In the course of the following morning, Peter Arkell suddenly announced his intention of going out, to the great surprise of Lucy. It was a most unfit day, rainy, and bleak for the season; and he had not stepped over the threshold for weeks and weeks.
"Papa! You cannot go out to-day. It is not fit for you."
"Yes, I shall go. I want particularly to speak to my cousin William: you can help me thither with your arm, Lucy. Get my old cloak down, and air it at the fire; I can wrap myself in that."
Lucy ventured no further remonstrance. When her papa took a thing into his head, there was no turning him.
They started together through the bad weather to the house of William Arkell. The dear old house! where Peter had spent so many pleasant evenings in his youthful days. He crossed the yard at once to the manufactory, telling Lucy to go indoors and wait for him. William Arkell was alone in his private room, and was not a little surprised at the visit.
"Why Peter!" he exclaimed, rising from his desk, and placing an arm-chair by the fire, "What has brought you out such a day as this? Sit down."
Before Peter did so, he closed the door, so that they should be quite alone. He then turned and clasped his cousin by the hand.
"William," he began, emotion mingling with his utterance, "I have come to you, a poor unhappy man. Conscious of my want of power to do what I ought—fearing that there is less chance of my doing it, day by day."
"What do you mean?" inquired Mr. Arkell.
"Amidst the ruin that has almost universally fallen on the city, you have not escaped, I fear your property is being seriously drawn upon?"
"And, unless things mend, it will soon be drawn to an end, Peter."
"Heaven help me!" exclaimed Peter. "And to know that I am in your debt, and cannot liquidate it! It is to speak of this, that I am come out to-day."
"Nay, now you are foolish!" exclaimed Mr. Arkell. "What matters a hundred pounds or two, more or less, to me? The sum would cut but a poor figure by the side of what I am now habituated to losing. Never think of it, Peter:Inever shall. Besides, you had it from me in driblets, so that I did not miss it."
"When I had used to come to you for assistance in my illnesses, for I was ashamed to draw too much upon Mildred," proceeded the poor man, "I never thought but that I should, in time, regain permanent strength, and be able to return it. I never meant to cheat you, William."
"Don't talk like that, Peter!" interrupted Mr. Arkell. "If the money were returned to me now, it would only go the way that the rest is going. I have always felt glad that it was in my power to render you assistance in your necessities: and if I stood this moment without a shilling to turn to, I should not regret it any more than I do now."
They continued in converse, but we need not follow it. Lucy meanwhile had entered the house, and went about, looking for some signs of its inhabitants. The general sitting-room was empty, and she crossed the hall and opened the door of the drawing-room. A bouncing lady in fine attire was coming forth from it, talking and laughing loudly with Mr. Arkell; it was Barbara Fauntleroy.
Shaking hands with Lucy in her good-humoured manner as she passed her, she talked and laughed her way out of the house. Lucy was in black silk and crape still; Miss Fauntleroy was in the gayest of colours; and Mrs. Peter Arkell had been dead longer than Mr. Fauntleroy. They had worn their black a twelvemonth and then quitted it. It was not fashionable to wear mourning long now, said the Miss Fauntleroys.
Charlotte Arkell, with scant ceremony, sat down to the piano, giving Lucy only a nod. Nothing could exceed the slighting contempt in which she and her sister held Lucy. They had been trained in it. And they were highly accomplished young ladies besides, had learnt everything there was to be taught, from the harp and oriental tinting, down to Spanish, German, and chenille embroidery. Lucy's education had been solid, rather than ornamental: she spoke French well, and played a little; and she was more skilled in plain sewing than in fancy.Theynever allowed their guarded fingers to come into contact with plain work, and had just as much idea of how anything useful was done, as of how the moon was made. So these two fine young ladies despised Lucy Arkell, after the fashion of the fine young ladies of the present day. Charlotte also was great in the consciousness of other self-importance, for she was soon to be a wife. That Captain Anderson whom you once saw at a concert, had paid a more recent visit to Westerbury; and he left it, engaged to Charlotte Arkell.
Charlotte played a few bars, and then remembered to become curious on the subject of Lucy's visit. She whirled herself round on the music stool: it had been a favourite motion of her mother's in the old days.
"What have you come for, Lucy?"
"Papa wanted to see Mr. Arkell, and I walked with him. He is gone into the manufactory."
"I thought your papa was too ill to go out."
"He is very ailing. I think he ought not to have come out on a day like this. Do not let me interrupt your practising, Charlotte."
"Practising! I have no heart to practise!" exclaimed Charlotte. "Papa is always talking in so gloomy a way. He was in here just now: I was deep in this sonata of Beethoven's, and did not hear him enter, and he began saying it would be better if I and Sophy were to accustom ourselves to spend some of our timeusefully, for that he did not know how soon we might be obliged to do it. He has laid down the carriage; he has made fearful retrenchments in the household: I wonder what he would have! And as to our buying anything new, or subscribing to a concert, or anything of that sort, mamma says she cannot get the money from him. I wish I was married, and gone from Westerbury! I am thankful my future home is to be far away from it!"
"Things may brighten here," was all the consolation that Lucy could offer.
"I don't believe they ever will," returned Charlotte. "I see no hope of it. Papa looks sometimes as if his heart were breaking."
"How soon the Miss Fauntleroys have gone out of mourning!" observed Lucy.
"Oh, I don't know. They wore it twelve months; that's long enough for anything. Let me give you a caution, Lucy," added Charlotte, laughing: "don't hint at such a thing as that Barbara Fauntleroy's not immaculate perfection: it would not do in this house."
"Why?" exclaimed Lucy, wondering at her words and manner.
"She is intended for its future head, you know, when the present generation of heads shall—shall have passed away. I'm afraid that's being poetical; I didn't mean to be."
Lucy sat as one in a maze, wonderingWHATshe might understand by the words. And Charlotte whirled round on her stool again to the sonata, with as little ceremony as she had whirled from it.
While Miss Fauntleroy was there, Mrs. Arkell had sent a private message to Travice that she wanted him; but Travice did not obey the summons until the young lady was gone. He came then: and Mrs. Arkell attacked him for not coming before; she was attacking him now, while Charlotte and Lucy were talking.
"Why did you not come in at once?" asked Mrs. Arkell, in the cross tone which had latterly become habitual; "Barbara Fauntleroy was here."
"That was just the reason," returned Travice, in his usual candid manner; "I waited until she should be gone."
If there was one thing that vexed Mrs. Arkell worse than the fact itself, it was the open way in which her son steadily resisted the hints to him on the subject of Miss Fauntleroy. She felt at times that she could have beaten him; she was feeling so now. Her temper turned acrid, her face flushed, her voice rose.
"Travice, if you persist in this systematic rudeness——"
"Pardon me, mother. I wish you would refrain from bringing up the subject of Miss Fauntleroy to me. I do not care to hear of her in any way; she——Who's that? Why, I do believe it's Lucy's voice!"
The colloquy with Mrs. Arkell had taken place in the hall. Travice made one bound to the drawing-room. The sudden flush on the pale face, the glad eagerness of the tone, struck dismay to the heart of Mrs. Arkell. She quickly followed him, and saw that he had taken both of Lucy's hands in greeting.
"Oh, Lucy! are you here this morning? I know you have come to stay the day! Take your things off."
