pray tell him I did not forget his kindness to me.”
He just ceased to live, so quiet was his death, and a smile rested on his dead features, and they were as beautiful as ever.
So ended a fair, pernicious creature, endowed too richly with the art of pleasing, and quite devoid of principle. Few bad men knew right so well, and went so wrong. Ina buried her face for hours on his bed, and kissed his cold features and hand. She had told him before he died she would recall all her resolutions, if he would live. But he was gone. Death buries a man's many faults, and his few virtues rise again. She mourned him sincerely, and would not be comforted; she purchased a burying place forever, and laid him in it; then she took her aching heart far away, and was lost to the public and to all her English friends.
The faithful Rhoda accompanied her half way to London; then returned to her own duties in Barfordshire.
I MUST now retrograde a little to relate something rather curious, and I hope not uninteresting.
Zoe Vizard had been for some time acting on Mrs. Gale's advice; building, planning for the good of the poor, and going out of herself more and more. She compared notes constantly with Miss Gale, and conceived a friendship for her. It had been a long time coming, because at first she disliked Miss Gale's manners very much. But that lady had nursed her tenderly, and now advised her, and Zoe, who could not do anything by halves, became devoted to her.
As she warmed to her good work, she gave signs of clearer judgment. She never mentioned Severne; but she no longer absolutely avoided Ina Klosking's name; and one day she spoke of her as a high-principled woman; for which the Gale kissed her on the spot.
One name she often uttered, and always with regret and self-reproach—Lord Uxmoor's. I think that, now she was herself building and planning for the permanent improvement of the poor, she felt the tie of a kindred sentiment. Uxmoor was her predecessor in this good work, too; and would have been her associate, if she had not been so blind. This thought struck deep in her. Her mind ran more and more on Uxmoor, his manliness, his courage in her defense, and his gentlemanly fortitude and bravery in leaving her, without a word, at her request. Running over all these, she often blushed with shame, and her eyes filled with sorrow at thinking of how she had treated him; and lost him forever by not deserving him.
She even made oblique and timid inquiries, but could learn nothing of him, except that he sent periodical remittances to Miss Gale, for managing his improvements. These, however, came in through a country agent from a town agent, and left no clew.
But one fine day, with no warning except to his own people, Lord Uxmoor came home; and the next day rode to Hillstoke to talk matters over with Miss Gale. He was fortunate enough to find her at home. He thanked her for the zeal and enthusiasm she had shown, and the progress his works had made under her supervision.
He was going away without even mentioning the Vizard family.
But the crafty Gale detained him. “Going to Vizard Court?” said she.
“No,” said he, very dryly.
“Ah, I understand; but perhaps you would not mind going with me as far as Islip. There is something there I wish you to see.”
“Humph? Is it anything very particular? Because—”
“It is. Three cottages rising, with little flower gardens in front. Square plots behind, and arrangements for breeding calves, with other ingenious novelties. A new head come into our business, my lord.”
“You have converted Vizard? I thought you would. He is a satirical fellow, but he will listen to reason.”
“No, it is not Mr. Vizard; indeed, it is no convert of mine. It is an independent enthusiast. But I really believe your work at home had some hand in firing her enthusiasm.”
“A lady! Do I know her?”
“You may. I suppose you know everybody in Barfordshire. Will you come? Do!”
“Of course I will come, Miss Gale. Please tell one of your people to walk my horse down after us.”
She had her hat on in a moment, and walked him down to Islip.
Her tongue was not idle on the road. “You don't ask after the people,” said she. “There's poor Miss Vizard. She had a sad illness. We were almost afraid we should lose her.”
“Heaven forbid!” said Uxmoor, startled by this sudden news.
“Mademoiselle Klosking got quite well; and oh! what do you think? Mr. Severne turned out to be her husband.”
“What is that?” shouted Uxmoor, and stopped dead short. “Mr. Severne a married man!”
“Yes; and Mademoiselle Klosking a married woman.”
“You amaze me. Why, that Mr. Severne was paying his attentions to Miss Vizard.”
“So I used to fancy,” said Rhoda carelessly. “But you see it came out he was married, and so of course she packed him off with a flea in his ear.”
“Did she? When was that?”
“Let me see, it was the 17th of October.”
“Why, that was the very day I left England.”
