Wood_East_Lynne.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
CHAPTER I.
THE LADY ISABEL.
In an easy-chair of the spacious and handsome library of his town-
house, sat William, Earl of Mount Severn. His hair was gray, the
smoothness of his expansive brow was defaced by premature wrinkles,
and his once attractive face bore the pale, unmistakable look of
dissipation. One of his feet was cased in folds of linen, as it rested
on the soft velvet ottoman, speaking of gout as plainly as any foot
ever spoke yet. It would seem--to look at the man as he sat there--
that he had grown old before his time. And so he had. His years were
barely nine and forty, yet in all save years, he was an aged man.
A noted character had been the Earl of Mount Severn. Not that he had
been a renowned politician, or a great general, or an eminent
statesman, or even an active member in the Upper House; not for any of
these had the earl's name been in the mouths of men. But for the most
reckless among the reckless, for the spendthrift among spendthrifts,
for the gamester above all gamesters, and for a gay man outstripping
the gay--by these characteristics did the world know Lord Mount
Severn. It was said his faults were those of his head; that a better
heart or a more generous spirit never beat in human form; and there
was much truth in this. It had been well for him had he lived and died
plain William Vane. Up to his five and twentieth year, he had been
industrious and steady, had kept his terms in the Temple, and studied
late and early. The sober application of William Vane had been a by
word with the embryo barristers around; Judge Vane, they ironically
called him; and they strove ineffectually to allure him away to
idleness and pleasure. But young Vane was ambitious, and he knew that
on his own talents and exertions must depend his own rising in the
world. He was of excellent family, but poor, counting a relative in
the old Earl of Mount Severn. The possibility of his succeeding to the
earldom never occurred to him, for three healthy lives, two of them
young, stood between him and the title. Yet those have died off, one
of apoplexy, one of fever, in Africa, the third boating at Oxford; and
the young Temple student, William Vane, suddenly found himself Earl of
Mount Severn, and the lawful possessor of sixty thousand a year.
His first idea was, that he should never be able to spend the money;
that such a sum, year by year, could /not/ be spent. It was a wonder
his head was not turned by adulation at the onset, for he was courted,
flattered and caressed by all classes, from a royal duke downward. He
became the most attractive man of his day, the lion in society; for
independent of his newly-acquired wealth and title, he was of
distinguished appearance and fascinating manners. But unfortunately,
the prudence which had sustained William Vane, the poor law student,
in his solitary Temple chambers entirely forsook William Vane, the
young Earl of Mount Severn, and he commenced his career on a scale of
speed so great, that all staid people said he was going to ruin and
the deuce headlong.
But a peer of the realm, and one whose rent-roll is sixty thousand per
annum, does not go to ruin in a day. There sat the earl, in his
library now, in his nine-and-fortieth year, and ruin had not come yet
--that is, it had not overwhelmed him. But the embarrassments which
had clung to him, and been the destruction of his tranquility, the
bane of his existence, who shall describe them? The public knew them
pretty well, his private friends knew better, his creditors best; but
none, save himself knew, or could ever know, the worrying torment that
was his portion, wellnigh driving him to distraction. Years ago, by
dint of looking things steadily in the face, and by economizing, he
might have retrieved his position; but he had done what most people do
in such cases--put off the evil day /sine die/, and gone on increasing
his enormous list of debts. The hour of exposure and ruin was now
advancing fast.
Perhaps the earl himself was thinking so, as he sat there before an
enormous mass of papers which strewed the library table. His thoughts
were back in the past. That was a foolish match of his, that Gretna
Green match for love, foolish so far as prudence went; but the
countess had been an affectionate wife to him, had borne with his
follies and his neglect, had been an admirable mother to their only
child. One child alone had been theirs, and in her thirteenth year the
countess had died. If they had but been blessed with a son--the earl
moaned over the long-continued disappointment still--he might have
seen a way out of his difficulties. The boy, as soon as he was of age,
would have joined with him in cutting off the entail, and----
"My lord," said a servant entering the room and interrupting the
earl's castles in the air, "a gentleman is asking to see you."
"Who?" cried the earl, sharply, not perceiving the card the man was
bringing. No unknown person, although wearing the externals of a
foreign ambassador, was ever admitted unceremoniously to the presence
of Lord Mount Severn. Years of duns had taught the servants caution.
"His card is here, my lord. It is Mr. Carlyle, of West Lynne."
"Mr. Carlyle, of West Lynne," groaned the earl, whose foot just then
had an awful twinge, "what does he want? Show him up."
The servant did as he was bid, and introduced Mr. Carlyle. Look at the
visitor well, reader, for he will play his part in this history. He
was a very tall man of seven and twenty, of remarkably noble presence.
He was somewhat given to stooping his head when he spoke to any one
shorter than himself; it was a peculiar habit, almost to be called a
bowing habit, and his father had possessed it before him. When told of
it he would laugh, and say he was unconscious of doing it. His
features were good, his complexion was pale and clear, his hair dark,
and his full eyelids drooped over his deep gray eyes. Altogether it
was a countenance that both men and women liked to look upon--the
index of an honorable, sincere nature--not that it would have been
called a handsome face, so much as a pleasing and a distinguished one.
Though but the son of a country lawyer, and destined to be a lawyer
himself, he had received the training of a gentleman, had been
educated at Rugby, and taken his degree at Oxford. He advanced at once
to the earl, in the straightforward way of a man of business--of a man
who has come on business.
"Mr. Carlyle," said the latter, holding out his hand--he was always
deemed the most affable peer of the age--"I am happy to see you. You
perceive I cannot rise, at least without great pain and inconvenience.
My enemy, the gout, has possession of me again. Take a seat. Are you
staying in town?"
"I have just arrived from West Lynne. The chief object of my journey
was to see your lordship."
"What can I do for you?" asked the earl, uneasily; for a suspicion had
crossed his mind that Mr. Carlyle might be acting for some one of his
many troublesome creditors.
Mr. Carlyle drew his chair nearer to the earl, and spoke in a low
tone,--
"A rumor came to my ears, my lord, that East Lynne was in the market."
"A moment, sir," exclaimed the earl, with reserve, not to say hauteur
in his tone, for his suspicions were gaining ground; "are we to
converse confidentially together, as men of honor, or is there
something concealed behind?"
"I do not understand you," said Mr. Carlyle.
"In a word--excuse my speaking plainly, but I must feel my ground--are
you here on the part of some of my rascally creditors, to pump
information out of me, that otherwise they would not get?"
"My lord," uttered the visitor, "I should be incapable of so
dishonorable an action. I know that a lawyer gets credit for
possessing but lax notions on the score of honor, but you can scarcely
suspect that I should be guilty of underhand work toward you. I never
was guilty of a mean trick in my life, to my recollection, and I do
not think I ever shall be."
"Pardon me, Mr. Carlyle. If you knew half the tricks and /ruses/
played upon me, you would not wonder at my suspecting all the world.
Proceed with your business."
"I heard that East Lynne was for private sale; your agent dropped half
a word to me in confidence. If so, I should wish to be the purchaser."
"For whom?" inquired the earl.
"Myself."
"You!" laughed the earl. "Egad! Lawyering can't be such bad work,
Carlyle."
"Nor is it," rejoined Mr. Carlyle, "with an extensive, first-class
connection, such as ours. But you must remember that a good fortune
was left me by my uncle, and a large one by my father."
"I know. The proceeds of lawyering also."
"Not altogether. My mother brought a fortune on her marriage, and it
enabled my father to speculate successfully. I have been looking out
for an eligible property to invest my money upon, and East Lynne will
suit me well, provided I can have the refusal of it, and we can agree
about the terms."
Lord Mount Severn mused for a few moments before he spoke. "Mr.
Carlyle," he began, "my affairs are very bad, and ready money I must
find somewhere. Now East Lynne is not entailed, neither is it
mortgaged to anything like its value, though the latter fact, as you
may imagine, is not patent to the world. When I bought it at a
bargain, eighteen years ago, you were the lawyer on the other side, I
remember."
"My father," smiled Mr. Carlyle. "I was a child at the time."
"Of course, I ought to have said your father. By selling East Lynne, a
few thousands will come into my hands, after claims on it are settled;
I have no other means of raising the wind, and that is why I have
resolved to part with it. But now, understand, if it were known abroad
that East Lynne is going from me, I should have a hornet's nest about
my ears; so that it must be disposed of /privately/. Do you
comprehend?"
"Perfectly," replied Mr. Carlyle.
"I would as soon you bought it as anyone else, if, as you say, we can
agree about terms."
"What does your lordship expect for it--at a rough estimate?"
"For particulars I must refer you to my men of business, Warburton &
Ware. Not less than seventy thousand pounds."
"Too much, my lord," cried Mr. Carlyle, decisively.
"And that's not its value," returned the earl.
"These forced sales never do fetch their value," answered the plain-
speaking lawyer. "Until this hint was given me by Beauchamp, I had
thought East Lynne was settled upon your lordship's daughter."
"There's nothing settled on her," rejoined the earl, the contraction
on his brow standing out more plainly. "That comes of your thoughtless
runaway marriages. I fell in love with General Conway's daughter, and
she ran away with me, like a fool; that is, we were both fools
together for our pains. The general objected to me and said I must sow
my wild oats before he would give me Mary; so I took her to Gretna
Green, and she became Countess of Mount Severn, without a settlement.
It was an unfortunate affair, taking one thing with another. When her
elopement was made known to the general, it killed him."
"Killed him!" interrupted Mr. Carlyle.
"It did. He had disease of the heart, and the excitement brought on
the crisis. My poor wife never was happy from that hour; she blamed
herself for her father's death, and I believe it led to her own. She
was ill for years; the doctors called it consumption; but it was more
like a wasting insensibly away, and consumption never had been in her
family. No luck ever attends runaway marriages; I have noticed it
since, in many, many instances; something bad is sure to turn up from
it."
"There might have been a settlement executed after the marriage,"
observed Mr. Carlyle, for the earl had stopped, and seemed lost in
thought.
"I know there might; but there was not. My wife had possessed no
fortune; I was already deep in my career of extravagance, and neither
of us thought of making provision for our future children; or, if we
thought of it, we did not do it. There is an old saying, Mr. Carlyle,
that what may be done at any time is never done."
Mr. Carlyle bowed.
"So my child is portionless," resumed the earl, with a suppressed
sigh. "The thought that it may be an embarrassing thing for her, were
I to die before she is settled in life, crosses my mind when I am in a
serious mood. That she will marry well, there is little doubt, for she
possesses beauty in a rare degree, and has been reared as an English
girl should be, not to frivolity and foppery. She was trained by her
mother, who save for the mad act she was persuaded into by me, was all
goodness and refinement, for the first twelve years of her life, and
since then by an admirable governess. No fear that she will be
decamping to Gretna Green."
"She was a very lovely child," observed the lawyer; "I remember that."
"Ay; you have seen her at East Lynne, in her mother's lifetime. But,
to return to business. If you become the purchaser of the East Lynne
estate, Mr. Carlyle, it must be under the rose. The money that it
brings, after paying off the mortgage, I must have, as I tell you, for
my private use; and you know I should not be able to touch a farthing
of it if the confounded public got an inkling of the transfer. In the
eyes of the world, the proprietor of East Lynne must be Lord Mount
Severn--at least for some little time afterwards. Perhaps you will not
object to that."
Mr. Carlyle considered before replying; and then the conversation was
resumed, when it was decided that he should see Warburton and Ware the
first thing in the morning, and confer with them. It was growing late
when he rose to leave.
"Stay and dine with me," said the earl.
Mr. Carlyle hesitated, and looked down at his dress--a plain,
gentlemanly, morning attire, but certainly not a dinner costume for a
peer's table.
"Oh, that's nothing," said the earl; "we shall be quite alone, except
my daughter. Mrs. Vane, of Castle Marling, is staying with us. She
came up to present my child at the last drawing-room, but I think I
heard something about her dining out to-day. If not, we will have it
by ourselves here. Oblige me by touching the bell, Mr. Carlyle."
The servant entered.
"Inquire whether Mrs. Vane dines at home," said the earl.
"Mrs. Vane dines out, my lord," was the man's immediate reply. "The
carriage is at the door now."
"Very well. Mr. Carlyle remains."
At seven o'clock the dinner was announced, and the earl wheeled into
the adjoining room. As he and Mr. Carlyle entered it at one door, some
one else came in by the opposite one. Who--what--was it? Mr. Carlyle
looked, not quite sure whether it was a human being--he almost thought
it more like an angel.
A light, graceful, girlish form; a face of surpassing beauty, beauty
that is rarely seen, save from the imagination of a painter; dark
shining curls falling on her neck and shoulders, smooth as a child's;
fair, delicate arms decorated with pearls, and a flowing dress of
costly white lace. Altogether the vision did indeed look to the lawyer
as one from a fairer world than this.
"My daughter, Mr. Carlyle, the Lady Isabel."
They took their seats at the table, Lord Mount Severn at its head, in
spite of his gout and his footstool. And the young lady and Mr.
Carlyle opposite each other. Mr. Carlyle had not deemed himself a
particular admirer of women's beauty, but the extraordinary loveliness
of the young girl before him nearly took away his senses and his self-
possession. Yet it was not so much the perfect contour or the
exquisite features that struck him, or the rich damask of the delicate
cheek, or the luxuriant falling hair; no, it was the sweet expression
of the soft dark eyes. Never in his life had he seen eyes so pleasing.
He could not keep his gaze from her, and he became conscious, as he
grew more familiar with her face, that there was in its character a
sad, sorrowful look; only at times was it to be noticed, when the
features were at repose, and it lay chiefly in the very eyes he was
admiring. Never does this unconsciously mournful expression exist, but
it is a sure index of sorrow and suffering; but Mr. Carlyle understood
it not. And who could connect sorrow with the anticipated brilliant
future of Isabel Vane?
"Isabel," observed the earl, "you are dressed."
"Yes, papa. Not to keep old Mrs. Levison waiting tea. She likes to
take it early, and I know Mrs. Vane must have kept her waiting dinner.
It was half-past six when she drove from here."
"I hope you will not be late to-night, Isabel."
"It depends upon Mrs. Vane."
"Then I am sure you will be. When the young ladies in this fashionable
world of ours turn night into day, it is a bad thing for their roses.
What say you, Mr. Carlyle?"
Mr. Carlyle glanced at the roses on the cheeks opposite to him; they
looked too fresh and bright to fade lightly.
At the conclusion of dinner a maid entered the room with a white
cashmere mantle, placing it over the shoulders of her young lady, as
she said the carriage was waiting.
Lady Isabel advanced to the earl. "Good-bye, papa."
"Good-night, my love," he answered, drawing her toward him, and
kissing her sweet face. "Tell Mrs. Vane I will not have you kept out
till morning hours. You are but a child yet. Mr. Carlyle, will you
ring? I am debarred from seeing my daughter to the carriage."
"If your lordship will allow me--if Lady Isabel will pardon the
attendance of one little used to wait upon young ladies, I shall be
proud to see her to her carriage," was the somewhat confused answer of
Mr. Carlyle as he touched the bell.
The earl thanked him, and the young lady smiled, and Mr. Carlyle
conducted her down the broad, lighted staircase and stood bareheaded
by the door of the luxurious chariot, and handed her in. She put out
her hand in her frank, pleasant manner, as she wished him good night.
The carriage rolled on its way, and Mr. Carlyle returned to the earl.
"Well, is she not a handsome girl?" he demanded.
"Handsome is not the word for beauty such as hers," was Mr. Carlyle's
reply, in a low, warm tone. "I never saw a face half so beautiful."
"She caused quite a sensation at the drawing-room last week--as I
hear. This everlasting gout kept me indoors all day. And she is as
good as she is beautiful."
The earl was not partial. Lady Isabel was wondrously gifted by nature,
not only in mind and person but in heart. She was as little like a
fashionable young lady as it was well possible to be, partly because
she had hitherto been secluded from the great world, partly from the
care bestowed upon her training. During the lifetime of her mother,
she had lived occasionally at East Lynne, but mostly at a larger seat
of the earl's in Wales, Mount Severn; since her mother's death, she
had remained entirely at Mount Severn, under the charge of a judicious
governess, a very small establishment being kept for them, and the
earl paying them impromptu and flying visits. Generous and benevolent
she was, timid and sensitive to a degree, gentle, and considerate to
all. Do not cavil at her being thus praised--admire and love her
whilst you may, she is worthy of it now, in her innocent girlhood; the
time will come when such praise would be misplaced. Could the fate
that was to overtake his child have been foreseen by the earl, he
would have struck her down to death, in his love, as she stood before
him, rather than suffer her to enter upon it.
CHAPTER II.
THE BROKEN CROSS.
Lady Isabel's carriage continued its way, and deposited her at the
residence of Mrs. Levison. Mrs. Levison was nearly eighty years of
age, and very severe in speech and manner, or, as Mrs. Vane expressed
it, "crabbed." She looked the image of impatience when Isabel entered,
with her cap pushed all awry, and pulling at the black satin gown, for
Mrs. Vane had kept her waiting dinner, and Isabel was keeping her from
her tea; and that does not agree with the aged, with their health or
with their temper.
"I fear I am late," exclaimed Lady Isabel, as she advanced to Mrs.
Levison; "but a gentleman dined with papa to-day, and it made us
rather longer at table."
"You are twenty-five minutes behind your time," cried the old lady
sharply, "and I want my tea. Emma, order it in."
Mrs. Vane rang the bell, and did as she was bid. She was a little
woman of six-and-twenty, very plain in face, but elegant in figure,
very accomplished, and vain to her fingers' ends. Her mother, who was
dead, had been Mrs. Levison's daughter, and her husband, Raymond Vane,
was presumptive heir to the earldom of Mount Severn.
"Won't you take that tippet off, child?" asked Mrs. Levison, who knew
nothing of the new-fashioned names for such articles, mantles,
burnous, and all the string of them; and Isabel threw it off and sat
down by her.
"The tea is not made, grandmamma!" exclaimed Mrs. Vane, in an accent
of astonishment, as the servant appeared with the tray and the silver
urn. "You surely do not have it made in the room."
"Where should I have it made?" inquired Mrs. Levison.
"It is much more convenient to have it brought in, ready made," said
Mrs. Vane. "I dislike the /embarass/ of making it."
"Indeed!" was the reply of the old lady; "and get it slopped over in
the saucers, and as cold as milk! You always were lazy, Emma--and
given to use those French words. I'd rather stick a printed label on
my forehead, for my part, 'I speak French,' and let the world know it
in that way."
"Who makes tea for you in general?" asked Mrs. Vane, telegraphing a
contemptuous glance to Isabel behind her grandmother.
But the eyes of Lady Isabel fell timidly and a blush rose to her
cheeks. She did not like to appear to differ from Mrs. Vane, her
senior, and her father's guest, but her mind revolted at the bare idea
of ingratitude or ridicule cast on an aged parent.
"Harriet comes in and makes it for me," replied Mrs. Levison; "aye,
and sits down and takes it with me when I am alone, which is pretty
often. What do you say to that, Madame Emma--you, with your fine
notions?"
"Just as you please, of course, grandmamma."
"And there's the tea-caddy at your elbow, and the urn's fizzing away,
and if we are to have any tea to-night, it had better be made."
"I don't know how much to put in," grumbled Mrs. Vane, who had the
greatest horror of soiling her hands or her gloves; who, in short, had
a particular antipathy to doing anything useful.
"Shall I make it, dear Mrs. Levison?" said Isabel, rising with
alacrity. "I had used to make it quite as often as my governess at
Mount Severn, and I make it for papa."
"Do, child," replied the old lady. "You are worth ten of her."
Isabel laughed merrily, drew off her gloves, and sat down to the
table; and at that moment a young and elegant man lounged into the
room. He was deemed handsome, with his clearly-cut features, his dark
eyes, his raven hair, and his white teeth; but to a keen observer
those features had not an attractive expression, and the dark eyes had
a great knack of looking away while he spoke to you. It was Francis,
Captain Levison.
He was grandson to the old lady, and first cousin to Mrs. Vane. Few
men were so fascinating in manners, at times and seasons, in face and
in form, few men won so completely upon their hearers' ears, and few
were so heartless in their hearts of hearts. The world courted him,
and society honored him; for, though he was a graceless spendthrift,
and it was known that he was, he was the presumptive heir to the old
and rich Sir Peter Levison.
The ancient lady spoke up, "Captain Levison, Lady Isabel Vane." They
both acknowledged the introduction; and Isabel, a child yet in the
ways of the world, flushed crimson at the admiring looks cast upon her
by the young guardsman. Strange--strange that she should make the
acquaintance of these two men in the same day, almost in the same
hour; the two, of all the human race, who were to exercise so powerful
an influence over her future life!
"That's a pretty cross, child," cried Mrs. Levison as Isabel stood by
her when tea was over, and she and Mrs. Vane were about to depart on
their evening visit.
She alluded to a golden cross, set with seven emeralds, which Isabel
wore on her neck. It was of light, delicate texture, and was suspended
from a thin, short, gold chain.
"Is it not pretty?" answered Isabel. "It was given me by my dear mamma
just before she died. Stay, I will take it off for you. I only wear it
upon great occasions."
This, her first appearance at the grand duke's, seemed a very great
occasion to the simply-reared and inexperienced girl. She unclasped
the chain, and placed it with the cross in the hands of Mrs. Levison.
"Why, I declare you have nothing on but that cross and some rubbishing
pearl bracelets!" uttered Mrs. Vane to Isabel. "I did not look at you
before."
"Mamma gave me both. The bracelets are those she used frequently to
wear."
"You old-fashioned child! Because your mamma wore those bracelets,
years ago, is that a reason for your doing so?" retorted Mrs. Vane.
"Why did you not put on your diamonds?"
"I--did--put on my diamonds; but I--took them off again," stammered
Isabel.
"What on earth for?"
"I did not like to look too fine," answered Isabel, with a laugh and a
blush. "They glittered so! I feared it might be thought I had put them
on /to look/ fine."
"Ah! I see you mean to set up in that class of people who pretend to
despise ornaments," scornfully remarked Mrs. Vane. "It is the
refinement of affectation, Lady Isabel."
The sneer fell harmlessly on Lady Isabel's ear. She only believed
something had put Mrs. Vane out of temper. It certainly had; and that
something, though Isabel little suspected it, was the evident
admiration Captain Levison evinced for her fresh, young beauty; it
quite absorbed him, and rendered him neglectful even of Mrs. Vane.
"Here, child, take your cross," said the old lady. "It is very pretty;
prettier on your neck than diamonds would be. You don't want
embellishing; never mind what Emma says."
Francis Levison took the cross and chain from her hand to pass them to
Lady Isabel. Whether he was awkward, or whether her hands were full,
for she held her gloves, her handkerchief, and had just taken up her
mantle, certain it is that it fell; and the gentleman, in his too
quick effort to regain it, managed to set his foot upon it, and the
cross was broken in two.
"There! Now whose fault was that?" cried Mrs. Levison.
Isabel did not answer; her heart was very full. She took the broken
cross, and the tears dropped from her eyes; she could not help it.
"Why! You are never crying over a stupid bauble of a cross!" uttered
Mrs. Vane, interrupting Captain Levison's expression of regret at his
awkwardness.
"You can have it mended, dear," interposed Mrs. Levison.
Lady Isabel chased away the tears, and turned to Captain Levison with
a cheerful look. "Pray do not blame yourself," she good-naturedly
said; "the fault was as much mine as yours; and, as Mrs. Levison says,
I can get it mended."
She disengaged the upper part of the cross from the chain as she
spoke, and clasped the latter round her throat.
"You will not go with that thin string of gold on, and nothing else!"
uttered Mrs. Vane.
"Why not?" returned Isabel. "If people say anything, I can tell them
an accident happened to the cross."
Mrs. Vane burst into a laugh of mocking ridicule. " 'If people say
anything!' " she repeated, in a tone according with the laugh. "They
are not likely to 'say anything,' but they will deem Lord Mount
Severn's daughter unfortunately short of jewellery."
Isabel smiled and shook her head. "They saw my diamonds at the
drawing-room."
"If you had done such an awkward thing for me, Frank Levison," burst
forth the old lady, "my doors should have been closed against you for
a month. There, if you are to go, Emma, you had better go; dancing off
to begin an evening at ten o'clock at night! In my time we used to go
at seven; but it's the custom now to turn night into day."
"When George the Third dined at one o'clock upon boiled mutton and
turnips," put in the graceless captain, who certainly held his
grandmother in no greater reverence than did Mrs. Vane.
He turned to Isabel as he spoke, to hand her downstairs. Thus she was
conducted to her carriage the second time that night by a stranger.
Mrs. Vane got down by herself, as she best could, and her temper was
not improved by the process.
"Good-night," said she to the captain.
"I shall not say good-night. You will find me there almost as soon as
you."
"You told me you were not coming. Some bachelor's party in the way."
"Yes, but I have changed my mind. Farewell for the present, Lady
Isabel."
"What an object you will look, with nothing on your neck but a
schoolgirl's chain!" began Mrs. Vane, returning to the grievance as
the carriage drove on.
"Oh, Mrs. Vane, what does it signify? I can only think of my broken
cross. I am sure it must be an evil omen."
"An evil--what?"
"An evil omen. Mamma gave me that cross when she was dying. She told
me to let it be to me as a talisman, always to keep it safely; and
when I was in any distress, or in need of counsel, to look at it and
strive to recall what her advice would be, and to act accordingly. And
now it is broken--broken!"
A glaring gaslight flashed into the carriage, right into the face of
Isabel. "I declare," uttered Mrs. Vane, "you are crying again! I tell
you what it is, Isabel, I am not going to chaperone red eyes to the
Duchess of Dartford's, so if you can't put a stop to this, I shall
order the carriage home, and go on alone."
Isabel meekly dried her eyes, sighing deeply as she did so. "I can
have the pieces joined, I dare say; but it will never be the same
cross to me again."
"What have you done with the pieces?" irascibly asked Mrs. Vane.
"I folded them in the thin paper Mrs. Levison gave me, and put it
inside my frock. Here it is," touching the body. "I have no pocket
on."
Mrs. Vane gave vent to a groan. She never had been a girl herself--she
had been a woman at ten; and she complimented Isabel upon being little
better than an imbecile. "Put it inside my frock!" she uttered in a
torrent of scorn. "And you eighteen years of age! I fancied you left
off 'frocks' when you left the nursery. For shame, Isabel!"
"I meant to say my dress," corrected Isabel.
"Meant to say you are a baby idiot!" was the inward comment of Mrs.
Vane.
A few minutes and Isabel forgot her grievance. The brilliant rooms
were to her as an enchanting scene of dreamland, for her heart was in
its springtide of early freshness, and the satiety of experience had
not come. How could she remember trouble, even the broken cross, as
she bent to the homage offered her and drank in the honeyed words
poured forth into her ear?