Lucy laughed—and Mrs. Arkell had the pleasure of seeing thathercheeks wore an answering flush. She shook her head and drew her hands from Travice, who seemed as if he could have kept them for ever.
"Do I spend a day here so often that you think I can come for nothing else? I only came with papa, and I am going back with him soon."
But Travice pressed the point of staying. Charlotte also—feeling, perhaps, that even Lucy was a welcome break to the monotony the house had fallen into—urged it. Mrs. Arkell maintained a marked silence; and in the midst of it the two gentlemen came in. Mr. Arkell kissed Lucy, and said she had better stop.
But Peter settled it the other way. Lucy must go home with him then, he said; but if she liked to come down in the afternoon, and stay for the rest of the day, she could. It was so settled, and they took their departure. Mr. Arkell walked with Peter across the court-yard, talking. Travice, in the very face and eyes of his mother, gave his arm to Lucy.
"Why did you not stay?" he whispered, as they arrived at the gates. "Lucy, do you know that to part with you is to part with my life's sunshine?"
Mrs. Arkell was standing at the door as he turned, and beckoned to him from the distance.
"I wish to speak with you," she said, as he approached.
She led the way into the dining-room, and closed the door on them, as if for some formidable interview. Travice saw that she was in a scarcely irrepressible state of anger, and he perched himself on a vacant side-table—rather a favourite way of his. He began humming a tune; gaily, but not disrespectfully.
"What possesses you to behave in this absurd manner to Lucy Arkell?" she began, in passion.
"What have I done now?" asked Travice.
"You are continually, in some way or other, contriving to thrust that girl's company upon us! I will not permit it, Travice; I have borne with it too long. I——"
"Why, she is not here twice in a twelvemonth," interrupted Travice.
"Don't say absurd things. She is. And she is not fit society for your sisters."
"If they were only half as worthy of her society as she is superior to them, they would be very different girls from what they are," spoke Travice, with a touch of his father's old heat. "If there's one thing that Lucy is, pre-eminently, it's a gentlewoman. Her mother was one before her."
Mrs. Arkell grew nearly black in the face. While she was trying to speak, Travice went on.
"Ask my father what his opinion of Lucy is.Hedoes not say she is here too much."
"Your father is a fool in some things, and so are you!" retorted Mrs. Arkell, a sort of scream in her voice. "How dare you oppose me in this way, Travice?"
"I am very sorry to do so," returned the young man; "and I beg your pardon if I say more than you think I ought. But I cannot join in your unjust feeling against Lucy, and I will not tolerate it. I wish you would not bring up this subject at all: it is one we never can agree upon."
"You requested me just now not to 'bring up' the subject of Miss Fauntleroy to you," said Mrs. Arkell, in a tone of irony. "How many other subjects would you be pleased to interdict?"
"I don't want to hear even the name of those Fauntleroys!" burst out Travice, losing for a moment his equanimity. "Great brazen milkmaids!"
"No! you'd rather hear Lucy's!" screamed Mrs. Arkell. "You'd——"
"Lucy! Don't name them with Lucy, my dear mother. They are not fit to tie Lucy's shoes! She has more sense of propriety in her little finger, than they have in all their great overgrown bodies!"
This was the climax. And Mrs. Arkell, suppressing the passion that shook her as she stood, spoke with that forced calmness that is worse than the loudest fury. Her face had turned white.
"Continue your familiar intercourse with that girl, if you will; but, listen!—you shall never make a wife of anyone so paltry and so pitiful! I would pray Heaven to let me follow you to your grave, Travice, rather than see you marry Lucy Arkell."
She spoke the words in her blind rage, never reflecting on their full import; never dreaming that a day was soon to come, when their memory would return to her in her extremity of vain and hopeless repentance.
"It shall be put a stop to! it shall be put a stop to!" murmured Mrs. Arkell to herself, as she sat alone when Travice had left her, trying to recover her equanimity. "Once separated from that wretched Lucy, he would soon find charms in Barbara Fauntleroy."
There was no time to be lost; and that same afternoon, when Lucy arrived, according to promise, crafty Mrs. Arkell began to lay the foundation stone. Lucy found her in the drawing-room alone.
"I will take my bonnet upstairs," said Lucy. "Shall I find Charlotte and Sophy anywhere?"
"No," replied Mrs. Arkell, in a very uncompromising tone. "They have gone out with the Miss Fauntleroys."
"I was unwilling to come this afternoon," observed Lucy, as she returned and sat down, "for papa does not seem so well. I fear he may have taken cold to-day; but he got to his books and writing after dinner, as usual."
"Does he think of bringing out a new book?" asked Mrs. Arkell; and Lucy did not detect the irony of the question.
"Not yet. He is about half through one. Is there any meeting to-day, do you know, Mrs. Arkell?" she resumed. "I met several gentlemen hurrying up the street as I came along."
"I thought everybody knew of it," replied Mrs. Arkell. "A meeting of the manufacturers was convened at the Guildhall for this afternoon. Mr. Arkell and Travice have gone to it."
"Their meetings seem to bring them no redress," returned Lucy, sadly. "The English manufacturers have no chance against the French now."
"I don't know what is to become of us," ejaculated Mrs. Arkell. "Charlotte, thank goodness, will soon be married and away; but there's Sophy! Travice will have enough to live upon, without business."
"Will he?" exclaimed Lucy, looking brightly up. "I am so glad to hear it! I thought your property had diminished until it was but small."
"Our property is diminishing daily," replied Mrs. Arkell. "Which makes it the more necessary that Travice should secure himself by his marriage."
Lucy did not answer; but her heart throbbed violently, and the faint colour on her cheek forsook it. Mrs. Arkell, without looking towards her, rose to poke the fire, and continued talking as she leaned over the grate, with her back to Lucy.
"It is intended that Travice shall marry Barbara Fauntleroy."
The sense of the words was very decided, carrying painful conviction to Lucy's startled ear. She could not have answered, had her life depended on it.
"Lucy, my dear," proceeded Mrs. Arkell, speaking with unwonted affection, and looking Lucy full in the face, "I am speaking to you in entire confidence, and I desire you will respect it as such. Do not drop a hint to Travice or the girls; they would not like my speaking of it."
Lucy sat quiet; and Mrs. Arkell quite devoured the pale face with her eyes.
"At first he did not care much for Barbara; and in truth he does not care for her now, as one we intend to marry ought to be cared for. But that will all come in time. Travice, like many other young men, may have indulged in a little carved-out romance of his own—I don't know that he did, but hemay—and he has the good sense to see that his romance must yield to reality."
"Yes!" ejaculated Lucy, feeling that she was expected to say something in answer.
"There is our property dwindling down to little; there's the business dwindling down to nothing; and suppose Travice took it into his head to many a portionless girl, what prospect would there be before him? Why, nothing but poverty and self-reproach; nothing but misery. And in time he would hate her for having brought him to it."
"True! true!" murmured Lucy.
"And now," added Mrs. Arkell, "that he is on the point of consenting to marry Miss Fauntleroy, it is the duty of all of us, if we care for his future happiness and welfare, to urge his hopes to that point. You see it, Lucy, I should think, as well as we do."
There was no outward emotion to be observed in Lucy. A transiently white cheek, a momentary quiver of the lip, and all that could be seen was over. Like her aunt Mildred, it was her nature to bear in silence; but some of us know too well that that is the grief which tells. There was a slight shiver of the frame, visible to those keen eyes watching her, and she compelled herself to speak as with indifference.