“How odd! Why did you not stay another week? Gentlemen are so impatient. Never mind, that is an old story now. Here we are; those are the cottages. The workmen are at dinner. Ten to one the enthusiast is there: this is her time. You stay here. I'll go and see.”
She went off on tiptoe, and peeped and pried here and there, like a young witch. Presently she took a few steps toward him, with her finger mysteriously to her lips, and beckoned him. He entered into the pantomime—she seemed so earnest in it—and came to her softly.
“Do just take a peep in at that opening for a door,” said she, “then you'll see her; her back is turned. She is lovely; only, you know, she has been ill, and I don't think she is very happy.”
Uxmoor thought this peeping at enthusiasts rather an odd proceeding, but Miss Gale had primed his curiosity, and he felt naturally proud of a female pupil. He stepped up lightly, looked in at the door, and, to his amazement, saw Zoe Vizard sitting on a carpenter's bench, with her lovely head in the sun's rays. He started, then gazed, then devoured her with his eyes.
What! was this his pupil?
How gentle and sad she seemed! All his stoicism melted at the sight of her. She sat in a sweet, pensive attitude, pale and drooping, but, to his fancy, lovelier than ever. She gave a little sigh. His heart yearned. She took out a letter, read it slowly, and said, softly and slowly, “Poor fellow!” He thought he recognized his own handwriting, and could stand no more. He rushed, in, and was going to speak to her; but she screamed, and no conjurer ever made a card disappear quicker than she did that letter, as she bounded away like a deer, and stood, blushing scarlet, and palpitating all over.
Uxmoor was ashamed of hisbrusquerie.“What a brute I am to frighten you like this!” said he. “Pray forgive me; but the sight of you, after all these weary months—and you said 'Poor fellow!'”
“Did I?” said Zoe, faintly, looking scared.
“Yes, sweet Zoe, and you were reading a letter.”
No reply.
“I thought the poor fellow might be myself. Not that I am to be pitied, if you think of me still.”
“I do, then—very often. Oh, Lord Uxmoor, I want to go down on my knees to you.”
“That is odd, now; for it is exactly what I should like to do to you.”
“What for? It is I who have behaved so ill.”
“Never mind that; I love you.”
“But you mustn't. You must love some worthy person.”
“Oh, you leave that to me. I have no other intention. But may I just see whose letter you were reading?”
“Oh, pray don't ask me.”
“I insist on knowing.”
“I will not tell you. There it is.” She gave it to him with a guilty air, and hid her face.
“Dear Zoe, suppose I were to repeat the offer I made here?”
“I advise you not,” said she, all in a flurry.
“Why?”
“Because. Because—I might say 'Yes.'”
“Well, then I'll take my chance once more. Zoe, will you try and love me?”
“Try? I believe I do love you, or nearly. I think of you very often.”
“Then you will do something to make me happy.”
“Anything; everything.”
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes, that I will,” said Zoe, almost impetuously; “and then,” with a grand look of conscious beauty, “I canmakeyou forgive me.”
Uxmoor, on this, caught her in his arms, and kissed her with such fire that she uttered a little stifled cry of alarm; but it was soon followed by a sigh of complacency, and she sunk, resistless, on his manly breast.
So, after two sieges, he carried that fair citadel by assault.
Then let not the manly heart despair, nor take a mere brace of “Noes” from any woman. Nothing short of three negatives is serious.
They walked out in arm-in-arm and very close to each other; and he left her, solemnly engaged.
Leaving this pair to the delights of courtship, and growing affection on Zoe's side—for a warm attachment of the noblest kind did grow, by degrees, out of her penitence, and esteem, and desire to repair her fault—I must now take up the other thread of this narrative, and apologize for having inverted the order of events; for it was, in reality, several days after this happy scene that Mademoiselle Klosking sent for Miss Gale.
VIZARD, then, with Ashmead, returned home in despair; and Zoe, now happy in her own mind, was all tenderness and sisterly consolation. They opened their hearts to each other, and she showed her wish to repay the debt she owed him. How far she might have succeeded, in time, will never be known. For he had hardly been home a week, when Miss Gale returned, all in black, and told him Severne was dead and buried.
He was startled, and even shocked, remembering old times; but it was not in human nature he should be sorry. Not to be indecorously glad at so opportune an exit was all that could be expected from him.