"Halloo!" cried an Oxford student, with a long rent-roll in
prospective, who was screwing himself against the wall, not to be in
the way of the waltzers, "I thought you had given up coming to these
places?"
"So I had," replied the fast nobleman addressed, the son of a marquis.
"But I am on the lookout, so am forced into them again. I think a
ball-room the greatest bore in life."
"On the lookout for what?"
"For a wife. My governor has stopped supplies, and has vowed by his
beard not to advance another shilling, or pay a debt, till I reform.
As a preliminary step toward it, he insists upon a wife, and I am
trying to choose one for I am deeper in debt than you imagine."
"Take the new beauty, then."
"Who is she?"
"Lady Isabel Vane."
"Much obliged for the suggestion," replied the earl. "But one likes a
respectable father-in-law, and Mount Severn is going to smash. He and
I are too much in the same line, and might clash, in the long run."
"One can't have everything; the girl's beauty is beyond common. I saw
that rake, Levison, make up to her. He fancies he can carry all before
him, where women are concerned."
"So he does, often," was his quiet reply.
"I hate the fellow! He thinks so much of himself, with his curled hair
and shining teeth, and his white skin; and he's as heartless as an
owl. What was that hushed-up business about Miss Charteris?"
"Who's to know? Levison slipped out of the escapade like an eel, and
the woman protested that he was more sinned against than sinning.
Three-fourths of the world believed them."
"And she went abroad and died; and Levison here he comes! And Mount
Severn's daughter with him."
They were approaching at that moment, Francis Levison and Lady Isabel.
He was expressing his regret at the untoward accident of the cross for
the tenth time that night. "I feel that it can never be atoned for,"
whispered he; "that the heartfelt homage of my whole life would not be
sufficient compensation."
He spoke in a tone of thrilling gentleness, gratifying to the ear but
dangerous to the heart. Lady Isabel glanced up and caught his eyes
gazing upon her with the deepest tenderness--a language hers had never
yet encountered. A vivid blush again arose to her cheek, her eyelids
fell, and her timid words died away in silence.
"Take care, take care, my young Lady Isabel," murmured the Oxonian
under his breath, as they passed him, "that man is as false as he is
fair."
"I think he is a rascal," remarked the earl.
"I know he is; I know a thing or two about him. He would ruin her
heart for the renown of the exploit, because she's a beauty, and then
fling it away broken. He has none to give in return for the gift."
"Just as much as my new race-horse has," concluded the earl. "She is
very beautiful."
CHAPTER III.
BARBARA HARE.
West Lynne was a town of some importance, particularly in its own
eyes, though being neither a manufacturing one nor a cathedral one,
nor even the chief town of the county, it was somewhat primitive in
its manners and customs. Passing out at the town, toward the east, you
came upon several detached gentleman's houses, in the vicinity of
which stood the church of St. Jude, which was more aristocratic, in
the matter of its congregation, than the other churches of West Lynne.
For about a mile these houses were scattered, the church being
situated at their commencement, close to that busy part of the place,
and about a mile further on you came upon the beautiful estate which
was called East Lynne.
Between the gentlemen's houses mentioned and East Lynne, the mile of
road was very solitary, being much overshadowed with trees. One house
alone stood there, and that was about three-quarters of a mile before
you came to East Lynne. It was on the left hand side, a square, ugly,
red brick house with a weathercock on the top, standing some little
distance from the road. A flat lawn extended before it, and close to
the palings, which divided it from the road, was a grove of trees,
some yards in depth. The lawn was divided by a narrow middle gravel
path, to which you gained access from the portico of the house. You
entered upon a large flagged hall with a reception room on either
hand, and the staircase, a wide one, facing you; by the side of the
staircase you passed on to the servants' apartments and offices. That
place was called the Grove, and was the property and residence of
Richard Hare, Esq., commonly called Mr. Justice Hare.
The room to the left hand, as you went in, was the general sitting-
room; the other was very much kept boxed up in lavender and brown
Holland, to be opened on state occasions. Justice and Mrs. Hare had
three children, a son and two daughters. Annie was the elder of the
girls, and had married young; Barbara, the younger was now nineteen,
and Richard the eldest--but we shall come to him hereafter.
In this sitting-room, on a chilly evening, early in May, a few days
subsequent to that which had witnessed the visit of Mr. Carlyle to the
Earl of Mount Severn, sat Mrs. Hare, a pale, delicate woman, buried in
shawls and cushions: but the day had been warm. At the window sat a
pretty girl, very fair, with blue eyes, light hair, a bright
complexion, and small aquiline features. She was listlessly turning
over the leaves of a book.
"Barbara, I am sure it must be tea-time now."
"The time seems to move slowly with you, mamma. It is scarcely a
quarter of an hour since I told you it was but ten minutes past six."
"I am so thirsty!" announced the poor invalid. "Do go and look at the
clock again, Barbara."
Barbara Hare rose with a gesture of impatience, not suppressed, opened
the door, and glanced at the large clock in the hall. "It wants nine
and twenty minutes to seven, mamma. I wish you would put your watch on
of a day; four times you have sent me to look at that clock since
dinner."
"I am so thirsty!" repeated Mrs. Hare, with a sort of sob. "If seven
o'clock would but strike! I am dying for my tea."
It may occur to the reader, that a lady in her own house, "dying for
her tea," might surely order it brought in, although the customary
hour had not struck. Not so Mrs. Hare. Since her husband had first
brought her home to that house, four and twenty-years ago, she had
never dared to express a will in it; scarcely, on her own
responsibility, to give an order. Justice Hare was stern, imperative,
obstinate, and self-conceited; she, timid, gentle and submissive. She
had loved him with all her heart, and her life had been one long
yielding of her will to his; in fact, she had no will; his was all in
all. Far was she from feeling the servitude a yoke: some natures do
not: and to do Mr. Hare justice, his powerful will that /must/ bear
down all before it, was in fault: not his kindness: he never meant to
be unkind to his wife. Of his three children, Barbara alone had
inherited his will.
"Barbara," began Mrs. Hare again, when she thought another quarter of
an hour at least must have elapsed.
"Well, mamma?"
"Ring, and tell them to be getting it in readiness so that when seven
strikes there may be no delay."
"Goodness, mamma! You know they do always have it ready. And there's
no such hurry, for papa may not be at home." But she rose, and rang
the bell with a petulant motion, and when the man answered it, told
him to have tea in to its time.
"If you knew dear, how dry my throat is, how parched my mouth, you
would have more patience with me."
Barbara closed her book with a listless air, and turned listlessly to
the window. She seemed tired, not with fatigue but with what the
French express by the word /ennui/. "Here comes papa," she presently
said.
"Oh, I am so glad!" cried poor Mrs. Hare. "Perhaps he will not mind
having the tea in at once, if I told him how thirsty /I/ am."
The justice came in. A middle sized man, with pompous features, and a
pompous walk, and a flaxen wig. In his aquiline nose, compressed lips,
and pointed chin, might be traced a resemblance to his daughter;
though he never could have been half so good-looking as was pretty
Barbara.
"Richard," spoke up Mrs. Hare from between her shawls, the instant he
opened the door.
"Well?"
"Would you please let me have tea in now? Would you very much mind
taking it a little earlier this evening? I am feverish again, and my
tongue is so parched I don't know how to speak."
"Oh, it's near seven; you won't have long to wait."
With this exceedingly gracious answer to an invalid's request, Mr.
Hare quitted the room again and banged the door. He had not spoken
unkindly or roughly, simply with indifference. But ere Mrs. Hare's
meek sigh of disappointment was over, the door re-opened, and the
flaxen wig was thrust in again.
"I don't mind if I do have it now. It will be a fine moonlight night
and I am going with Pinner as far as Beauchamp's to smoke a pipe.
Order it in, Barbara."
The tea was made and partaken of, and the justice departed for Mr.
Beauchamp's, Squire Pinner calling for him at the gate. Mr. Beauchamp
was a gentleman who farmed a great deal of land, and who was also Lord
Mount Severn's agent or steward for East Lynne. He lived higher up the
road some little distance beyond East Lynne.
"I am so cold, Barbara," shivered Mrs. Hare, as she watched the
justice down the gravel path. "I wonder if your papa would say it was
foolish of me, if I told them to light a bit of fire?"
"Have it lighted if you like," responded Barbara, ringing the bell.
"Papa will know nothing about it, one way or the other, for he won't
be home till after bedtime. Jasper, mamma is cold, and would like a
fire lighted."
"Plenty of sticks, Jasper, that it may burn up quickly," said Mrs.
Hare, in a pleading voice, as if the sticks were Jasper's and not
hers.
Mrs. Hare got her fire, and she drew her chair in front, and put her
feet on the fender, to catch its warmth. Barbara, listless still, went
into the hall, took a woolen shawl from the stand there, threw it over
her shoulders, and went out. She strolled down the straight formal
path, and stood at the iron gate, looking over it into the public
road. Not very public in that spot, and at that hour, but as lonely as
one could wish. The night was calm and pleasant, though somewhat
chilly for the beginning of May, and the moon was getting high in the
sky.
"When will he come home?" she murmured, as she leaned her head upon
the gate. "Oh, what would life be like without him? How miserable
these few days have been! I wonder what took him there! I wonder what
is detaining him! Corny said he was only gone for a day."
The faint echo of footsteps in the distance stole upon her ear, and
Barbara drew a little back, and hid herself under the shelter of the
trees, not choosing to be seen by any stray passer-by. But, as they
drew near, a sudden change came over her; her eyes lighted up, her
cheeks were dyed with crimson, and her veins tingled with excess of
rapture--for she knew those footsteps, and loved them, only too well.
Cautiously peeping over the gate again, she looked down the road. A
tall form, whose very height and strength bore a grace of which its
owner was unconscious, was advancing rapidly toward her from the
direction of West Lynne. Again she shrank away; true love is ever
timid; and whatever may have been Barbara Hare's other qualities, her
love at least was true and deep. But instead of the gate opening, with
the firm quick motion peculiar to the hand which guided it, the
footsteps seemed to pass, and not to have turned at all toward it.
Barbara's heart sank, and she stole to the gate again, and looked out
with a yearning look.
Yes, sure enough he was striding on, not thinking of her, not coming
to her; and she, in the disappointment and impulse of the moment,
called to him,--
"Archibald!"
Mr. Carlyle--it was no other--turned on his heel, and approached the
gate.
"Is it you, Barbara! Watching for thieves and poachers? How are you?"
"How are you?" she returned, holding the gate open for him to enter,
as he shook hands, and striving to calm down her agitation. "When did
you return?"
"Only now, by the eight o'clock train, which got in beyond its time,
having drawled unpardonably at the stations. They little thought they
had me in it, as their looks betrayed when I got out. I have not been
home yet."
"No! What will Cornelia say?"
"I went to the office for five minutes. But I have a few words to say
to Beauchamp, and am going up at once. Thank you, I cannot come in
now; I intend to do so on my return."
"Papa has gone up to Mr. Beauchamp's."
"Mr. Hare! Has he?"
"He and Squire Pinner," continued Barbara. "They have gone to have a
smoking bout. And if you wait there with papa, it will be too late to
come in, for he is sure not to be home before eleven or twelve."
Mr. Carlyle bent his head in deliberation. "Then I think it is of
little use my going on," said he, "for my business with Beauchamp is
private. I must defer it until to-morrow."
He took the gate out of her hand, closed it, and placed the hand
within his own arm, to walk with her to the house. It was done in a
matter-of-fact, real sort of way; nothing of romance or sentiment
hallowed it; but Barbara Hare felt that she was in Eden.
"And how have you all been, Barbara, these few days?"
"Oh, very well. What made you start off so suddenly? You never said
you were going, or came to wish us good-bye."
"You have just expressed it, Barbara--'suddenly.' A matter of business
suddenly arose, and I suddenly went upon it."
"Cornelia said you were only gone for a day."
"Did she? When in London I find so many things to do! Is Mrs. Hare
better?"
"Just the same. I think mamma's ailments are fancies, half of them; if
she would rouse herself she would be better. What is in that parcel?"
"You are not to inquire, Miss Barbara. It does not concern you. It
only concerns Mrs. Hare."
"Is it something you have brought for mamma, Archibald?"
"Of course. A countryman's visit to London entails buying presents for
his friends; at least, it used to be so, in the old-fashioned days."
"When people made their wills before starting, and were a fortnight
doing the journey in a wagon," laughed Barbara. "Grandpapa used to
tell us tales of that, when we were children. But is it really
something for mamma?"
"Don't I tell you so? I have brought something for you."
"Oh! What is it?" she uttered, her color rising, and wondering whether
he was in jest or earnest.
"There's an impatient girl! 'What is it?' Wait a moment, and you shall
see what it is."
He put the parcel or roll he was carrying upon a garden chair, and
proceeded to search his pockets. Every pocket was visited, apparently
in vain.
"Barbara, I think it is gone. I must have lost it somehow."
Her heart beat as she stood there, silently looking up at him in the
moonlight. /Was/ it lost? /What/ had it been?
But, upon a second search, he came upon something in the pocket of his
coat-tail. "Here it is, I believe; what brought it there?" He opened a
small box, and taking out a long, gold chain, threw it around her
neck. A locket was attached to it.
Her cheeks' crimson went and came; her heart beat more rapidly. She
could not speak a word of thanks; and Mr. Carlyle took up the roll,
and walked on into the presence of Mrs. Hare.
Barbara followed in a few minutes. Her mother was standing up,
watching with pleased expectation the movements of Mr. Carlyle. No
candles were in the room, but it was bright with firelight.
"Now, don't laugh at me," quoth he, untying the string of the parcel.
"It is not a roll of velvet for a dress, and it is not a roll of
parchment, conferring twenty thousand pounds a year. But it is--an air
cushion!"
It was what poor Mrs. Hare, so worn with sitting and lying, had often
longed for. She had heard such a luxury was to be bought in London,
but never remembered to have seen one. She took it almost with a
greedy hand, casting a grateful look at Mr. Carlyle.
"How am I to thank you for it?" she murmured through her tears.
"If you thank me at all, I will never bring you anything again," cried
he, gaily. "I have been telling Barbara that a visit to London entails
bringing gifts for friends," he continued. "Do you see how smart I
have made her?"
Barbara hastily took off the chain, and laid it before her mother.
"What a beautiful chain!" muttered Mrs. Hare, in surprise. "Archibald,
you are too good, too generous! This must have cost a great deal; this
is beyond a trifle."
"Nonsense!" laughed Mr. Carlyle. "I'll tell you both how I happened to
buy it. I went into a jeweller's about my watch, which has taken to
lose lately in a most unceremonious fashion, and there I saw a whole
display of chains hanging up; some ponderous enough for a sheriff,
some light and elegant enough for Barbara. I dislike to see a thick
chain on a lady's neck. They put me in mind of the chain she lost, the
day she and Cornelia went with me to Lynchborough, which loss Barbara
persisted in declaring was my fault, for dragging her through the town
sight-seeing, while Cornelia did her shopping--for it was then the
chain was lost."
"But I was only joking when I said so," was the interruption of
Barbara. "Of course it would have happened had you not been with me;
the links were always snapping."
"Well, these chains in the shop in London put me in mind of Barbara's
misfortune, and I chose one. Then the shopman brought forth some
lockets, and enlarged upon their convenience for holding deceased
relatives' hair, not to speak of sweethearts', until I told him he
might attach one. I thought it might hold that piece of hair you
prize, Barbara," he concluded, dropping his voice.
"What piece?" asked Mrs. Hare.
Mr. Carlyle glanced round the room, as if fearful the very walls might
hear his whisper. "Richard's. Barbara showed it me one day when she
was turning out her desk, and said it was a curl taken off in that
illness."
Mrs. Hare sank back in her chair, and hid her face in her hands,
shivering visibly. The words evidently awoke some poignant source of
deep sorrow. "Oh, my boy! My boy!" she wailed--"my boy! My unhappy
boy! Mr. Hare wonders at my ill-health, Archibald; Barbara ridicules
it; but there lies the source of all my misery, mental and bodily. Oh,
Richard! Richard!"
There was a distressing pause, for the topic admitted of neither hope
nor consolation. "Put your chain on again, Barbara," Mr. Carlyle said,
after a while, "and I wish you health to wear it out. Health and
reformation, young lady!"
Barbara smiled and glanced at him with her pretty blue eyes, so full
of love. "What have you brought for Cornelia?" she resumed.
"Something splendid," he answered, with a mock serious face; "only I
hope I have not been taken in. I bought her a shawl. The venders vowed
it was true Parisian cashmere. I gave eighteen guineas for it."
"That is a great deal," observed Mrs. Hare. "It ought to be a very
good one. I never gave more than six guineas for a shawl in all my
life."
"And Cornelia, I dare say, never more than half six," laughed Mr.
Carlyle. "Well, I shall wish you good evening, and go to her; for if
she knows I am back all this while, I shall be lectured."
He shook hands with them both. Barbara, however, accompanied him to
the front door, and stepped outside with him.
"You will catch cold, Barbara. You have left your shawl indoors."
"Oh, no, I shall not. How very soon you are leaving. You have scarcely
stayed ten minutes."
"But you forget I have not been at home."
"You were on your road to Beauchamp's, and would not have been at home
for an hour or two in that case," spoke Barbara, in a tone that
savored of resentment.
"That was different; that was upon business. But, Barbara, I think
your mother looks unusually ill."
"You know she suffers a little thing to upset her; and last night she
had what she calls one of her dreams," answered Barbara. "She says
that it is a warning that something bad is going to happen, and she
has been in the most unhappy, feverish state possible all day. Papa
has been quite angry over her being so weak and nervous, declaring
that she ought to rouse herself out of her 'nerves.' Of course we dare
not tell him about the dream."
"It related to--the----"
Mr. Carlyle stopped, and Barbara glanced round with a shudder, and
drew closer to him as she whispered. He had not given her his arm this
time.
"Yes, to the murder. You know mamma has always declared that Bethel
had something to do with it; she says her dreams would have convinced
her of it, if nothing else did; and she dreamt she saw him with--with
--you know."
"Hallijohn?" whispered Mr. Carlyle.
"With Hallijohn," assented Barbara, with a shiver. "He was standing
over him as he lay on the floor; just as he /did/ lay on it. And that
wretched Afy was standing at the end of the kitchen, looking on."
"But Mrs. Hare ought not to suffer dreams to disturb her peace by
day," remonstrated Mr. Carlyle. "It is not to be surprised at that she
dreams of the murder, because she is always dwelling upon it; but she
should strive and throw the feeling from her with the night."
"You know what mamma is. Of course she ought to do so, but she does
not. Papa wonders what makes her get up so ill and trembling of a
morning; and mamma has to make all sorts of evasive excuses; for not a
hint, as you are aware, must be breathed to him about the murder."
Mr. Carlyle gravely nodded.
"Mamma does so harp about Bethel. And I know that dream arose from
nothing in the world but because she saw him pass the gate yesterday.
Not that she thinks that it was he who did it; unfortunately, there is
no room for that; but she will persist that he had a hand in it in
some way, and he haunts her dreams."
Mr. Carlyle walked on in silence; indeed there was no reply that he
could make. A cloud had fallen upon the house of Mr. Hare, and it was
an unhappy subject. Barbara continued,--
"But for mamma to have taken it into her head that 'some evil is going
to happen,' because she had this dream, and to make herself miserable
over it, is so absurd, that I have felt quite cross with her all day.
Such nonsense, you know, Archibald, to believe that dreams give signs
of what is going to happen, so far behind these enlightened days!"
"Your mamma's trouble is great, Barbara; and she is not strong."
"I think all our troubles have been great since--since that dark
evening," responded Barbara.
"Have you heard from Anne?" inquired Mr. Carlyle, willing to change
the subject.
"Yes, she is very well. What do you think they are going to name the
baby? Anne; after her mamma. So very ugly a name! Anne!"
"I do not think so," said Mr. Carlyle. "It is simple and unpretending,
I like it much. Look at the long, pretentious names of our family--
Archibald! Cornelia! And yours, too--Barbara! What a mouthful they all
are!"
Barbara contracted her eyebrows. It was equivalent to saying that he
did not like her name.
They reached the gate, and Mr. Carlyle was about to pass out of it
when Barbara laid her hand on his arm to detain him, and spoke in a
timid voice,--
"Archibald!"
"What is it?"
"I have not said a word of thanks to you for this," she said, touching
the chain and locket; "my tongue seemed tied. Do not deem me
ungrateful."
"You foolish girl! It is not worth them. There! Now I am paid. Good-
night, Barbara."
He had bent down and kissed her cheek, swung through the gate,
laughing, and strode away. "Don't say I never gave you anything," he
turned his head round to say, "Good-night."
All her veins were tingling, all her pulses beating; her heart was
throbbing with its sense of bliss. He had never kissed her, that she
could remember, since she was a child. And when she returned indoors,
her spirits were so extravagantly high that Mrs. Hare wondered.
"Ring for the lamp, Barbara, and you can get to your work. But don't
have the shutters closed; I like to look out on these light nights."
Barbara, however, did not get to her work; she also, perhaps, liked
"looking out on a light night," for she sat down at the window. She
was living the last half hour over again. " 'Don't say I never gave
you anything,' " she murmured; "did he allude to the chain or to the--
kiss? Oh, Archibald, why don't you say that you love me?"
Mr. Carlyle had been all his life upon intimate terms with the Hare
family. His father's first wife--for the late lawyer Carlyle had been
twice married--had been a cousin of Justice Hare's, and this had
caused them to be much together. Archibald, the child of the second
Mrs. Carlyle, had alternately teased and petted Anne and Barbara Hare,
boy fashion. Sometimes he quarreled with the pretty little girls,
sometimes he caressed them, as he would have done had they been his
sisters; and he made no scruple of declaring publicly to the pair that
Anne was his favorite. A gentle, yielding girl she was, like her
mother; whereas Barbara displayed her own will, and it sometimes
clashed with young Carlyle's.
The clock struck ten. Mrs. Hare took her customary sup of brandy and
water, a small tumbler three parts full. Without it she believed she
could never get to sleep; it deadened unhappy thought, she said.
Barbara, after making it, had turned again to the window, but she did
not resume her seat. She stood right in front of it, her forehead bent
forward against its middle pane. The lamp, casting a bright light, was
behind her, so that her figure might be distinctly observable from the
lawn, had any one been there to look upon it.
She stood there in the midst of dreamland, giving way to all its
enchanting and most delusive fascinations. She saw herself, in
anticipation, the wife of Mr. Carlyle, the envied, thrice envied, of
all West Lynne; for, like as he was the dearest on earth to her heart,
so was he the greatest match in the neighborhood around. Not a mother
but what coveted him for her child, and not a daughter but would have
said, "Yes, and thank you," to an offer from the attractive Archibald
Carlyle. "I never was sure, quite sure of it till to-night," murmured
Barbara, caressing the locket, and holding it to her cheek. "I always
thought he meant something, or he might mean nothing: but to give me
this--to kiss me--oh Archibald!"
A pause. Barbara's eyes were fixed upon the moonlight.
"If he would but say he loved me! If he would but save the suspense of
my aching heart! But it must come; I know it will; and if that
cantankerous toad of a Corny--"
Barbara Hare stopped. What was that, at the far end of the lawn, just
in advance of the shade of the thick trees? Their leaves were not
causing the movement, for it was a still night. It had been there some
minutes; it was evidently a human form. What /was/ it? Surely it was
making signs to her!
Or else it looked as though it was. That was certainly its arm moving,
and now it advanced a pace nearer, and raised something which it wore
on its head--a battered hat with a broad brim, a "wide-awake,"
encircled with a wisp of straw.
Barbara Hare's heart leaped, as the saying runs, into her mouth, and
her face became deadly white in the moonlight. Her first thought was
to alarm the servants; her second, to be still; for she remembered the
fear and mystery that attached to the house. She went into the hall,
shutting her mamma in the parlor, and stood in the shade of the
portico, gazing still. But the figure evidently followed her movement
with its sight, and the hat was again taken off, and waved violently.
Barbara Hare turned sick with utter terror. /She/ must fathom it; she
must see who, and what it was; for the servants she dared not call,
and those movements were imperative, and might not be disregarded. But
she possessed more innate courage than falls to the lot of some young
ladies.
"Mamma," she said, returning to the parlor and catching up her shawl,
while striving to speak without emotion. "I shall just walk down the
path and see if papa is coming."
Mrs. Hare did not reply. She was musing upon other things, in that
quiescent happy mood, which a small portion of spirits will impart to
one weak in body; and Barbara softly closed the door, and stole out
again to the portico. She stood a moment to rally her courage, and
again the hat was waved impatiently.
Barbara Hare commenced her walk towards it in dread unutterable, an
undefined sense of evil filling her sinking heart; mingling with
which, came, with a rush of terror, a fear of that other undefinable
evil--the evil Mrs. Hare had declared was foreboded by her dream.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MOONLIGHT INTERVIEW.
Cold and still looked the old house in the moonbeams. Never was the
moon brighter; it lighted the far-stretching garden, it illuminated
even the weathercock aloft, it shone upon the portico, and upon one
who appeared in it. Stealing to the portico from the house had come
Barbara Hare, her eyes strained in dread affright on the grove of
trees at the foot of the garden. What was it that had stepped out of
that groove of trees, and mysteriously beckoned to her as she stood at
the window, turning her heart to sickness as she gazed? Was it a human
being, one to bring more evil to the house, where so much evil had
already fallen? Was it a supernatural visitant, or was it but a
delusion of her own eyesight? Not the latter, certainly, for the
figure was now emerging again, motioning to her as before; and with a
white face and shaking limbs, Barbara clutched her shawl around her
and went down that path in the moonlight. The beckoning form retreated
within the dark recess as she neared it, and Barbara halted.
"Who and what are you?" she asked, under her breath. "What do you
want?"
"Barbara," was the whispered, eager answer, "don't you recognize me?"
Too surely she did--the voice at any rate--and a cry escaped her,
telling more of sorrow than of joy, though betraying both. She
penetrated the trees, and burst into tears as one in the dress of a
farm laborer caught her in his arms. In spite of his smock-frock and
his straw-wisped hat, and his false whiskers, black as Erebus, she
knew him for her brother.
"Oh, Richard! Where have you come from? What brings you here?"
"Did you know me, Barbara?" was his rejoinder.
"How was it likely--in this disguise? A thought crossed my mind that
it might be some one from you, and even that made me sick with terror.
How could you run such a risk as to come here?" she added, wringing
her hands. "If you are discovered, it is certain death; death--upon--
you know!"
"Upon the gibbet," returned Richard Hare. "I do know it, Barbara."
"Then why risk it? Should mamma see you it will kill her outright."
