"Papa, will you come to breakfast? Oh dear! what is the matter?"
Edina might well ask. She had opened the door of the small consulting-room as the clock was chiming eight—the knell of Frank Raynor's bachelorhood—to tell her father that the meal was waiting, when she saw not only the hearth and the hearthrug, but the doctor himself enveloped in a cloud of soot, and looking as black as Erebus.
"I said yesterday the chimney wanted sweeping, Edina."
"Yes, papa, and it was going to be done next week. Have you been burning more paper in the chimney?"
"Only just a letter: but the wind carried it up. Well, this is a pretty pickle!"
"The room shall be done to-day, papa. It will be all right and ready for you again by night."
Dr. Raynor took off his coat and shook it, and then went up to his room to get the soot out of his whiskers. The fact was, seeing the letter go roaring up the chimney, he stooped hastily to try to get it back again, remembering what a recent blazing piece of paper had done; when at that moment down came a shower of soot, and enveloped him.
As he was descending the stairs again, the front-door was opened with a burst and a bang (no other words are so fitting to express the mad way in which excited messengers did enter), and told the doctor that he was wanted there and then by some one who was taken ill and appeared to be dying. Drinking a cup of coffee standing, the doctor followed the messenger. It had all passed so rapidly that Edina had not yet commenced her own breakfast.
"Hester," she said, calling to the maid-servant, "papa has had to go out, and Mr. Frank is not yet in. You shall keep the coffee warm, and I will run at once to Mrs. Trim and see if she can come to-day. We must breakfast later this morning."
Hastily putting on her bonnet and mantle, Edina went down the street towards the churchyard. The entrance to the church was at the other end, facing the open country, the parsonage was there also: on this side, near to her, stood the clerk's house. She could go to it without entering the graveyard; and did so. Trying the door, she found it fastened, which was unusual at that hour of the morning. It was nothing for the door to be fastened later, when the clerk and his wife were both abroad; the one on matters connected with his post, the other doing errands in the village, or perhaps at some house helping to clean. Edina gave a sharp knock with the handle of her umbrella, which she had brought with her; for dark clouds, threatening rain, were coursing through the sky. But the knock brought forth no response.
"Now I do hope she is not out at work to-day!" ejaculated Edina, referring to Mrs. Trim. "The sweepmustcome to the room; and Hester cannot well clean up after him with all her other work. There's the ironing about. If she has to do the cleaning to-day, I must do that."
Another knock brought forth the same result—nothing. Edina turned to face the churchyard, and stood thinking. The goat was browsing on the green patch close by.
"If I could find Trim, he would tell me at once whether she's away at work or not. She may have only run out on an errand. It is curious he should be out: this is their breakfast-time."
Suddenly, as she stood there in indecision, an idea struck Edina: Mrs. Trim was no doubt dusting the church. She generally did it on Saturday, and this was Thursday: but, as Edina knew, if the woman was likely to be occupied on the Saturday, she took an earlier day for the duty.
Lightly crossing the stile, Edina went through the churchyard and round the church to the entrance-porch. Her quick eyes saw that, though apparently shut, the door was not latched; and she pushed it open.
"Yes, of course: Mary Trim expects to be busy to-morrow and Saturday, and is doing the dusting to-day," soliloquized Edina, deeming the appearances conclusive. "Well, she will have to make haste here, and come to us as soon as she can."
But it was no Mrs. Trim with her gown turned up, and a huge black bonnet perched forward on her head, that Edina saw as she went gently through the inner green-baize door. A very different sight met her eyes; a soft murmur of reading broke upon her ears. The church was not large, as compared with some churches, though of fairly good size for a country parish: and she seemed to come direct upon the solemn scene that was being enacted. At the other end, before the altar, stood, side by side, Frank Raynor and Margaret St. Clare: facing them was the new clergyman, Mr. Backup, book in hand.
Edina was extremely practical; but at first she really could not believe her eyesight. She stood perfectly motionless, gazing at them as one in a trance. They did not see her; could not have seen her without turning round; and Mr. Backup's eyes were fixed on his book—which, by the way, seemed to tremble a little in his hands, as though he were being married himself. Coming to a momentary pause, he went on again in a raised voice; and the words fell thrillingly on the ear of Edina.
"I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful."
The words, one by one, fell not only on Edina's ear; they touched her soul. Oh, was there no impediment? Ought these two silly people, wedding one another in this stolen fashion, and in defiance of parental authority—ought they to stand silent under this solemn exhortation, letting it appear that there was none? Surely this deceit ought, of itself, to constitute grave impediment! Just for the moment it crossed Edina's mind to come forward, and beg them to reflect; to reflect well, ere this ceremony went on to the end. But she remembered how unfitting it would be: she knew that she possessed no right to interfere with either the one or the other.
Drawing softly back within the door, she let it close again without noise, and made her way out of the churchyard. It appeared evident that neither the clerk nor his wife was in the church: and, if they had been, Edina could not have attempted then to speak to them.
As one in a dream, went she, up the street again towards home. The clouds had grown darker, and seemed to chase each other more swiftly and wildly. But Edina no longer heeded the wind or the weather. They might, in conjunction with burning paper, send the soot down every chimney in the house, for all the moment it was to her just now. She was deeply plunged in a most unpleasant reverie. A reverie which was showing her many future complications for Frank Raynor.
"Good-morning, Miss Edina! You be abroad early, ma'am."
The voice was Mrs. Trim's: the black bonnet, going down with the rest of herself in a curtsy, was hers also. She carried a small brown jug in her hand, and had met Edina close to the doctor's house. Edina came out of her dream.
"I have been to see after you, Mrs. Trim, and could not get in. The door was locked."