When she had given him the details, his first question was, “How did she bear it?”
“She is terribly cut up—more than one would think possible; for she was ice and marble to him before he was hurt to death.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone to London. She will write to me, I suppose—poor dear. But one must give her time.”
From that hour Vizard was in a state of excitement, hoping to hear from Ina Klosking, or about her; but unwilling, from delicacy, to hurry matters.
At last he became impatient, and wrote to Ashmead, whose address he had, and said, frankly, he had a delicacy in intruding on Mademoiselle Klosking, in her grief. Yet his own feelings would not allow him to seem to neglect her. Would Mr. Ashmead, then, tell him where she was, as she had not written to any one in Barfordshire—not even to her tried friend, Miss Gale.
He received an answer by return of post.
“DEAR SIR—I am grieved to tell you that Mademoiselle Klosking has retired from public life. She wrote to me, three weeks ago, from Dover, requesting me to accept, as a token of her esteem, the surplus money I hold in hand for her—I always drew her salary—and bidding me farewell. The sum included her profits by psalmody, minus her expenses, and was so large it could never have been intended as a mere recognition of my humble services; and I think I have seldom felt so down-hearted as on receiving this princely donation. It has enabled me to take better offices, and it may be the foundation of a little fortune; but I feel that I have lost the truly great lady who has made a man of me. Sir, the relish is gone for my occupation: I can never be so happy as I was in working the interests of that great genius, whose voice made our leading soprani sound like whistles, and who honored me with her friendship. Sir, she was not like other leading ladies. She never bragged, never spoke ill of any one; andyoucan testify to her virtue and her discretion.
“I am truly sorry to learn from you that she has written to no one in Barfordshire. I saw, by her letter to me, she had left the stage; but her dropping you all looks as if she had left the world. I do hope she has not been so mad as to go into one of those cursed convents.
“Mr. Vizard, I will now write to friends in all the Continental towns where there is good music. She will not be able to keep away from that long. I will also send photographs; and hope we may hear something. If not, perhaps ajudicious advertisementmight remind her that she is inflicting pain upon persons to whom she is dear. I am, sir, your obliged and grateful servant,
Here was a blow. I really believe Vizard felt this more deeply than all his other disappointments.
He brooded over it for a day or two; and then, as he thought Miss Gale a very ill-used person, though not, of course, so ill-used as himself, he took her Ashmead's letter.
“This is nice!” said she. “There—I must give up loving women. Besides, they throw me over the moment a man comes, if it happens to be the right one.”
“Unnatural creatures!” said Vizard.
“Ungrateful, at all events.”
“Do you think she has gone into a convent?”
“Not she. In the first place, she is a Protestant; and, in the second, she is not a fool.”
“I will advertise.”
“The idea!”
“Do you think I am going to sit down with my hands before me, and lose her forever?”
“No, indeed; I don't think you are that sort of a man at all, ha! ha!”
“Oh, Miss Gale, pity me. Tell me how to find her. That Fanny Dover says women are only enigmas to men; they understand one another.”
“What,” said Rhoda, turning swiftly on him; “does that little chit pretend to read my noble Ina?”
“If she cannot, perhaps you can. You are so shrewd. Do tell me, what does it all mean?”
“It means nothing at all, I dare say; only a woman's impulse. They are such geese at times, every one of them.”
“Oh, if I did but know what country she is in, I would ransack it.”
“Hum!—countries are biggish places.”
“I don't care.”
“What will you give me to tell you where she is at this moment?”
“All I have in the world.”
“That is sufficient. Well, then, first assign me your estates; then fetch me an ordnance map of creation, and I will put my finger on her.”
“You little mocking fiend, you!”
“I am not. I'm a tall, beneficent angel; and I'll tell you where she is—for nothing. Keep your land: who wants it?—it is only a bother.”
“For pity's sake, don't trifle with me.”
“I never will, where your heart is interested. She is at Zutzig.”
“Ah, you good girl! She has written to you.”
“Not a line, the monster! And I'll serve her out. I'll teach her to play hide-and-seek with Gale, M.D.!”
“Zutzig!” said Vizard; “how can you know?”
“What does that matter? Well, yes—I will reveal the mental process. First of all, she has gone to her mother.”