"I can't live on as I am living," he answered, gloomily. "I have been
working in London ever since--"
"In London!" interrupted Barbara.
"In London, and have never stirred out of it. But it is hard work for
me, and now I have an opportunity of doing better, if I can get a
little money. Perhaps my mother can let me have it; it is what I have
come to ask for."
"How are you working? What at?"
"In a stable-yard."
"A stable-yard!" she uttered, in a deeply shocked tone. "Richard!"
"Did you expect it would be as a merchant, or a banker, or perhaps as
secretary to one of her majesty's ministers--or that I was a gentleman
at large, living on my fortune?" retorted Richard Hare, in a tone of
chafed anguish, painful to hear. "I get twelve shillings a week, and
that has to find me in everything!"
"Poor Richard, poor Richard!" she wailed, caressing his hand and
weeping over it. "Oh, what a miserable night's work that was! Our only
comfort is, Richard, that you must have committed the deed in
madness."
"I did not commit it at all," he replied.
"What!" she exclaimed.
"Barbara, I swear that I am innocent; I swear I was not present when
the man was murdered; I swear that from my own positive knowledge, my
eyesight, I know no more who did it than you. The guessing at it is
enough for me; and my guess is as sure and true a one as that the moon
is in the heavens."
Barbara shivered as she drew close to him. It was a shivering subject.
"You surely do not mean to throw the guilt on Bethel?"
"Bethel!" lightly returned Richard Hare. "He had nothing to do with
it. He was after his gins and his snares, that night, though, poacher
as he is!"
"Bethel is no poacher, Richard."
"Is he not?" rejoined Richard Hare, significantly. "The truth as to
what he is may come out, some time. Not that I wish it to come out;
the man has done no harm to me, and he may go on poaching with
impunity till doomsday for all I care. He and Locksley--"
"Richard," interrupted his sister, in a hushed voice, "mamma
entertains one fixed idea, which she cannot put from her. She is
certain that Bethel had something to do with the murder."
"Then she is wrong. Why should she think so?"
"How the conviction arose at first, I cannot tell you; I do not think
she knows herself. But you remember how weak and fanciful she is, and
since that dreadful night she is always having what she calls 'dreams'
--meaning that she dreams of the murder. In all these dreams Bethel is
prominent; and she says she feels an absolute certainty that he was,
in some way or other, mixed up in it."
"Barbara, he was no more mixed up in it than you."
"And--you say that you were not?"
"I was not even at the cottage at the time; I swear it to you. The man
who did the deed was Thorn."
"Thorn!" echoed Barbara, lifting her head. "Who is Thorn?"
"I don't know who. I wish I did; I wish I could unearth him. He was a
friend of Afy's."
Barbara threw back her neck with a haughty gesture. "Richard!"
"What?"
"You forget yourself when you mention that name to me."
"Well," returned Richard. "It was not to discuss these things that I
put myself in jeopardy; and to assert my innocence can do no good; it
cannot set aside the coroner's verdict of 'Wilful murder against
Richard Hare, the younger.' Is my father as bitter against me as
ever?"
"Quite. He never mentions your name, or suffers it to be mentioned; he
gave his orders to the servants that it never was to be spoken in the
house again. Eliza could not, or would not remember, and she persisted
in calling your room 'Mr. Richard's.' I think the woman did it
heedlessly, not maliciously, to provoke papa; she was a good servant,
and had been with us three years you know. The first time she
transgressed, papa warned her; the second, he thundered at her as I
believe nobody else in the world can thunder; and the third he turned
her from the doors, never allowing her to get her bonnet; one of the
others carrying her bonnet and shawl to the gate, and her boxes were
sent away the same day. Papa took an oath--did you hear of it?"
"What oath? He takes many."
"This was a solemn one, Richard. After the delivery of the verdict, he
took an oath in the justice-room, in the presence of his brother
magistrates, that if he could find you he would deliver you up to
justice, and that he /would/ do it, though you might not turn up for
ten years to come. You know his disposition, Richard, and therefore
may be sure he will keep it. Indeed, it is most dangerous for you to
be here."
"I know that he never treated me as he ought," cried Richard,
bitterly. "If my health was delicate, causing my poor mother to
indulge me, ought that to have been a reason for his ridiculing me on
every possible occasion, public and private? Had my home been made
happier I should not have sought the society I did elsewhere. Barbara,
I must be allowed an interview with my mother."
Barbara Hare reflected before she spoke. "I do not see how it can be
managed."
"Why can't she come out to me as you have done? Is she up, or in bed?"
"It is impossible to think of it to-night," returned Barbara in an
alarmed tone. "Papa may be in at any moment; he is spending the
evening at Beauchamp's."
"It is hard to have been separated from her for eighteen months, and
to go back without seeing her," returned Richard. "And about the
money? It is a hundred pounds that I want."
"You must be here again to-morrow night, Richard; the money, no doubt,
can be yours, but I am not so sure about your seeing mamma. I am
terrified for your safety. But, if it is as you say, that you are
innocent," she added, after a pause, "could it not be proved?"
"Who is to prove it? The evidence is strong against me; and Thorn, did
I mention him, would be as a myth to other people; nobody knew
anything of him."
"Is he a myth?" said Barbara, in a low voice.
"Are you and I myths?" retorted Richard. "So, even you doubt me?"
"Richard," she suddenly exclaimed, "why not tell the whole
circumstances to Archibald Carlyle? If any one can help you, or take
measures to establish your innocence, he can. And you know that he is
true as steel."
"There's no other man living should be trusted with the secret that I
am here, except Carlyle. Where is it they suppose that I am, Barbara?"
"Some think that you are dead; some that you are in Australia; the
very uncertainty has nearly killed mamma. A report arose that you had
been seen at Liverpool, in an Australian-bound ship, but we could not
trace it to any foundation."
"It had none. I dodged my way to London, and there I have been."
"Working in a stable-yard?"
"I could not do better. I was not brought up to anything, and I did
understand horses. Besides, a man that the police-runners were after
could be more safe in obscurity, considering that he was a gentleman,
than--"
Barbara turned suddenly, and placed her hand upon her brother's mouth.
"Be silent for your life," she whispered, "here's papa."
Voices were heard approaching the gate--those of Justice Hare and
Squire Pinner. The latter walked on; the former came in. The brother
and sister cowered together, scarcely daring to breathe; you might
have heard Barbara's heart beating. Mr. Hare closed the gate and
walked on up the path.
"I must go, Richard," said Barbara, hastily; "I dare not stay another
minute. Be here again to-morrow night, and meanwhile I will see what
can be done."
She was speeding away, but Richard held her back. "You did not seem to
believe my assertion of innocence. Barbara, we are here alone in the
still night, with God above us; as truly as that you and I must
sometime meet Him face to face, I told you the truth. It was Thorn
murdered Hallijohn, and I had nothing whatever to do with it."
Barbara broke out of the trees and flew along, but Mr. Hare was
already in, locking and barring the door. "Let me in, papa," she
called out.
The justice opened the door again, and thrusting forth his flaxen wig,
his aquiline nose, and his amazed eyes, gazed at Barbara.
"Halloo! What brings you out at this time of night, young lady?"
"I went down to the gate to look for you," she panted, "and had--had--
strolled over to the side path. Did you not see me?"
Barbara was truthful by nature and habit; but in such a cause, how
could she avoid dissimulation?
"Thank you, papa," she said, as she went in.
"You ought to have been in bed an hour ago," angrily responded Mr.
Justice Hare.
CHAPTER V.
MR. CARLYLE'S OFFICE.
In the centre of West Lynne stood two houses adjoining each other, one
large, the other much smaller. The large one was the Carlyle
residence, and the small one was devoted to the Carlyle offices. The
name of Carlyle bore a lofty standing in the county; Carlyle and
Davidson were known as first-class practitioners; no pettifogging
lawyers were they. It was Carlyle & Davidson in the days gone by; now
it was Archibald Carlyle. The old firm were brothers-in-law--the first
Mrs. Carlyle having been Mr. Davidson's sister. She had died and left
one child. The second Mrs. Carlyle died when her son was born--
Archibald; and his half-sister reared him, loved him and ruled him.
She bore for him all the authority of a mother; the boy had known no
other, and, when a little child he had called her Mamma Corny. Mamma
Corny had done her duty by him, that was undoubted; but Mamma Corny
had never relaxed her rule; with an iron hand she liked to rule him
now, in great things as in small, just as she had done in the days of
his babyhood. And Archibald generally submitted, for the force of
habit is strong. She was a woman of strong sense, but, in some things,
weak of judgment; and the ruling passions of her life were love of
Archibald and love of saving money. Mr. Davidson had died earlier than
Mr. Carlyle, and his fortune--he had never married--was left equally
divided between Cornelia and Archibald. Archibald was no blood
relation to him, but he loved the open-hearted boy better than his
niece Cornelia. Of Mr. Carlyle's property, a small portion only was
bequeathed to his daughter, the rest to his son; and in this, perhaps
there was justice, since the 20,000 pounds brought to Mr. Carlyle by
his second wife had been chiefly instrumental in the accumulation of
his large fortune.
Miss Carlyle, or, as she was called in town, Miss Corny, had never
married; it was pretty certain she never would; people thought that
her intense love of her young brother kept her single, for it was not
likely that the daughter of the rich Mr. Carlyle had wanted for
offers. Other maidens confess to soft and tender impressions. Not so
Miss Carlyle. All who had approached her with the lovelorn tale, she
sent quickly to the right-about.
Mr. Carlyle was seated in his own private room in his office the
morning after his return from town. His confidential clerk and manager
stood near him. It was Mr. Dill, a little, meek-looking man with a
bald head. He was on the rolls, had been admitted years and years ago,
but he had never set up for himself; perhaps he deemed the post of
head manager in the office of Carlyle & Davidson, with its substantial
salary, sufficient for his ambition; and manager he had been to them
when the present Mr. Carlyle was in long petticoats. He was a single
man, and occupied handsome apartments near.
Between the room of Mr. Carlyle and that of the clerks, was a small
square space or hall, having ingress also from the house passage;
another room opened from it, a narrow one, which was Mr. Dill's own
peculiar sanctum. Here he saw clients when Mr. Carlyle was out or
engaged, and here he issued private orders. A little window, not
larger than a pane of glass, looked out from the clerk's office; they
called it old Dill's peep-hole and wished it anywhere else, for his
spectacles might be discerned at it more frequently than was
agreeable. The old gentleman had a desk, also, in their office, and
there he frequently sat. He was sitting there, in state, this same
morning, keeping a sharp lookout around him, when the door timidly
opened, and the pretty face of Barbara Hare appeared at it, rosy with
blushes.
"Can I see Mr. Carlyle?"
Mr. Dill rose from his seat and shook hands with her. She drew him
into the passage and he closed the door. Perhaps he felt surprised,
for it was /not/ the custom for ladies, young and single, to come
there after Mr. Carlyle.
"Presently, Miss Barbara. He is engaged just now. The justices are
with him."
"The justices!" uttered Barbara, in alarm; "and papa one? Whatever
shall I do? He must not see me. I would not have him see me here for
the world."
An ominous sound of talking; the justices were evidently coming forth.
Mr. Dill laid hold of Barbara, whisked her through the clerks' room,
not daring to take her the other way, lest he should encounter them,
and shut her in his own. "What the plague brought papa here at this
moment?" thought Barbara, whose face was crimson.
A few minutes and Mr. Dill opened the door again. "They are gone now,
and the coast's clear, Miss Barbara."
"I don't know what opinion you must form of me, Mr. Dill," she
whispered, "but I will tell you, in confidence, that I am here on some
private business for mamma, who was not well enough to come herself.
It is a little private matter that she does not wish papa to know of."
"Child," answered the manager, "a lawyer receives visits from many
people; and it is not the place of those about him to 'think.' "
He opened the door as he spoke, ushered her into the presence of Mr.
Carlyle, and left her. The latter rose in astonishment.
"You must regard me as a client, and pardon my intrusion," said
Barbara, with a forced laugh, to hide her agitation. "I am here on the
part of mamma--and I nearly met papa in your passage, which terrified
me out of my senses. Mr. Dill shut me into his room."
Mr. Carlyle motioned to Barbara to seat herself, then resumed his own
seat, beside his table. Barbara could not help noticing how different
his manners were in his office from his evening manners when he was
"off duty." Here he was the staid, calm man of business.
"I have a strange thing to tell you," she began, in a whisper, "but--
it is impossible that any one can hear us," she broke off, with a look
of dread. "It would be--it might be--death!"
"It is quite impossible," calmly replied Mr. Carlyle. "The doors are
double doors; did you notice that they were?"
Nevertheless, she left her chair and stood close to Mr. Carlyle,
resting her hand upon the table. He rose, of course.
"Richard is here!"
"Richard!" repeated Mr. Carlyle. "At West Lynne!"
"He appeared at the house last night in disguise, and made signs to me
from the grove of trees. You may imagine my alarm. He has been in
London all this while, half starving, working--I feel ashamed to
mention it to you--in a stable-yard. And, oh, Archibald! He says he is
innocent."
Mr. Carlyle made no reply to this. He probably had no faith in the
assertion. "Sit down, Barbara," he said drawing her chair closer.
Barbara sat down again, but her manner was hurried and nervous. "Is it
quite sure that no stranger will be coming in? It would look so
peculiar to see me here; but mamma was too unwell to come herself--or
rather, she feared papa's questioning, if he found out that she came."
"Be at ease," replied Mr. Carlyle; "this room is sacred from the
intrusion of strangers. What of Richard?"
"He says that he was not in the cottage at the time the murder was
committed; that the person who really did it was a man of the name of
Thorn."
"What Thorn?" asked Mr. Carlyle, suppressing all signs of incredulity.
"I don't know; a friend of Afy's, he said. Archibald, he swore to it
in the most solemn manner; and I believe, as truly as that I am now
repeating it to you, that he was speaking the truth. I want you to see
Richard, if possible; he is coming to the same place to-night. If he
can tell his own tale to you, perhaps you may find out a way by which
his innocence may be made manifest. You are so clever, you can do
anything."
Mr. Carlyle smiled. "Not quite anything, Barbara. Was this the purport
of Richard's visit--to say this?"
"Oh, no! He thinks it is of no use to say it, for nobody would believe
him against the evidence. He came to ask for a hundred pounds; he says
he has an opportunity of doing better, if he can have that sum. Mamma
has sent me to you; she has not the money by her, and she dare not ask
papa for it, as it is for Richard. She bade me say that if you will
kindly oblige her with the money to-day, she will arrange with you
about the repayment."
"Do you want it now?" asked Mr. Carlyle. "If so, I must send to the
bank. Dill never keeps much money in the house when I'm away."
"Not until evening. Can you manage to see Richard?"
"It is hazardous," mused Mr. Carlyle; "for him, I mean. Still, if he
is to be in the grove to-night, I may as well be there also. What
disguise is he in?"
"A farm laborer's, the best he could adopt about here, with large
black whiskers. He is stopping about three miles off, he said, in some
obscure hiding-place. And now," continued Barbara, "I want you to
advise me; had I better inform mamma that Richard is here, or not?"
Mr. Carlyle did not understand, and said so.
"I declare I am bewildered," she exclaimed. "I should have premised
that I have not yet told mamma it is Richard himself who is here, but
that he has sent a messenger to beg for this money. Would it be
advisable to acquaint her?"
"Why should you not? I think you ought to do so."
"Then I will; I was fearing the hazard for she is sure to insist upon
seeing him. Richard also wishes for an interview."
"It is only natural. Mrs. Hare must be thankful to hear so far, that
he is safe."
"I never saw anything like it," returned Barbara; "the change is akin
to magic; she says it has put life into her anew. And now for the last
thing; how can we secure papa's absence from home to-night? It must be
accomplished in some way. You know his temper: were I or mamma to
suggest to him, to go and see some friend, or to go to the club, he
would immediately stop at home. Can you devise any plan? You see I
appeal to you in all my troubles," she added, "like I and Anne used to
do when we were children."
It may be questioned if Mr. Carlyle heard the last remark. He had
dropped his eyelids in thought. "Have you told me all?" he asked
presently, lifting them.
"I think so."
"Then I will consider it over, and--"
"I shall not like to come here again," interrupted Barbara. "It--it
might excite suspicions; some one might see me, too, and mention it to
papa. Neither ought you to send to our house."
"Well--contrive to be in the street at four this afternoon. Stay,
that's your dinner hour; be walking up the street at three, three
precisely; I will meet you."
He rose, shook hands, and escorted Barbara through the small hall,
along the passage to the house door; a courtesy probably not yet shown
to any client by Mr. Carlyle. The house door closed upon her, and
Barbara had taken one step from it, when something large loomed down
upon her, like a ship in full sail.
She must have been the tallest lady in the world--out of a caravan. A
fine woman in her day, but angular and bony now. Still, in spite of
the angles and the bones, there was majesty in the appearance of Miss
Carlyle.
"Why--what on earth!" began she, "have /you/ been with Archibald for?"
Barbara Hare, wishing Miss Carlyle over in Asia, stammered out the
excuse she had given Mr. Dill.
"Your mamma sent you on business! I never heard of such a thing. Twice
I have been to see Archibald, and twice did Dill answer that he was
engaged and must not be interrupted. I shall make old Dill explain his
meaning for observing a mystery over it to me."
"There is no mystery," answered Barbara, feeling quite sick lest Miss
Carlyle should proclaim there was, before the clerks, or her father.
"Mamma wanted Mr. Carlyle's opinion upon a little private business,
and not feeling well enough to come herself, she sent me."
Miss Carlyle did not believe a word. "What business?" asked she
unceremoniously.
"It is nothing that could interest you. A trifling matter, relating to
a little money. It's nothing, indeed."
"Then, if it's nothing, why were you closeted so long with Archibald?"
"He was asking the particulars," replied Barbara, recovering her
equanimity.
Miss Carlyle sniffed, as she invariably did, when dissenting from a
problem. She was sure there was some mystery astir. She turned and
walked down the street with Barbara, but she was none the more likely
to get anything out of her.
Mr. Carlyle returned to his room, deliberated a few moments, and then
rang his bell. A clerk answered it.
"Go to the Buck's Head. If Mr. Hare and the other magistrates are
there, ask them to step over to me."
The young man did as he was bid, and came back with the noted justices
at his heels. They obeyed the summons with alacrity, for they believed
they had got themselves into a judicial scrape, and that Mr. Carlyle
alone could get them out of it.
"I will not request you to sit down," began Mr. Carlyle, "for it is
barely a moment I shall detain you. The more I think about this man's
having been put in prison, the less I like it; and I have been
considering that you had better all five, come and smoke your pipes at
my house this evening, when we shall have time to discuss what must be
done. Come at seven, not later, and you will find my father's old jar
replenished with the best broadcut, and half a dozen churchwarden
pipes. Shall it be so?"
The whole five accepted the invitation eagerly. And they were filing
out when Mr. Carlyle laid his finger on the arm of Justice Hare.
"/You/ will be sure to come, Hare," he whispered. "We could not get on
without you; all heads," with a slight inclination towards those going
out, "are not gifted with the clear good sense of yours."
"Sure and certain," responded the gratified justice; "fire and water
shouldn't keep me away."
Soon after Mr. Carlyle was left alone another clerk entered.
"Miss Carlyle is asking to see you, sir, and Colonel Bethel's come
again."
"Send in Miss Carlyle first," was the answer. "What is it, Cornelia?"
"Ah! You may well ask what? Saying this morning that you could not
dine at six, as usual, and then marching off, and never fixing the
hour. How can I give my orders?"
"I thought business would have called me out, but I am not going now.
We will dine a little earlier, though, Cornelia, say a quarter before
six. I have invited--"
"What's up, Archibald?" interrupted Miss Carlyle.
"Up! Nothing that I know of. I am very busy, Cornelia, and Colonel
Bethel is waiting; I will talk to you at dinner-time. I have invited a
party for to-night."
"A party!" echoed Miss Carlyle.
"Four or five of the justices are coming in to smoke their pipes. You
must put out your father's leaden tobacco-box, and--"
"They shan't come!" screamed Miss Carlyle. "Do you think I'll be
poisoned with tobacco smoke from a dozen pipes?"
"You need not sit in the room."
"Nor they either. Clean curtains are just put up throughout the house,
and I'll have no horrid pipes to blacken them."
"I'll buy you some new curtains, Cornelia, if their pipes spoil
these," he quietly replied. "And now, Cornelia, I really must beg you
to leave me."
"When I have come to the bottom of this affair with Barbara Hare,"
resolutely returned Miss Corny, dropping the point of the contest as
to the pipes. "You are very clever, Archie, but you can't do me. I
asked Barbara what she came here for; business for mamma, touching
money matters, was her reply. I ask you: to hear your opinion about
the scrape the bench have got into, is yours. Now, it's neither one
nor the other; and I tell you, Archibald, I'll hear what it is. I
should like to know what you and Barbara do with a secret between
you."
Mr. Carlyle knew her and her resolute expression well, and he took his
course, to tell her the truth. She was, to borrow the words Barbara
had used to her brother with regard to him, true as steel. Confide to
Miss Carlyle a secret, and she was trustworthy and impervious as he
could be; but let her come to suspect that there was a secret which
was being kept from her, and she would set to work like a ferret, and
never stop until it was unearthed.
Mr. Carlyle bent forward and spoke in a whisper. "I will tell you, if
you wish, Cornelia, but it is not a pleasant thing to hear. Richard
Hare has returned."
Miss Carlyle looked perfectly aghast. "Richard Hare! Is he mad?"
"It is not a very sane proceeding. He wants money from his mother, and
Mrs. Hare sent Barbara to ask me to manage it for her. No wonder poor
Barbara was flurried and nervous, for there's danger on all sides."
"Is he at their house?"
"How could he be there and his father in it? He is in hiding two or
three miles off, disguised as a laborer, and will be at the grove
to-night to receive this money. I have invited the justices to get Mr.
Hare safe away from his own house. If he saw Richard, he would
undoubtedly give him up to justice, and--putting graver considerations
aside--that would be pleasant for neither you nor for me. To have a
connection gibbeted for a willful murder would be an ugly blot on the
Carlyle escutcheon, Cornelia."
Miss Carlyle sat in silence revolving the news, a contraction on her
ample brow.
"And now you know all, Cornelia, and I do beg you to leave me, for I
am overwhelmed with work to-day."
CHAPTER VI.
RICHARD HARE, THE YOUNGER.
The bench of justices did not fail to keep their appointment; at seven
o'clock they arrived at Miss Carlyle's, one following closely upon the
heels of another. The reader may dissent from the expression "Miss
Carlyle's," but it is the correct one, for the house was hers, not her
brother's; though it remained his home, as it had been in his father's
time, the house was among the property bequeathed to Miss Carlyle.
Miss Carlyle chose to be present in spite of the pipes and the smoke,
and she was soon as deep in the discussion as the justices were. It
was said in the town, that she was as good a lawyer as her father had
been; she undoubtedly possessed sound judgment in legal matters, and
quick penetration. At eight o'clock a servant entered the room and
addressed his master.
"Mr. Dill is asking to see you, sir."
Mr. Carlyle rose, and came back with an open note in his hand.
"I am sorry to find that I must leave you for half an hour; some
important business has arisen, but I will be back as soon as I can."
"Who has sent for you;" immediately demanded Miss Corny.
He gave her a quiet look which she interpreted into a warning not to
question. "Mr. Dill is here, and will join you to talk the affair
over," he said to his guests. "He knows the law better than I do; but
I will not be long."
He quitted his house, and walked with a rapid step toward the Grove.
The moon was bright as on the previous evening. After he had left the
town behind him, and was passing the scattered villas already
mentioned, he cast an involuntary glance at the wood, which rose
behind them on his left hand. It was called Abbey Wood, from the
circumstance that in old days an abbey had stood in its vicinity, all
traces of which, save tradition, had passed away. There was one small
house, or cottage, just within the wood, and in that cottage had
occurred the murder for which Richard Hare's life was in jeopardy. It
was no longer occupied, for nobody would rent it or live in it.
Mr. Carlyle opened the gate of the Grove, and glanced at the trees on
either side of him, but he neither saw nor heard any signs of
Richard's being concealed there. Barbara was at the window, looking
out, and she came herself and opened the door to Mr. Carlyle.
"Mamma is in the most excited state," she whispered to him as he
entered. "I knew how it would be."
"Has he come yet?"
"I have no doubt of it; but he has made no signal."
Mrs. Hare, feverish and agitated, with a burning spot on her delicate
cheeks, stood by the chair, not occupying it. Mr. Carlyle placed a
pocket-book in her hands. "I have brought it chiefly in notes," he
said: "they will be easier for him to carry than gold."
Mrs. Hare answered only by a look of gratitude, and clasped Mr.
Carlyle's hand in both hers. "Archibald, I /must/ see my boy; how can
it be managed? Must I go into the garden to him, or may he come in
here?"
"I think he might come in; you know how bad the night air is for you.
Are the servants astir this evening?"
"Things seem to have turned out quite kindly," spoke up Barbara. "It
happens to be Anne's birthday, so mamma sent me just now into the
kitchen with a cake and a bottle of wine, desiring them to drink her
health. I shut the door and told them to make themselves comfortable;
that if we wanted anything we would ring."
"Then they are safe," observed Mr. Carlyle, "and Richard may come in."
"I will go and ascertain whether he is come," said Barbara.
"Stay where you are, Barbara; I will go myself," interposed Mr.
Carlyle. "Have the door open when you see us coming up the path."
Barbara gave a faint cry, and, trembling, clutched the arm of Mr.
Carlyle. "There he is! See! Standing out from the trees, just opposite
this window."
Mr. Carlyle turned to Mrs. Hare. "I shall not bring him in
immediately; for if I am to have an interview with him, it must be got
over first, that I may go back home to the justices, and keep Mr. Hare
all safe."
He proceeded on his way, gained the trees, and plunged into them; and,
leaning against one, stood Richard Hare. Apart from his disguise, and
the false and fierce black whiskers, he was a blue-eyed, fair,
pleasant-looking young man, slight, and of middle height, and quite as
yielding and gentle as his mother. In her, this mild yieldingness of
disposition was rather a graceful quality; in Richard it was regarded
as a contemptible misfortune. In his boyhood he had been nicknamed
Leafy Dick, and when a stranger inquired why, the answer was that, as
a leaf was swayed by the wind, so he was swayed by everybody about
him, never possessing a will of his own. In short, Richard Hare,
though of an amiable and loving nature, was not over-burdened with
what the world calls brains. Brains he certainly had, but they were
not sharp ones.
"Is my mother coming out to me?" asked Richard, after a few
interchanged sentences with Mr. Carlyle.