"Has he consented?"
"My dear Lucy, I said he was on the point of consenting. And there's no doubt he is. I had an explanation with Travice this morning; he seemed inclined to shun Miss Fauntleroy, for I sent for him while she was here, and he did not come. After you left, I spoke to him; I pointed out the state of the case, and said what a sweet girl Miss Fauntleroy was, what a charming wife she would make him; and I hope I brought him to reason. You see, Lucy, how advantageous it will be in all ways, their union. Not only does it provide for Travice, but it will remove the worst of the great care hanging over the head of Mr. Arkell, and which I am sure, if not removed, will shorten his life. Do you understand?"
"I—think so," replied Lucy, whose brain was whirling in spite of her calm manner.
Mrs. Arkell drew her chair nearer to Lucy, and dropped her voice.
"Our position is this, my dear. A very great portion of Mr. Arkell's property is locked up in his stock, which is immense.Ishould not have kept on manufacturing as he has done; and I believe it has been partly for the sake of those rubbishing workmen. Unless he can get some extraneous help, some temporary assistance, he will have to force his stock to sale at a loss, and it would just be ruin. Miss Fauntleroy proposes to advance any sum he may require, as soon as the marriage has taken place, and there's no doubt he will accept it. It will be only a temporary loan, you know; but it will save us a great, a ruinous loss."
"Sheproposes to advance it?" echoed Lucy, struck with the words, in the midst of her pain.
"She does. She is as good hearted a girl as ever lived, and proposed it freely. In fact, she would be ready and willing to advance it at once, for of course she knows it would be a safe loan, but Mr. Arkell will not hear of it. She knows what our wishes are upon the subject of the marriage, and she sees that Travice has been holding back; and but for her very good-natured disposition she might not have tolerated it. However, I hope all will soon be settled now, and she and Travice married. Lucy, my dear, Irelyupon you for Mr. Arkell's sake, of whom you are so fond, for Travice's own sake, to forward on this by any little means in your power. And, remember, the confidence I have reposed in you must not be broken."
Lucy sat cold and still. In honour she must no longer think of a possible union with Travice—must never more allow word or look from him seeming to point to it.
"For Mr. Arkell's sake," she kept repeating to herself, as if she were in a dream; "for Travice's own sake!" She saw the future as clearly as though it had been mapped out before her eyes in some prophetic vision: Travice would marry Barbara Fauntleroy and her riches. She almost wished she might never see him more; it could only bring to her additional misery.
Charlotte Arkell came in with Barbara Fauntleroy. Sophy had gone home with the other one for the rest of the day. An old aunt, bed-ridden three parts of her time, had lived with the young ladies since the death of their father. But they were not so very young; and they were naturally independent. Barbara was quite as old as Travice Arkell.
"How shall I bear to see them together?" thought Lucy, as Barbara Fauntleroy sat down opposite to her, in her rustling silk of many colours, and no end of gold trinkets jingling about her. "I wonder why I was born? But for papa, I could wish I had died as Harry did!"
For that first evening, however, she was spared. Their little maid arrived in much commotion, asking to see Miss Lucy. Her papa was feeling worse than when she left home, was the word she brought, and he thought if Lucy did not mind it, he should like her to go back to him at once.
Lucy hastened home. She found her father very poorly; feverish, and coughing a great deal. It was the foreshadowing of an illness from which he was destined never to recover.
Whether his allotted span of life had indeed run out, or whether his exposure to the weather that unlucky morning helped to shorten it, Lucy never knew. A week or two of uncertain sickness—now a little better, now a little worse, and it became too evident that hope of recovery for Peter Arkell was over. A bowed, broken man in frame and spirit, but comparatively young in years, Peter was passing from the world he had found little else than trouble in. Lucy wrote in haste and distress for her Aunt Mildred, but a telegram was received in reply, announcing the death of Lady Dewsbury. She had died somewhat suddenly, Mildred said, when a letter came by the next morning's post, in which she gave particulars.
It was nearly impossible for her to come away before the funeral: nothing short of imminent danger in her brother's state would bring her. She had for a long while been almost sole mistress of the household; Lady Dewsbury was ever her kind friend and protectress; and she could not reconcile it to her feelings to abandon the house while she lay dead in it, unless her brother's state absolutely demanded that she should. Lucy was to write, or telegraph, as necessity should require.
There was no immediate necessity for her to come, and Lucy wrote accordingly. Lucy stayed on alone with the invalid, shunning as much as was possible the presence of Travice, when he made his frequent visits: that presence which had hitherto been to her as a light from heaven. Mrs. Arkell, paying a ceremonious call of condolence one day, whispered to Lucy that Travice was becoming quite "reconciled," quite "fond" of Barbara Fauntleroy.
On the evening of the day after Lady Dewsbury was interred, Mildred arrived in Westerbury. Lucy did not know she was coming, and no one was at the station to meet her. Leaving her luggage to be sent after her, she made her way to her brother's house on foot: it was but a quarter of an hour's walk, and Mildred felt cramped with sitting in the train.
She trembled as she came in sight of it, the old home of her youth, fearing that its windows might be closed, as those had been in the house just quitted. As she stood before the door, waiting to be admitted, remembrances of her childhood came painfully across her—of her happy girlhood, when those blissful dreams of William Arkell were mingled with every thought of her existence.
"And oh! what did they end in!" she cried, clasping her hands tightly together and speaking aloud in her anguish. "What am I now? Chilled in feeling; worn in heart; old before my time."
A middle-aged woman, with a light in her hand, opened the door. Mildred stepped softly over the threshold.
"How is Mr. Arkell?"
The woman—she was the night nurse—stared at the handsomely attired strange lady, whose deep mourning looked so fresh and new, coming in that unceremonious manner at the night-hour.
"He is very ill, ma'am; nearly as bad as he can be," she replied, dropping a low curtsey. "What did you please to want?"
"He is in his old chamber, I suppose," said Mildred, turning towards the staircase. The woman, quite taken aback at this unceremonious proceeding, interposed her person.
"Goodness, ma'am, you can't go up to his chamber!" she cried out in amazement. "The poor gentleman's dying. I'll call Miss Lucy."
"I am Miss Arkell," said Mildred quietly, passing on up the staircase.
She laid aside her sombre bonnet, with its deep crape veil, her heavy shawl, and entered the chamber softly. Lucy was at a table, measuring some medicine into a tea-cup. A pale, handsome young man stood by the fire, his elbow resting on the mantel-piece. Mildred glanced at his face, and did not need to ask who he was.
Near the bed was Mr. William Arkell; but oh! how different from the lover of Mildred's youth! Now he was a grey-haired man, stooping slightly, looking older than his actual years—then tall, handsome, attractive, as Travice was now. And did William Arkell, at the first view, recognise his cousin? No. For that care-worn, middle-aged woman, whose hair was braided under a white net cap, bore little resemblance to the once happy Mildred Arkell. But the dying man, lying panting on the raised pillows, knew her instantaneously, and held out his feeble hands with a glad cry.
It was a painful meeting, and one into which we have little right to penetrate. Soon, very soon, Peter spoke out the one great care that was lying at his heart. He had not touched upon it till then.