“How do you know that?”
“Oh, dear, dear, dear! Because that is where every daughter goes in trouble. I should—shehas.Fancy you not seeing that—why, Fanny Dover would have told you that much in a moment. But now you will have to thankmymother for teaching me Attention, the parent of Memory. Pray, sir, who were the witnesses to that abominable marriage of hers?”
“I remember two, Baron Hompesch—”
“No, Count Hompesch.”
“And Count Meurice.”
“Viscount. What, have you forgotten Herr Formes, Fraulein Graafe, Zug the Capellmeister, and her very mother? Come now, whose daughter is she?”
“I forget, I'm sure.”
“Walter Ferris and Eva Klosking, of Zutzig, in Denmark. Pack—start for Copenhagen. Consult an ordnance map there. Find out Zutzig. Go to Zutzig, and you have got her. It is some hole in a wilderness, and she can't escape.”
“You clever little angel! I'll be there in three days. Do you really think I shall succeed?”
“Your own fault if you don't. She has run into acul-de-sacthrough being too clever; and, besides, women sometimes run away just to be caught, and hide on purpose to be found. I should not wonder if she has said to herself, 'He will find me if he loves me so very, very much—I'll try him.'”
“Not a word more, angelic fox,” said Vizard; “I'm off to Zutzig.”
He went out on fire. She opened the window and screeched after him, “Everything is fair after her behavior to me. Take her a book of those spiritual songs she is so fond of. 'Johnny comes marching home,' is worth the lot, I reckon.”
Away went Vizard; found Copenhagen with ease; Zutzig with difficulty, being a small village. But once there, he soon found the farmhouse of Eva Klosking. He drove up to the door. A Danish laborer came out from the stable directly; and a buxom girl, with pale golden hair, opened the door. These two seized his luggage, and conveyed it into the house, and the hired vehicle to the stable. Vizard thought it must be an inn.
The girl bubbled melodious sounds, and ran off and brought a sweet, venerable name. Vizard recognized Eva Klosking at once. The old lady said, “Few strangers come here—are you not English?”
“Yes, madam.”
“It is Mr. Vizard—is it not?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Ah, sir, my daughter will welcome you, but not more heartily than I do. My child has told me all she owes to you”—then in Danish, “God bless the hour you come under this roof.”
Vizard's heart beat tumultuously, wondering how Ina Klosking would receive him. The servant had told her a tall stranger was come. She knew in a moment who it was; so she had the advantage of being prepared.
She came to him, her cheeks dyed with blushes, and gave him both hands. “You here!” said she; “oh, happy day! Mother, he must have the south chamber. I will go and prepare it for him. Tecla!—Tecla!”—and she was all hostess. She committed him to her mother, while she and the servant went upstairs.
He felt discomfited a little. He wanted to know, all in a moment, whether she would love him.
However, Danish hospitality has its good side. He soon found out he might live the rest of his days there if he chose.
He soon got her alone, and said, “You knew I should find you, cruel one.”
“How could I dream of such a thing?” said she, blushing.
“Oh, Love is a detective. You said to yourself, 'If he loves me as I ought to be loved, he will search Europe for me; but he will find me.'”
“Oh, then it was not to be at peace and rest on my mother's bosom I came here; it was to give you the trouble of running after me. Oh, fie!”
“You are right. I am a vain fool.”
“No, that you are not. After all, how do I know all that was in my heart? (Ahem!) Be sure of this, you are very welcome. I must go and see about your dinner.”
In that Danish farmhouse life was very primitive. Eva Klosking, and both her daughters, helped the two female servants, or directed them, in every department. So Ina, who was on her defense, had many excuses for escaping Vizard, when he pressed her too hotly. But at last she was obliged to say, “Oh, pray, my friend—we are in Denmark: here widows are expected to be discreet.”
“But that is no reason why the English fellows who adore them should be discreet.”
“Perhaps not: but then the Danish lady runs away.”
Which she did.
But, after the bustle of the first day, he had so many opportunities. He walked with her, sat with her while she worked, and hung over her, entranced, while she sung. He produced the book from Vizard Court without warning, and she screamed with delight at sight of it, and caught his hand in both hers and kissed it. She reveled in those sweet strains which had comforted her in affliction: and oh, the eyes she turned on him after singing any song in this particular book! Those tender glances thrilled him to the very marrow.