"No. You are to go indoors. Your father is away, and the servants are
shut up in the kitchen and will not see you. Though if they did, they
could never recognize you in that trim. A fine pair of whiskers,
Richard."
"Let us go in, then. I am all in a twitter till I get away. Am I to
have the money?"
"Yes, yes. But, Richard, your sister says you wish to disclose to me
the true history of that lamentable night. You had better speak while
we are here."
"It was Barbara herself wanted you to hear it. I think it of little
moment. If the whole place heard the truth from me, it would do no
good, for I should get no belief--not even from you."
"Try me, Richard, in as few words as possible."
"Well, there was a row at home about my going so much to Hallijohn's.
The governor and my mother thought I went after Afy; perhaps I did,
and perhaps I didn't. Hallijohn had asked me to lend him my gun, and
that evening, when I went to see Af--when I went to see some one--
never mind--"
"Richard," interrupted Mr. Carlyle, "there's an old saying, and it is
sound advice: 'Tell the whole truth to your lawyer and your doctor.'
If I am to judge whether anything can be attempted for you, you must
tell it to me; otherwise, I would rather hear nothing. It shall be
sacred trust."
"Then, if I must, I must," returned the yielding Richard. "I did love
the girl. I would have waited till I was my own master to make her my
wife, though it had been for years and years. I could not do it, you
know, in the face of my father's opposition."
"Your wife?" rejoined Mr. Carlyle, with some emphasis.
Richard looked surprised. "Why, you don't suppose I meant anything
else! I wouldn't have been such a blackguard."
"Well, go on, Richard. Did she return your love?"
"I can't be certain. Sometimes I thought she did, sometimes not; she
used to play and shuffle, and she liked too much to be with--him. I
would think her capricious--telling me I must not come this evening,
and I must not come the other; but I found out they were the evenings
when she was expecting him. We were never there together."
"You forget that you have not indicted 'him' by any name, Richard. I
am at fault."
Richard Hare bent forward till his black whiskers brushed Mr.
Carlyle's shoulder. "It was that cursed Thorn."
Mr. Carlyle remembered the name Barbara had mentioned. "Who was Thorn?
I never heard of him."
"Neither had anybody else, I expect, in West Lynne. He took precious
good care of that. He lives some miles away, and used to come over in
secret."
"Courting Afy?"
"Yes, he did come courting her," returned Richard, in a savage tone.
"Distance was no barrier. He would come galloping over at dusk, tie
his horse to a tree in the wood, and pass an hour or two with Afy. In
the house, when her father was not at home; roaming about the woods
with her, when he was."
"Come to the point, Richard--to the evening."
"Hallijohn's gun was out of order, and he requested the loan of mine.
I had made an appointment with Afy to be at her house that evening,
and I went down after dinner, carrying the gun with me. My father
called after me to know where I was going; I said, out with young
Beauchamp, not caring to meet his opposition; and the lie told against
me at the inquest. When I reached Hallijohn's, going the back way
along the fields, and through the wood-path, as I generally did go,
Afy came out, all reserve, as she could be at times, and said she was
unable to receive me then, that I must go back home. We had a few
words about it, and as we were speaking, Locksley passed, and saw me
with the gun in my hand; but it ended in my giving way. She could do
just what she liked with me, for I loved the very ground she trod on.
I gave her the gun, telling her it was loaded, and she took it
indoors, shutting me out. I did not go away; I had a suspicion that
she had got Thorn there, though she denied it to me; and I hid myself
in some trees near the house. Again Locksley came in view and saw me
there, and called out to know why I was hiding. I shied further off,
and did not answer him--what were my private movements to him?--and
that also told against me at the inquest. Not long afterwards--twenty
minutes, perhaps--I heard a shot, which seemed to be in the direction
of the cottage. 'Somebody having a late pop at the partridges,'
thought I; for the sun was then setting, and at the moment I saw
Bethel emerge from the trees, and run in the direction of the cottage.
That was the shot that killed Hallijohn."
There was a pause. Mr. Carlyle looked keenly at Richard there in the
moonlight.
"Very soon, almost in the same moment, as it seemed, some one came
panting and tearing along the path leading from the cottage. It was
Thorn. His appearance startled me: I had never seen a man show more
utter terror. His face was livid, his eyes seemed starting, and his
lips were drawn back from his teeth. Had I been a strong man I should
surely have attacked him. I was mad with jealousy; for I then saw that
Afy had sent me away that she might entertain him."
"I thought you said this Thorn never came but at dusk," observed Mr.
Carlyle.
"I never knew him to do so until that evening. All I can say is, he
was there then. He flew along swiftly, and I afterwards heard the
sound of his horse's hoofs galloping away. I wondered what was up that
he should look so scared, and scutter away as though the deuce was
after him;: I wondered whether he had quarreled with Afy. I ran to the
house, leaped up the two steps, and--Carlyle--I fell over the
prostrate body of Hallijohn! He was lying just within, on the kitchen
floor, dead. Blood was round about him, and my gun, just discharged,
was thrown near. He had been shot in the side."
Richard stopped for breath. Mr. Carlyle did not speak.
"I called to Afy. No one answered. No one was in the lower room; and
it seemed that no one was in the upper. A sort of panic came over me,
a fear. You know they always said at home I was a coward: I could not
have remained another minute with that dead man, had it been to save
my own life. I caught up the gun, and was making off, when--"
"Why did you catch up the gun?" interrupted Mr. Carlyle.
"Ideas pass through our minds quicker than we can speak them,
especially in these sorts of moments," was the reply of Richard Hare.
"Some vague notion flashed on my brain that /my gun/ ought not to be
found near the murdered body of Hallijohn. I was flying from the door,
I say, when Locksley emerged from the wood, full in view; and what
possessed me I can't tell, but I did the worst thing I could do--flung
the gun indoors again, and got away, although Locksley called after me
to stop."
"Nothing told against you so much as that," observed Mr. Carlyle.
"Locksley deposed that he had seen you leave the cottage, gun in hand,
apparently in great commotion; that the moment you saw him, you
hesitated, as from fear, flung back the gun, and escaped."
Richard stamped his foot. "Aye; and all owing to my cursed cowardice.
They had better have made a woman of me, and brought me up in
petticoats. But let me go on. I came upon Bethel. He was standing in
that half-circle where the trees have been cut. Now I knew that
Bethel, if he had gone straight in the direction of the cottage, must
have met Thorn quitting it. 'Did you encounter that hound?' I asked
him. 'What hound?' returned Bethel. 'That fine fellow, that Thorn, who
comes after Afy,' I answered, for I did not mind mentioning her name
in my passion. 'I don't know any Thorn,' returned Bethel, 'and I did
not know anybody was after Afy but yourself.' 'Did you hear a shot?' I
went on. 'Yes, I did,' he replied; 'I suppose it was Locksley, for
he's about this evening,' 'And I saw you,' I continued, 'just at the
moment the shot was fired, turn round the corner in the direction of
Hallijohn's.' 'So I did,' he said, 'but only to strike into the wood,
a few paces up. What's your drift?' 'Did you not encounter Thorn,
running from the cottage?' I persisted. 'I have encountered no one,'
he said, 'and I don't believe anybody's about but ourselves and
Locksley.' I quitted him, and came off," concluded Richard Hare. "He
evidently had not seen Thorn, and knew nothing."
"And you decamped the same night, Richard; it was a fatal step."
"Yes, I was a fool. I thought I'd wait quiet, and see how things
turned out; but you don't know all. Three or four hours later, I went
to the cottage again, and I managed to get a minute's speech with Afy.
I never shall forget it; before I could say one syllable she flew out
at me, accusing me of being the murderer of her father, and she fell
into hysterics out there on the grass. The noise brought people from
the house--plenty were in it then--and I retreated. 'If /she/ can
think me guilty, the world will think me guilty,' was my argument; and
that night I went right off, to stop in hiding for a day or two, till
I saw my way clear. It never came clear; the coroner's inquest sat,
and the verdict floored me over. And Afy--but I won't curse her--
fanned the flame against me by denying that any one had been there
that night. 'She had been at home,' she said, 'and had strolled out at
the back door, to the path that led from West Lynne, and was lingering
there when she heard a shot. Five minutes afterward she returned to
the house, and found Locksley standing over her dead father.' "
Mr. Carlyle remained silent, rapidly running over in his mind the
chief points of Richard Hare's communication. "Four of you, as I
understand it, were in the vicinity of the cottage that night, and
from one or the other the shot no doubt proceeded. You were at a
distance, you say, Richard; Bethel, also, could not have been--"
"It was not Bethel who did it," interrupted Richard; "it was an
impossibility. I saw him, as I tell you, in the same moment that the
gun was fired."
"But now, where was Locksley?"
"It is equally impossible that it could have been Locksley. He was
within my view at the same time, at right angles from me, deep in the
wood, away from the paths altogether. It was Thorn did the deed,
beyond all doubt, and the verdict ought to have been willful murder
against him. Carlyle, I see you don't believe my story."
"What you say has startled me, and I must take time to consider
whether I believe it or not," said Mr. Carlyle, in his straightforward
manner. "The most singular thing is, if you witnessed this, Thorn's
running from the cottage in the manner you describe, that you did not
come forward and denounce him."
"I didn't do it, because I was a fool, a weak coward, as I have been
all my life," rejoined Richard. "I can't help it; it was born with me,
and will go with me to my grave. What would my word have availed that
it was Thorn, when there was nobody to corroborate it? And the
discharged gun, mine, was a damnatory proof against me."
"Another thing strikes me as curious," cried Mr. Carlyle. "If this
man, Thorn, was in the habit of coming to West Lynne, evening after
evening, how was it that he never was observed? This is the first time
I have heard any stranger's name mentioned in connection with the
affair, or with Afy."
"Thorn chose by-roads, and he never came, save that once, but at dusk
and dark. It was evident to me at the time that he was striving to do
it on the secret. I told Afy so, and that it augured no good for her.
You are not attaching credit to what I say, and it is only as I
expected; nevertheless, I swear that I have related the facts. As
surely as that we--I, Thorn, Afy and Hallijohn, must one day meet
together before our Maker, I have told you the truth."
The words were solemn, their tone earnest, and Mr. Carlyle remained
silent, his thoughts full.
"To what end, else, should I say this?" went on Richard. "It can do me
no service; all the assertion I could put forth would not go a jot
toward clearing me."
"No, it would not," assented Mr. Carlyle. "If ever you are cleared, it
must be by proofs. But--I will keep my thought on the matter, and
should anything arise---- What sort of a man was this Thorn?"
"In age he might be three or four and twenty, tall and slender; an
out-and-out aristocrat."
"And his connections? Where did he live?"
"I never knew. Afy, in her boasting way, would say he had come from
Swainson, a ten mile ride."
"From Swainson?" quickly interrupted Mr. Carlyle.
"Could it be one of the Thorns of Swainson?"
"None of the Thorns that I know. He was a totally different sort of
man, with his perfumed hands, and his rings, and his dainty gloves.
That he was an aristocrat I believe, but of bad taste and style,
displaying a profusion of jewellery."
A half smile flitted over Carlyle's face.
"Was it real, Richard?"
"It was. He would wear diamond shirt-studs, diamond rings, diamond
pins; brilliants, all of the first water. My impression was, that he
put them on to dazzle Afy. She told me once that she could be a
grander lady, if she chose, than I could ever make her. 'A lady on the
cross,' I answered, 'but never on the square.' Thorn was not a man to
entertain honest intentions to one in the station of Afy Hallijohn;
but girls are simple as geese."
"By your description, it could not have been one of the Thorns of
Swainson. Wealthy tradesmen, fathers of young families, short, stout,
and heavy as Dutchmen, staid and most respectable. Very unlikely men
are they, to run into an expedition of that sort."
"What expedition?" questioned Richard. "The murder?"
"The riding after Afy. Richard, where is Afy?"
Richard Hare lifted his eyes in surprise. "How should I know? I was
just going to ask you."
Mr. Carlyle paused. He thought Richard's answer an evasive one. "She
disappeared immediately after the funeral; and it was thought--in
short, Richard, the neighborhood gave her credit for having gone after
and joined you."
"No! did they? What a pack of idiots! I have never seen or heard of
her, Carlyle, since that unfortunate night. If she went after anybody,
it was after Thorn."
"Was the man good-looking?"
"I suppose the world would call him so. Afy thought such an Adonis had
never been coined, out of fable. He had shiny black hair and whiskers,
dark eyes and handsome features. But his vain dandyism spoilt him;
would you believe that his handkerchiefs were soaked in scent? They
were of the finest cambric, silky as a hair, as fine as the one
Barbara bought at Lynneborough and gave a guinea for; only hers had a
wreath of embroidery around it."
Mr. Carlyle could ascertain no more particulars, and it was time
Richard went indoors. They proceeded up the path. "What a blessing it
is the servants' windows don't look this way," shivered Richard,
treading on Mr. Carlyle's heels. "If they should be looking out
upstairs!"
His apprehensions were groundless, and he entered unseen.
Mr. Carlyle's part was over; he left the poor banned exile to his
short interview with his hysterical and tearful mother, Richard nearly
as hysterical as she, and made the best of his way home again,
pondering over what he had heard.
The magistrates made a good evening of it. Mr. Carlyle entertained
them to supper--mutton chops and bread and cheese. They took up their
pipes for another whiff when the meal was over, but Miss Carlyle
retired to bed; the smoke, to which she had not been accustomed since
her father's death, had made her head ache and her eyes smart. About
eleven they wished Mr. Carlyle good-night, and departed, but Mr. Dill,
in obedience to a nod from his superior, remained.
"Sit down a moment, Dill; I want to ask you a question. You are
intimate with the Thorns, of Swainson; do they happen to have any
relative, a nephew or cousin, perhaps, a dandy young fellow?"
"I went over last Sunday fortnight to spend the day with young Jacob,"
was the answer of Mr. Dill, one wider from the point than he generally
gave. Mr. Carlyle smiled.
"/Young/ Jacob! He must be forty, I suppose."
"About that. But you and I estimate age differently, Mr. Archibald.
They have no nephew; the old man never had but those two children,
Jacob and Edward. Neither have they any cousin. Rich men they are
growing now. Jacob has set up his carriage."
Mr. Carlyle mused, but he expected the answer, for neither had he
heard of the brothers Thorn, tanners, curriers, and leather-dressers,
possessing a relative of the name. "Dill," said he, "something has
arisen which, in my mind, casts a doubt upon Richard Hare's guilt. I
question whether he had anything to do with the murder."
Mr. Dill opened his eyes. "But his flight, Mr. Archibald, And his
stopping away?"
"Suspicious circumstances, I grant. Still, I have good cause to doubt.
At the time it happened, some dandy fellow used to come courting Afy
Hallijohn in secret; a tall, slender man, as he is described to me,
bearing the name of Thorn, and living at Swainson. Could it have been
one of the Thorn family?"
"Mr. Archibald!" remonstrated the old clerk; "as if those two
respected gentlemen, with their wives and babies, would come sneaking
after that flyaway Afy!"
"No reflection on them," returned Mr. Carlyle. "This was a young man,
three or four and twenty, a head taller than either. I thought it
might be a relative."
"I have repeatedly heard them say that they are alone in the world;
that they are the two last of the name. Depend upon it, it was nobody
connected with them;" and wishing Mr. Carlyle good-night, he departed.
The servant came in to remove the glasses and the obnoxious pipes. Mr.
Carlyle sat in a brown study; presently he looked round at the man.
"Is Joyce gone to bed?"
"No, sir. She is just going."
"Send her here when you have taken away those things."
Joyce came in--the upper servant at Miss Carlyle's. She was of middle
height, and would never see five and thirty again; her forehead was
broad, her gray eyes were deeply set, and her face was pale.
Altogether she was plain, but sensible-looking. She was the half-
sister of Afy Hallijohn.
"Shut the door, Joyce."
Joyce did as she was bid, came forward, and stood by the table.
"Have you ever heard from your sister, Joyce?" began Mr. Carlyle,
somewhat abruptly.
"No, sir," was the reply; "I think it would be a wonder if I did
hear."
"Why so?"
"If she would go off after Richard Hare, who had sent her father into
his grave, she would be more likely to hide herself and her doings
than to proclaim them to me, sir."
"Who was that other, that fine gentleman, who came after her?"
The color mantled in Joyce's cheeks, and she dropped her voice.
"Sir! Did you hear of him?"
"Not at that time. Since. He came from Swainson, did he not?"
"I believe so, sir. Afy never would say much about him. We did not
agree upon the point. I said a person of his rank would do her no
good; and Afy flew out when I spoke against him."
Mr. Carlyle caught her up. "His rank. What was his rank?"
"Afy bragged of his being next door to a lord; and he looked like it.
I only saw him once; I had gone home early, and there sat him and Afy.
His white hands were all glittering with rings, and his shirt was
finished off with shining stones where the buttons ought to be."
"Have you seen him since?"
"Never since, never but once; and I don't think I should know him if I
did see him. He got up, sir, as soon as I went into the parlor, shook
hands with Afy, and left. A fine, upright man he was, nearly as tall
as you, sir, but very slim. Those soldiers always carry themselves
well."
"How do you know he was a soldier?" quickly rejoined Mr. Carlyle.
"Afy told me so. 'The Captain' she used to call him; but she said he
was not a captain yet awhile--the next grade to it, a--a----"
"Lieutenant?" suggested Mr. Carlyle.
"Yes, sir, that was it--Lieutenant Thorn."
"Joyce," said Mr. Carlyle, "has it never struck you that Afy is more
likely to have followed Lieutenant Thorn than Richard Hare?"
"No, sir," answered Joyce; "I have felt certain always that she is
with Richard Hare, and nothing can turn me from the belief. All West
Lynne is convinced of it."
Mr. Carlyle did not attempt to "turn her from her belief." He
dismissed her, and sat on still, revolving the case in all its
bearings.
Richard Hare's short interview with his mother had soon terminated. It
lasted but a quarter of an hour, both dreading interruptions from the
servants; and with a hundred pounds in his pocket, and desolation in
his heart, the ill-fated young man once more quitted his childhood's
home. Mrs. Hare and Barbara watched him steal down the path in the
telltale moonlight, and gain the road, both feeling that those
farewell kisses they had pressed upon his lips would not be renewed
for years, and might not be forever.
CHAPTER VII.
MISS CARLYLE AT HOME.
The church clocks at West Lynne struck eight one lovely morning in
July, and then the bells chimed out, giving token that it was Sunday.
East Lynne had changed owners, and now it was the property of Mr.
Carlyle. He had bought it as it stood, furniture and all; but the
transfer had been conducted with secrecy, and was suspected by none,
save those engaged in the negotiations. Whether Lord Mount Severn
thought it might prevent any one getting on the scent, or whether he
wished to take farewell of a place he had formerly been fond of,
certain it is that he craved a week or two's visit to it. Mr. Carlyle
most readily and graciously acquiesced; and the earl, his daughter,
and retinue had arrived the previous day.
West Lynne was in ecstacies. It called itself an aristocratic place,
and it indulged hopes that the earl might be intending to confer
permanently the light of his presence, by taking up his residence
again at East Lynne. The toilettes prepared to meet his admiring eyes
were prodigious and pretty Barbara Hare was not the only young lady
who had thereby to encounter the paternal storm.
Miss Carlyle was ready for church at the usual time, plainly, but well
dressed. As she and Archibald were leaving their house, they saw
something looming up the street, flashing and gleaming in the sun. A
pink parasol came first, a pink bonnet and feather came behind it, a
gray brocaded dress and white gloves.
"The vain little idiot!" ejaculated Miss Carlyle. But Barbara smiled
up the street toward them, unconscious of the apostrophe.
"Well done, Barbara!" was the salutation of Miss Carlyle. "The justice
might well call out--you are finer than a sunbeam!"
"Not half so fine as many another in the church will be to-day,"
responded Barbara, as she lifted her shy blue eyes and blushing face
to answer the greetings of Mr. Carlyle. "West Lynne seems bent on out-
dressing the Lady Isabel. You should have been at the milliner's
yesterday morning, Miss Carlyle."
"Is all the finery coming out to-day?" gravely inquired Mr. Carlyle,
as Barbara turned with them toward the church, and he walked by her
side and his sister's, for he had an objection, almost invincible as a
Frenchman's, to give his arm to two ladies.
"Of course," replied Barbara. "First impression is everything, you
know, and the earl and his daughter will be coming to church."
"Suppose she should not be in peacock's plumes?" cried Miss Carlyle,
with an imperturbable face.
"Oh! But she is sure to be--if you mean richly dressed," cried
Barbara, hastily.
"Or, suppose they should not come to church?" laughed Mr. Carlyle.
"What a disappointment to the bonnets and feathers!"
"After all, Barbara, what are they to us, or we to them?" resumed Miss
Carlyle. "We may never meet. We insignificant West Lynne gentry shall
not obtrude ourselves into East Lynne. It would scarcely be fitting--
or be deemed so by the earl and Lady Isabel."
"That's just how papa went on," grumbled Barbara. "He caught sight of
this bonnet yesterday; and when, by way of excuse, I said I had it to
call on them, he asked whether I thought the obscure West Lynne
families would venture to thrust their calls on Lord Mount Severn, as
though they were of the county aristocracy. It was the feather that
put him out."
"It is a very long one," remarked Miss Carlyle, grimly surveying it.
Barbara was to sit in the Carlyle pew that day, for she thought the
farther she was from the justice the better; there was no knowing but
he might take a sly revengeful cut at the feather in the middle of
service, and so dock its beauty. Scarcely were they seated when some
strangers came quietly up the aisle--a gentleman who limped as he
walked, with a furrowed brow and gray hair; and a young lady. Barbara
looked round with eagerness, but looked away again; they could not be
the expected strangers, the young lady's dress was too plain--a clear-
looking muslin dress for a hot summer's day. But the old beadle in his
many-caped coat, was walking before them sideways with his marshalling
baton, and he marshaled them into the East Lynne pew, unoccupied for
so many years.
"Who in the world can they be?" whispered Barbara to Miss Carlyle.
"That old stupid is always making a mistake and putting people into
the wrong places."
"The earl and Lady Isabel."
The color flushed into Barbara's face, and she stared at Miss Corny.
"Why, she has no silks, and no feathers, and no anything!" cried
Barbara. "She's plainer than anybody in the church!"
"Plainer than any of the fine ones--than you, for instance. The earl
is much altered, but I should have known them both anywhere. I should
have known her from the likeness to her poor mother--just the same
eyes and sweet expression."
Aye, those brown eyes, so full of sweetness and melancholy; few who
had once seen could mistake or forget them; and Barbara Hare,
forgetting where she was, looked at them much that day.
"She is very lovely," thought Barbara, "and her dress is certainly
that of a lady. I wish I had not had this streaming pink feather. What
fine jackdaws she must deem us all!"
The earl's carriage, an open barouche, was waiting at the gate, at the
conclusion of the service. He handed his daughter in, and was putting
his gouty foot upon the step to follow her, when he observed Mr.
Carlyle. The earl turned and held out his hand. A man who could
purchase East Lynne was worthy of being received as an equal, though
he was but a country lawyer.
Mr. Carlyle shook hands with the earl, approached the carriage and
raised his hat to Lady Isabel. She bent forward with her pleasant
smile, and put her hand into his.
"I have many things to say to you," said the earl. "I wish you would
go home with us. If you have nothing better to do, be East Lynne's
guest for the remainder of the day."
He smiled peculiarly as he spoke, and Mr. Carlyle echoed it. East
Lynne's guest! That is what the earl was at present. Mr. Carlyle
turned aside to tell his sister.
"Cornelia, I shall not be home to dinner; I am going with Lord Mount
Severn. Good-day, Barbara."
Mr. Carlyle stepped into the carriage, was followed by the earl, and
it drove away. The sun shone still, but the day's brightness had gone
out for Barbara Hare.
"How does he know the earl so well? How does he know Lady Isabel?" she
reiterated in her astonishment.
"Archibald knows something of most people," replied Miss Corny. "He
saw the earl frequently, when he was in town in the spring, and Lady
Isabel once or twice. What a lovely face hers is!"
Barbara made no reply. She returned home with Miss Carlyle, but her
manner was as absent as her heart, and that had run away to East
Lynne.
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. KANE'S CONCERT.
Before Lord Mount Severn had completed the fortnight of his proposed
stay, the gout came on seriously. It was impossible for him to move
away from East Lynne. Mr. Carlyle assured him he was only too pleased
that he should remain as long as might be convenient, and the earl
expressed his acknowledgments; he hoped soon to be re-established on
his legs.
But he was not. The gout came, and the gout went--not positively
laying him up in bed, but rendering him unable to leave his rooms; and
this continued until October, when he grew much better. The county
families had been neighborly, calling on the invalid earl, and
occasionally carrying off Lady Isabel, but his chief and constant
visitor had been Mr. Carlyle. The earl had grown to like him in no
common degree, and was disappointed if Mr. Carlyle spent an evening
away from him, so that he became, as it were, quite domesticated with
the earl and Isabel. "I am not quite equal to general society," he
observed to his daughter, "and it is considerate and kind of Carlyle
to come here and cheer my loneliness."
"Extremely kind," said Isabel. "I like him very much, papa."
"I don't know anybody that I like half as well," was the rejoinder of
the earl.
Mr. Carlyle went up as usual the same evening, and, in the course of
it, the earl asked Isabel to sing.
"I will if you wish, papa," was the reply, "but the piano is so much
out of tune that it is not pleasant to sing to it. Is there any one in
West Lynne who could come here and tune my piano, Mr. Carlyle?" she
added, turning to him.
"Certainly there is. Kane would do it. Shall I send him to-morrow?"
"I should be glad, if it would not be giving you too much trouble. Not
that tuning will benefit it greatly, old thing that it is. Were we to
be much at East Lynne, I should get papa to exchange it for a good
one."
Little thought Lady Isabel that that very piano was Mr. Carlyle's, and
not hers. The earl coughed, and exchanged a smile and a glance with
his guest.
Mr. Kane was the organist of St. Jude's church, a man of embarrassment
and sorrow, who had long had a sore fight with the world. When he
arrived at East Lynne, the following day, dispatched by Mr. Carlyle,
Lady Isabel happened to be playing, and she stood by, and watched him
begin his work. She was courteous and affable--she was so to every one
--and the poor music master took courage to speak of his own affairs,
and to prefer a humble request--that she and Lord Mount Severn would
patronize and personally attend a concert he was about to give the
following week. A scarlet blush came into his thin cheeks as he
confessed that he was very poor, could scarcely live, and he was
getting up this concert in his desperate need. If it succeeded well,
he could then go on again; if not, he should be turned out of his
home, and his furniture sold for the two years' rent he owed--and he
had seven children.
Isabel, all her sympathies awakened, sought the earl. "Oh, papa! I
have to ask you the greatest favor. Will you grant it?"