"I am leaving my poor child alone in the world," he panted. "I know not who will afford her shelter—where she will find a home?"
"I would willingly promise you to take her to mine, Peter," said Mr. Arkell. "Poor Lucy should be as welcome to a shelter under my roof as are my own girls; but, heaven help me! I know not how long I may have a home for any of them."
"Leave Lucy to me, Peter," interposed Miss Arkell. "I shall make a home for myself now, and that home shall be Lucy's. Let no fear of her welfare disturb your peace."
Travice listened half resentfully. He was standing against the mantel-piece still, and Lucy, just then stirring something over the fire, was close to him.
"Theyneed not think about a home for you, Lucy," he whispered, taking the one disengaged hand into his. "That shall be my care."
Lucy coldly drew her hand away. Her head was full of Barbara Fauntleroy—of the certainty that that lady would be his wife—for she believed no earthly event would be allowed to set aside the marriage: her spirit rebelled against the words. What right had he to breathe such to her—he, the engaged husband of another?
"I shall never have my home with you," she said, in the same low whisper. "Nothing should induce me to it."
"But, Lucy——"
"I will not hear you. You have no right so to speak to me. Aunt! aunt!"—and the tears gushed forth in all their bitter anguish—"let me find a home with you!"
Mildred turned and clasped fondly the appealing form as it approached her. Travice, hurt and resentful, quitted the room.
The death came, and then the funeral. A day or two afterwards, Mrs. Arkell condescended to pay a stately visit of ceremony to Mildred, who received her in the formerly almost-unused drawing-room. Lucy did not appear. Miss Arkell, her heart softened by grief, by much trial, was more cordial than perhaps she had ever been to Mrs. Arkell, before her marriage or after it.
"What a fine young man Travice is!" she observed, in a pause of their conversation.
"The finest in Westerbury," said Mrs. Arkell, with all the partiality of a mother. "I expect he will be thinking of getting married shortly."
"Of getting married! Travice! To whom? To Lucy?"
The question had broken from her in her surprise, in association with an idea that had for long and long floated through her brain—that Travice and Lucy were attached to each other. Mildred knew not whence it had its origin, unless it was in the frequent mention of Travice in Lucy's letters. Mrs. Arkell heard, and tossed her head indignantly.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Arkell—toLucy, did you say? Travice would scarcely think of wedding a portionless bride, under present circumstances. You must have heard of the rich Fauntleroy girls? It is one of them."
Mildred—calm, composed, quiet Mildred—could very nearly have boxed her own ears. Never, perhaps, had she been more vexed with herself—never said an inadvertent thing that she so much wished recalled. How entirely Lucy was despised, Mrs. Arkell's manner and words proclaimed; and the fact carried its sting to Mildred's heart.
"I had no reason to put the question," she said, only caring how she could mend the matter; "I dare say Lucy would not thank me for the idea. Indeed, I should fancy her hopes may lie in quite a different direction. Young Palmer, the lawyer, the son of her father's old friend, has been here several times this past week, inquiring after our health. His motives may be more interested ones."
This was a little romance of Mildred's, called forth by the annoyance and vexation of the moment. It is true that Tom Palmer frequently did call; he and Lucy had been brought up more like brother and sister than anything else; but Miss Arkell had certainly no foundation for the supposition she had expressed. And Mrs. Arkell knew she could have none; but she chose to believe it.
"It would be a very good match for Lucy," she replied. "Tom Palmer has a fine practice for so young a man; there are whispers, too, that he will be made town-clerk whenever the vacancy occurs."
Home went Mrs. Arkell; and the first of the family she happened to come across was Travice.
"Travice, come to me for an instant," she said, taking his arm to pace the court-yard; "I have been hearing news at Peter Arkell's. Lucy's a sly girl; she might have told us, I think. She is engaged—but I don't know how long since. Perhaps only in these few days, since the funeral."
"Engaged in what?"
"To be married. She marries Tom Palmer."
"It is not true," broke forth Travice. "Who in the world has been telling you that falsehood?"
"Not true!" repeated Mrs. Arkell. "Why don't you say it is not true that I am talking to you—not true that this is Monday—not true that you are Travice Arkell? Upon my word! You are very polite, sir."
"Who told it you?" reiterated Travice.
"Theytold me. Mildred Arkell told me. I have been sitting there for the last hour, and we have been talking that and other affairs over. I can tell you what, Travice—it will be an excellent match for Lucy; a far superior one to anything she could have expected—and they seem to know it."
Even as she spoke, there shot a remembrance through Travice Arkell's heart, as an icebolt, of the night he had stood with Lucy in the chamber of her dying father, and her slighting words, in answer to his offer of a home: "I shall never have my home with you; nothing should induce me to it." She would not hear him; she told him he had no right so to speak to her. She had been singularly changed to him during the whole period of her father's illness; had shunned him by every means in her power; had been cold and distant when they were brought into contact. Before that, she was open and candid as the day. This fresh conduct had been altogether inexplicable to Travice, and he now asked himself whether it could have arisen from any engagement to marry Tom Palmer. If so, the change was in a degree accounted for; and it was certainly not impossible, if Tom Palmer had previously been wishing to woo her, that Mr. Peter Arkell, surprised by his dangerous illness, should have hurried matters to an engagement.
The more Travice Arkell reflected on this phase of probabilities, the more he became impressed with it: he grew to look upon it as a certainty; he felt that all chance for himself with Lucy was over. Could he blame her? As things were with him and his father, he saw no chance ofhismarrying her; and, in a worldly point of view, Lucy had done well—had done right. It's true he had never thought her worldly, and he had thought that she loved him; he believed that Tom Palmer had never been more to her than a wind that passes: but why should not Lucy have grown self-interested, as most other girls were? And to Travice it was pretty plain she had.
He grew to look upon it as a positive certainty; he believed, without a shadow of doubt, that it must be the fact: and how bitterly and resentfully he all at once hated Tom Palmer, that gentleman himself would have been surprised to find. It was only natural that Travice should feel it as a personal injury inflicted on himself—a slight, an insult; you all know, perhaps, what this feeling is: and in his temper he would not for some days go near Lucy. It was only when he heard the news that Mildred was returning to London, and would take her niece with her, that he came to his senses.
That same evening he took his way to the house. Mildred, it should be observed, was equally at cross-purposes. She hastened to speak to Lucy the day of Mrs. Arkell's visit, asking her ifshehad heard that Travice was engaged to Miss Fauntleroy; and Lucy answered after the manner of a reticent, self-possessed maiden, and made light of the thing, and was altogether a little hypocrite.
"Knownthat! O dear, yes! for some time," she said. "It would be a very good thing for Travice."
And so Mildred put aside any slight romance she had carved out for them, as wholly emanating from her imagination; but the sore feeling—that Lucy was despised by the mother, perhaps by the son—clung to her still.
She was sitting alone when Travice entered. He spoke for some time on indifferent subjects—of the news of the town; of her journey to London; of her future plans. They were to depart on the morrow.
"Where's Lucy?" he suddenly asked; and there was a restlessness in his manner throughout the interview that Mildred had never observed before.
"She is gone to spend the evening with Mrs. Palmer. I declined. Visiting seems quite out of my way now."
"I should have thought it would just now be out of Lucy's," spoke Travice, in a glow of resentment.