"Dear now, and I be sorry, Miss Edina! I just went to carry a drop o' coffee and a morsel of hot toast to poor Granny Sandon: who heve got nobody much to look after her since Rosaline Bell left. So I just locked the door, and brought tha key away weth me, as much to keep the Nanny-goat out as for safety. She heve a way of loosing herself, Miss Edina, clever as I thinks I ties her, and of coming into the house: and they goats butts and bites at things, and does no end o' mischief."
"Your husband is out, then?"
"He heve gone off somewhere by rail, Miss Edina. I could na get out of him where 'twas, though, nor whaat it were for. They men be closer nor waax when they want to keep things from ye; and Trim, he be always close. It strikes me, though, he be went somewhere for Mr. Raynor."
"Why do you think that?" cried Edina, quickly.
"Well, I be sure o' one thing, Miss Edina—Trim had no thought o' going off anywhere when I come hoam last evening from Pendon; for after we had had a word or two about his not seeing to tha goat, he says to I he was going to do our garden up to-day: which would na be afore it wants it. Mr. Frank, he come in then, and was talking to Trim in tha kitchen, they two together; and, a-going to bed, Trim asks for a clean check shirt, and said he was a-staarting out in the morning on business. And, sure enough, he heve went, Miss Edina, and I found out as he heve went by one o' they trains."
Edina said no more. She marshalled the chattering woman indoors to look at the state of the doctor's room, and to tell her it must be cleaned that day. Mrs. Trim took off her shawl there and then, and began to prepare for the work.
The doctor had returned, and Hester was carrying the breakfast in. Edina took her place at the table, and poured out her father's coffee.
"Is Frank not in yet?" he asked, as she handed it to him.
"Not yet, papa."
"Why, where can he be? He had only Williamson to see."
Edina did not answer. She appeared to be intent on her plate. Fresh and fair and good she looked this morning, but she seemed to be lost in thought. The doctor observed it.
"You are troubling yourself about that mess in my study, child!"
"Oh no, indeed I am not, papa. Mary Trim is already here."
"Are you sure Frank's not in the surgery, Edina?" said Dr. Raynor again presently.
Knowing where Frank was, and the momentous ceremony he was taking part in—though by that time it had probably come to an end—Edina might safely assure the doctor that he was not in the surgery. Dr. Raynor let the subject drop: Frank had called in to see some other patient, he supposed, on his way home from Williamson's; and Edina, perhaps dreading further questions, speedily ended her breakfast, and went to look after Mrs. Trim and household matters.
When the Reverend Titus Backup awoke from his slumbers that morning, the unpleasant thought flashed on his mind that he had a marriage ceremony to perform. Looking at his watch, he found it to be half-past seven, and up he started in a flurry. Having lain awake half the night, he had overslept himself.
"Has the clerk been here for the key of the church, Betsy?" he called to the old servant, just before he went out.
"No, sir."
It wanted only about eight minutes to eight then. Mr. Backup, feeling somewhat surprised, for he had found Clerk Trim particularly attentive to his duties, walked along the passage to the kitchen, and took the church-key from the nail where it was kept. Opening the church himself, he then went round to the clerk's house, and found it locked up.
Quite a hot tremor seized him.Withoutthe clerk and his experience, it would be next door to impossible to get through the service. Alone, he might break down. He should not know what to say, or where to place the couple; or when to tell them to kneel down, when to stand up; or where the ring came in, or anything.
Wherewasthe clerk? Could he have made some mistake as to the hour? However, it wanted yet some minutes to eight. Crossing the churchyard, he entered the church, put on his surplice, carried the Prayer-book into the vestry, and began studying the marriage service as therein written.
Frank Raynor came up to the church a minute after the clergyman entered it, and waited in the porch, looking out for his intended bride. Eight o'clock struck; and she had promised to be there before eight. Why did she not come? Was her courage failing her? Did the black clouds, gathering overhead, appal her? Had Mrs. St. Clare discovered all, and was preventing her? Frank thought it must be one or other of these calamities.
There he stood, within the shelter of the porch, glancing to the right and left. He could not go to meet her because he did not know which way she would come: whether by the sheltered roadway, or across the Bare Plain. That was one of the minor matters they had forgotten to settle between themselves.
As Frank was gazing about, and getting into as much of a flurry as was possible for one of his easy temperament, light, hasty steps were heard approaching; and Margaret, nervous, panting, agitated, fell into his arms.
"My darling I thought you must be lost."
"I could not get away before, Frank. Of all mornings, Lydia must needs choose this one to send Tabitha to my room for some books from the shelves. Now, these did not do; then, others did not do: the woman did nothing but run in and out. And the servants were about the passages: and oh, I thought I should never get away!"
A moment given to soothing her, to stilling her beating heart, and they entered the church together. Margaret threw off the thin cloak she had worn over her pretty morning dress of white-and-peach sprigged muslin, almost as delicate as white. She went up the church, flushing and paling, on Frank's arm: Mr. Backup came out of the vestry to meet them. In a few flowing and plausible words, Frank explained that it was he himself who required the parson's services, handed him the license, and begged him to get the service over as soon as possible.
"The clerk is not here," answered the bewildered man, doubly bewildered now.
"Oh, never mind him," said Frank. "We don't want the clerk."