"Ay, child, you don't ask them often. What is it?"
"I want you to take me to a concert at West Lynne."
The earl fell back in surprise, and stared at Isabel. "A concert at
West Lynne!" he laughed. "To hear the rustics scraping the fiddle! My
dear Isabel!"
She poured out what she had just heard, with her own comments and
additions. "Seven children, papa! And if the concert does not succeed
he must give up his home, and turn out into the streets with them--it
is, you see, almost a matter of life or death with him. He is very
poor."
"I am poor myself," said the earl.
"I was so sorry for him when he was speaking. He kept turning red and
white, and catching up his breath in agitation; it was painful to him
to tell of his embarrassments. I am sure he is a gentleman."
"Well, you may take a pound's worth of tickets, Isabel, and give them
to the upper servants. A village concert!"
"Oh, papa, it is not--can't you see it is not? If we, you and I, will
promise to be present, all the families round West Lynne will attend,
and he will have the room full. They will go because we do--he said
so. Make a sacrifice for once, dearest papa, and go, if it be only for
an hour. /I/ shall enjoy it if there's nothing but a fiddle and a
tambourine."
"You gipsy! You are as bad as a professional beggar. There--go and
tell the fellow we will look in for half an hour."
She flew back to Mr. Kane, her eyes dancing. She spoke quietly, as she
always did, but her own satisfaction gladdened her voice.
"I am happy to tell you that papa has consented. He will take four
tickets and we will attend the concert."
The tears rushed into Mr. Kane's eyes; Isabel was not sure but they
were in her own. He was a tall, thin, delicate-looking man, with long,
white fingers, and a long neck. He faltered forth his thanks with an
inquiry whether he might be allowed to state openly that they would be
present.
"Tell everybody," said she, eagerly. "Everybody you come across, if,
as you think, it will be the means of inducing people to attend. I
shall tell all friends who call upon me, and ask them to go."
When Mr. Carlyle came up in the evening, the earl was temporarily
absent from the room. Isabel began to speak of the concert.
"It is a hazardous venture for Mr. Kane," observed Mr. Carlyle. "I
fear he will only lose money, and add to his embarrassments."
"Why do you fear that?" she asked.
"Because, Lady Isabel, nothing gets patronized at West Lynne--nothing
native; and people have heard so long of poor Kane's necessities, that
they think little of them."
"Is he so very poor?"
"Very. He is starved half his time."
"Starved!" repeated Isabel, an expression of perplexity arising to her
face as she looked at Mr. Carlyle, for she scarcely understood him.
"Do you mean that he does not have enough to eat?"
"Of bread he may, but not much better nourishment. His salary, as
organist, is thirty pounds, and he gets a little stray teaching. But
he has his wife and children to keep, and no doubt serves them before
himself. I dare say he scarcely knows what it is to taste meat."
The words brought a bitter pang to Lady Isabel.
"Not enough to eat! Never to taste meat!" And she, in her
carelessness, her ignorance, her indifference--she scarcely knew what
term to give it--had not thought to order him a meal in their house of
plenty! He had walked from West Lynne, occupied himself an hour with
her piano, and set off to walk back again, battling with his hunger. A
word from her, and a repast had been set before him out of their
superfluities such as he never sat down to, and that word she had not
spoken.
"You are looking grave, Lady Isabel."
"I'm taking contrition to myself. Never mind, it cannot now be helped,
but it will always be a dark spot on my memory."
"What is it?"
She lifted her repentant face to his and smiled. "Never mind, I say,
Mr. Carlyle; what is past cannot be recalled. He looks like a
gentleman."
"Who? Kane? A gentleman bred; his father was a clergyman. Kane's ruin
was his love of music--it prevented his settling to any better paid
profession; his early marriage also was a drawback and kept him down.
He is young still."
"Mr. Carlyle I would not be one of your West Lynne people for the
world. Here is a young gentleman struggling with adversity, and you
won't put out your hand to help him!"
He smiled at her warmth. "Some of us will take tickets--I, for one;
but I don't know about attending the concert. I fear few would do
that."
"Because that's just the thing that would serve him? If one went,
another would. Well, I shall try and show West Lynne that I don't take
a lesson from their book; I shall be there before it begins, and never
come out till the last song's over. I am not too grand to go, if West
Lynne is."
"You surely do not think of going?"
"I surely do think of it; and papa goes with me--I persuaded him; and
I have given Mr. Kane the promise."
Mr. Carlyle paused. "I am glad to hear it; it will be a perfect boon
to Kane. If it once gets abroad that Lord Mount Severn and Lady Isabel
intend to honor the concert, there won't be standing room."
She danced round with a little gleeful step. "What high and mighty
personages Lord Mount Severn and Lady Isabel seem to be! If you had
any goodness of heart, Mr. Carlyle, you would enlist yourself in the
cause also."
"I think I will," he smiled.
"Papa says you hold sway at West Lynne. If you proclaim that you mean
to go, you will induce others."
"I will proclaim that you do," he answered; "that will be all
sufficient. But, Lady Isabel, you must not expect much gratification
from the performance."
"A tambourine will be quite enough for me; I told papa so, I shan't
think of music; I shall think of poor Mr. Kane. Mr. Carlyle I know you
can be kind if you like; I know you would rather be kind than
otherwise--it is to be read in your face. Try and do what you can for
him."
"Yes, I will," he warmly answered.
Mr. Carlyle sold no end of tickets the following day, or rather caused
them to be sold. He praised up the concert far and wide, and
proclaimed that Lord Mount Severn and his daughter would not think of
missing it. Mr. Kane's house was besieged for tickets, faster than he
could write his signature in their corner; and when Mr. Carlyle went
home to luncheon at midday, which he did not often do, he laid down
two at Miss Corny's elbow.
"What's this? Concert tickets! Archibald, you have never gone and
bought these!"
What would she have said had she known that the two were not the
extent of his investment?
"Ten shillings to throw away upon two paltry bits of cardboard!"
chafed Miss Carlyle. "You always were a noodle in money matters,
Archibald, and always will be. I wish I had the keeping of your
purse!"
"What I have given will not hurt me, Cornelia, and Kane is badly off.
Think of his troop of children."
"Oh, dear!" said Miss Corny. "I imagine he should think of them. I
suppose it was his own fault they came. That's always it. Poor folks
get a heap of children about them, and then ask for pity. I should say
it would be more just if they asked for blame."
"Well, there the tickets are, bought and paid for, so they may as well
be used. You will go with me, Cornelia."
"And stick ourselves there upon empty benches, like two geese, and sit
staring and counting the candles! A pleasant evening?"
"You need not fear empty benches. The Mount Severns are going, and
West Lynne is in a fever, racing after tickets. I suppose you have got
a--a cap," looking at the nondescript article decorating his sister's
head, "that will be suitable to go in, Cornelia; if not you had better
order one."
This suggestion put up Miss Carlyle. "Hadn't you better have your hair
curled, and your coat tails lined with white satin, and a gold opera-
glass, and a cocked hat?" retorted she. "My gracious me! A fine new
cap to go to their mess of a concert in, after paying ten shillings
for the tickets! The world's coming to something."
Mr. Carlyle left her and her grumbling to return to the office. Lord
Mount Severn's carriage was passing at the moment, and Isabel Vane was
within it. She caused it to stop when she saw Mr. Carlyle, and he
advanced to her.
"I have been to Mr. Kane's myself for the tickets," said she, with a
beaming look. "I came into West Lynne on purpose. I told the coachman
to find out where he lived, and he did. I thought if the people saw me
and the carriage there, they would guess what I wanted. I do hope he
will have a full concert."
"I am sure he will," replied Mr. Carlyle, as he released her hand. And
Lady Isabel signed to the carriage to drive on.
As Mr. Carlyle turned away, he met Otway Bethel, a nephew of Colonel
Bethel's, who was tolerated in the colonel's house because he had no
other home, and appeared incapable to making himself one. Some persons
persisted in calling him a gentleman--as he was by birth--others a
/mauvais sujet/. The two are united sometimes. He was dressed in a
velveteen suit, and had a gun in his hand. Indeed, he was rarely seen
without a gun, being inordinately fond of sport; but, if all tales
whispered were true, he supplied himself with game in other ways than
by shooting, which had the credit of going up to London dealers. For
the last six months or near upon it, he had been away from West Lynne.
"Why, where have you been hiding yourself?" exclaimed Mr. Carlyle.
"The colonel has been inconsolable."
"Come, no gammon, Carlyle. I have been on the tramp through France and
Germany. Man likes a change sometimes. As to the revered colonel, he
would not be inconsolable if he saw me nailed up in a six-foot box,
and carried out feet foremost."
"Bethel, I have a question to ask you," continued Mr. Carlyle,
dropping his light manner and his voice together. "Take your thoughts
back to the night of Hallijohn's murder."
"I wish you may get it," cried Mr. Bethel. "The reminiscence is not
attractive."
"You'll do it," quietly said Mr. Carlyle. "It has been told me, though
it did not appear at the inquest, that Richard Hare held a
conversation with you in the wood a few minutes after the deed was
done. Now--"
"Who told you that?" interrupted Bethel.
"That is not the question. My authority is indisputable."
"It is true that he did. I said nothing about it, for I did not want
to make the case worse against Dick Hare than it already was. He
certainly did accost me, like a man flurried out of his life."
"Asking if you had seen a certain lover of Afy's fly from the cottage.
One Thorn."
"That was the purport. Thorn, Thorn--I think Thorn was the name he
mentioned. My opinion was, that Dick was either wild or acting a
part."
"Now, Bethel, I want you to answer me truly. The question cannot
affect you either way, but I must know whether you did see this Thorn
leave the cottage."
Bethel shook his head. "I know nothing whatever about any Thorn, and I
saw nobody but Dick Hare. Not but what a dozen Thorns might have run
from the cottage without my seeing them."
"You heard the shot fired?"
"Yes; but I never gave a thought to mischief. I knew Locksley was in
the wood, and supposed it came from him. I ran across the path,
bearing toward the cottage, and struck into the wood on the other
side. By and by, Dick Hare pitched upon me, like one startled out of
his seven senses, and asked if I had seen Thorn leave the cottage.
Thorn--that /was/ the name."
"And you had not?"
"I had seen nobody but Dick, excepting Locksley. My impression was,
that nobody else was about; I think so still."
"But Richard--"
"Now look you here, Carlyle, I won't do Dick Hare an injury, even by a
single word, if I can help it; and it is of no use setting me on to
it."
"I should be the last to set you on to injure any one, especially
Richard Hare," rejoined Mr. Carlyle; "and my motive is to do Richard
Hare good, not harm. I hold a suspicion, no matter whence gathered,
that it was not Richard Hare who committed the murder, but another.
Can you throw any light upon the subject?"
"No, I can't. I have always thought poor wavering Dick was nobody's
enemy but his own; but, as to throwing any light on that night's work,
I can't do it. Cords should not have dragged me to the inquest to give
evidence against Dick, and for that reason I was glad Locksley never
let out that I was on the spot. How the deuce it got about afterward
that I was, I can't tell; but that was no matter; /my/ evidence did
not help on the verdict. And talking of that, Carlyle, how has it come
to your knowledge that Richard Hare accosted me? I have not opened my
lips upon it to mortal man."
"It is of no consequence now," repeated Mr. Carlyle; "I do know it,
and that is sufficient. I was in hopes you had really seen this man
Thorn leave the cottage."
Otway Bethel shook his head. "I should not lay too much stress upon
any Thorns having been there, were I you, Carlyle. Dick Hare was as
one crazy that night, and might see shapes and forms where there were
none."
CHAPTER IX.
THE SONG AND THE DIRGE.
The concert was to take place on Thursday, and on the following
Saturday Lord Mount Severn intended finally to quit East Lynne. The
necessary preparations for departure were in progress, but when
Thursday morning dawned, it appeared a question whether they would not
once more be rendered nugatory. The house was roused betimes, and Mr.
Wainwright, the surgeon from West Lynne, summoned to the earl's
bedside; he had experienced another and a violent attack. The peer was
exceedingly annoyed and vexed, and very irritable.
"I may be kept here a week--a month--a fortnight--a month longer,
now!" he uttered fretfully to Isabel.
"I am very sorry, papa. I dare say you do find East Lynne dull."
"Dull! That's not it; I have other reasons for wishing East Lynne to
be quit of us. And now you can't go to the concert."
Isabel's face flushed. "Not go, papa?"
"Why, who is to take you. I can't get out of bed."
"Oh, papa, I must be there. Otherwise it would like almost as though--
as though we had announced what we did not mean to perform. You know
it was arranged that we should join the Ducies; the carriage can still
take me to the concert room, and I can go in with them."
"Just as you please. I thought you would have jumped at any plea for
staying away."
"Not at all," laughed Isabel. "I should like West Lynne to see that I
don't despise Mr. Kane and his concert."
Later in the day the earl grew alarmingly worse; his paroxysms of pain
were awful. Isabel, who was kept from the room, knew nothing of the
danger, and the earl's groans did not penetrate to her ears. She
dressed herself in a gleeful mode, full of laughing willfulness,
Marvel, her maid, superintending in stiff displeasure, for the attire
chosen did not meet her approbation. When ready, she went into the
earl's room.
"Shall I do, papa?"
Lord Mount Severn raised his swollen eyelids and drew the clothes from
his flushed face. A shining vision was standing before him, a
beauteous queen, a gleaming fairy; he hardly knew what she looked
like. She had put on a white lace hat and her diamonds; the dress was
rich, and the jewels gleamed from her delicate arms: and her cheeks
were flushed and her curls were flowing.
The earl stared at her in amazement. "How could you dress yourself off
like that for a concert? You are out of yours senses, Isabel."
"Marvel thinks so, too," was the gay answer; "she has had a cross face
since I told her what to put on. But I did it on purpose, papa; I
thought I would show those West Lynne people that /I/ think the poor
man's moment worth going to, and worth dressing for."
"You will have the whole room gaping at you."
"I don't mind. I'll bring you word all about it. Let them gape."
"You vain child! You have so dressed yourself to please your vanity.
But, Isabel, you--oooh!"
Isabel started as she stood; the earl's groan of pain was dreadful.
"An awful twinge, child. There, go along; talking makes me worse."
"Papa, shall I stay at home with you?" she gravely asked. "Every
consideration should give way to illness. If you would like me to
remain, or if I can do any good, pray let me."
"Quite the contrary; I had rather you were away. You can do no earthly
good, for I could not have you in the room. Good-bye, darling. If you
see Carlyle, tell him I shall hope to see him to-morrow."
The room was partly full when Mrs. Ducie, her two daughters, and Lady
Isabel entered, and were conducted to seats by Mr. Kane--seats he had
reserved for them at the upper end, near the orchestra. The same
dazzling vision which had burst on the sight of Lord Mount Severn fell
on that of the audience, in Isabel, with her rich, white dress, her
glittering diamonds, her flowing curls, and her wondrous beauty. The
Misses Ducie, plain girls, in brown silks, turned up their noses worse
than nature had done it for them, and Mrs. Ducie heaved an audible
sigh.
"The poor motherless girl is to be pitied, my dears," she whispered;
"she has nobody to point out to her suitable attire. This ridiculous
decking out must have been Marvel's doings."
But she looked like a lily among poppies and sunflowers whether the
"decking out" was ridiculous or not. Was Lord Mount Severn right, when
he accused her of dressing so in self-gratification? Very likely, for
has not the great preacher said that childhood and youth are vanity?
Miss Carlyle, the justice, and Barbara also had seats near the
orchestra; for Miss Carlyle, in West Lynne, was a person to be
considered, and not hidden behind others. Mr. Carlyle, however,
preferred to join the gentlemen who congregated and stood round about
the door inside and out. There was scarcely standing room in the
place; Mr. Kane had, as was anticipated, got a bumper, and the poor
man could have worshipped Lady Isabel, for he knew he owed it to her.
It was very long--country concerts generally are--and was about three
parts over when a powdered head, larger than any cauliflower ever
grown, was discerned ascending the stairs, behind the group of
gentlemen; which head, when it brought its body in full view, was
discovered to belong to one of the footmen of Lord Mount Severn. The
calves alone, cased in their silk stockings, were a sight to be seen;
and these calves betook themselves inside the concert room, with a
deprecatory bow for permission to the gentlemen they had to steer
through--and there they came to a standstill, the cauliflower
extending forward and turning itself about from right to left.
"Well, I'll be jiffled!" cried an astonished old fox-hunter, who had
been elbowed by the footman; "the cheek these fellows have!"
The fellow in question did not appear, however, to be enjoying any
great amount of cheek just at that moment, for he looked perplexed,
humble and uneasy. Suddenly his eye fell upon Mr. Carlyle, and it
lighted up.
"Beg pardon, sir; could you happen to inform me where-abouts my young
lady is sitting?"
"At the other end of the room, near the orchestra."
"I'm sure I don't know however I am to get to her, then," returned the
man more in self-soliloquy than to Mr. Carlyle. "The room is choke
full, and I don't like crushing by. My lord is taken alarmingly worse,
sir," he explained in an awe-stricken tone; "it is feared he is
dying."
Mr. Carlyle was painfully startled.
"His screams of pain were awful, sir. Mr. Wainwright and another
doctor from West Lynne are with him, and an express has gone to
Lynneboro' for physicians. Mrs. Mason said we were to fetch my young
lady right home, and not lose a moment; and we brought the carriage,
sir, Wells galloping his horses all the way."
"I will bring Lady Isabel," said Mr. Carlyle.
"I am sure, sir, I should be under everlasting obligations if you
would," returned the man.
He worked his way through the concert room--he was tall and slender--
many looking daggers at him, for a pathetic song was just then being
given by a London lady. He disregarded all, and stood before Isabel.
"I thought you were not coming to speak to me to-night. Is it not a
famous room? I am so pleased!"
"More than famous, Lady Isabel," choosing his words, that they might
not alarm her, "Lord Mount Severn does not find himself so well, and
he has sent the carriage for you."
"Papa not so well!" she quickly exclaimed.
"Not quite. At any rate, he wishes you to go home. Will you allow me
to pilot you through the room?"
"Oh, my dear, considerate papa!" she laughed. "He fears I shall be
weary, and would emancipate me before the time. Thank you, Mr.
Carlyle, but I will wait till the conclusion."
"No, no, Lady Isabel, it is not that. Lord Mount Severn is indeed
worse."
Her countenance changed to seriousness; but she was not alarmed. "Very
well. When the song is over--not to disturb the room."
"I think you had better lose no time," he urged. "Never mind the song
and the room."
She rose instantly, and put her arm within Mr. Carlyle's. A hasty word
of explanation to Mrs. Ducie, and he led her away, the room, in its
surprise, making for them what space it might. Many an eye followed
them, but none more curiously and eagerly than Barbara Hare's. "Where
is he going to take her to?" involuntarily uttered Barbara.
"How should I know?" returned Miss Corny. "Barbara, you have done
nothing but fidget all the night; what's the matter with you? Folks
come to a concert to listen, not to talk and fidget."
Isabel's mantle was procured from the ante-room where it had been
left, and she descended the stairs with Mr. Carlyle. The carriage was
drawn up close to the entrance, and the coachman had his reins
gathered, ready to start. The footman--not the one who had gone
upstairs--threw open the carriage door as he saw her. He was new in
the service, a simple country native, just engaged. She withdrew her
arm from Mr. Carlyle's, and stood a moment before stepping in, looking
at the man.
"Is papa much worse?"
"Oh, yes, my lady; he was screaming shocking. But they think he'll
live till morning."
With a sharp cry, she seized the arm of Mr. Carlyle--seized it for
support in her shock of agony. Mr. Carlyle rudely thrust the man away;
he would willingly have flung him at full length on the pavement.
"Oh, Mr. Carlyle, why did you not tell me?" she shivered.
"My dear Lady Isabel, I am grieved that you are told now. But take
comfort; you know how ill he frequently is, and this may be but an
ordinary attack. Step in. I trust we shall find it nothing more."
"Are you going home with me?"
"Certainly; I shall not leave you to go alone."
She moved to the other side of the chariot, making room for him.
"Thank you. I will sit outside."
"But the night is cold."
"Oh, no." He closed the door, and took his seat by the coachman; the
footman got up behind, and the carriage sped away. Isabel gathered
herself into her corner, and moaned aloud in her suspense and
helplessness.
The coachman drove rapidly, and soon whipped his horses through the
lodge-gates.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Mason, waited at the hall-door to receive Lady
Isabel. Mr. Carlyle helped her out of the carriage, and gave her his
arm up the steps. She scarcely dared to inquire.
"Is he better? May I go to his room?" she panted.
Yes, the earl was better--better, in so far as that he was quiet and
senseless. She moved hastily toward his chamber. Mr. Carlyle drew the
housekeeper aside.
"Is there any hope?"
"Not the slightest, sir. He is dying."
The earl knew no one; pain was gone for the present, and he lay on his
bed, calm; but his face, which had death in it all too plainly,
startled Isabel. She did not scream or cry; she was perfectly quiet,
save that she had a fit of shivering.
"Will he soon be better?" she whispered to Mr. Wainwright, who stood
there.
The surgeon coughed. "Well, he--he--we must hope it, my lady."
"But why does his face look like that? It is pale--gray; I never saw
anybody else look so."
"He has been in great pain, my lady, and pain leaves its traces on the
countenance."
Mr. Carlyle, who had come, and was standing by the surgeon, touched
his arm to draw him from the room. He noticed the look on the earl's
face, and did not like it; he wished to question the surgeon. Lady
Isabel saw that Mr. Carlyle was about to quit the room, and beckoned
to him.
"Do not leave the house, Mr. Carlyle. When he wakes up, it may cheer
him to see you here; he liked you very much."
"I will not leave it, Lady Isabel. I did not think of doing so."
In time--it seemed an age--the medical men arrived from Lynneborough--
three of them--the groom had thought he could not summon too many. It
was a strange scene they entered upon: the ghastly peer, growing
restless again now, battling with his departing spirit, and the gala
robes, the sparkling gems adorning the young girl watching at his
side. They comprehended the case without difficulty; that she had been
suddenly called from some scene of gayety.
They stooped to look at the earl, and felt his pulse, and touched his
heart, and exchanged a few murmured words with Mr. Wainwright. Isabel
had stood back to give them place, but her anxious eyes followed their
every movement. They did not seem to notice her, and she stepped
forward.
"Can you do anything for him? Will he recover?
They all turned at the address, and looked at her. One spoke; it was
an evasive answer.
"Tell me the truth!" she implored, with feverish impatience: "you must
not trifle with me. Do you not know me? I am his only child, and I am
here alone."
The first thing was to get her away from the room, for the great
change was approaching, and the parting struggle between the body and
the spirit might be one of warfare--no sight for her. But in answer to
their suggestion that she should go, she only leaned her head upon the
pillow by her father and moaned in despair.
"She must be got out of the room," cried one of the physicians, almost
angrily. "Ma'am," turning suddenly upon Mrs. Mason, "are there no
reserves in the house--no one who can exert influence over the young
lady?"
"She has scarcely any relatives in the world," replied the
housekeeper; "no near ones; and we happen to be, just now, quite
alone."
But Mr. Carlyle, seeing the urgency of the case, for the earl, with
every minute, grew more excited, approached and whispered her: "You
are as anxious as we can be for your father's recovery?"
"/As/ anxious!" she uttered reproachfully.
"You know what I would imply. Of course our anxiety can be as nothing
to yours."
"As nothing--/as nothing/. I think my heart will break."
"Then--forgive me--you should not oppose the wishes of his medical
attendants. They wish to be alone with him, and time is being lost."
She rose up; she placed her hands on her brow, as if to collect the
sense of the words, and then she addressed the doctors,--
"Is it really necessary that I should leave the room--necessary /for
him/?"
"It is necessary, my lady--absolutely essential."
She broke into a passion of tears and sobs as Mr. Carlyle lead her to
another apartment.
"He is my dear father; I have but him in the wide world!" she
exclaimed.
"I know--I know; I feel for you all that you are feeling. Twenty times
this night I have wished--forgive me the thought--that you were my
sister, so that I might express my sympathy more freely and comfort
you."
"Tell me the truth, then, why I am kept away. If you can show me
sufficient cause, I will be reasonable and obey; but do not say again
I should be disturbing him, for it is not true."
"He is too ill for you to see him--his symptoms are too painful. In
fact, it would not be proper; and were you to go in in defiance of
advice, you would regret it all your after life."
"Is he dying?"
Mr. Carlyle hesitated. Ought he to dissemble with her as the doctors
had done? A strong feeling was upon him that he ought not.
"I trust to you not to deceive me," she simply said.
"I fear he is--I believe he is."
She rose up--she grasped his arm in the sudden fear that flashed over
her.
"You are deceiving me, and he is dead!"
"I am not deceiving you, Lady Isabel. He is not dead, but--it may be
very near."
She laid her face down upon the soft pillow.
"Going forever from me--going forever? Oh, Mr. Carlyle, let me see him
for a minute--just one farewell! Will you not try for me!"
He knew how hopeless it was, but he turned to leave the room.
"I will go and see. But you will remain here quietly--you will not
come."
She bowed her head in acquiescence, and he closed the door. Had she
indeed been his sister, he would probably have turned the key upon
her. He entered the earl's chamber, but not many seconds did he remain
in it.
"It is over," he whispered to Mrs. Mason, whom he met in the corridor,
"and Mr. Wainwright is asking for you."
"You are soon back," cried Isabel, lifting her head. "May I go?"
He sat down and took her hand, shrinking from his task.
"I wish I could comfort you!" he exclaimed, in a tone of deep emotion.
Her face turned of a ghastly whiteness--as white as another's not far
away.
"Tell me the worst," she breathed.
"I have nothing to tell you but the worst. May God support you, dear
Lady Isabel!"
She turned to hide her face and its misery away from him, and a low
wail of anguish broke from her, telling its own tale of despair.
The gray dawn of morning was breaking over the world, advent of
another bustling day in life's history; but the spirit of William
Vane, Earl of Mount Severn, had soared away from it forever.
CHAPTER X.
THE KEEPERS OF THE DEAD.
Events, between the death of Lord Mount Severn and his interment,
occurred quickly; and to one of them the reader may feel inclined to
demur, as believing that it could have no foundation in fact, in the
actions of real life, but must be a wild creation of the author's
brain. He would be wrong. The author is no more fond of wild creations
than the reader. The circumstance did take place.
The earl died on Friday morning at daylight. The news spread rapidly.
It generally does on the death of a peer, if he has been of note,
whether good or bad, in the world, and was known in London before the
day was over--the consequence of which was, that by Saturday morning,
early, a shoal of what the late peer would have called harpies, had
arrived, to surround East Lynne. There were creditors of all sorts;
for small sums and for great, for five or ten pounds up to five or ten
thousand. Some were civil, some impatient, some loud and rough and
angry; some came to put in executions on the effects, and some--/to
arrest the body/!