"Ordinary visiting would be," returned Miss Arkell, speaking with unnecessary coldness, and conscious of it. "Mrs. Palmer was here this afternoon; and, seeing how ill Lucy looked, she insisted on taking her home for an hour or two. Lucy will see no one there, except the family."
"What makes her look ill?"
Miss Arkell raised her eyes at the tone. "She is not really ill in body, I trust; but the loss of her father has been a bitter grief to her, and it is telling upon her spirits and looks. He was all she had in the world; for I—comparatively speaking—am a stranger."
There was a pause. Travice was leaning idly against the mantel-piece, in his favourite position, twirling the seals about that hung to his chain, his whole manner bespeaking indifference and almost contemptuous unconcern. Had anyone been there who knew him better than Mildred did, they could have told that it was only done to cover his real agitation. Mildred stole a glance at the fine young man, and thought that if he resembled his father in person, he scarcely resembled him in courtesy.
"Does Lucy really mean to have that precious fool of a Tom Palmer?" he abruptly asked.
Miss Arkell felt indignant. She wondered how he dared to speak in that way; and she answered sharply.
"Tom Palmer is a most superior young man.Ihave not perceived that he has any thing of the fool about him, and I don't think many others have. Whenever he marries, he will make an excellent husband. Why should you wish to set me against him? Let me urge you not to interfere with Lucy's affairs, Travice; she is under my protection now."
Oh, if Mildred could but have read Travice Arkell's heart that night!—if she had but read Lucy's! How different things might have been! Travice moved to shake hands with her.
"I must wish you good evening," he said. "I hope you and Lucy will have a pleasant journey to-morrow. We shall see you both again some time, I suppose."
He went out with the cold words upon his lips. He went out with the conviction, that Lucy was to marry Tom Palmer, irrevocably seated on his heart. And Travice Arkell thought the world was a miserable world, no longer worth living in.
Mildred had to go back for a time to Lady Dewsbury's. That lady's house and effects now lapsed to Sir Edward; but Sir Edward was abroad with his wife and children, and he begged Miss Arkell to remain in it, its mistress, until they could return. This was convenient for Mildred's plans. It afforded a change of scene for Lucy; and it gave the opportunity and time for the house in Westerbury to be renovated; in which she intended now to take up her abode. The house was Mildred's now: it came to her on the death of her brother, their father having so settled it; but for this settlement, poor Peter had disposed of it in his necessities long ago.
Charlotte Arkell married, and departed with her husband, Captain Anderson, for India, taking Sophy with her. The paying over her marriage portion of a thousand pounds—a very poor portion beside what she once might have expected—further crippled the resources of Mr. Arkell; and things seemed to be coming to a crisis.
And Travice? Travice succumbed. Hardly caring what became of him, he allowed himself to be baited—badgered—by his mother into offering himself to one of the "great brazen milkmaids." From the hour of Lucy's departure from the city, she let him have no peace, no rest.
One day—and it was the last feather in the scale, the little balance necessary to weigh it down—Mr. Arkell summoned his son to a private interview. It was only what Travice had been expecting.
"Travice, what is your objection to Miss Fauntleroy?"
"I can't bear the sight of her," returned Travice, curling his lips contemptuously. "Can you, sir?"
Mr. Arkell smiled. "There are some who would call her a fine woman, Travice: she is one."
"A finevulgarwoman," corrected Travice, with a marked stress upon the word. "I always had an instinctive dread of vulgar people myself. I certainly never could have believed I should voluntarily ally myself with one."
"Never marry for looks, my boy," said Mr. Arkell in an eager whisper. "Some, who have done so before you, have awoke to find they had made a cruel mistake."
"Most likely, sir, if they married for looks alone."
Mr. Arkell glanced keenly at his son. "Travice, have I your full confidence? I wish you would give it me."
"In what way?" inquired Travice. "Why do you ask that?"
"Am I right in suspecting that you have cherished a different attachment?"
The tell-tale blood dyed Travice Arkell's brow. Mr. Arkell little needed other answer.
"My boy, let there be no secrets between us. You know that your welfare and happiness—yourhappiness, Travice—lie nearest to my heart. Have you learnt to love Lucy Arkell?"
"Yes," said Travice; and there was a whole world of pain in the simple answer.
"I thought so. I thought I saw the signs of it a long while ago; but, Travice, it would never do."
"You would object to her?"
"Object to her!—to Lucy!—to Peter's child! No. She is one of the sweetest girls living; I am not sure but I love her more than I do my own: and I wish she could be my real daughter and your wife. But it cannot be, Travice. There are impediments in the way, on her side and on yours; and your own sense must tell you this as well as I can."
He could not gainsay it. The impediments were all too present to Travice every hour of his life.
"You cannot take a portionless wife. Lucy has nothing now, or in prospect, beyond any little trifle that may come to her hereafter at Mildred's death; but I don't suppose Mildred can have saved much. It is said, too, that Lucy is likely to marry Tom Palmer."
"I know she is," bitterly acquiesced Travice.
"Lucy, then, for both these reasons, is out of the question. Have you not realized to your own mind the fact that she is?"
"Oh yes."
"Then, Travice, the matter resolves itself into a very small compass. It stands alone; it has no extraneous drawbacks; it can rest upon its own merits or demerits. Will you, or will you not, marry Miss Fauntleroy?"
Travice remained silent.
"It will be well for me that you should, for the temporary use of money that would then be yours would save us, as you know, from a ruinous loss; but, Travice, I would not, for the wealth of worlds, put that consideration against your happiness; but there is another consideration that I cannot put away from me, and that is, that the marriage will make you independent. For your sake, I should like to see you marry Miss Fauntleroy."
"She——"
"Wait one moment while I tell you why I speak. I do not think you are doing quite the right thing by Miss Fauntleroy, in thus, as it were, trifling with her. She expects you to propose to her, and you are keeping her in suspense unwarrantably long. You should either make her an offer, or let it be unmistakably known that there exists no such intention on your part. It would be a good thing in all ways, if you can only make up your mind to it; but do as you please:Ido not urge you either way."
"I may as well do it," muttered Travice to himself. "Shehas chosen another, and it little matters what becomes of me: look which way I will, there's nothing but darkness. As well go through life with Bab Fauntleroy at my side, like an incubus, as go through it without her."
And Travice Arkell—as if he feared his resolution might desert him—went out forthwith and offered himself to Miss Fauntleroy. Never, surely, did any similar proposal betray so muchhauteur, so much indifference, so little courtesy in the offering. Barbara happened to be alone; she was sitting in a white muslin dress, looking as big as a house, and waiting in state for any visitors who might call. He spoke out immediately. She probably knew, he said, that he was a sort of bankrupt in self, purse, and heart; little worth the acceptance of any one; but if she would like to take him, such as he was, he would try and do his duty by her.
The offer was really couched in those terms; and he did not take shame to himself as he spoke them. Travice Arkellcouldnot be a hypocrite: he knew that the girl was aware of the state of things and of his indifference; he believed she saw through his love for Lucy; and he hated her with a sort of resentful hatred for having fixed her liking and her hopes upon him. He had been an indulged son all his life—a sort of fortune's pet—and the turn that things had taken was an awful blow.