To tell the honest truth, his arrival was a godsend to Ina Klosking. When she first came home to her native place, and laid her head on her mother's bosom, she was in Elysium. The house, the wood fires, the cooing doves, the bleating calves, the primitive life, the recollections of childhood—all were balm to her, and she felt like ending her days there. But, as the days rolled on, came a sense of monotony and excessive tranquillity. She was on the verge ofennuiwhen Vizard broke in upon her.
From that moment there was no stagnation. He made life very pleasant to her; only her delicacy took the alarm at his open declarations; she thought them so premature.
At last he said to her, one day, “I begin to fear you will never love me as I love you.”
“Who knows?” said she. “Time works wonders.”
“I wonder,” said he, “whether you will ever marry any other man?”
Ina was shocked at that. “Oh, my friend, how could I—unless,” said she, with a sly side-glance, “you consented.”
“Consent? I'd massacre him.”
Ina turned toward him. “You asked my hand at a time when you thought me—I don't know what you thought—that is a thing no woman could forget. And now you have come all this way for me. I am yours, if you can wait for me.”
He caught her in his arms. She disengaged herself, gently, and her hand rested an unnecessary moment on his shoulder. “Is that how you understand 'waiting?'” said she, with a blush, but an indulgent smile.
“What is the use waiting?”
“It is a matter of propriety.”
“How long are we to wait?”
“Only a few months. My friend, it is like a boy to be too impatient. Alas! would you marry me in my widow's cap?”
“Of course I would. Now, Ina, love, a widow who has been two years separated from her husband!”
“Certainly, that makes a difference—in one's own mind. But one must respect the opinion of the world. Dear friend, it is of you I think, though I speak of myself.”
“You are an angel. Take your own time. After all, what does it matter? I don't leave Zutzig without you.”
Ina's pink tint and sparkling eyes betrayed anything but horror at that insane resolution. However, she felt it her duty to say that it was unfortunate she should always be the person to distract him from his home duties.
“Oh, never mind them,” said this single-hearted lover. “I have appointed Miss Gale viceroy.”
However, one day he had a letter from Zoe, telling him that Lord Uxmoor was now urging her to name the day; but she had declined to do that, not knowing when it might suit him to be at Vizard Court. “But, dearest,” said she, “mind, you are not to hurry home for me. I am very happy as I am, and I hope you will soon be as happy, love. She is a noble woman.”
The latter part of this letter tempted Vizard to show it to Ina. He soon found his mistake. She kissed it, and ordered him off. He remonstrated. She put on, for the first time in Denmark, her marble look, and said, “You will lessen my esteem, if you are cruel to your sister. Let her name the wedding-day at once; and you must be there to give her away, and bless her union, with a brother's love.”
He submitted, but a little sullenly, and said it was very hard.
He wrote to his sister, accordingly, and she named the day, and Vizard settled to start for home, and be in time.
As to the proprieties, he had instructed Miss Maitland and Fanny Dover, and given them and La Galecarte blanche.It was to be a magnificent wedding.
This being excitement, Fanny Dover was in paradise. Moreover, a rosy-cheeked curate had taken the place of the venerable vicar, and Miss Dover's threat to flirt out the stigma of a nun was executed with promptitude, zeal, pertinacity, and the dexterity that comes of practice. When the day came for his leaving Zutzig, Vizard was dejected. “Who knows when we may meet again?” said he.
Ina consoled him. “Do not be sad, dear friend. You are doing your duty; and as you do it partly to please me, I ought to try and reward you; ought I not?” And she gave him a strange look.
“I advise you not to press that question,” said he.
At the very hour of parting, Ina's eyes were moist with tenderness, but there was a smile on her face very expressive; yet he could not make out what it meant. She did not cry. He thought that hard. It was his opinion that women could always cry. She might have done the usual thing just to gratify him.
He reached home in good time: and played thegrand seigneur—nobody could do it better when driven to it—to do honor to his sister. She was a peerless bride: she stood superior with ebon locks and coal black eyes, encircled by six bridemaids—all picked blondes. The bevy, with that glorious figure in the middle, seemed one glorious and rare flower.
After the wedding, the breakfast; and then the traveling carriage; the four liveried postilions bedecked with favors.