An older and less timid clergyman might have said, I cannot marry you under these circumstances: all Mr. Backup thought of was, getting through his own part in it. It certainly did strike him as being altogether very strange: the question even crossed him whether he was doing rightly and legally: but the license was in due form, and in his inexperience and nervousness he did not make inquiries or raise objections. When he came to the question, Who giveth this Woman to be married to this Man, and there was no response, no one indeed to respond, he visibly hesitated; but he did not dare to refuse to go on with the service. An assumption of authority, such as that, was utterly beyond the Reverend Titus Backup. He supposed that the clerk was to have acted in the capacity: but the clerk, from some inexplicable cause, was not present. Perhaps he had mistaken the hour. So the service proceeded to its close, and Francis Raynor and Margaret St. Clare were made man and wife.
They proceeded to the vestry; the clergyman leading the way, Frank conducting his bride, her arm within his, the ring that bound her to him encircling her finger. After a hunt for the register, for none of them knew where it was kept, Mr. Backup found it, and entered the marriage. Frank affixed his signature, Margaret hers; and then the young clergyman seemed at a standstill, looking about him helplessly.
"I—ah—there are no witnesses to the marriage," said he. "It is customary——"
"We must do without them in this case," interrupted Frank, as he laid down a fee of five guineas. "It does not require witnesses to make it legal."
"Well—no—I—I conclude not," hesitated the clergyman, blushing as he glanced at the gold and silver, and thinking how greatly too much it was, and how rich this Mr. Raynor must be.
"And will you do me and my wife a good turn, Mr. Backup," spoke Frank, ingenuously, as he clasped the clergyman's hand, and an irresistible smile of entreaty shone on his attractive face. "Keep it secret. I may tell you, now it is over and done, that no one knows of this marriage. It is, in fact, a stolen one; and just at present we do not wish it to be disclosed. We have our reasons for this. In a very short time, it will be openly avowed; but until then, we should be glad for it not to be spoken about. I know we may depend upon your kindness."
Leaving the utterly bewildered parson to digest the information, to put off his surplice and to lock up the register, Frank escorted his bride down the aisle. When she stopped to take up her cloak and parasol, he, knowing there were no spectators, except the ancient and empty pews, folded her in his arms and kissed her fervently.
"Oh, Frank! Please!—please don't! We are in church, remember." And there, what with agitation and nervous fear, the bride burst into a fit of hysterical tears.
"Daisy! For goodness' sake!—not here. Compose yourself, my love. Oh, pray do not sob like that!"
A moment or two, and she was tolerably calm again. No wonder she had given way. She had literally shaken from head to foot throughout the service. A dread of its being interrupted, a nervous terror at what she was doing, held possession of her. Now that it was over, she saw she had done wrong, and wished it undone. Just like all the rest of us! We do wrong first, and bewail it afterwards.
"You remain in here, please, Frank; let me go out alone," she said, catching her breath. "It would not do, you know, for us to go out together, lest we might be seen. Good-bye," she added, timidly holding up her hand.
They were between the green-baize door now and the outer one. Frank knew as well as she did that it would be imprudent to leave the church together. He took her hand and herself once more to him, and kissed her fifty times.
"God bless and keep you, my darling! I wish I could see you safely home."
Daisy's suggestion, a night or two ago, of their leaving the church by different doors, had to turn out merely a pleasant fiction, since the church possessed but one door. She lightly glided through it when Frank released her, and went towards home the way she had come, that of the shady road, her veil drawn over her face, her steps fleet. He remained where he was, not showing himself until she should be at a safe distance.
"If I can only get in without being seen!" thought poor Daisy, her heart beating as she sped along. "Mamma and Lydia will not be downstairs yet, I know; and all may pass over happily. How high the wind is!"
The wind was high indeed, carrying Daisy very nearly off her feet. It took her cloak and whirled it over her head in the air. As ill-luck had it, terrible ill-luck Daisy thought, who should meet her at that moment but the Trennach dressmaker. She had been to The Mount to try dresses on.
"Mrs. St. Clare is quite in a way about you, Miss Margaret," spoke Mrs. Hunt, who was not pleased at having had her walk partly for nothing. "They have been searching everywhere for you."
"I did not know you were expected this morning," said poor Daisy, after murmuring some explanation of having "come out for a walk."
"Well, Miss Margaret, your mamma was good enough to say I might come whenever it was most convenient to me: and that's early morning, or late evening, so as not to take me out of my work in the daytime. I thought I might just catch you and Miss St. Clare when you were dressing, and could have tried on my bodies without much trouble to you."
"What bodies are they?" asked Margaret. "I did not know that anything was being made."
"They are dresses for travelling, miss. Mrs. St. Clare gave me a pattern of the material she would like, and I have been getting them.
"Oh, for travelling," repeated Margaret, whose mind, what with one thing and another, was in a perfect whirl. "Will you like to go back, and try mine on now."
But the dressmaker declined to turn back. She was nearer Trennach now than she was to The Mount, and her apprentice had no work to go on with until she arrived at home to set it for her. Appointing the following morning, she continued her way.
Daisy continued hers. It was a most unlucky thing that the dressmaker should have gone to The Mount that morning of all others! What a fuss there would be! And what excuse could she make for her absence from home? There was only one, as it seemed to Daisy, that she could make—she had been out for a walk.
But the shifting clouds had now gathered in a dense mass overhead, and the rain came pouring down. Daisy had brought no umbrella: nothing but a fashionable parasol about, large enough for a doll: one cannot be expected on such an occasion to be as provident as the renowned Mrs. McStinger. The wind took Daisy's cloak, as before; the drifting rain-storm half blinded her. Before she reached home, her pretty muslin dress, and her dainty parasol, and herself also, were wet through.
"Now where have you been?" demanded Mrs. St. Clare, pouncing upon Daisy in the hall, and backed by Tabitha; whilst Lydia, who had that morning risen betimes, thanks to the exacting dressmaker, looked on from the door of the breakfast-room.
"I went for a walk," gasped Daisy, fully believing all was about to be discovered. "The rain overtook me."