"Will she say she'll have me?" he thought as he concluded. "I don't believe any other woman would." But Barbara Fauntleroy did say she would have him; and she put out her hand to him in her hearty good-natured way, and told him she thought they should get on very well together when once they had "shaken down." Travice touched the hand; he shook it in a gingerly manner, and then dropped it; but he never kissed her—he never said a warmer word than "thank you." Perhaps Miss Fauntleroy did not look for it: sentiment is little understood by these matter-of-fact, unrefined natures, with their loud voices, and their demonstrative temperaments. Travice would have to kiss her some time, he supposed; but he was content to put off the evil until that time came.
"How odd that you should have come and made me an offer this morning, Mr. Travice," she said, with a laugh. "Lizzie has just had one."
"Has she?" languidly returned Travice. His mind was so absorbed in the thought just mentioned, that he had no idea whether the lady meant an offer or a kiss that her sister had received, and he did not trouble himself to ask. It was quite the same to Travice Arkell.
"It's from Ben Carr," proceeded Miss Fauntleroy. "He came over here this morning, bringing a great big nosegay from their hot-house, and he made Liz an offer. Liz was taken all of a heap; and I think, but for me, she'd have said yes then."
"I dare say she would," returned Travice, and then wished the words recalled. They and their haughty tone had certainly been prompted by the remembrance of the "yes," just said to him by another.
"Liz came flying into the next room to me, asking what she should do; he was very pressing, she said, and wanted her answer then. I'm certain she'd have given it, Mr. Travice, if I had not been there to stop her. I went into the room with her to Ben Carr, and I said, 'Mr. Ben, Liz won't say anything decided now, but she'll think of it for a few days; if you'll look in on Saturday, she'll give you her answer, yes or no.' Ben Carr stared at me angry enough; but Liz backed up what I had said, and he had to take it."
"Does she mean to accept him?" asked Travice.
"Well, she's on the waver. She does not dislike him, and she does not particularly like him. He's too old for her; he's twenty years older than Liz; but it's her first offer, and young women are apt to think when they getthat, they had better accept it, lest they may never get another."
"Your sister need not fear that. Her money will get her offers, if nothing else does."
He spoke in the impulse of the moment; but it occurred to him instantly that it was not generous to say it.
"Perhaps so," said Miss Fauntleroy. "But Lizzie and I have always dreaded that. We would like to be married for ourselves, not for our money. Sometimes we say in joke to one another we wish we could bury it, or could have passed ourselves off to the world as being poor until the day after we were married, and then surprised our husbands by the news, and made them a present of the money."
She spoke the truth; Travice knew she did. Whatever were the failings of the Miss Fauntleroys, genuine good nature was with both a pre-eminent virtue.
"Ben Carr is not the choice I should make," remarked Travice. "Of course, it's no business of mine."
"Nor I. I don't much like Ben Carr. Liz thinks him handsome. Well, she has got till Saturday to make up her mind—thanks to me."
Travice rose, and gingerly touched the hand again. The thought struck him again that he ought to kiss her; that he ought to put an engagement-ring on one of those fair and substantial fingers; ought to do many other things. But he went out, and did none of them.
"I'll not deceive her," he said to himself, as he walked down the street, more intensely wretched than he had ever in his life felt. "I'll not play the hypocrite; I couldn't do it if it were to save myself from hanging. She shall see my feeling for her exactly as it is, and then she'll not reproach me afterwards with coldness. It is impossible that I can ever like her; it seems to me now impossible that I can everendureher; but if she does marry me in the face of such evident feelings, I'll do my best for her. Duty she shall have, but there'll be no love."
A very satisfactory state in prospective! Others, however, besides Travice Arkell, have married to enter on the same.
Some few months insensibly passed away in London for Miss Arkell and Lucy, and when they returned to Westerbury the earth was glowing with the tints of autumn. They did not return alone. Mrs. Dundyke, a real widow now beyond dispute, came with them. Poor David Dundyke, never quite himself after his return, never again indulging in the yearning for the civic chair, which had made the day-dream of his industrious life, had died calmly and peacefully, attended to the last by those loving hands that would fain have kept him, shattered though he was. He was lying now in Nunhead Cemetery, from whence he would certainly never be resuscitated as he had been from his supposed grave in Switzerland. Mrs. Dundyke grieved after him still, and Mildred pressed her to go back with them to Westerbury, for a little change. She consented gladly.
But Mrs. Dundyke did not go down in the humble fashion that she had once gone as Betsey Travice. She sent on her carriage and her two men servants. That there was a little natural feeling of retaliation in this, cannot be denied. Charlotte had despised her all her life; but she should at least no longer despise her on the score of poverty. "I shall do it," she said to Mildred, "and the carriage will be useful to us. It can be kept at an inn, with the horses and coachman; and John will be useful in helping your two maids."
It was late when they arrived at Westerbury; Miss Arkell did not number herself amid those who like to start upon a journey at daybreak; and Lucy looked twice to see whether the old house was really her home: it was so entirely renovated inside and out, as to create the doubt. Miss Arkell had given her private orders, saying nothing to Lucy, and the change was great. Various embellishments had been added; every part of it put into ornamental repair; a great deal of the furniture had been replaced by new; and, for its size, it was now one of the most charming residences in Westerbury.
"Do you like the change, Lucy?" asked Miss Arkell, when they had gone through the house together, with Mrs. Dundyke.
"Of course I do, Aunt Mildred;" but the answer was given in a somewhat apathetic tone, as Lucy mostly spoke now. "It must have cost a great deal."
"Well, is it not the better for it? I may not remain in Westerbury for good, and I could let my house to greater advantage now than I could have done before."
"That's true," listlessly answered Lucy.
"Lucy," suddenly exclaimed Miss Arkell, "what is it that makes you appear so dispirited? I could account for it after your father's death; it was only reasonable then; but it seems to me quite unreasonable that it should continue. I begin to think it must be your natural manner."
Lucy's heart gave a bound of something like terror at the question. "I was always quiet, aunt," she said.
None had looked on with more wonder at the expense being lavished on the house than Mrs. Arkell. "So absurd!" she exclaimed, loftily. "But Mildred Arkell was always pretentious, for a lady's maid."
William Arkell called to see Mildred the morning after her arrival. Very much surprised indeed, was he, to see also Mrs. Dundyke. He carried the news home to his wife.
"Betseydown here!" she answered. "Why, what has brought her?"
"She told me she had accompanied Mildred for a little change. She is coming in to see you by-and-by, Charlotte."
"I hope she's not coming begging!" tartly responded Mrs. Arkell.
"Begging?"
"Yes; begging. It's a question whether she's left with enough to live upon. I'm sure we have none to spare, for her or for anybody else; and so I shall plainly tell her if she attempts to ask."
That they had none to spare, was an indisputable fact. Mrs. Arkell had done all in her power to hurry the marriage on with Miss Fauntleroy, but Travice held back unpardonably. His cheek grew bright with hectic, his whole time was spent in what his mother called "moping;" and he entered but upon rare occasions the house of his bride elect. Mr. Arkell would not urge him by a single word; but, in the delay, he had had to sacrifice another remnant of his property.
The first use that Mrs. Dundyke put her carriage to in Westerbury, was that of going in it to William Arkell's. Mildred declined to accompany her, and Lucy was obliged to go with her; Lucy, who would have given the whole worldnotto go. But she could not say so.
Mrs. Arkell was in the dining-room, when the carriage drove in at the court-yard gates. She wondered whose it was. A nice close carriage, the servants attending it in mourning. She did not recognise it as one she knew.