But the bride wept on Vizard's neck; and a light seemed to leave the house when she was gone. The carriages kept driving away one after another till four o'clock: and then Vizard sat disconsolate in his study, and felt very lonely.
Yet a thing no bigger than a leaf sufficed to drive away this somber mood, a piece of amber-colored paper scribbled on with a pencil: a telegram from Ashmead: “Good news: lost sheep turned up. Is now with her mother at Claridge's Hotel.”
Then Vizard was in raptures. Now he understood Ina's composure, and the half sly look she had given him, and her dry eyes at parting, and other things. He tore up to London directly, with a telegram flying ahead: burst in upon her, and had her in his arms in a moment, before her mother: she fenced no longer, but owned he had gained her love, as he had deserved it in every way.
She consented to be married that week in London: only she asked for a Continental tour before entering Vizard Court as his wife; but she did not stipulate even for that—she only asked it submissively, as one whose duty it now was to obey, not dictate.
They were married in St. George's Church very quietly, by special license. Then they saw her mother off, and crossed to Calais. They spent two happy months together on the Continent, and returned to London.
But Vizard was too old-fashioned, and too proud of his wife, to sneak into Vizard Court with her. He did not make it a county matter; but he gave the village such afeteas had not been seen for many a day. The preparations were intrusted to Mr. Ashmead, at Ina's request. “He will be sure to make it theatrical,” she said; “but perhaps the simple villagers will admire that, and it will amuse you and me, love: and the poor dear old Thing will be in his glory—I hope he will not drink too much.”
Ashmead was indeed in his glory. Nothing had been seen in a play that he did not electrify Islip with, and the surrounding villages. He pasted large posters on walls and barn doors, and his small bills curled round the patriarchs of the forest and the roadside trees, and blistered the gate posts.
The day came. A soapy pole, with a leg of mutton on high for the successful climber. Races in sacks. Short blindfold races with wheelbarrows. Pig with a greasy tail, to be won by him who could catch him and shoulder him, without touching any other part of him; bowls of treacle for the boys to duck heads in and fish out coins; skittles, nine pins, Aunt Sally, etc., etc., etc.
But what astonished the villagers most was a May-pole, with long ribbons, about which ballet girls, undisguised as Highlanders, danced, and wound and unwound the party-colored streamers, to the merry fiddle, and then danced reels upon a platform, then returned to their little tent: but out again and danced hornpipes undisguised as Jacky Tars.
Beer flowed from a sturdy regiment of barrels. “The Court” kitchen and the village bakehouse kept pouring forth meats, baked, boiled, and roast; there was a pile of loaves like a haystack; and they roasted an ox whole on the Green; and, when they found they were burning him raw, they fetched the butcher, like sensible fellows, and dismembered the giant, and so roasted him reasonably.
In the midst of the reveling and feasting, Vizard and Mrs. Vizard were driven into Islip village in the family coach, with four horses streaming with ribbons.
They drove round the Green, bowing and smiling in answer to the acclamations and blessings of the poor, and then to Vizard Court. The great doors flew open. The servants, male and female, lined the hall on both sides, and received her bowing and courtesying low, on the very spot where she had nearly met her death; her husband took her hand and conducted her in state to her own apartment.
It was open house to all that joyful day, and at night magnificent fireworks on the sweep, seen from the drawing-room by Mrs. Vizard, Miss Maitland, Miss Gale, Miss Dover, and the rosy-cheeked curate, whom she had tied to her apron-strings.
At two in the morning, Mr. Harris showed Mr. Ashmead to his couch. Both gentlemen went upstairs a little graver than any of our modern judges, and firm as a rock; but their firmness resembled that of a roof rather than a wall; for these dignities as they went made one inverted V—so, A.
It is time the “Woman-hater” drew to a close, for the woman-hater is spoiled. He begins sarcastic speeches, from force of habit, but stops short in the middle. He is a very happy man, and owes it to a woman, and knows it. He adores her; and to love well is to be happy. But, besides that, she watches over his happiness and his good with that unobtrusive but minute vigilance which belongs to her sex, and is often misapplied, but not so very often as cynics say. Even the honest friendship between him and the remarkable woman he calls his “viragos” gives him many a pleasant hour. He is still a humorist, though cured of his fling at the fair sex. His last tolerable hit was at the monosyllabic names of the immortal composers his wife had disinterred in his library. Says he to parson Denison, hot from Oxford, “They remind me of the Oxford poets in the last century:
“Alma novem celebres genuit Rhedyeina poetas. Bubb, Stubb, Grubb, Crabbe, Trappe. Brome, Carey, Tickell, Evans.”