"What a pickle you are in," commented Lydia.
"Wherehave you been for a walk?" proceeded Mrs. St. Clare, who was evidently angry.
"Down the road," said Daisy, in an almost inaudible voice, the result of fear and emotion. "It—it is pleasant to walk a little before the heat comes on. I—I did not know it was going to rain."
"Pray, how long is it since you found out that it is pleasant to walk a little before the heat comes on?" retorted Mrs. St. Clare, with severe sarcasm. "How many mornings have you tried it?"
"Never before this morning, mamma," replied Daisy, with ready earnestness, for it was the truth.
"And pray with whom have you been walking?" put in Lydia, with astounding emphasis. "Who brought you home?"
"Not any one," choked Daisy, swallowing down her tears. "I walked home alone. You can ask Mrs. Hunt, who met me. Mamma, may I go up and change my things?"
Mrs. St. Clare said neither yes nor no, but gave tacit permission by stretching out her hand towards the staircase. Daisy ran the gauntlet of the three faces as she passed on: her mother's was stern, Lydia's supremely scornful, Tabitha's discreetly prim. The two ladies turned into the breakfast-room, and the maid retired.
"It is easy enough to divine what Daisy has been up to," spoke Lydia, whose speech was not always expressed in the most refined terms. She sat back in an easy-chair, sipping her chocolate, a pink cloak trimmed with swan's-down drawn over her shoulders; for the rain and the early rising had made her feel chilly.
"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. St. Clare, crossly. She detested these petty annoyances.
"I do, though," returned Lydia. "Daisy has been out to meet Frank Raynor. Were I you, mamma, I should not allow her so much liberty."
"Give me the sugar, Lydia, and let me take my breakfast in peace."
Daisy, locking her door, burst into a fit of hysterical tears. Her nerves were utterly unstrung. It was necessary to change her garments, and she did so, sobbing wofully the while. She wished she had not done what she had done; she wished that Frank could be by her side to encourage and shield her. When she had completed her toilet, she took the wedding-ring from her finger, attached it to a bit of ribbon, and hid it in her bosom.
"Suppose I should never, never be able to wear it openly?" thought Daisy, with a sob and a sigh. "Suppose Frank and I should never see each other again! never be able to be together? If mamma carries me off abroad, and he remains here, one of us might die before I come back again."
"Can you spare me a moment, Frank?"
"Fifty moments, if you like, Edina," was the answer in the ever-pleasant tones. "Come in."
The day had gone on to its close, and Edina had found no opportunity of speaking to Frank alone. The secret of which she had unexpectedly gained cognizance that morning was troubling her mind. To be a party to it, and to keep that fact from Frank, was impossible to Edina. Tell him she must: and the sooner the better. After tea, he and the doctor had sat persistently talking together until dusk, when Frank had to go out to visit a fever-patient in Bleak Row. Running upstairs to change his coat, Edina had thought the opportunity had come, and followed him to his chamber.
She went in after his hearty response to her knock. Frank, quick in all his movements, already had his coat off, and was taking the old one from the peg where it hung. Edina sat down by the dressing-table.
"Frank," she said, in low tones—and she disliked very much indeed to have to say it, "I chanced to go into the church this morning soon after eight o'clock. I—I saw you there."
"Didyou?" cried Frank, coming to a pause with his coat half on. "And—did you see anything else, Edina?"
"I believe I saw all there was to see, Frank. I saw you standing with Margaret St. Clare at the altar-rails, and Mr. Backup marrying you.
"Well, I never!" cried Frank, with all the amazing ease and equanimity he might have maintained had she said she saw him looking on at a christening. "Were you surprised, Edina?"
"Surprised, and a great deal more, Frank. Shocked. Grieved."
"I say, though, what took you to the church at that early hour, Edina?"
"Chance, it may be said. Though I am one of those, you know, who do not believe that such a thing as chance exists. I went after Mrs. Trim, found her house shut up, and the thought she might be in the church, cleaning. Oh, Frank, how could you do anything so desperately imprudent?"
"Well, I hardly know. Don't scold me, Edina."
"I have no right to scold you," she answered. "And scolding would be of no use now the thing is done. Nevertheless, I must tell you what a very wrong step it was to take; lamentably imprudent: and I think you must, yourself, know that it was so. I could never have believed it of Margaret St. Clare."
"Do not blame Daisy, Edina. I persuaded her to take it. Mrs. St. Clare has been talking of marching her off abroad; and we wanted, you see, to secure ourselves against separation."
"And what are you going to do, Frank?"
"Oh, nothing," said easy Frank. "Daisy's gone back to The Mount, and I am here as usual. As soon as I can make a home for her, I shall take her away."
"Make a home where?"
"In some place where there's a likelihood of a good practice. London, I dare say."
"But how are you to live? A good practice does not spring up in a night, like a mushroom."
"That's arranged," replied Frank, as perfectly confident himself that it was arranged as that Edina was sitting in the low chair, and he was finally settling himself into his coat. "My plans are all laid, Edina, and Uncle Hugh knows what they are. It was in pursuance of them that I went over to Spring Lawn. I will tell you all about it to-morrow: there's no time to do so now."
"Papa does not know of what took place this morning?"
"No. No one knows of that. We don't want it known, if we can help it, until the time comes when all the world may know."
"Meaning until you have gained the home, Frank?"
"Meaning until I and Daisy enter upon it," said sanguine Frank.