She heard the visitors shown into the drawing-room, and waited for the cards with some curiosity. But no cards came in. Mrs. Dundyke, the servant brought word, and she was with Miss Lucy Arkell.
Mrs. Dundyke! Wondering what on earth brought Betsey in that carriage, and where she had picked it up, Mrs. Arkell took a closer view of it through the window. It was too good a carriage to be anything but a private one, and those horses were never hired; and there were the servants. She looked at the crest. But it was not a crest. Only an enclosed cipher, D.D.
It did not lessen her curiosity, and she went to the drawing-room, wondering still; but she never once glanced at the possibility that it could be Mrs. Dundyke's; the thought occurred to her that it must belong to some member of the Dewsbury family, and had been lent to Mildred.
It was a stiff meeting. Mrs. Arkell, fully imbued with the persuasion that her sister was left badly off, that she was the same poor sister of other days, was less cordial than she might have been. She shook hands with her sister; she shook hands with Lucy; but in her manner there was a restraint that told. They spoke of general subjects, of Mr. Dundyke's strange adventure in Switzerland, and his subsequent real death; of Lucy's sojourn in London; of Charlotte's recent marriage; of the departure of Sophy with her for India—just, in fact, as might have been the case with ordinary guests.
"Travice is soon to be married, I hear," said Mrs. Dundyke.
"Yes; but he holds back unpardonably."
Had Mrs. Arkell not been thinking of something else, she had never given that tart, but true answer. She happened just then to be calculating the cost of Mrs. Dundyke's handsome mourning, and wondering how she got it.
"Why does he hold back?" quickly asked Mrs. Dundyke.
"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Arkell, with a gay, slighting laugh. "I suppose young men like to retain their bachelor liberty as long as they can. Does your aunt purpose to settle down in Westerbury, Lucy?"
"For the present."
"Does she think of going out again?"
"Oh no."
"Perhaps she has saved enough to keep herself without? She could not expect to find another such place as Lady Dewsbury's."
It was not a pleasant visit, and Mrs. Dundyke did not prolong it. As they were going out they met Travice.
"Oh, Aunt Betsey! How glad I am to see you!"
But he turned coldly enough to shake hands with Lucy. He cherished resentment against her in his heart. She saw he did not look well; but she was cold as he was. As he walked across the hall with his aunt, Mrs. Arkell drew Lucy back into the drawing-room. Her curiosity had been on the rack all the time.
"Whose carriage is that, Lucy? One belonging to the Dewsburys'?"
"It is Mrs. Dundyke's."
"Mrs.——what did you say? I asked whose carriage that is that you came in," added Mrs. Arkell, believing that Lucy had not heard aright.
"Yes, I understood. It is Mrs. Dundyke's. She sent it on, the day before yesterday, with her servants and horses."
"But—does—she—keep a carnage and servants?" reiterated Mrs. Arkell, hardly able to bring out the words in her perplexed amazement.
"Oh, yes."
"Then she must be left well off?"
"Very well. She is very rich. I believe her income is close upon two thousand a year."
"Two thou——" Mrs. Arkell wound up with a shriek of astonishment. Lucy had to leave her to recover it in the best way she could, for Mrs. Dundyke had got into the carriage and was waiting for her.
The poor, humble Betsey, whom she had so despised and slighted through life! Come tothisfortune! While hers and her husband's was going down. How the tables were turned!
Yes, Mrs. Arkell. Tables always are on the turn in this life.
When the first vexation was overcome, the most prominent thought that remained to Mrs. Arkell was, what a fool she had been, not to treat Betsey better—one never knew what would turn up. All that could be done was, to begin to treat her well now: but it required diplomacy.
Mrs. Arkell began by being gracious to Mildred, by being quite motherly in her behaviour to Lucy; this took her often to Miss Arkell's, and consequently into the society of Mrs. Dundyke. Sisterly affection must not be displayed all at once; it should come by degrees.
As a preliminary, Mrs. Arkell introduced to her sister and Mildred as many of her influential friends in Westerbury as she could prevail upon them to receive. This was not many. Gentle at heart as both were, neither of them felt inclined to be patronized by Mrs. Arkell now, after her lifetime of neglect. They therefore declined the introductions, allowing an exception only in the persons of the Miss Fauntleroys, who were so soon, through the marriage of Travice and Barbara, to be allied to the family. Mrs. Dundyke was glad to renew her acquaintance with Mr. Prattleton and his daughter.
Both the Miss Fauntleroys were making preparations for their marriage, for the younger one had accepted Mr. Benjamin Carr. The old squire, so fond of money, was in an ecstacy at the match his fortunate son was going to make, and Ben had just now taken a run up to Birmingham to look at some furniture he had seen advertised. Ben had a good deal of the rover in his nature still, and was glad of an excuse for taking a run anywhere.
The Miss Fauntleroys grew rather intimate at Mildred's. Their bouncing forms and broad good-natured faces, were often to be seen at the door. They began rather to be liked there; their vulgarity lessened with custom, their well-meaning good humour won its own way. They invited Miss Arkell, her niece, and guest, to spend a long afternoon with them and help them with some plain work they were doing for the poor sewing-club—for they were adepts in useful sewing, were the Miss Fauntleroys—and to remain to dinner afterwards. Lucy would have given the whole world to refuse: but she had no ready plea; and she had not the courage to make one. So she went with the rest.
She was sitting at one of the windows of the large drawing-room with Lizzie Fauntleroy, both of them at work at the same article, a child's frock, when Travice Arkell entered. Lucy's was the first face he saw: and so entirely unexpected was the sight of it to him, that, for once in his life, he nearly lost his self-possession. No wonder; with the consciousness upon him of the tardy errand that had taken him there—that of asking his future bride to appoint a time for their union. Once more Mr. Arkell had spoken to his son: "You must not continue to act in this way, Travice; it is not right; it is not manly. Marry Miss Fauntleroy, or give her up; do which you decide to do, but it must be one or the other." And he came straight from the conference, as he had on the former occasion, to ask her when the wedding day should be. He could not sully his honour by choosing the other alternative.
A hesitating pause, he looking like one who has been caught in some guilty act, and then he walked on and shook hands with Miss Fauntleroy. He shook hands with them all in succession; with Lucy last: that is, he touched the tips of her fingers, turning his conscious face the other way.
"Have you brought me any message from Mrs. Arkell?" asked Miss Fauntleroy, for it was so unusual a thing for Travice to call in the day that she concluded he had come for some specific purpose.
"No. I—I came to speak to you myself," he answered. And his words were so hesitating, his manner so uncertain, that they looked at him in surprise; he who was usually self-possessed to a fault. Miss Fauntleroy rose and left the room with him.
She came back in about a quarter of an hour, giggling, laughing, her face more flushed than ordinary, her manner inviting inquiry. Lizzie Fauntleroy, with one of those unladylike, broad allusions she was given to use, said to the company that by the looks of Bab, she should think Mr. Travice Arkell had been asking her to name the day. There ensued a loud laugh on Barbara's part, some skirmishing with her sister, and then a tacit acknowledgment that the surmise was correct, and that shehadnamed it. Lucy sat perfectly still: her head apparently as intent upon her work as were her hands.
"Liz may as well name it for herself," retorted Barbara. "Ben Carr has wanted her to do it before now."