This last act was accomplished cleverly. Two men, each with a
remarkably hooked nose, stole away from the hubbub of the clamorous,
and peering cunningly about, made their way to the side or tradesman's
entrance. A kitchen-maid answered their gentle appeal at the bell.
"Is the coffin come yet?" said they.
"Coffin--no!" was the girl's reply. "The shell ain't here yet. Mr.
Jones didn't promise that till nine o'clock, and it haven't gone
eight."
"It won't be long," quoth they; "its on it's road. We'll go up to his
lordship's room, please, and be getting ready for it."
The girl called the butler. "Two men from Jones', the undertaker's,
sir," announced she. "The shell's coming on and they want to go up and
make ready for it."
The butler marshaled them upstairs himself, and introduced them to the
room. "That will do," said they, as he was about to enter with them,
"we won't trouble you to wait." And closing the door upon the
unsuspicious butler, they took up their station on either side of the
dead, like a couple of ill-omened mutes. They had placed an arrest
upon the corpse; it was theirs until their claim was satisfied, and
they sat down to thus watch and secure it. Pleasant occupation!
It may have been an hour later that Lady Isabel, leaving her own
chamber, opened noiselessly that of the dead. She had been in it
several times during the previous day; at first with the housekeeper;
afterward, when the nameless dread was somewhat effaced, alone. But
she felt nervous again this morning, and had gained the bed before she
ventured to lift her eyes from the carpet and encounter the sight.
Then she started, for there sat two strange-looking men--and not
attractive men either.
It darted through her mind that they must be people from the
neighborhood, come to gratify an idle and unpardonable curiosity. Her
first impulse was to summon the butler; her second, to speak to them
herself.
"Do you want anything here?" she quietly said.
"Much obleeged for the inquiry, miss. We are all right."
The words and tone struck her as being singular in the extreme; and
they kept their seats, too, as though they had a right to be there.
"Why are you here?" she repeated. "What are you doing?"
"Well, miss, I don't mind telling you, for I suppose you are his
daughter"--pointing his left thumb over his shoulder at the late peer
--"and we hear he have got no other relative anigh him. We have been
obleeged, miss, to perform an unpleasant dooty and secure him."
The words were like Greek to her, and the men saw that they were.
"He unfortunately owed a slight amount of money, miss--as you,
perhaps, be aware on, and our employers is in, deep. So, as soon as
they heard what had happened, they sent us down to arrest the dead
corpse, and we have done it."
Amazement, horror, fear, struggled together in the shocked mind of
Lady Isabel. Arrest the dead. She had never heard of a like calamity:
nor could she have believed in such. Arrest it for what purpose? What
to do? To disfigure it?--to sell it? With a panting heart and ashy
lips, she turned from the room. Mrs. Mason happened to be passing near
the stairs, and Isabel flew to her, laying hold of her with both
hands, in her terror, as she burst into a fit of nervous tears.
"Those men--in there!" she gasped.
"What men, my lady?" returned Mrs. Mason, surprised.
"I don't know; I don't know. I think they are going to stop there;
they say they have taken papa."
After a pause of bewildered astonishment, the housekeeper left her
standing where she was, and went to the earl's chamber, to see if she
could fathom the mystery of the words. Isabel leaned against the
balustrades; partly for support, partly that she seemed afraid to stir
from them; and the ominous disturbances downstairs reached her ears.
Strangers, interlopers, appeared to be in the hall, talking
vehemently, and complaining in bitter tones. More and more terrified,
she held her breath to listen.
"Where's the good of your seeing the young lady?" cried the butler, in
a tone of remonstrance. "She knows nothing about the earl's affairs;
she is in grief enough just now, without any other worry."
"I will see her," returned a dogged voice. "If she's too start-up and
mighty to come down and answer a question or two, why I'll find my way
on to her. Here we are a shameful crowd of us, swindled out of our
own, told there's nobody we can speak to; nobody here but the young
lady, and she must not be troubled. She didn't find it trouble to help
to spend our money. She has got no honor and feelings of a lady, if
she don't come and speak to us. There."
Repressing her rebellious emotions, Lady Isabel glided partly down the
staircase, and softy called to the butler. "What is all this?" she
asked. "I must know."
"Oh, my lady, don't go amongst those rough men! You can't do any good;
pray go back before they see you. I have sent for Mr. Carlyle, and
expect him here momentarily."
"Did Papa owe them /all/ money?" she said, shivering.
"I'm afraid he did, my lady."
She went swiftly on; and passing through the few stragglers in the
hall, entered the dining-room, where the chief mass had congregated,
and the hubbub was loudest. All anger, at least external anger, was
hushed at her sight. She looked so young, so innocent, so childlike in
her pretty morning dress of peach-colored muslin, her fair face shaded
by its falling curls, so little fit to combat with, or understand
/their/ business, that instead of pouring forth complaints, they
hushed them into silence.
"I heard some one calling out that I ought to see you," she began, her
agitation causing the words to come forth in a jerking manner. "What
did you want with me?"
Then they poured forth their complaints, but not angrily, and she
listened till she grew sick. There were many and formidable claims;
promissory notes and I O Us, overdue bills and underdue bills; heavy
outstanding debts of all sorts, and trifles, comparatively speaking,
for housekeeping, servants' liveries, out-door servants' wages, bread
and meat.
What was Isabel Vane to answer? What excuse to offer? What hope or
promise to give? She stood in bewilderment, unable to speak, turning
from one to the other, her sweet eyes full of pity and contrition.
"The fact is, young lady," spoke up one who bore the exterior of a
gentleman, "we should not have come down troubling you--at least, I
can answer for myself--but his lordship's men of business, Warburton &
Ware, to whom many of us hastened last evening, told us there would
not be a shilling for anybody unless it could be got from furniture.
When it comes to that, it is 'first come, first served,' and I got
down by morning light, and levied an execution."
"Which was levied before you came," put in a man who might be brother
to the two upstairs, to judge by his nose. "But what's such furniture
as this to our claims--if you come to combine 'em? No more than a
bucket of water is to the Thames."
"What can I do?" shivered Lady Isabel. "What is it you wish me to do?
I have no money to give you, I--"
"No, miss," broke in a quiet, pale man; "if report tells me, you are
worse wronged than we are, for you won't have a roof to put your head
under, or a guinea to call your own."
"He has been a scoundrel to everybody," interrupted an intemperate
voice; "he has ruined thousands."
The speech was hissed down; even they were not men gratuitously to
insult a delicate young lady.
"Perhaps you'll just answer us a question, miss," persisted the voice,
in spite of the hisses. "Is there any ready money that can--"
But another person had entered the room--Mr. Carlyle. He caught sight
of the white face and trembling hands of Isabel, and interrupted the
last speaker with scant ceremony.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, in a tone of authority.
"What do you want?"
"If you are a friend of the late peer's, you ought to know what we
want," was the response. "We want our debts paid."
"But this is not the place to come to," returned Mr. Carlyle; "your
coming here flocking in this extraordinary manner, will do no good.
You must go to Warburton & Ware."
"We have been to them and received their answer--a cool assurance that
there'll be nothing for anybody."
"At any rate, you'll get nothing here," observed Mr. Carlyle, to the
assembly, collectively. "Allow me to request that you leave the house
at once."
It was little likely that they would for him, and they said it.
"Then I warn you of the consequences of a refusal," quietly said Mr.
Carlyle; "you are trespassing upon a stranger's property. This house
is not Lord Mount Severn's; he sold it some time back."
They knew better. Some laughed, and said these tricks were stale.
"Listen, gentlemen," rejoined Mr. Carlyle, in the plain,
straightforward manner that carried its own truth. "To make an
assertion that could be disproved when the earl's affairs come to be
investigated, would be simply foolish. I give you my word of honor as
a gentleman--nay, as a fellow-man--that this estate, with the house
and all it contains, passed months ago, from the hands of Lord Mount
Severn; and, during his recent sojourn here, he was a visitor in it.
Go and ask his men of business."
"Who purchased it?" was the inquiry.
"Mr. Carlyle, of West Lynne. Some of you may possibly know him by
reputation."
Some of them did.
"A cute young lawyer," observed a voice; "as his father was before
him."
"I am he," proceeded Mr. Carlyle; "and, being a 'cute lawyer,' as you
do me the honor to decide, you cannot suppose I should risk my money
upon any sale not perfectly safe and legal. I was not an agent in the
affair; I employed agents; for it was my own money that I invested,
and East Lynne is mine."
"Is the purchase money paid over?" inquired more than one.
"It was paid over at the time--last June."
"What did Lord Mount Severn do with the money?"
"I do not know," replied Mr. Carlyle. "I am not cognizant of Lord
Mount Severn's private affairs."
Significant murmurs arose. "Strange that the earl should stop two or
three months at a place that wasn't his."
"It may appear so to you, but allow me to explain," returned Mr.
Carlyle. "The earl expressed a wish to pay East Lynne a few days'
visit, by way of farewell, and I acceded. Before the few days were
over, he was taken ill, and remained, from that time, too ill to quit
it. This very day--this day, gentlemen, as we stand here, was at
length fixed for his departure."
"And you tell us you bought the furniture?"
"Everything as it stands. You need not doubt my word, for the proofs
will be forthcoming. East Lynne was in the market for sale; I heard of
it, and became the purchaser--just as I might have bought an estate
from any of you. And now, as this is my house, and you have no claim
upon me, I shall be obliged to you to withdraw."
"Perhaps you'll claim the horses and carriages next, sir," cried the
man with the hooked nose.
Mr. Carlyle raised his head haughtily. "What is mine is mine, legally
purchased and paid for--a fair, just price. The carriages and horses I
have nothing to do with; Lord Mount Severn brought them down with
him."
"And I have got a safe watcher over them in the out premises, to see
as they don't run away," nodded the man, complacently; "and if I don't
mistake, there's a safe watcher over something else upstairs."
"What a cursed scoundrel Mount Severn was."
"Whatever he may have been, it does not give you the right to outrage
the feelings of his daughter," warmly interrupted Mr. Carlyle; "and I
should have thought that men, calling themselves Englishmen, would
have disdained the shame. Allow me, Lady Isabel," he added,
imperatively taking her hand to lead her from the room. "I will remain
and deal with this business."
But she hesitated and stopped. The injury her father had done these
men was telling painfully on her sense of right, and she essayed to
speak a word of apology, of sorrow; she thought she ought to do so;
she did not like them to deem her quite heartless. But it was a
painful task, and the color went and came in her pale face, and her
breath was labored with the excess of her tribulation.
"I am very sorry," she stammered; and with the effort of speaking,
emotion quite got the better of her, and she burst into tears. "I did
not know anything of all this; my father's affairs were not spoken of
before me. I believe I have not anything; if I had, I would divide it
amongst you as equally as I could. But, should the means ever be in my
power--should money ever be mine, I will thankfully pay all your
claims."
/All/ your claims! Lady Isabel little thought what that "all" would
comprise. However, such promises, made at such a moment, fell
heedlessly upon the ear. Scarcely one present but felt sympathy and
sorrow for her, and Mr. Carlyle drew her from the room. He closed the
door upon the noisy crew, and then sobs came forth hysterically.
"I am so grieved, Lady Isabel! Had I foreseen this annoyance, you
should have been spared it. Can you go upstairs alone, or shall I call
Mrs. Mason?"
"Oh, yes! I can go alone; I am not ill, only frightened and sick. This
is not the worst," she shivered. "There are two men up--up--with
papa."
"Up with papa." Mr. Carlyle was puzzled. He saw that she was shaking
from head to foot, as she stood before him.
"I cannot understand it, and it terrifies me," she continued,
attempting an explanation. "They are sitting in the room, close to
him: they have taken him, they say."
A blank, thunderstruck pause. Mr. Carlyle looked at her--he did not
speak; and then he turned and looked at the butler, who was standing
near. But the man only responded by giving his head a half shake, and
Mr. Carlyle saw that it was an ominous one.
"I will clear the house of these," he said to Lady Isabel, pointing
back to the dining-room, "and then join you upstairs."
"Two ruffians, sir, and they have got possession of the body,"
whispered the butler in Mr. Carlyle's ear, as Lady Isabel departed.
"They obtained entrance to the chamber by a sly, deceitful trick,
saying they were the undertaker's men, and that he can't be buried
unless their claims are paid, if it's for a month to come. It has
upset all our stomachs, sir; Mrs. Mason while telling me--for she was
the first one to know it--was as sick as she could be."
At present Mr. Carlyle returned to the dining-room, and bore the brunt
of the anger of those savages, and it may be said, ill-used men. Not
that it was vented upon him--quite the contrary--but on the memory of
the unhappy peer, who lay overhead. A few had taken the precaution to
insure the earl's life, and they were the best off. They left the
house after a short space of time; for Mr. Carlyle's statement was
indisputable, and they knew the law better than to remain, trespassers
on his property.
But the custodians of the dead could not be got rid of. Mr. Carlyle
proceeded to the death-chamber, and examined their authority. A
similar case had never occurred under his own observation, though it
had under his father's, and Mr. Carlyle remembered hearing of it. The
body of a church dignitary, who had died deeply in debt, was arrested
as it was being carried through the cloisters to its grave in the
cathedral. These men, sitting over Lord Mount Severn, enforced heavy
claims; and there they must sit until the arrival of Mr. Vane from
Castle Marling--now the Earl of Mount Severn.
On the following morning, Sunday, Mr. Carlyle proceeded again to East
Lynne, and found, to his surprise, that there was no arrival. Isabel
sat in the breakfast-room alone, the meal on the table untouched, and
she shivering--as it seemed--on a low ottoman before the fire. She
looked so ill that Mr. Carlyle could not forbear remarking upon it.
"I have not slept, and I am very cold," she answered. "I did not close
my eyes all night, I was so terrified."
"Terrified at what?" he asked.
"At those men," she whispered. "It is strange that Mr. Vane has not
come."
"Is the post in?"
"I don't know," she apathetically replied. "I have received nothing."
She had scarcely spoke when the butler entered with his salver full of
letters, most of them bearing condolence with Lady Isabel. She singled
out one and hastened to open it, for it bore the Castle Marling post-
mark. "It is Mrs. Vane's handwriting," she remarked to Mr. Carlyle.
CASTLE MARLING, Saturday.
"MY DEAR ISABEL--I am dreadfully grieved and shocked at the news
conveyed in Mr. Carlyle's letter to my husband, for he has gone
cruising in his yacht, and I opened it. Goodness knows where he
may be, round the coast somewhere, but he said he should be home
for Sunday, and as he is pretty punctual in keeping his word, I
expect him. Be assured he will not lose a moment in hastening to
East Lynne.
"I cannot express what I feel for you, and am too /bouleversee/ to
write more. Try and keep up your spirits, and believe me, dear
Isabel, with sincere sympathy and regret, faithfully yours,
"EMMA MOUNT SEVERN."
The color came into Isabel's pale cheek when she read the signature.
She thought, had she been the writer, she should, in that first, early
letter, have still signed herself Emma Vane. Isabel handed the note to
Mr. Carlyle. "It is very unfortunate," she sighed.
Mr. Carlyle glanced over it as quickly as Mrs. Vane's illegible
writing allowed him, and drew in his lips in a peculiar manner when he
came to the signature. Perhaps at the same thought which had struck
Isabel.
"Had Mrs. Vane been worth a rush, she would have come herself, knowing
your lonely situation," he uttered, impulsively.
Isabel leaned her head upon her hand. All the difficulties and
embarrassments of her position came crowding on her mind. No orders
had been given in preparation for the funeral, and she felt that she
had no right to give any. The earls of Mount Severn were buried at
Mount Severn; but to take her father thither would involve great
expense; would the present earl sanction that? Since the previous
morning, she seemed to have grown old in the world's experience; her
ideas were changed, the bent of her thoughts had been violently turned
from its course. Instead of being a young lady of high position, of
wealth and rank, she appeared to herself more in the light of an
unfortunate pauper and interloper in the house she was inhabiting. It
has been the custom in romance to present young ladies, especially if
they be handsome and interesting, as being entirely oblivious of
matter-of-fact cares and necessities, supremely indifferent to future
prospects of poverty--poverty that brings hunger and thirst and cold
and nakedness; but, be assured, this apathy never existed in real
life. Isabel Vane's grief for her father--whom, whatever may have been
the aspect he wore for others, /she/ had deeply loved and reverenced--
was sharply poignant; but in the midst of that grief, and of the
singular troubles his death had brought forth, she could not shut her
eyes to her own future. Its blank uncertainty, its shadowed-forth
embarrassments did obtrude themselves and the words of that plain-
speaking creditor kept ringing in her ears: "You won't have a roof to
put your head under, or a guinea to call your own." Where was she to
go? With whom to live? She was in Mr. Carlyle's house now. And how was
she to pay the servants? Money was owing to them all.
"Mr. Carlyle, how long has this house been yours?" she asked, breaking
the silence.
"It was in June that the purchase was completed. Did Lord Mount Severn
never tell you he had sold it to me?"
"No, never. All these things are yours?" glancing round the room.
"The furniture was sold with the house. Not these sort of things," he
added, his eye falling on the silver on the breakfast table; "not the
plate and linen."
"Not the plate and linen! Then those poor men who were here yesterday
have a right to them," she quickly cried.
"I scarcely know. I believe the plate goes with the entail--and the
jewels go also. The linen cannot be of consequence either way."
"Are my clothes my own?"
He smiled as he looked at her; smiled at her simplicity, and assured
her that they were nobody's else.
"I did not know," she sighed; "I did not understand. So many strange
things have happened in the last day or two, that I seem to understand
nothing."
Indeed, she could not understand. She had no definite ideas on the
subject of this transfer of East Lynne to Mr. Carlyle; plenty of
indefinite ones, and they were haunting her. Fears of debt to him, and
of the house and its contents being handed over to him in liquidation,
perhaps only partial, were working in her brain.
"Does my father owe you any money?" she breathed in a timid tone.
"Not any," he replied. "Lord Mount Severn was never indebted to me in
his life."
"Yet you purchased East Lynne?"
"As any one else might have done," he answered, discerning the drift
of her thoughts. "I was in search of an eligible estate to invest
money in, and East Lynne suited me."
"I feel my position, Mr. Carlyle," she resumed, the rebellious fears
forcing themselves to her eyes; "thus to be intruding upon you for a
shelter. And I cannot help myself."
"You can help grieving me," he gently answered, "which you do much
when you talk of obligation. The obligation is on my side, Lady
Isabel; and when I express a hope that you will continue at East Lynne
while it can be of service, however prolonged that period may be, I
assure you, I say it in all sincerity."
"You are very kind," she faltered; "and for a few days; until I can
think; until-- Oh, Mr. Carlyle, are papa's affairs really so bad as
they said yesterday?" she broke off, her perplexities recurring to her
with vehement force. "Is there nothing left?"
Now Mr. Carlyle might have given the evasive assurance that there
would be plenty left, just to tranquilize her. But to have used deceit
with her would have pricked against every feeling of his nature; and
he saw how implicitly she relied upon his truth.
"I fear things are not very bright," he answered. "That is, so far as
we can see at present. But there may have been some settlement
effected for you that you do not know of. Warburton & Ware--"
"No," she interrupted: "I never heard of a settlement, and I am sure
there is none. I see the worst plainly. I have no home, no home and no
money. This house is yours; the town house and Mount Severn go to Mr.
Vane; and I have nothing."
"But surely Mr. Vane will be delighted to welcome you to your old
home. The houses pass to him--it almost seems as though you had the
greater right in them, than he or Mrs. Vane."
"My home with them!" she retorted, as if the words had stung her.
"What are you saying, Mr. Carlyle?"
"I beg your pardon, Lady Isabel. I should not have presumed to touch
upon these points myself, but--"
"Nay, I think I ought to beg yours," she interrupted, more calmly. "I
am only grateful for the interest you take in them--the kindness you
have shown. But I could not make my home with Mrs. Vane."
Mr. Carlyle rose. He could do no good by remaining, and did not think
it well to intrude longer. He suggested that it might be more pleasant
if Isabel had a friend with her; Mrs. Ducie would no doubt be willing
to come, and she was a kind, motherly woman.
Isabel shook her head with a passing shudder. "Have strangers, here,
with--all--that--in papa's chamber!" she uttered. "Mrs. Ducie drove
over yesterday, perhaps to remain--I don't know; but I was afraid of
questions, and would not see her. When I think of--that--I feel
thankful that I am alone."
The housekeeper stopped Mr. Carlyle as he was going out.
"Sir, what is the news from Castle Marling? Pound said there was a
letter. Is Mr. Vane coming?"
"He was out yachting. Mrs. Vane expected him home yesterday, so it is
to be hoped he will be here to-day."
"Whatever will be done if he does not come?" she breathed. "The leaden
coffin ought to be soldered down, for you know, air, the state he was
in when he died."
"It can be soldered down without Mr. Vane."
"Of course--without Mr. Vane. It's not that, sir. Will those men allow
it to be done? The undertakers were here this morning at daybreak, and
those men intimated that they were not going to /lose sight/ of the
dead. The words sounded significant to us, but we asked them no
questions. Have they a right to prevent it, sir?"
"Upon my word I cannot tell," replied Mr. Carlyle. "The proceeding is
so rare a one, that I know little what right of law they have or have
not. Do not mention this to Lady Isabel. And when Mr. Va--when Lord
Mount Severn arrives, send down to apprise me of it."
CHAPTER XI.
THE NEW PEER--THE BANK-NOTE
A post-chaise was discerned thundering up the avenue that Sunday
afternoon. It contained the new peer, Lord Mount Severn. The more
direct line of rail from Castle Marling, brought him only to within
five miles of West Lynne, and thence he had travelled in a hired
chaise. Mr. Carlyle soon joined him, and almost at the same time Mr.
Warburton arrived from London. Absence from town at the period of the
earl's death had prevented Mr. Warburton's earlier attendance.
Business was entered upon immediately.
The present earl knew that his predecessor had been an embarrassed
man, but he had no conception of the extent of the evil; they had not
been intimate, and rarely came in contact. As the various items of
news were now detailed to him--the wasteful expenditure, the
disastrous ruin, the total absence of provision for Isabel--he stood
petrified and aghast. He was a tall stout man, of three-and-forty
years, his nature honorable, his manner cold, and his countenance
severe.
"It is the most iniquitous piece of business I ever heard of!" he
exclaimed to the two lawyers. "Of all the reckless fools, Mount Severn
must have been the worst!"
"Unpardonably improvident as regards his daughter," was the assenting
remark.
"Improvident! It must have been rank madness!" retorted the earl. "No
man in his senses could leave a child to the mercy of the world, as he
has left her. She has not a shilling--literally, not a shilling in her
possession. I put the question to her, what money there was in the
house when the earl died. Twenty or twenty-five pounds, she answered,
which she had given to Mason, who required it for housekeeping
purposes. If the girl wants a yard of ribbon for herself, she has not
the pence to pay for it! Can you realize such a case to the mind?"
continued the excited peer. "I will stake my veracity that such a one
never occurred yet."
"No money for her own personal wants!" exclaimed Mr. Carlyle.
"Not a halfpenny in the world. And there are no funds, and will be
none, that I can see, for her to draw upon."
"Quite correct, my lord," nodded Mr. Warburton. "The entailed estates
go to you, and what trifling matter of personal property may be left
the creditors will take care of."
"I understand East Lynne is yours," cried the earl, turning sharply
upon Mr. Carlyle; "Isabel has just said so."
"It is," was the reply. "It became mine last June. I believe his
lordship kept the fact a close secret."
"He was obliged to keep it a secret," interposed Mr. Warburton,
addressing Lord Mount Severn, "for not a stiver of the purchase money
could he have fingered had it got wind. Except ourselves and Mr.
Carlyle's agents, the fact was made known to none."
"It is strange, sir, that you could not urge the claims of his child
upon the earl," rejoined the new peer to Mr. Warburton, his tone one
of harsh reproof. "You were in his confidence; you knew the state of
his affairs; it was in your line of duty to do it."
"Knowing the state of his affairs, my lord, we knew how useless the
urging it would be," returned Mr. Warburton. "Your lordship has but a
faint idea of the burdens Lord Mount Severn had upon him. The interest
alone upon his debts was frightful--and the deuce's own work it was to
get it. Not to speak of the kites he let loose; he would fly them, and
nothing could stop him; and they had to be provided for."
"Oh, I know," replied the earl, with a gesture of contempt. "Drawing
one bill to cover another; that was his system."
"Draw!" echoed Mr. Warburton. "He would have drawn a bill on Aldgate
pump. It was a downright mania with him."
"Urged to it by his necessities, I conclude," put in Mr. Carlyle.
"He had no business to have such necessities, sir," cried the earl,
wrathfully. "But let us proceed to business. What money is there lying
at his banker's, Mr. Warburton? Do you know?"
"None," was the blank reply. "We overdrew the account ourselves, a
fortnight ago, to meet one of his pressing liabilities. We hold a
little; and, had he lived a week or two longer, the autumn rents would
have been paid in--though they must have been as quickly paid out
again."
"I'm glad there's something. What is the amount?"
"My lord," answered Mr. Warburton, shaking his head in a self-
condoling manner, "I am sorry to tell you that what we hold will not
half satisfy our own claims; money actually paid out of our pockets."
"Then where on earth is the money to come from, sir? For the funeral--
for the servants' wages--for everything, in fact?"
"There is none to come from anywhere," was the reply of Mr. Warburton.
Lord Mount Severn strode the carpet more fiercely. "Wicked
improvidence! Shameful profligacy; callous-hearted man! To live a
rogue and die a beggar--leaving his daughter to the charity of
strangers!"
"Her case presents the worst feature of the whole," remarked Mr.
Carlyle. "What will she do for a home?"
"She must, of course, find it with me," replied his lordship; "and, I
should hope, a better one than this. With all these debts and duns at
his elbow, Mount Severn's house could not have been a bower of roses."
"I fancy she knew nothing of the state of affairs; had seen little, if
anything, of the embarrassments," returned Mr. Carlyle.
"Nonsense!" said the peer.
"Mr. Carlyle is right, my lord," observed Mr. Warburton, looking over
his spectacles. "Lady Isabel was in safety at Mount Severn till the
spring, and the purchase money from East Lynne--what the earl could
touch of it--was a stop-gap for many things, and made matters easy for
the moment. However, his imprudences are at an end now."
"No, they are not at an end," returned Lord Mount Severn; "they leave
their effects behind them. I hear there was a fine scene yesterday
morning; some of the unfortunate wretches he has taken in made their
appearance here, all the way from town."