Edina's hand—her elbow resting on her knee—was raised to support her head: her fingers played absently with her soft brown hair: her dark thoughtful eyes, gazing before her, seemed to see nothing. Whether it arose from the fact that in her early days, when Dr. Raynor's means were narrow, she had become practically acquainted with some dark phases of existence, or whether it was the blight that had been cast on her heart in its sweet spring-time, certain it was, that Edina Raynor was no longer of a sanguine nature. Where Frank saw only sunshine in prospective, she saw shadow. And a great deal of it.
"You should have made sure of the home first."
"Before making sure of Daisy? Not a bit of it, Edina. We shall get along."
"That's just like you, Frank," she exclaimed petulantly, in her vexation. "You would as soon marry ten wives as one, the law allowing it, so far as never giving a thought to what you were to do with them."
"But the law would not allow it," laughed Frank.
"It is your great fault—never to think of consequences."
"Time enough, Edina, when the consequences come."
She did not make any rejoinder. To what use? Frank Raynor would be Frank Raynor to the end of time. It was his nature.
"It is odd, though, is it not, that you, of all Trennach, should just happen to have caught us?" he exclaimed, alluding to the ceremony of the morning. "But you'll not betray us, Edina? I must be off down, or Uncle Hugh will be calling to know what I'm doing."
Edina rose, with a sigh. "No, I will not betray you, Frank: you know there is no danger of that: and if I can help you and Daisy in any way, I will do it. I was obliged to tell you what I had seen. I could not keep from you the fact that it had come to my knowledge."
As Frank leaped downstairs, light-hearted as a boy, Dr. Raynor was crossing from the sitting-room to the surgery. He halted to speak.
"I forgot to tell you, Frank, that you may as well call this evening on Dame Bell: you will be passing her door."
"Is Dame Bell ill again?" asked Frank.
"I fear so. A woman came for some medicine for her to-day."
"I thought she was at Falmouth."
"She is back again, it seems. Call and see her as you go along: you have plenty of time."
"Very well, Uncle Hugh."
The Bare Plain might be said to specially deserve its name this evening as Frank traversed it. In the morning the wind had been high, but nothing to what it was now. It played amidst the openings surrounding the Bottomless Shaft, going in with a whirr, coming out with a rush, and shrieked and moaned fearfully. The popular belief indulged in by the miners was, that this unearthly shrieking and moaning, which generally disturbed the air on these boisterous nights, proceeded not from the wind, but from Dan Sandon's ghost. Frank Raynor of course had no faith in the ghost—Dan Sandon's, or any other—but he shuddered as he hastened on.
The illness, more incipient than declared as yet, from which Mrs. Bell was suffering, had seemed to cease with her trouble. Her husband's mysterious disappearance was followed by much necessary exertion, both of mind and body, on her own part; and her ailments almost left her. Dr. Raynor suspected—perhaps knew—that the improvement was only temporary; but he did not tell her so. Dame Bell moved briskly about her house during this time, providing for the comforts of her lodgers, and waiting for the husband who did not come.
Rosaline did not come, either. And her prolonged absence seemed to her mother most unaccountable, her excuses for it unreasonable. As the days and the weeks had gone on, and Rosaline's return seemed to be no nearer than ever, Dame Bell grew angry. She at length made up her mind to go to Falmouth and bring back the runaway with her own hands.
Easier said than done: as Mrs. Bell found. When after two days' absence, she returned to her home on the Bare Plain, she returned alone: her daughter was not with her. This was only a few days ago. The dame had been ailing ever since, some of the old symptoms having returned again—the result perhaps of the travelling—and she had that day sent a neighbour to Dr. Raynor's for some medicine.
Frank Raynor made the best of his way across the windy plain, and lifted the latch of Dame Bell's door. She stood at the table, ironing by candle-light, her feet resting upon an old thick mat to keep them from any draught. Frank, making himself at home as usual, sat down by the ironing-board, telling her to go on with her occupation, and inquired into her ailments.
"You ought not to have taken the journey," said Frank, promptly, when questions and answers were over. "Travelling is not good for you."
"But I could not help taking it," returned Dame Bell, beginning upon the wristbands of a shirt she was ironing. "When Rosaline never came home, and paid no attention to my ordering her to come home, it was time I went to see after her."
"She has not come back with you?"
"No, she has not," retorted Dame Bell, ironing away with a viciousness that imperilled the wristband. "I couldn't make her come, Mr. Frank. Cords would not have dragged her. Of all the idiots! to let those Whistlers frighten her from a place for good, like that!"
"The Whistlers?" mechanically repeated Frank, his eyes fixed on the progress of the ironing.
"It's the Whistlers, and nothing else," said Mrs. Bell. "I didn't send word to her or her aunt that I was on my way to Falmouth: I thought I'd take 'em by surprise. And I declare to you, Mr. Frank, I hardly believed my eyes when I saw Rosaline. It did give me a turn. I was that shocked——"
"But why?" interrupted Frank.
"She's just as thin as a herring. You wouldn't know her, sir. When I got to the place, there was John Pellet's shop-window flaming away, and lighting up the tins and fire-irons, and all that, which he shows in it. I opened the side-door, and went straight up the stairs to the room overhead, knowing I should most likely find Rosaline there, for it's the room where my sister Pellet does her millinery work. My sister was there, standing with her back to me, a bonnet on each of her outstretched hands, as if she was comparing the blue bows in one with the pink bows in the other; and close to the middle table, putting some flowers in another bonnet, was a young woman in black. I didn't know her at first. The gas was right on her face, but I declare that I didn't know her. She looked straight over at me, and I thought what a white and thin and pretty face it, was, with large violet eyes and dark circles round 'em: but as true as you are there, Mr. Frank, I didn't know her for Rosaline. 'Mother!' says she, starting up: and I a'most fell on the nearest chair. 'What ever has come to you, child?' I says, as she steps round to kiss me! 'you look as though you had one foot in the grave.' At that she turns as red as a rose: and what with the bright colour, and the smile she gave, she looked a little more like herself. But there: if I talked till I tired you, sir, I could make out no more than that: she's looking desperately ill and wretched, and she won't come home again."