"There's no hurry," said Lizzie. "For me, at any rate. When one's going to marry a man so much older than oneself, one is apt not to be over ardent for it."
They continued to work, an industrious party. Accidentally, as it seemed, the conversation turned upon the strange events which had occurred at Geneva: it was through Mrs. Dundyke's mentioning some embroidery she had just given to Mary Prattleton. The Miss Fauntleroys, who had only, as they phrased it, heard the story at second-hand, besought her to tell it to them. And she complied with the request.
They suspended their work as they listened. It is probable that not a single incident was mentioned that the Miss Fauntleroys had not heard before; but the circumstances altogether were of that nature that bear hearing—ay, and telling—over and over again, as most mysteries do. Their chief curiosity turned—it was only natural it should—on Mr. Hardcastle, and they asked a great many questions.
"I would have scoured the whole country but what I'd have found him," cried Barbara. "Genoa! Rely upon it, he and his wife turned their faces in just the contrary direction as soon as they left Geneva. A nice pair."
"Do you think," asked Lucy, in her quiet manner, raising her eyes to Mrs. Dundyke, "that Mr. Hardcastle followed him for the purpose of attacking and robbing him?"
"Ah, my dear, I cannot tell. It is a question that I often ask myself. I feel inclined to think that he did not. One thing I seem nearly sure of—that he did not intend to injure him. I have not the least doubt that Mr. Hardcastle was at his wit's end for money to pay his hotel bill, and that the thirty pounds my poor husband mentioned as having received that morning, was an almost irresistible temptation. There's no doubt he followed him to the borders of the lake; that he induced him, by some argument, to walk away with him, across the country; but whether he did this with the intention of——"
"Did Mr. Dundyke not clear this up after his return?" interrupted Lizzie Fauntleroy.
"Never clearly; his recollections remained so confused. I have thought at times, that the crime only came with the opportunity," continued Mrs. Dundyke, reverting to what she was saying. "It is possible that the heat of the day and the long walk, though why Mr. Hardcastle should have caused him to take that long walk, unless he had ulterior designs, I cannot tell—may have overpowered my husband with a faintness, and Mr. Hardcastle seized the opportunity to rifle his pocket-book."
"You seem to be more lenient in your judgment of Mr. Hardcastle than I should be," observed Lizzie Fauntleroy.
"I have thought of it so long and so often, that I believe I have grown to judge of the past impartially," was Mrs. Dundyke's answer. "At first I was very much incensed against the man; I am not sure but I thought hanging too good for him; but I grew by degrees to look at it more reasonably."
"And the pencil?"
"He must have taken it from the pocket-book in his hurry, when he took the money. That he did it all in haste, the not finding the two half-notes for fifty pounds proves."
"Suppose Mr. Dundyke had returned to Geneva the next day and confronted him. What then?"
"Ah, I don't know. Mr. Hardcastle relied, perhaps, upon being able to make good his own story, and he knew that David had the most unbounded faith in him."
"Well, take it in its best light—that Mr. Dundyke fainted from the heat of the sun—the man must have been a brute to leave him alone," concluded Lizzie Fauntleroy.
"Yes," was the answer, as a faint colour rose to Mrs. Dundyke's cheek; "thatI can never forgive."
The afternoon and the work progressed satisfactorily, and dinner time arrived. Miss Fauntleroy had invited Travice to come and partake of it, but he said he had an engagement—which she did not half believe. The nearly bed-ridden old aunt came down to it, and was propped up to the table in an invalid chair. Miss Fauntleroy took the head; Miss Lizzie the foot. It was a well-spread board: Lawyer Fauntleroy's daughters liked good dinners. Their manners were more free at home than abroad, rather scaring Mildred. "How could Travice have chosenhere?" she mentally asked.
"There's no gentlemen present, so I don't see why I should not give you a toast," suddenly exclaimed Lizzie Fauntleroy, as the servant was pouring out the first glass of champagne. "The bridegroom and bride elect. Mr. Travice Ar——"
Lizzie stopped in surprise. Peeping in at the door, in a half-jocular, half-deprecatory manner, as if he would ask pardon for entering at the unseasonable hour, was Mr. Benjamin Carr. His somewhat dusty appearance, and his over-coat on his arm, showed that he had then come from the station after his Birmingham journey. Lizzie, too hearty to be troubled with superfluous reticence or ceremony of any kind, started up with a shout of welcome.
Of course everything was dis-arranged. The visitors looked up with surprise; Barbara turned round and gave him her hand. Ben began an apology for sitting down in the state he was, and had handed his coat to a servant, when he found a firm hand laid upon his arm. He wheeled round, wondering who it was, and saw a widow's cap, and a face he did not in the first moment recognise.
"Mr. Hardcastle!"
With the words, the voice, the recognition came to him, and the past scenes at Geneva rose before his startled memory as a vivid dream. He might have brazened it out had he been taken less utterly by surprise, but that unnerved him: his face turned ashy white, his whole manner faltered. He looked to the door as if he would have bolted out of it; but somebody had closed it again.
Mrs. Dundyke turned her face to the amazed listeners, who had risen from their seats. But that it had lost its colour also, there was no trace in it of agitation: it was firm, rigid, earnest; and her voice was calm even to solemnity.
"Before heaven, I assert that this is the man who in Geneva called himself Mr. Hardcastle, who did that injury—much or little,hebest knows—to my husband! He——"
"But this is Benjamin Carr!" interrupted the wondering Miss Fauntleroy.
"Yes; just so; Benjamin Carr," assented Mrs. Dundyke, in a tone that seemed to say she expected the words. "I recognised you, Benjamin Carr, on the last day of your stay in Geneva, when you were giving me that false order on Leadenhall Street. From the moment I first saw you, the morning after we arrived at Geneva, your eyes puzzled me. IknewI had seen them somewhere before, and I told my poor husband so; but I could not recollect where. In the hour of your leaving, the recollection came to me; and I knew that the eyes were those of Benjamin Carr, or eyes precisely similar to his. I thought it must be the latter; I could not suppose that Squire Carr's son, a gentleman born and reared——"
But here a startling interruption intervened. It suddenly occurred to Miss Lizzie Fauntleroy, amidst the general confusion outward and inward, that the Mr. Hardcastle who had figured in the dark and disgraceful story, was said to have been accompanied by a wife. Considering that he was now designing to confer that honour upon her, the reflection was not agreeable. Miss Lizzie came to a hasty conclusion, that the real Mrs. Carr must be lyingperduesomewhere, while he prosecuted his designs upon herself and her money, conveniently ignoring the result of what he might be running his head wholesale into—a prosecution for bigamy. She went butting at him, her voice raised to a shriek, her nails out, alarmingly near to his face.
"You false, desperate, designing villain! You dare to come courting me as a single man! You nearly drew me into a marriage! Where's your wife? Where's your wife, villain?"
Thischarge was a mistaken one, and Ben Carr somewhat rallied his scared senses. "It is false," he said. "I swear on my honour that I have no wife; I swear that I never have had one."
"You had your wife with you in Geneva," said Mrs. Dundyke.
"She was not my wife. Lizzie Fauntleroy, can't you believe me? I have never married yet. I never thought of marrying until I saw you."
"It's all the same now," said Lizzie, with equanimity. "I don't like tricks played me. Better that I should have discovered this before marriage than after."