"Oh, they are Jews half of them," slightingly spoke Mr. Warburton. "If
they do lose a little, it will be an agreeable novelty to them."
"Jews have as much right to their own as we have, Mr. Warburton," was
the peer's angry reprimand. "And if they were Turks and infidels, it
would not excuse Mount Severn's practices. Isabel says it was you, Mr.
Carlyle, who contrived to get rid of them."
"By convincing them that East Lynne and its furniture belonged to me.
But there are those two men upstairs, in possession of--of him; I
could not get rid of them."
The earl looked at him. "I do not understand you."
"Did you not know that they have seized the corpse?" asked Mr.
Carlyle, dropping his voice. "Two men have been posted over it, like
sentinels, since yesterday morning. And there's a third in the house,
I hear, who relieves each other by turn, that they may go down in the
hall and take their meals."
The earl had halted in his walk and drawn near to Mr. Carlyle, his
mouth open, his face a marvel of consternation. "By George!" was all
Mr. Warburton uttered, and snatched off his glasses.
"Mr. Carlyle, do I understand you aright--that the body of the late
earl has been seized for a debt?" demanded the peer, solemnly. "Seize
a dead body! Am I awake or dreaming?"
"It is what they have done. They got into the room by stratagem."
"Is it possible that transactions so infamous are permitted by our
law?" ejaculated the earl. "Arrest a dead man! I never heard of such a
thing. I am shocked beyond expression. Isabel said something about two
men, I remember; but she was so full of grief and agitation
altogether, that I but half comprehended what she did say upon the
subject. Why, what will be done? Can't we bury him?"
"I fancy not. The housekeeper told me, this morning, she feared they
would not even suffer the coffin to be closed down. And that ought to
be done with all convenient speed."
"It is perfectly horrible!" uttered the earl.
"Who has done it--do you know?" inquired Mr. Warburton.
"Somebody of the name of Anstey," replied Mr. Carlyle. "In the absence
of any member of the family, I took upon myself to pay the chamber a
visit and examine into the men's authority. The claim is about three
thousand pounds."
"If it's Anstey who has done it it is a personal debt of the earl's,
really owing, every pound of it," observed Mr. Warburton. "A sharp
man, though, that Anstey, to hit upon such a scheme."
"And a shameless and a scandalous man," added Lord Mount Severn.
"Well, this is a pretty thing. What's to be done?"
While they consult, let us look for a moment at Lady Isabel. She sat
alone, in great perplexity, indulging the deepest grief. Lord Mount
Severn had intimated to her, kindly and affectionately, that
henceforth she must find her home with him and his wife. Isabel
returned a faint "Thank you" and as soon as he left her, burst into a
paroxysm of rebellious tears. "Have her home with Mrs. Vane!" she
uttered to her own heart; "No, never; rather would she die--rather
would she eat a crust and drink water!" and so on, and so on. Young
demoiselles are somewhat prone to indulge in these flights of fancy;
but they are in most cases impracticable and foolish--exceedingly so
in that of Lady Isabel Vane. Work for their living? It may appear very
feasible in theory; but theory and practice are as opposite as light
and dark. The plain fact was, that Isabel had no alternative whatever,
save that of accepting a home with Lady Mount Severn; and the
conviction that it must be so stole over her spirit, even while her
hasty lips were protesting that she would not.
Two mourners only attended the funeral--the earl and Mr. Carlyle. The
latter was no relative of the deceased, and but a very recent friend;
but the earl had invited him, probably not liking the parading, solus,
his trappings of woe. Some of the county aristocracy were pallbearers,
and many private carriages followed.
All was bustle on the following morning. The earl was to depart, and
Isabel was to depart, but not together. In the course of the day the
domestics would disperse. The earl was speeding to London, and the
chaise to convey him to the railway station at West Lynne was already
at the door when Mr. Carlyle arrived.
"I was getting fidgety fearing you would not be here, for I have
barely five minutes to spare," observed the earl, as he shook hands.
"You are sure you fully understood about the tombstone?"
"Perfectly," replied Mr. Carlyle. "How is Lady Isabel?"
"Very down-hearted, I fear, poor child, for she did not breakfast with
me," replied the earl. "Mason privately told me that she was in a
convulsion of grief. A bad man, a /bad/ man, was Mount Severn," he
emphatically added, as he rose and rang the bell.
"Let Lady Isabel be informed that I am ready to depart, and that I
wait to see her," he said the servant who answered it. "And while she
is coming, Mr. Carlyle," he added, "allow me to express my obligations
to you. How I should have got along in this worrying business without
you, I cannot divine. You have promised, mind, to pay me a visit, and
I shall expect it speedily."
"Promised conditionally--that I find myself in your neighborhood,"
smiled Mr. Carlyle. "Should--"
Isabel entered, dressed also, and ready, for she was to depart
immediately after the earl. Her crape veil was over her face, but she
threw it back.
"My time is up, Isabel, and I must go. Is there anything you wish to
say to me?"
She opened her lips to speak, but glanced at Mr. Carlyle and
hesitated. He was standing at the window, his back towards them.
"I suppose not," said the earl, answering himself, for he was in a
fever of hurry to be off, like many others are when starting on a
journey. "You will have no trouble whatever, my dear; only mind you
get some refreshments in the middle of the day, for you won't be at
Castle Marling before dinner-time. Tell Mrs. Va--tell Lady Mount
Severn that I had no time to write, but will do so from town."
But Isabel stood before him in an attitude of uncertainty--of
expectancy, it may be said, her color varying.
"What is it, you wish to say something?"
She certainly did wish to say something, but she did not know how. It
was a moment of embarrassment to her, intensely painful, and the
presence of Mr. Carlyle did not tend to lessen it. The latter had no
idea his absence was wished for.
"Bless me, Isabel! I declare I forgot all about it," cried the earl,
in a tone of vexation. "Not being accustomed to--this aspect of
affairs is so new--" He broke off his disjointed sentences, unbuttoned
his coat, drew out his purse, and paused over its contents.
"Isabel, I have run myself very short, and have but little beyond what
will take me to town. You must make three pounds do for now, my dear.
Once at Castle Marling--Pound has the funds for the journey--Lady
Mount Severn will supply you; but you must tell her, or she will not
know."
He shot some gold out of his purse as he spoke, and left two
sovereigns and two half sovereigns on the table. "Farewell, my dear;
make yourself happy at Castle Marling. I shall be home soon."
Passing from the room with Mr. Carlyle, he stood talking with that
gentleman a minute, his foot on the step of the chaise, and the next
was being whisked away. Mr. Carlyle returned to the breakfast-room,
where Isabel, an ashy whiteness having replaced the crimson on her
cheeks, was picking up the gold.
"Will you do me a favor, Mr. Carlyle?"
"I will do anything I can for you."
She pushed a sovereign and a half toward him. "It is for Mr. Kane. I
told Marvel to send in and pay him, but it seems she forgot it, or put
it off, and he is not paid. The tickets were a sovereign; the rest is
for tuning the piano. Will you kindly give it him? If I trust one of
the servants it may be forgotten again in the hurry of their
departure."
"Kane's charge for tuning a piano is five shillings," remarked Mr.
Carlyle.
"But he was a long time occupied with it, and did something with the
leathers. It is not too much; besides I never ordered him anything to
eat. He wants money even worse than I do," she added, with a poor
attempt at a smile. "But for thinking of him I should not have
mustered the courage to beg of Lord Mount Severn, as you have just
heard me do. In that case do you know what I should have done?"
"What should you have done?" he smiled.
"I should have asked you to pay him for me, and I would have repaid
you as soon as I had any money. I had a great mind to ask you, do you
know; it would have been less painful than being obliged to beg of
Lord Mount Severn."
"I hope it would," he answered, in a low, earnest tone. "What else can
I do for you?"
She was about to answer "Nothing--that he had done enough," but at
that moment their attention was attracted by a bustle outside, and
they moved to the window.
It was the carriage coming round for Lady Isabel--the late earl's
chariot, which was to convey her to the railway station six or seven
miles off. It had four post-horses to it, the number having been
designated by Lord Mount Severn, who appeared to wish Isabel to leave
the neighborhood in as much state as she had entered it. The carriage
was packed, and Marvel was perched outside.
"All is ready," she said, "and the time is come for me to go. Mr.
Carlyle I am going to leave you a legacy--those pretty gold and silver
fish that I bought a few weeks back."
"But why do you not take them?"
"Take them to Lady Mount Severn! No, I would rather leave them with
you. Throw a few crumbs into the globe now and then."
Her face was wet with tears, and he knew that she was talking
hurriedly to cover her emotion.
"Sit down a few minutes," he said.
"No--no. I had better go at once."
He took her hand to conduct her to the carriage. The servants were
gathered in the hall, waiting for her. Some had grown gray in her
father's service. She put out her hand, she strove to say a word of
thanks and of farewell, and she thought she would choke at the effort
of keeping down the sobs. At length it was over; a kind look around, a
yearning wave of the hand, and she passed on with Mr. Carlyle.
Pound had ascended to his place by Marvel, and the postboys were
awaiting the signal to start, but Mr. Carlyle had the carriage door
open again, and was bending in holding her hand.
"I have not said a word of thanks to you for all your kindness, Mr.
Carlyle," she cried, her breath very labored. "I am sure you have seen
that I could not."
"I wish I could have done more; I wish I could have shielded you from
the annoyances you have been obliged to endure!" he answered. "Should
we never meet again--"
"Oh, but we shall meet again," she interrupted. "You promised Lord
Mount Severn."
"True; we may so meet casually--once in a way; but our ordinary paths
in life lie far and wide apart. God forever bless you, dear Lady
Isabel!"
The postboys touched their horses, and the carriage sped on. She drew
down the blinds and leaned back in an agony of tears--tears for the
house she was leaving, for the father she had lost. Her last thoughts
had been of gratitude to Mr. Carlyle: but she had more cause to be
grateful to him than she yet knew of. Emotion soon spent itself, and,
as her eyes cleared, she saw a bit of crumpled paper lying on her lap,
which appeared to have fallen from her hand. Mechanically she took it
up and opened it; it was a bank-note for one hundred pounds.
Ah, reader! You will say that this is a romance of fiction, and a far-
fetched one, but it is verily and indeed true. Mr. Carlyle had taken
it with him to East Lynne, that morning, with its destined purpose.
Lady Isabel strained her eyes, and gazed at the note--gazed and gazed
again. Where could it have come from? What had brought it there?
Suddenly the undoubted truth flashed upon her; Mr. Carlyle had left it
in her hand.
Her cheeks burned, her fingers trembled, her angry spirit rose up in
arms. In that first moment of discovery, she was ready to resent it as
an insult; but when she came to remember the sober facts of the last
few days, her anger subsided into admiration of his wondrous kindness.
Did he not know that she was without a home to call her own, without
money--absolutely without money, save what would be given her in
charity?
When Lord Mount Severn reached London, and the hotel which the Vanes
were in the habit of using, the first object his eyes lighted on was
his own wife, whom he had believed to be safe at Castle Marling. He
inquired the cause.
Lady Mount Severn gave herself little trouble to explain. She had been
up a day or two--could order her mourning so much better in person--
and William did not seem well, so she bought him up for a change.
"I am sorry you came to town, Emma," remarked the earl, after
listening. "Isabel is gone to-day to Castle Marling."
Lady Mount Severn quickly lifted her head, "What's she gone there
for?"
"It is the most disgraceful piece of business altogether," returned
the earl, without replying to the immediate question. "Mount Severn
has died, worse than a beggar, and there's not a shilling for Isabel."
"It never was expected there would be much."
"But there's nothing--not a penny; nothing for her own personal
expenses. I gave her a pound or two to-day, for she was completely
destitute!"
The countess opened her eyes. "Where will she live? What will become
of her?"
"She must live with us. She--"
"With us!" interrupted Lady Mount Severn, her voice almost reaching a
scream. "That she never shall."
"She must, Emma. There is nowhere else for her to live. I have been
obliged to decide it so; and she is gone, as I tell you, to Castle
Marling to-day."
Lady Mount Severn grew pale with anger. She rose from her seat and
confronted her husband, the table being between them. "Listen,
Raymond; I /will not/ have Isabel Vane under my roof. I hate her. How
could you be cajoled into sanctioning such a thing?"
"I was not cajoled, and my sanction was not asked," he mildly replied.
"I proposed it. Where else is she to be?"
"I don't care where," was the obstinate retort. "Never with us."
"She is at Castle Marling now--gone to it as her home," resumed the
earl; "and even you, when you return, will scarcely venture to turn
her out again into the road, or to the workhouse. She will not trouble
you long," carelessly continued the earl. "One so lovely as Isabel
will be sure to marry early; and she appears as gentle and sweet-
tempered a girl as I ever saw; so whence can arise your dislike to
her, I don't pretend to guess. Many a man will be ready to forget her
want of fortune for the sake of her face."
"She shall marry the first who asks her," snapped the angry lady;
"I'll take care of that."
CHAPTER XII.
LIFE AT CASTLE MARLING.
Isabel had been in her new home about ten days, when Lord and Lady
Mount Severn arrived at Castle Marling, which was not a castle, you
may as well be told, but only the name of a town, nearly contiguous to
which was their residence, a small estate. Lord Mount Severn welcomed
Isabel; Lady Mount Severn also, after a fashion; but her manner was so
repellant, so insolently patronizing, that it brought the indignant
crimson to the cheeks of Lady Isabel. And if this was the case at the
first meeting, what do you suppose it must have been as time went on?
Galling slights, petty vexations, chilling annoyances were put upon
her, trying her powers of endurance to the very length of their
tether; she would wring her hands when alone, and passionately wish
that she could find another refuge.
The earl and countess had two children, both boys, and in February the
younger one, always a delicate child, died. This somewhat altered
their plans. Instead of proceeding to London after Easter, as had been
decided upon, they would not go till May. The earl had passed part of
the winter at Mount Severn, looking after the repairs and renovations
that were being made there. In March he went to Paris, full of grief
for the loss of his boy--far greater grief than was experienced by
Lady Mount Severn.
April approached and with it Easter. To the unconcealed dismay of Lady
Mount Severn, her grandmother, Mrs. Levison, wrote her word that she
required change, and should pass Easter with her at Castle Marling.
Lady Mount Severn would have given her diamonds to have got out of it,
but there was no escape--diamonds that were once Isabel's--at least,
that Isabel had worn. On the Monday in Passion Week the old lady
arrived, and with her Francis Levison. They had no other guests.
Things went on pretty smoothly till Good Friday.
On Good Friday afternoon, Isabel strolled out with little William
Vane; Captain Levison joined them, and they never came in till nearly
dinner-time, when the three entered together, Lady Mount Severn doing
penance all the time, and nursing her rage against Isabel, for Mrs.
Levison kept her indoors. There was barely time to dress for dinner,
and Isabel went straight to her room. Her dress was off, her dressing-
gown on. Marvel was busy with her hair, and William chattering at her
knee, when the door was flung open, and my lady entered.
"Where have you been?" demanded she, shaking with passion. Isabel knew
the signs.
"Strolling about in the shrubberies and grounds," answered Isabel.
"How dare you so disgrace yourself!"
"I do not understand you," said Isabel, her heart beginning to beat
unpleasantly. "Marvel, you are pulling my hair."
When women liable to intemperate fits of passion give the reins to
them, they neither know nor care what they say. Lady Mount Severn
broke into a torrent of reproach and abuses, most degrading and
unjustifiable.
"Is it not sufficient that you are allowed an asylum in my house, but
you must also disgrace it! Three hours have you been hiding yourself
with Francis Levison! You have done nothing but flirt with him from
the moment he came; you did nothing else at Christmas."
The attack was longer and broader, but that was the substance of it,
and Isabel was goaded to resistance, to anger little less great than
that of the countess. This!--and before her attendant! She, an earl's
daughter, so much better born than Emma Mount Severn, to be thus
insultingly accused in the other's mad jealousy. Isabel tossed her
hair from the hands of Marvel, rose up and confronted the countess,
constraining her voice to calmness.
"I do not flirt!" she said; "I have never flirted. I leave that"--and
she could not wholly suppress in tone the scorn she felt--"to married
women; though it seems to me that it is a fault less venial in them
than in single ones. There is but one inmate of this house who flirts,
so far as I have seen since I have lived in it; is it you or I, Lady
Mount Severn?"
The home truth told on her ladyship. She turned white with rage,
forgot her manners, and, raising her right hand, struck Isabel a
stinging blow upon the left cheek. Confused and terrified, Isabel
stood in pain, and before she could speak or act, my lady's left hand
was raised to the other cheek, and a blow left on that. Lady Isabel
shivered as with a sudden chill, and cried out--a sharp, quick cry--
covered her outraged face, and sank down upon the dressing chair.
Marvel threw up her hands in dismay, and William Vane could not have
burst into a louder roar had he been beaten himself. The boy--he was
of a sensitive nature--was frightened.
My good reader, are you one of the inexperienced ones who borrow
notions of "fashionable life" from the novels got in a library, taking
their high-flown contents for gospel, and religiously believing that
lords and ladies live upon stilts, speak, eat, move, breathe, by the
rules of good-breeding only? Are you under the delusion--too many are
--that the days of dukes and duchesses are spent discussing "pictures,
tastes, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses?"--that they are strung
on polite wires of silver, and can't get off the hinges, never giving
vent to angry tempers, to words unorthodox, as commonplace mortals do?
That will come to pass when the Great Creator shall see fit to send
men into the world free from baneful tempers, evil passions, from the
sins bequeathed from the fall of Adam.
Lady Mount Severn finished up the scene by boxing William for his
noise, jerked him out of the room, and told him he was a monkey.
Isabel Vane lived through the livelong night, weeping tears of anguish
and indignation. She would not remain at Castle Marling--who would,
after so great an outrage? Yet where was she to go? Fifty times in the
course of the night did she wish that she was laid beside her father,
for her feelings obtained the mastery of her reason; in her calm
moments she would have shrunk from the idea of death as the young and
healthy must do.
She rose on the Saturday morning weak and languid, the effects of the
night of grief, and Marvel brought her breakfast up. William Vane
stole into her room afterward; he was attached to her in a remarkable
degree.
"Mamma's going out," he exclaimed, in the course of the morning.
"Look, Isabel."
Isabel went to the window. Lady Mount Severn was in the pony carriage,
Francis Levison driving.
"We can go down now, Isabel, nobody will be there."
She assented, and went down with William; but scarcely were they in
the drawing-room when a servant entered with a card on a salver.
"A gentleman, my lady, wishes to see you."
"To see me!" returned Isabel, in surprise, "or Lady Mount Severn?"
"He asked for you, my lady."
She took up the card. "Mr. Carlyle." "Oh!" she uttered, in a tone of
joyful surprise, "show him in."
It is curious, nay, appalling, to trace the thread in a human life;
how the most trivial occurrences lead to the great events of
existence, bringing forth happiness or misery, weal or woe. A client
of Mr. Carlyle's, travelling from one part of England to the other,
was arrested by illness at Castle Marling--grave illness, it appeared
to be, inducing fears of death. He had not, as the phrase goes,
settled his affairs, and Mr. Carlyle was telegraphed for in haste, to
make his will, and for other private matters. A very simple occurrence
it appeared to Mr. Carlyle, this journey, and yet it was destined to
lead to events that would end only with his own life.
Mr. Carlyle entered, unaffected and gentlemanly as ever, with his
noble form, his attractive face, and his drooping eyelids. She
advanced to meet him, holding out her hand, her countenance betraying
her pleasure.
"This is indeed unexpected," she exclaimed. "How very pleased I am to
see you."
"Business brought me yesterday to Castle Marling. I could not leave it
again without calling on you. I hear that Lord Mount Severn is
absent."
"He is in France," she rejoined. "I said we should be sure to meet
again; do you remember, Mr. Carlyle? You----"
Isabel suddenly stopped; for with the word "remember," she also
remembered something--the hundred pound note--and what she was saying
faltered on her tongue. Confused, indeed, grew she: for, alas! she had
changed and partly spent it. /How/ was it possible to ask Lady Mount
Severn for money? And the earl was nearly always away. Mr. Carlyle saw
her embarrassment, though he may not have detected its cause.
"What a fine boy!" exclaimed he, looking at the child.
"It is Lord Vane," said Isabel.
"A truthful, earnest spire, I am sure," he continued, gazing at his
open countenance. "How old are you, my little man?"
"I am six, sir; and my brother was four."
Isabel bent over the child--an excuse to cover her perplexity. "You do
not know this gentleman, William. It is Mr. Carlyle, and he has been
very kind to me."
The little lord had turned his thoughtful eyes on Mr. Carlyle,
apparently studying his countenance. "I shall like you, sir, if you
are kind to Isabel. Are you kind to her?"
"Very, very kind," murmured Lady Isabel, leaving William, and turning
to Mr. Carlyle, but not looking at him. "I don't know what to say; I
ought to thank you. I did not intend to use the--to use it; but I--
I--"
"Hush!" he interrupted, laughing at her confusion. "I do not know what
you are talking of. I have a great misfortune to break to you, Lady
Isabel."
She lifted her eyes and her glowing cheeks, somewhat aroused from her
own thoughts.
"Two of your fish are dead. The gold ones."
"Are they?"
"I believe it was the frost killed them; I don't know what else it
could have been. You may remember those bitter days we had in January;
they died then."
"You are very good to take care of them all this while. How is East
Lynne looking? Dear East Lynne! Is it occupied?"
"Not yet. I have spent some money upon it, and it repays the outlay."
The excitement of his arrival had worn off, and she was looking
herself again, pale and sad; he could not help observing that she was
changed.
"I cannot expect to look so well at Castle Marling as I did at East
Lynne," she answered.
"I trust it is a happy home to you?" said Mr. Carlyle, speaking upon
impulse.
She glanced up at him a look that he would never forget; it certainly
told of despair. "No," she said, shaking her head, "it is a miserable
home, and I cannot remain in it. I have been awake all night, thinking
where I can go, but I cannot tell; I have not a friend in the wide
world."
Never let people talk secrets before children, for be assured that
they comprehend a vast deal more than is expedient; the saying "that
little pitchers have great ears" is wonderfully true. Lord Vane held
up his hand to Mr. Carlyle,--
"Isabel told me this morning that she should go away from us. Shall I
tell you why? Mamma beat her yesterday when she was angry."
"Be quiet, William!" interrupted Lady Isabel, her face in a flame.
"Two great slaps upon her cheeks," continued the young viscount; "and
Isabel cried so, and I screamed, and then mamma hit me. But boys are
made to be hit; nurse says so. Marvel came into the nursery when we
were at tea, and told nurse about it. She says Isabel's too good-
looking, and that's why mamma--"
Isabel stopped the child's tongue, rang a peal on the bell, and
marched him to the door, dispatching him to the nursery by the servant
who answered it.
Mr. Carlyle's eyes were full of indignant sympathy. "Can this be
true?" he asked, in a low tone when she returned to him. "You do,
indeed, want a friend."
"I must bear my lot," she replied, obeying the impulse which prompted
her to confide in Mr. Carlyle; "at least till Lord Mount Severn
returns."
"And then?"
"I really do not know," she said, the rebellious tears rising faster
than she could choke them down. "He has no other home to offer me; but
with Lady Mount Severn I cannot and will not remain. She would break
my heart, as she has already well-nigh broken my spirit. I have not
deserved it of her, Mr. Carlyle."
"No, I am sure you have not," he warmly answered. "I wish I could help
you! What can I do?"
"You can do nothing," she said. "What can any one do?"
"I wish, I wish I could help you!" he repeated. "East Lynne was not,
take it for all in all, a pleasant home to you, but it seems you
changed for the worse when you left."
"Not a pleasant home?" she echoed, its reminiscences appearing
delightful in that moment, for it must be remembered that all things
are estimated by comparison. "Indeed it was; I may never have so
pleasant a one again. Mr. Carlyle, do not disparage East Lynne to me!
Would I could awake and find the last few months but a hideous dream!
--that I could find my dear father alive again!--that we were still
living peacefully at East Lynne. It would be a very Eden to me now."
What was Mr. Carlyle about to say? What emotion was it that agitated
his countenance, impeded his breath, and dyed his face blood-red? His
better genius was surely not watching over him, or those words had
never been spoken.
"There is but one way," he began, taking her hand and nervously
playing with it, probably unconscious that he did so; "only one way in
which you could return to East Lynne. And that way--I may not presume,
perhaps, to point it out."
She looked at him and waited for an explanation.
"If my words offend you, Lady Isabel, check them, as their presumption
deserves, and pardon me. May I--dare I--offer you to return to East
Lynne as its mistress?"
She did not comprehend him in the slightest degree: the drift of his
meaning never dawned upon her. "Return to East Lynne as its mistress?"
she repeated, in bewilderment.
"And as my wife?"
No possibility of misunderstanding him now, and the shock and surprise
were great. She had stood there by Mr. Carlyle's side conversing
confidentially with him, esteeming him greatly, feeling as if he were
her truest friend on earth, clinging to him in her heart as to a
powerful haven of refuge, loving him almost as she would a brother,
suffering her hand to remain in his. /But to be his wife!/ the idea
had never presented itself to her in any shape until this moment, and
her mind's first emotion was one of entire opposition, her first
movement to express it, as she essayed to withdraw herself and her
hand away from him.
But not so; Mr. Carlyle did not suffer it. He not only retained that
hand, but took the other also, and spoke, now the ice was broken,
eloquent words of love. Not unmeaning phrases of rhapsody, about
hearts and darts and dying for her, such as somebody else might have
given utterance to, but earnest-hearted words of deep tenderness,
calculated to win upon the mind's good sense, as well as upon the ear
and heart; and it may be that, had her imagination not been filled up
with that "somebody else," she would have said "Yes," there and then.
They were suddenly interrupted. Lady Mount Severn entered, and took in
the scene at a glance; Mr. Carlyle's bent attitude of devotion, his
imprisonment of the hands, and Isabel's perplexed and blushing
countenance. She threw up her head and her little inquisitive nose,
and stopped short on the carpet; her freezing looks demanded an
explanation, as plainly as looks can do it. Mr. Carlyle turned to her,
and by way of sparing Isabel, proceeded to introduce himself. Isabel
had just presence of mind left to name her: "Lady Mount Severn."
"I am sorry that Lord Mount Severn should be absent, to whom I have
the honor of being known," he said. "I am Mr. Carlyle."
"I have heard of you," replied her ladyship, scanning his good looks,
and feeling cross that his homage should be given where she saw it was
given, "but I had /not/ heard that you and Lady Isabel Vane were on
the extraordinary terms of intimacy that--that----"
"Madam," he interrupted as he handed a chair to her ladyship and took
another himself, "we have never yet been on terms of extraordinary
intimacy. I was begging the Lady Isabel to grant that we may be; I was
asking her to become my wife."