Frank made no rejoinder. The ironing went on vigorously: and Mrs. Bell's narrative with it.
"All I could say was of no use: back with me she wouldn't consent to come. All her aunt could say was of no use. For, when she found how lonely I was at home, and how much I wanted Rosaline, my sister, though loth to part with her, said nature was nature, and a girl should not go against her mother. But no persuasion would bring Rosaline to reason. She'd live with me, and glad to, she said, if I'd go and stay at Falmouth, but she could not come back to Trennach. Pellet and his wife both tried to turn her: all in vain."
"Did she give any reason for not coming back?" questioned Frank: and one, more observant than Dame Bell, might have been struck with the low, subdued tones he spoke in.
"She gave no reason of her own accord, Mr. Frank, but I got it out of her. 'What has Trennach done to you, and what has the old house on the Plain done to you, that you should be frightened at it?' I said to her. For it's easy to gather that she is frightened in her mind, Mr. Frank, and Pellet's wife had noticed the same ever since she went there. 'Don't say such things, mother,' says she, 'it is nothing.' 'But I will say it,' says I, 'and I know the cause—just the shock you had that Tuesday night from the Seven Whistlers, and a fear that you might hear them again if you came back; and a fine simpleton you must be for your pains!' And so she is."
"Ah, yes, the Seven Whistlers," repeated Frank, absently.
"She could not contradict me. She only burst into tears and begged of me not to talk of them. Not talk, indeed! I could have shook her, I could!"
"We cannot help our fears," said Frank.
"But for a girl to let they sounds scare her out of house and home and country, is downright folly," pursued Dame Bell, unable to relinquish the theme, and splitting the button of the shirt-collar in two at one stroke of the angry iron. "And she must fright and fret herself into a skeleton besides! But there," she resumed, in easier tones, after folding the shirt, "I suppose she can't help it. Her father was just as much afraid of 'em. He never had an atom o' colour in his face from the Sunday night he heard the Whistlers till the Tuesday night when he disappeared. It had a curious grey look on it all the while."
Frank rose. He remembered the grey look well enough. "If Rosaline likes Falmouth best, she is better there, Mrs. Bell. I should not press her to return."
"If pressing would do any good, she'd have her share of it," rejoined Mrs. Bell, candidly. "But it won't. I did press, for the matter of that. When I'd done pressing on my score, I put it on the score of her father. 'Don't you care to be at home to welcome your poor lost father when he gets back to it—for he's sure to come back, sooner or later,' says I: and I'm sure my eyes ran tears as I spoke. But no: she just turned as white as the grave, Mr. Frank, and shook her head in a certain solemn way of hers, which she must have picked up at Falmouth: and I saw it was of no use, though I talked till doomsday. There she stops, and there she will stop, and I must make the best of it. And I wish those evil Whistlers had been at the bottom of the sea!"
Frank was in a hurry to depart: but she went on again, after taking breath.
"She is earning money, and her aunt is glad to have her, and takes care of her, and she says she never saw any girl so expert with her fingers and display so much taste in bonnets as Rosaline. But that does not mend the matter here, Mr. Frank, and is no excuse for her being such a goose. 'Come and take a room in Falmouth, mother,' were her last words when I was leaving. But I'd like to know what a poor lone body like me could do in that strange place."
"Well, good-evening, Mrs. Bell," said Frank, escaping to the door. But the loquacious tongue had not quite finished.
"When I was coming back in the train, Mr. Frank, the thought kept running in my mind that perhaps Bell would have got home whilst I'd been away: and when I looked round the empty house, and saw he was not here, a queer feeling of disappointment came over me. Do you think he ever will come back, sir?"
Some "queer feeling" seemed to take Frank at the question, and stop his breath. He spoke a few words indistinctly in answer. Mrs. Bell did not catch them.
"And whether it was through that—expecting to see him and the consequent disappointment—I don't know, Mr. Frank; but since then I can't get him out of my mind. Day and night, Bell is in it. I am beginning to dream of him: and that's what I have not done yet. Nancy Tomson says it's a good sign. Should you say it was, sir?"
"I—really don't know," was Frank's unsatisfactory reply. And then he succeeded in making his final exit.
"I wish she wouldn't bring up her husband to me!" he cried, lifting his hat that his brow might get a little of the fresh wind, which blew less fiercely under the cottages. "Somehow she nearly always does it. I hate to cross the threshold."
A week or two went on: a week or two of charming weather and calm blue skies: The day fixed for the departure of Mrs. St. Clare from The Mount came and passed, and she was still at home, and likely to be there for some time to come. "Man proposes, but Heaven disposes." Every day of our lives we have fresh proofs of that great fact.
On the very day of Daisy's impromptu wedding, her sister Lydia showed herself more than usually ailing and grumbling. She felt cold and shivery, and sat in the pink cloak all day. The next morning she seemed really ill, not fancifully so, was hot and cold alternately. Dr. Raynor was sent for. The attack turned out to be one of fever. Not as yet of infectious fever—and Dr. Raynor hoped he should prevent its going on to that. But it was rather severe, and required careful watching and nursing.