As for Ina Vizard, La Klosking no longer, she has stepped into her new place with her native dignity, seemliness and composure. At first, a few county ladies put their little heads together, and prepared to give themselves airs; but the beauty, dignity, and enchanting grace of Mrs. Vizard swept this little faction away like small dust. Her perfect courtesy, her mild but deep dislike of all feminine back-biting, her dead silence about the absent, except when she can speak kindly—these rare traits have forced, by degrees, the esteem and confidence of her own sex. As for the men, they accepted her at once with enthusiasm. She and Lady Uxmoor are the acknowledged belles of the county. Lady Uxmoor's face is the most admired; but Mrs. Vizard comes next, and her satin shoulders, statuesque bust and arms, and exquisite hand, turn the scale with some. But when she speaks, she charms; and when she sings, all competition dies.
She is faithful to music, and especially to sacred music. She is not very fond of singing at parties, and sometimes gives offense by declining. Music sets fools talking, because it excites them, and then their folly comes out by the road nature has provided. But when Mrs. Vizard has to sing in one key, and people talk in five other keys, that gives this artist such physical pain that she often declines, merely to escape it. It does not much mortify her vanity, she has so little.
She always sings in church, and sings out, too, when she is there; and plays the harmonium. She trains the villagers—girls, boys and adults—with untiring good humor and patience.
Among her pupils are two fine voices—Tom Wilder, a grand bass, and the rosy-cheeked curate, a greater rarity still, a genuine counter-tenor.
These two can both read music tolerably; but the curate used to sing everything, however full of joy, with a pathetic whine, for which Vizard chaffed him in vain; but Mrs. Vizard persuaded him out of it, where argument and satire failed.
People come far and near to hear the hymns at Islip Church, sung in full harmony—trebles, tenors, counter-tenor, and bass.
A trait—she allows nothing to be sung in church unrehearsed. The rehearsals are on Saturday night, and never shirked, such is the respect for “Our Dame.” To be sure, “Our Dame” fills the stomachs and wets the whistles of her faithful choir on Saturday nights.
On Sunday nights there are performances of sacred music in the great dining-hall. But these are rather more ambitious than those in the village church. The performers meet on that happy footing of camaraderie the fine arts create, the superior respect shown to Mrs. Vizard being mainly paid to her as the greater musician. They attack anthems and services; and a trio, by the parson, the blacksmith, and “Our Dame,” is really an extraordinary treat, owing to the great beauty of the voices. It is also piquant to hear the female singer constantly six, and often ten, notes below the male counter-tenor; but then comes Wilder with his diapason, and the harmony is noble; the more so that Mrs. Vizard rehearses her pupils in the swell—a figure too little practiced in music, and nowhere carried out as she does it.
One night the organist of Barford was there. They sung Kent's service in F, and Mrs. Vizard still admired it. She and the parson swelled in the duet, “To be a Light to lighten the Gentiles,” etc. Organist approved the execution, but said the composition was a meager thing, quite out of date. “We have much finer things now by learned men of the day.”
“Ah,” said she, “bring me one.”
So, next Sunday, he brought her a learned composition, and played it to her, preliminary to their singing it. But she declined it on the spot. “What!” said she. “Mr. X., would you compare this meaningless stuff with Kent in F? Why, in Kent, the dominant sentiment of each composition is admirably preserved. His 'Magnificat' is lofty jubilation, with a free, onward rush. His 'Dimittis' is divine repose after life's fever. But this poor pedant's 'Magnificat' begins with a mere crash, and then falls into the pathetic—an excellent thing in its place, but not in a song of triumph. As to his 'Dimittis,' it simply defies the words. This is no Christian sunset. It is not good old Simeon gently declining to his rest, content to close those eyes which had seen the world's salvation. This is a tempest, and all the windows rattling, and the great Napoleon dying, amid the fury of the elements, with 'te'te d'arme'e!' on his dying lips, and 'battle' in his expiring soul. No, sir; if the learned Englishmen of this day can do nothing nearer the mark than DOLEFUL MAGNIFICATS and STORMY NUNC DIMITTISES, I shall stand faithful to poor dead Kent, and his fellows—they were my solace in sickness and sore trouble.”