Of course their departure for foreign lands was out of the question. They could not leave The Mount. Mrs. St. Clare, who was very anxious, for she dreaded a visitation of infectious fever more than anything else, spent most of her time in Lydia's room. Once in a way, Frank Raynor appeared at The Mount in his uncle's place. Dr. Raynor was fully given to understand that his own attendance was requested, not his nephew's: but he was himself getting to feel worse day by day; he could not always go over, walking or riding; and on those occasions Frank went instead. Mrs. St. Clare permitted what, as it appeared, there was no remedy for, and was coldly civil to the young doctor.
But this illness of Lydia's, and Mrs. St. Clare's close attendance in her room, gave more liberty to Daisy. Scarcely an evening passed but she, unsuspected and unwatched, was pacing the shrubberies and the secluded parts of that wilderness of a garden with Frank. There, arm-in-arm, they walked, and talked together of the hopeful future, and the enchanted hours seemed to fly on golden wings.
"Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands,Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might,Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight."
"Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands,Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might,Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight."
Whatever of reality, of fruition, the future might bring, it could never be to them what this present time was, when they wandered together in the sweet moonlight, with the scent of the night-flowers around them, and the soft sighing wind, and the heart's romance.
Never an evening but Daisy stole out to watch from the sheltered gate for the coming of her lover; scarcely an evening that Frank failed to come. When he did fail, it was through no fault of his. Daisy would linger and linger on, waiting and watching, even when all sensible hope of his coming must have died out; and when compelled to return indoors with a reluctant step, she would think fate cruel to her, and sigh heavily.
"The time may come when we shall live with each other and be together always, in place of just this little evening walk up and down the paths—and oh, how I wish the time was come now!" poor Daisy would say to her own heart.
One evening it was Daisy who failed to be at the trysting-place. Lydia was getting better, was able to sit up a little, morning and evening. The greater danger, feared for her, had been prevented: and under her own good constitution—for she had one, in spite of her grumblings and her imaginary ailments—and Dr. Raynor's successful treatment, she was recovering rapidly. This evening, lying back in an easy-chair, it had pleased her to order Daisy to read to her. Daisy complied willingly: she was ever more ready to help Lydia than Lydia was to accept her help; but when a long spell of reading had been got through, and the room was growing dim, Daisy, coming to the end of a chapter, closed the book.
"What's that for?" asked Lydia, sharply, whose peevishness was coming back to her with her advance towards convalescence. "Read on, please."
"It is growing dusk," said Daisy.
"Dusk—for that large print!—nonsense," retorted Lydia. The book was a popular novel, and she felt interested in it.
"I am tired, Lydia: you don't consider how long I have been reading," cried Daisy, fretting inwardly: for the twilight hour was her lover's signal for approach, and she knew he must be already waiting for her.
"You have only been reading since dinner," debated Lydia: "not much more than an hour, I'm sure. Go on."
So Daisy was obliged to go on. She dared not display too much anxiety to get away, lest it might betray that she had some motive for wishing it. A secret makes us terribly self-conscious. But by-and-by it really became too dark to see even the large print of the fashionable novel of the day, and Lydia exhibited signs of weariness; and Mrs. St. Clare, who had been dozing in another arm-chair, woke up and said Lydia must not listen any longer. Daisy ran down to the yellow room, and sped swiftly through the open glass-doors.
It was nearly as dark as it would be. The stars were shining; a lovely opal colour lingered yet in the west. Frank Raynor, hands in pockets, and whistling softly under his breath, stood in the sheltered walk. A somewhat broad walk, where the trees met overhead. Daisy flung herself into his arms, and burst into tears. Tried almost beyond bearing by her forced detention, it was thus her emotion, combined perhaps with a little temper, expended itself.
"Why, Daisy! What is the matter?"
"I could not get to you, Frank. Lydia kept me in, reading to her, all this time."
"Never mind, my darling, now you have come."
"I thought you would go away; I feared you might think I forgot, or something," sighed Daisy.
"As if I could think that! Dry your eyes, my dear one."
Placing her arm within his, Frank led her forward, and they began, as usual, to pace the walk. It was their favourite promenade; for it was so retired and sheltered that they felt pretty safe from intruders. There, linked arm-in-arm, or with Frank's arm round her waist, as might be, they paced to and fro; the friendly stars shining down upon them through the branches overhead.
Their theme was ever the same—the future. The hopeful future, that to their eyes looked brighter than those twinkling stars. What was it to be for them, and how might they, in their enthusiasm, plan it out? In what manner could Frank best proceed, so as to secure speedily a home-tent, and be able to declare to the world that he and Margaret St. Clare had spent a quarter-of-an-hour in the grey old church at Trennach one windy morning, when he had earned the right to take her away with him and cherish her for life?
To this end the whole of their consultations tended; on this one desired project all their deliberations centred. The sooner Frank could get away from Trennach, the sooner (as they both so hopefully believed) would it be realized. Never a shadow of doubt crossed either of them in regard to it. Frank was too sanguine, Daisy too inexperienced, to see any clouds in their sky. The days to come were to be days of brightness: and both were supremely unconscious that such days never return after the swift passing of life's fair first morning.
"You see, Daisy, the delay is not my fault," spoke Frank. "My uncle has been so very unwell this last week or two, so much worse, that I don't like to urge the change upon him. Only to-day I said to him, 'You know I am wanting to leave you, Uncle Hugh,' and his reply was, 'Do not speak of it just immediately, Frank: let things be as they are a very little longer.' Whilst he is feeling so ill, I scarcely like to worry him."
"Of course not," said Daisy. "And as long as I can walk about here with you every evening, Frank, I don't care how long things go on as they are now. It was different when I feared mamma was going to carry me off to the end of the world. It was only that fear, you know, Frank, that made me consent to do what I did that morning. I'm sure I tremble yet when I think how wrong and hazardous it was. Any one might have come into the church."
"Where's your wedding-ring, Daisy?" he asked: and it may as well be said that he had never told her some one did come in.
"Here," she answered, touching her dress. "It is always there, Frank."
"I have written to-day to a friend of mine in London, Daisy, asking if he knows of any good opening for me—or of any old practitioner in a first-class quarter who may be likely to want some younger man to help him. I dare say I shall receive an answer with some news in it in a day or two."
"I dare say you will. Who is he, Frank?"
"A young fellow named Crisp, who has the best heart in the world. He——"
A sudden grasping of his arm by Daisy, just after they had turned in their walk; a visible shrinking, as if she would hide behind him; and a faint idea that he saw some slight movement of the foliage at the other end of the avenue, stopped Frank's further words.
"Did you see, Frank?" she whispered. "Did you see?"
"I fancied something stirred, down there. What was it?"
"It was Tabitha. I am certain of it. I saw her the moment we turned. She might have been watching us ever so long; all the way up the walk; I dare say shewasdoing so. Oh, Frank, what shall I do? She will go in and tell mamma."
"Let her," said Frank. "The worst she can say is, that we were walking arm-in-arm together. I cannot think why you need be so fearful, Daisy. Your mother must know that we do meet out here, and she must tacitly sanction it. She used to know it, and sanction it too."
Daisy sighed. Yes, she thought, her mother might, at any rate, suspect that they met. It was not so muchthatwhich Daisy feared. But, the one private act she had been guilty of lay heavily on her conscience; and she was ever haunted with the dread that any fresh movement would lead to its betrayal.
Saying good-night to each other, for it was growing late, Frank departed, and Daisy went in. Her mother was shut up in the drawing-room, and she went on straight to her sister's chamber. There an unpleasant scene awaited her. Lydia, not yet in bed—for she had refused to go, and had abused Tabitha for urging it—lay back still in the easy-chair. Could looks have annihilated, Daisy would certainly have sunk from those cast on her by Lydia, as she entered.
And then the storm began. Lydia reproached her in no measured terms, and with utter scorn of tone and manner, for the "clandestine intimacy," as she was pleased to call it, that she, Daisy, was carrying on with Frank Raynor.
It appeared that after the candles were lighted, and Mrs. St. Clare had gone down, Lydia, declining to go to bed, and wanting to be amused, required Daisy to read to her again. Tabitha was sent in search of Daisy, and came back saying she could not find her anywhere: she was not downstairs, she was not in her chamber. "Go and look in the garden, you stupid thing," retorted Lydia: "you know Miss Daisy's for ever out there." Tabitha—a meek woman in demeanour, who took abuse humbly—went to the garden as directed, searched, and at length came upon Miss Daisy in the avenue, pacing it on the arm of Mr. Raynor. Back she went, and reported it to Lydia. And now Lydia was reproaching her.
"To suffer yourself to meet that man clandestinely after night has fallen!" reiterated Lydia. "And to stay out with him!—and to take his arm! You disgraceful girl! And when, all the while, he does not care one jot foryou!He loves some one else."
Daisy had received the tirade on herself in silence, but she fired up at this. "You have no right to saythat, Lydia," she cried. "Whether he loves me, or not, I shall not say; but, at any rate, he does not love any one else."
"Yes, he does," affirmed Lydia.
"He does not," fired Daisy. "If he does, who is it?"
"No one in his own station—more shame to him! It is that girl they call so beautiful—who lost her father. Rose—Rose—what's the name?—Rosaline Bell. Frank Raynor loves her with his whole heart and soul."
"Lydia, how dare you say such a thing?"
"Idon't say it. I only repeat it. Ask Trennach. It is known all over the place. They used to be always together—walking on the Bare Plain by night. The girl has gone away for a time; and the gentleman, during her absence, amuses himself with you. Makes love to you to keep his hand in."
Daisy's heart turned sick and faint within her. Not at Lydia's supreme sarcasm, but at the horrible conviction that there must be something in the tale. She remembered the past evening at the dinner-table—and the recollection came rushing into her mind like a barbed arrow—when Sir Arthur Beauchamp and others were questioning Frank about this very girl and her beauty, and she—Daisy—had been struck with the emotion he betrayed; with his evidently shrinking manner, with the changing hue of his face. Did he in truth love this girl, Rosaline Bell?—and was she so very beautiful?
"How did you hear this, Lydia?" asked Daisy, in tones from which all spirit was quenched.
"I heard it from Tabitha. She knows about it. You can ask her yourself."
And Daisy did ask. As it chanced, the maid at that moment entered the room with some beef-tea for Lydia; and Daisy, suppressing her pride and her reticence, condescended to question her. Tabitha answered freely and readily, as if there were nothing in the subject to conceal, and with a palpable belief in its truth that told terribly upon Daisy. In fact, the woman herself implicitly believed it. Mr. Blase Pellet had once favoured her with his version of the story, and Tabitha never supposed that that version existed in Mr. Pellet's own imagination, and in that alone.
"I—don't think it can betrue, Tabitha," faltered poor Daisy, her heart beating wildly. "She was not a lady."
"It's true enough, Miss Margaret. Blase Pellet wanted her himself, but she'd have nothing to say to him—or to any one else except Mr. Raynor. Pellet is related to the Bells, and knew all about it. What he said to me was this: 'Raynor is after her for ever, day and night, and she worships the ground he treads on!' Those were his very words, Miss Margaret."
Margaret, turning hot and cold, and red and white, made her escape from the room, and took refuge in her own. In that first moment of awakening, she felt as though her heart must break with its bitter pain. Jealousy, baleful jealousy, had taken possession of her: and no other passion in this life can prey upon our bosoms so relentlessly, or touch them with so keen a sting.