In accordance with these views of vocal music, and desirous to expand its sphere, Mrs. Vizard has just offered handsome prizes in the county for the best service, in which the dominant sentiment of the words shall be as well preserved as in Kent's despised service; and another prize to whoever can set any famous short secular poem, or poetical passage (not in ballad meter), to good and appropriate music.
This has elicited several pieces. The composers have tried their hands on Dryden's Ode; on the meeting of Hector and Andromache (Pope's “Homer”); on two short poems of Tennyson; etc., etc.
But it is only the beginning of a good thing. The pieces, are under consideration. Vizard says the competitors are trifiers.Heshall set Mr. Arnold's version of “Hero and Leander” to the harp, and sing it himself. This, he intimates, will silence competition and prove an era. I think so too, if his music shouldhappento equal the lines in value. But I hardly think it will, because the said Vizard, though he has taste and ear, does not know one note from another. So I hope “Hero and Leander” will fall into abler hands; and in any case, I trust Mrs. Vizard will succeed in her worthy desire to enlarge, very greatly, the sphere and the nobility of vocal music. It is a desire worthy of this remarkable character, of whom I now take my leave with regret.
I must own that regret is caused in part by my fear that I may not have done her all the justice I desired.
I have long felt and regretted that many able female writers are doing much to perpetuate the petty vices of a sex, which, after all, is at present but half educated, by devoting three thick volumes to such empty women as Biography, though a lower art than Fiction, would not waste three pages on. They plead truth and fidelity to nature. “We write the average woman, for the average woman to read,” say they. But they are not consistent; for the average woman is under five feet, and rather ugly. Now these paltry women are all beautiful—[Greek], as Homer hath it.
Fiction has just as much right to select large female souls as Biography or Painting has; and to pick out a selfish, shallow, illiterate creature, with nothing but beauty, and bestow three enormous volumes on her, is to make a perverse selection, beauty being, after all, rarer in women than wit, sense, and goodness. It is as false and ignoble in art, as to marry a pretty face without heart and brains is silly in conduct.
Besides, it gives the femalereadera low model instead of a high one, and so does her a little harm; whereas a writer ought to do good—or try, at all events.
Having all this in my mind, and remembering how many noble women have shone like stars in every age and every land, and feeling sure that, as civilization advances, such women will become far more common, I have tried to look ahead and paint La Klosking.
But such portraiture is difficult. It is like writing a statue.
“Qui mihi non credit faciat licet ipse periclum, Mox fuerit studis aequior ille meis.”
Harrington Vizard, Esq., caught Miss Fanny Dover on the top round but one of the steps of his library. She looked down, pinkish, and said she was searching for “Tillotson's Sermons.”
“What on earth can you want of them?”
“To improve my mind, to be sure,” said the minx.
Vizard said, “Now you stay there, miss—don't you move;” and he sent for Ina. She came directly, and he said, “Things have come to a climax. My lady is hunting for 'Tillotson's Sermons.' Poor Denison!” (That was the rosy curate's name.)
“Well,” said Fanny, turning red, “I told you Ishould.Why should I be good any longer? All the sick are cured one way or other, and I am myself again.”
“Humph!” said Vizard. “Unfortunately for your little plans of conduct, the heads of this establishment, here present, have sat in secret committee, and your wings are to be clipped—by order of council.”
“La!” said Fanny, pertly.
Vizard imposed silence with a lordly wave. “It is a laughable thing; but this divine is in earnest. He has revealed his hopes and fears to me.”
“Then he is a great baby,” said Fanny, coming down the steps. “No, no; we are both too poor.” And she vented a little sigh.
“Not you. The vicar has written to vacate. Now, I don't like you much, because you never make me laugh; but I'm awfully fond of Denison; and, if you will marry my dear Denison, you shall have the vicarage; it is a fat one.”
“Oh, cousin!”
“And,” said Mrs. Vizard, “he permits me to furnish it for you. You and I will make it 'a bijou.'”