The avowal was as a shower of incense to the countess, and her ill
humor melted into sunshine. It was a solution to her great difficulty,
a loophole by which she might get rid of her /bete noire/, the hated
Isabel. A flush of gratification lighted her face, and she became full
of graciousness to Mr. Carlyle.
"How very grateful Isabel must feel to you," quoth she. "I speak
openly, Mr. Carlyle, because I know that you were cognizant of the
unprotected state in which she was left by the earl's improvidence,
putting marriage for her, at any rate, a high marriage, nearly out of
the question. East Lynne is a beautiful place, I have heard."
"For its size; it is not large," replied Mr. Carlyle, as he rose for
Isabel had also risen and was coming forward.
"And pray what is Lady Isabel's answer?" quickly asked the countess,
turning to her.
Not to her did Isabel condescend to give an answer, but she approached
Mr. Carlyle, and spoke in a low tone.
"Will you give me a few hours for consideration?"
"I am only too happy that you should accord it consideration, for it
speaks to me of hope," was his reply, as he opened the door for her to
pass out. "I will be here again this afternoon."
It was a perplexing debate that Lady Isabel held with herself in the
solitude of her chamber, whilst Mr. Carlyle touched upon ways and
means to Lady Mount Severn. Isabel was little more than a child, and
as a child she reasoned, looking neither far nor deep: the shallow
palpable aspect of affairs alone presenting itself to her view. That
Mr. Carlyle was not of rank equal to her own, she scarcely remembered;
East Lynne seemed a very fair settlement in life, and in point of
size, beauty and importance, it was far superior to the house she was
now in. She forgot that her position in East Lynne as Mr. Carlyle's
wife would not be what it had been as Lord Mount Severn's daughter;
she forgot that she would be tied to a quiet house, shut out from the
great world, the pomps and vanities to which she was born. She liked
Mr. Carlyle much; she experienced pleasure in conversing with him; she
liked to be with him; in short, but for that other ill-omened fancy
which had crept over her, there would have been danger of her falling
in love with Mr. Carlyle. And oh! to be removed forever from the
bitter dependence on Lady Mount Severn--East Lynne would in truth,
after that, seem what she had called it: Eden.
"So far it looks favorable," mentally exclaimed poor Isabel, "but
there is the other side of the question. It is not only that I do not
love Mr. Carlyle, but I fear I do love, or very nearly love, Francis
Levison. I wish /he/ would ask me to be his wife!--or that I had never
seen him."
Isabel's soliloquy was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Levison and
the countess. What the latter had said to the old lady to win her to
the cause, was best known to herself, but she was eloquent in it. They
both used every possible argument to induce her to accept Mr. Carlyle:
the old lady declaring that she had never been introduced to any one
she was so much taken with, and Mrs. Levison was incapable of
asserting what was not true; that he was worth a dozen empty-headed
men of the great world.
Isabel listened, now swayed one way, now the other, and when afternoon
came, her head was aching with perplexity. The stumbling block that
she could not get over was Francis Levison. She saw Mr. Carlyle
approach from her window, and went down to the drawing-room, not in
the least knowing what her answer was to be; a shadowy idea was
presenting itself, that she would ask him for longer time, and write
her answer.
In the drawing-room was Francis Levison, and her heart beat wildly;
which said beating might have convinced her that she ought not to
marry another.
"Where have you been hiding yourself?" cried he. "Did you hear of our
mishap with the pony carriage?"
"No," was her answer.
"I was driving Emma into town. The pony took fright, kicked, plunged
and went down upon his knees; she took fright in turn, got out, and
walked back. So I gave the brute some chastisement and a race, and
brought him to the stables, getting home in time to be introduced to
Mr. Carlyle. He seems an out-and-out good fellow, Isabel, and I
congratulate you."
"What!" she uttered.
"Don't start. We are all in the family, and my lady told; I won't
betray it abroad. She says East Lynne is a place to be coveted; I wish
you happiness, Isabel."
"Thank you," she returned in a sarcastic tone, though her throat beat
and her lips quivered. "You are premature in your congratulations,
Captain Levison."
"Am I? Keep my good wishes, then, till the right man comes. I am
beyond the pale myself, and dare not think of entering the happy
state," he added, in a pointed tone. "I have indulged dreams of it,
like others, but I cannot afford to indulge them seriously; a poor
man, with uncertain prospects can only play the butterfly, perhaps to
his life's end."
He quitted the room as he spoke. It was impossible for Isabel to
misunderstand him, but a feeling shot across her mind, for the first
time, that he was false and heartless. One of the servants appeared,
showing in Mr. Carlyle; nothing false or heartless about /him/. He
closed the door, and approached her, but she did not speak, and her
lips were white and trembling. Mr. Carlyle waited.
"Well," he said at length, in a gentle tone, "have you decided to
grant my prayer?"
"Yes. But--" She could not go on. What with one agitation and another,
she had difficulty in conquering her emotion. "But--I was going to
tell you----"
"Presently," he whispered, leading her to a sofa, "we can both afford
to wait now. Oh, Isabel, you have made me very happy!"
"I ought to tell you, I must tell you," she began again, in the midst
of hysterical tears. "Though I have said 'yes' to your proposal, I do
not--yet---- It has come upon me by surprise," she stammered. "I like
you very much; I esteem and respect you; but I do not love you."
"I should wonder if you did. But you will let me earn your love,
Isabel?"
"Oh, yes," she earnestly answered. "I hope so."
He drew her closer to him, bent his face, and took from her lips his
first kiss. Isabel was passive; she supposed he had gained the right
to do so. "My dearest! It is all I ask."
CHAPTER XIII.
A MOONLIGHT WALK.
The sensations of Mr. Carlyle, when he returned to West Lynne, were
much like those of an Eton boy, who knows he has been in mischief, and
dreads detection. Always open as to his own affairs--for he had
nothing to conceal--he yet deemed it expedient to dissemble now. He
felt that his sister would be bitter at the prospect of his marrying;
instinct had taught him that, years past; and he believed that, of all
women, the most objectionable to her would be Lady Isabel, for Miss
Carlyle looked to the useful, and had neither sympathy nor admiration
for the beautiful. He was not sure but she might be capable of
endeavoring to frustrate the marriage should news of it reach her
ears, and her indomitable will had caused many strange things in her
life; therefore, you will not blame Mr. Carlyle for observing entire
reticence as to his future plans.
A family of the name of Carew had been about taking East Lynne; they
wished to rent it, furnished, for three years. Upon some of the minor
arrangements they and Mr. Carlyle were opposed, but the latter
declined to give way. During his absence at Castle Marling, news had
arrived from them--they had acceded to all his terms, and would enter
upon East Lynne as soon as it was convenient. Miss Carlyle was full of
congratulations; it was off their hands, she said; but the fist letter
Mr. Carlyle wrote was--to decline them. He did not tell this to Miss
Carlyle. The final touches to the house were given, preparatory to the
reception of its inhabitants, and three maids and two men servants
hired and sent there, upon board wages, until the family should
arrive.
One evening three weeks subsequent to Mr. Carlyle's visit to Castle
Marling, Barbara Hare called at Miss Carlyle's, and found them going
to tea much earlier than usual.
"We dined earlier," said Miss Corny, "and I ordered tea as soon as the
dinner went away. Otherwise, Archibald would have taken none."
"I am as well without tea. And I have a mass of business to get
through yet."
"You are not as well without it," cried Miss Corny, "and I don't
choose you should go without it. Take off your bonnet, Barbara. He
does things like nobody else; he is off to Castle Marling to-morrow,
and never could open his lips till just now that he was going."
"Is that invalid--Brewster, or whatever his name is--laid up at Castle
Marling, still?" exclaimed Barbara.
"He is still there," said Mr. Carlyle.
Barbara sprang up the moment tea was over.
"Dill is waiting for me in the office, and I have some hours' work
before me. However, I suppose you won't care to put up with Peter's
attendance, so make haste with your bonnet, Barbara."
She took his arm, and they walked on, Mr. Carlyle striking the hedge
and the grass with her parasol. Another minute, and the handle was in
two.
"I thought you would do it," said Barbara, while he was regarding the
parasol with ludicrous dismay. "Never mind, it is an old one."
"I will bring you another to replace it. What is the color? Brown. I
won't forget. Hold the relics a minute, Barbara."
He put the pieces in her hand, and taking out a note case, made a note
in pencil.
"What's that for?" she inquired.
He held it close to her eyes, that she might discern what he had
written: "Brown parasol. B. H."
"A reminder for me, Barbara, in case I forget."
Barbara's eyes detected another item or two already entered in the
note case: "piano," "plate."
"I jot down the things as they occur to me, that I must get in
London," he explained. "Otherwise I should forget half."
"In London? I thought you were going in an opposite direction--to
Castle Marling?"
It was a slip of the tongue, but Mr. Carlyle repaired it.
"I may probably have to visit London as well as Castle Marling. How
bright the moon looks rising there, Barbara!"
"So bright--that or the sky--that I saw your secret," answered she.
"Piano! Plate! What can you want with either, Archibald?"
"They are for East Lynne," he quietly replied.
"Oh, for the Carews." And Barbara's interest in the item was gone.
They turned into the road just below the grove, and reached it. Mr.
Carlyle held the gate open for Barbara.
"You will come in and say good-night to mamma. She was saying to-day
what a stranger you have made of yourself lately."
"I have been busy; and I really have not the time to-night. You must
remember me to her instead." And cordially shaking her by the hand, he
closed the gate.
It was two or three mornings after the departure of Mr. Carlyle that
Mr. Dill appeared before Miss Carlyle, bearing a letter. She was busy
regarding the effect of some new muslin curtains, just put up, and did
not pay attention to him.
"Will you please take the letter, Miss Cornelia? The postman left it
in the office with ours. It is from Mr. Archibald."
"Why, what has he got to write to me about?" retorted Miss Corny.
"Does he say when he is coming home?"
"You had better see, Miss Cornelia. Mine does not."
"CASTLE MARLING, May 1st.
"MY DEAR CORNELIA--I was married this morning to Lady Isabel Vane,
and hasten briefly to acquaint you with the fact. I will write you
more fully to-morrow or the next day, and explain all things.
"Your ever affectionate brother,
"ARCHIBALD CARLYLE."
"It is a hoax," was the first gutteral sound that escaped from Miss
Carlyle's throat when speech came to her.
Mr. Dill only stood like a stone image.
"It is a hoax, I say," raved Miss Carlyle. "What are you standing
there for, like a gander on one leg?" she reiterated, venting her
anger upon the unoffending man. "/Is/ it a hoax or not?"
"I am overdone with amazement, Miss Corny. It is not a hoax; I have
had a letter, too."
"It can't be true--it /can't/ be true. He had no more thought of being
married when he left here, three days ago, than I have."
"How can we tell that, Miss Corny? How are we to know he did not go to
be married? I fancy he did."
"Go to be married!" shrieked Miss Corny, in a passion. "He would not
be such a fool. And to that fine lady-child! No--no."
"He has sent this to be put in the county journals," said Mr. Dill,
holding forth a scrap of paper. "They are married, safe enough."
Miss Carlyle took it and held it before her: her hand was cold as ice,
and shook as if with palsy.
"MARRIED.--On the 1st inst., at Castle Marling, by the chaplain to
the Earl of Mount Severn, Archibald Carlyle, Esquire, of East
Lynne, to the Lady Isabel Mary Vane, only child of William, late
Earl of Mount Severn."
Miss Carlyle tore the paper to atoms and scattered it. Mr. Dill
afterward made copies from memory, and sent them to the journal
offices. But let that pass.
"I will never forgive him," she deliberately uttered, "and I will
never forgive or tolerate her."
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EARL'S ASTONISHMENT.
The announcement of the marriage in the newspapers was the first
intimation of it Lord Mount Severn received. He was little less
thunderstruck than Miss Corny, and came steaming to England the same
day, thereby missing his wife's letter, which gave /her/ version of
the affair. He met Mr. Carlyle and Lady Isabel in London, where they
were staying at one of the west-end hotels--only for a day or two,
however, for they were going further. Isabel was alone when the earl
was announced.
"What is the meaning of this, Isabel?" began he, without the
circumlocution of greeting. "You are married?"
"Yes," she answered, with her pretty, innocent blush. "Some time ago."
"And to Carlyle, the lawyer! How did it come about?"
Isabel began to think how it did come about, sufficiently to give a
clear answer. "He asked me," she said, "and I accepted him. He came to
Castle Marling at Easter, and asked me then. I was very much
surprised."
The earl looked at her attentively. "Why was I kept in ignorance of
this, Isabel?"
"I did not know you were kept in ignorance of it. Mr. Carlyle wrote to
you, as did Lady Mount Severn."
Lord Mount Severn was a man in the dark, and looked like it. "I
suppose this comes," soliloquized he, aloud, "of your father's having
allowed the gentleman to dance daily attendance at East Lynne. And so
you fell in love with him."
"Indeed, no!" answered she, in an amused tone. "I never thought of
such a thing as falling in love with Mr. Carlyle."
"Then don't you love him?" abruptly asked the earl.
'No!" she whispered, timidly; "but I like him much--oh, very much! And
he is so good to me!"
The earl stroked his chin and mused. Isabel had destroyed the only
reasonable conclusion he had been able to come to as to the motives
for the hasty marriage. "If you do not love Mr. Carlyle, how comes it
that you are so wise in the distinction between 'liking' and 'love?'
It cannot be that you love anybody else?"
The question turned home, and Isabel turned crimson. "I shall love my
husband in time," was all she answered, as she bent her head, and
played nervously with her watch chain.
"My poor child!" involuntarily exclaimed the earl. But he was one who
liked to fathom the depth of everything. "Who has been staying at
Castle Marling since I left?" he asked sharply.
"Mrs. Levison came down."
"I alluded to gentlemen--young men."
"Only Francis Levison," she replied.
"Francis Levison! You have never been so foolish as to fall in love
with /him/?"
The question was so pointed, so abrupt, and Isabel's self-
consciousness, moreover, so great, that she betrayed lamentable
confusion, and the earl had no further need to ask. Pity stole into
his hard eyes as they fixed themselves on her downcast, glowing face.
"Isabel," he gravely began, "Captain Levison is not a good man; if
ever you were inclined to think him one, dispossess your mind of the
idea, and hold him at arm's distance. Drop his acquaintance--encourage
no intimacy with him."
"I have already dropped it," said Isabel, "and I shall not take it up
again. But Lady Mount Severn must think well of him, or she would not
have him there."
"She thinks none too well of him; none can of Francis Levison,"
returned the earl significantly.
Before Isabel could reply, Mr. Carlyle entered. He held out his hand
to the earl; the earl did not appear to see it.
"Isabel," said he, "I am sorry to turn you out, but I suppose you have
but this one sitting-room. I wish to say a few words to Mr. Carlyle."
She quitted them, and the earl wheeled round and faced Mr. Carlyle,
speaking in a stern, haughty tone.
"How came this marriage about, sir? Do you possess so little honor,
that, taking advantage of my absence, you must intrude yourself into
my family, and clandestinely espouse Lady Isabel Vane?"
Mr. Carlyle stood confounded, and confused. He drew himself up to his
full height, looking every whit as fearless and far more noble than
the peer. "My lord, I do not understand you."
"Yet I speak plainly. What is it but a clandestine procedure to take
advantage of a guardian's absence and beguile a young girl into a
marriage beneath her?"
"There has been nothing clandestine in my conduct toward Lady Isabel
Vane; there shall be nothing but honor in my conduct toward Lady
Isabel Carlyle. Your lordship has been misinformed."
"I have not been informed at all," retorted the earl. "I was allowed
to learn this from the public papers--I, the only relative of Lady
Isabel."
"When I proposed for Lady Isabel--"
"But a month ago," sarcastically interrupted the earl.
"But a month ago," calmly repeated Mr. Carlyle, "my first action,
after Isabel accepted me, was to write to you. But that I imagine you
may not have received the letter, by stating you first heard of our
marriage through the papers, I should say, the want of courtesy lay on
your lordship's side for having vouchsafed me no reply to it."
"What were the contents of the letter?"
"I stated what had occurred, mentioning what I was able to do in the
way of settlements, and also that both Isabel and myself wished the
ceremony to take place as soon as might be."
"And pray where did you address the letter?"
"Lady Mount Severn could not give me the address. She said if I would
intrust the letter to her, she would forward it with the rest she
wrote, for she expected daily to hear from you. I did give her the
letter, and I heard no more of the matter, except that her ladyship
sent me a message when Isabel was writing to me, that as you had
returned no reply, you of course approved."
"Is this the fact?" cried the earl.
"My lord," coldly replied Mr. Carlyle, "whatever may be my defects in
your eyes, I am at least a man of truth. Until this moment, the
suspicion that you were in ignorance of the contemplated marriage
never occurred to me."
"So far, then, I beg your pardon, Mr. Carlyle. But how came the
marriage about at all--how came it to be hurried over in this unseemly
fashion? You made the offer at Easter, Isabel tells me, and you
married her three weeks after it."
"And I would have married her and brought her away with me the day I
did make it, had it been practicable," returned Mr. Carlyle. "I have
acted throughout for her comfort and happiness."
"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed the earl, returning to his disagreeable tone.
"Perhaps you will put me in possession of the facts, and of your
motives."
"I warn you that the facts to you will not bear a pleasant sound, Lord
Mount Severn."
"Allow me to be the judge of that," said the earl.
"Business took me to Castle Marling on Good Friday. On the following
day I called at your house; after your own and Isabel's invitation, it
was natural I should; in fact, it would have been a breach of good
feeling not to do so, I found Isabel ill-treated and miserable; far
from enjoying a happy home in your house--"
"What, sir?" interrupted the earl. "Ill-treated and miserable?"
"Ill-treated even to blows, my lord."
The earl stood as one petrified, staring at Mr. Carlyle.
"I learnt it, I must premise, through the chattering revelations of
your little son; Isabel, of course, would not have mentioned it to me;
but when the child had spoken, she did not deny it. In short she was
too broken-hearted, too completely bowed in spirit to deny it. It
aroused all my feelings of indignation--it excited in me an
irresistible desire to emancipate her from this cruel life, and take
her where she would find affection, and I hope happiness. There was
only one way which I could do this, and I risked it. I asked her to
become my wife, and to return to her home at East Lynne."
The earl was slowly recovering from his petrifaction. "Then, am I to
understand, that when you called that day at my house, you carried no
intention with you of proposing to Isabel?"
"Not any. It was an impromptu step, the circumstances under which I
found her calling it forth."
The earl paced the room, perplexed still, and evidently disturbed.
"May I inquire if you love her?" he abruptly said.
Mr. Carlyle paused ere he spoke, and a red flush dyed his face. "Those
sort of feelings man rarely acknowledges to man, Lord Mount Severn,
but I will answer you. I do love her, passionately and sincerely; I
learnt to love her at East Lynne; but I could have carried my love
silently within me to the end of my life and never betrayed it; and
probably should have done so, but for the unexpected visit to Castle
Marling. If the idea of making her my wife had never previously
occurred to me as practicable, it was that I deemed her rank
incompatible with my own."
"As it was," said the earl.
"Country solicitors have married peers' daughters before now,"
remarked Mr. Carlyle. "I only add another to the list."
"But you cannot keep her as a peer's daughter, I presume?"
"East Lynne will be her home. Our establishment will be small and
quiet, as compared with her father's. I explained to Isabel how quiet
at the first, and she might have retracted had she wished. I explained
also in full to Lady Mount Severn. East Lynne will descend to our
eldest son, should we have children. My profession is most lucrative,
my income good; were I to die to-morrow, Isabel would enjoy East Lynne
and about three thousand pounds per annum. I gave these details in the
letter, which appears to have miscarried."
The earl made no immediate reply; he was absorbed in thought.
"Your lordship perceives, I hope, that there has been nothing
'clandestine' in my conduct to Lady Isabel."
Lord Mount Severn held out his hand. "I refused my hand when you came
in, Mr. Carlyle, as you may have observed, perhaps you will refuse
yours now, though I should be proud to shake it. When I find myself in
the wrong, I am not above acknowledging the fact; and I must state my
opinion that you have behaved most kindly and honorably."
Mr. Carlyle smiled and put his hand into the earl's. The latter
retained it, while he spoke in a whisper.
"Of course I cannot be ignorant that, in speaking of Isabel's ill-
treatment, you alluded to my wife. Has it transpired beyond
yourselves?"
"You may be sure that neither Isabel nor myself would mention it; we
shall dismiss it from among our reminiscences. Let it be as though you
had never heard it; it is past and done with."
"Isabel," said the earl, as he was departing that evening, for he
remained to spend the day with them, "I came here this morning almost
prepared to strike your husband, and I go away honoring him. Be a good
and faithful wife to him, for he deserves it."
"Of course I shall," she answered, in surprise.
Lord Mount Severn steamed on to Castle Marling, and there he had a
stormy interview with his wife--so stormy that the sounds penetrated
to the ears of the domestics. He left again the same day, in anger,
and proceeded to Mount Severn.
"He will have time to cool down, before we meet in London," was the
comment of my lady.
CHAPTER XV.
COMING HOME.
Miss Carlyle, having resolved upon her course, quitted her own house,
and removed to East Lynne with Peter and her handmaidens. In spite of
Mr. Dill's grieved remonstrances, she discharged the servants whom Mr.
Carlyle had engaged, all save one man.
On a Friday night, about a month after the wedding, Mr. Carlyle and
his wife came home. They were expected, and Miss Carlyle went through
the hall to receive them, and stood on the upper steps, between the
pillars of the portico. An elegant chariot with four post-horses was
drawing up. Miss Carlyle compressed her lips as she scanned it. She
was attired in a handsome dark silk dress and a new cap; her anger had
had time to cool down in the last month, and her strong common sense
told her that the wiser plan would be to make the best of it. Mr.
Carlyle came up the steps with Isabel.
"You here, Cornelia! That was kind. How are you? Isabel, this is my
sister."
Lady Isabel put forth her hand, and Miss Carlyle condescended to touch
the tips of her fingers. "I hope you are well, ma'am," she jerked out.
Mr. Carlyle left them together, and went back to search for some
trifles which had been left in the carriage. Miss Carlyle led the way
to a sitting-room, where the supper-tray was laid. "You would like to
go upstairs and take your things off before upper, ma'am?" she said,
in the same jerking tone to Lady Isabel.
"Thank you. I will go to my rooms, but I do not require supper. We
have dined."
"Then what would you like to take?" asked Miss Corny.
"Some tea, if you please, I am very thirsty."
"Tea!" ejaculated Miss Corny. "So late as this! I don't know that they
have boiling water. You'd never sleep a wink all night, ma'am, if you
took tea at eleven o'clock."
"Oh, then, never mind," replied Lady Isabel. "It is of no consequence.
Do not let me give trouble."
Miss Carlyle whisked out of the room; upon what errand was best known
to herself; and in the hall she and Marvel came to an encounter. No
words passed, but each eyed the other grimly. Marvel was very stylish,
with five flounces to her dress, a veil, and a parasol. Meanwhile,
Lady Isabel sat down and burst into bitter tears and sobs. A chill had
come over her; it did not seem like coming to East Lynne. Mr. Carlyle
entered and witnessed the grief.
"Isabel!" he uttered in amazement, as he hastened up to her. "My
darling, what ails you?"
"I am tired, I think," she gently answered; "and coming into the house
again made me think of papa. I should like to go to my rooms,
Archibald, but I don't know which they are."
Neither did Mr. Carlyle know, but Miss Carlyle came whisking in again,
and said: "The best rooms; those next the library. Should she go up
with my lady?"
Mr. Carlyle preferred to go himself, and he held out his arm to
Isabel. She drew her veil over her face as she passed Miss Carlyle.
The branches were not lighted, and the room looked cold and
comfortless. "Things seem all sixes and sevens in the house," remarked
Mr. Carlyle. "I fancy the servants must have misunderstood my letter,
and not have expected us until to-morrow night."
On returning to the sitting-room Mr. Carlyle inquired the cause of the
servants' negligence.
"I sent them away because they were superfluous encumbrances," hastily
replied Miss Carlyle. "We have four in the house, and my lady has
brought a fine maid, I see, making five. I have come up here to live."
Mr. Carlyle felt checkmated. He had always bowed to the will of Miss
Corny, but he had an idea that he and his wife should be better
without her. "And your house?" he exclaimed.
"I have let it furnished; the people enter to-day. So you cannot turn
me out of East Lynne into the road, or to furnished lodgings,
Archibald. There'll be enough expense without our keeping on two
houses; and most people in your place would jump at the prospect of my
living here. Your wife will be mistress. I do not intend to take her
honors from her; but I will save her a world of trouble in
management--be as useful to her as a housekeeper. She will be glad of
that, inexperienced as she is. I dare say she never gave a domestic
order in her life."
This was a view of the case, to Mr. Carlyle, so plausibly put, that he
began to think it might be all for the best. He had great reverence
for his sister's judgment; force of habit is strong upon all of us.
Still he did not know.
"Did you buy that fine piano which has arrived?" angrily asked Miss
Carlyle.
"It was my present to Isabel."
Miss Corny groaned. "What did it cost?"
"The cost is of no consequence. The old piano here was a bad one, and
I bought a better."
"What did it cost?" repeated Miss Carlyle.
"A hundred and twenty guineas," he answered. Obedience to her will was
yet powerful within him.
Miss Corny threw up her hands and eyes. But at that moment Peter
entered with some hot water which his master had rung for. Mr. Carlyle
rose and looked on the side-board.
"Where is the wine, Peter?"
The servant put it out, port and sherry. Mr. Carlyle drank a glass,
and then proceeded to mix some wine and water. "Shall I mix some for
you, Cornelia?" he asked.
"I'll mix for myself if I want any. Who's that for?"
"Isabel."
He quitted the room, carrying the wine and water, and entered his
wife's. She was sitting half buried, it seemed, in the arm-chair, her
face muffled up. As she raised it, he saw that it was flushed and
agitated; that her eyes were bright, and her frame was trembling.
"What is the matter?" he hastily asked.
"I got nervous after Marvel went," she whispered, laying hold of him,
as if for protection from terror. "I came back to the chair and
covered my head over, hoping some one would come up."
"I have been talking to Cornelia. But what made you nervous?"
"Oh! I was very foolish. I kept thinking of frightful things. They
would come into my mind. Do not blame me, Archibald. This is the room
papa died in."
"Blame you, my darling," he uttered with deep feeling.
"I thought of a dreadful story about the bats, that the servants told
--I dare say you never heard it; and I kept thinking. 'Suppose they
were at the windows now, behind the blinds.' And then I was afraid to
look at the bed; I fancied I might see--you are laughing!"
Yes, he was smiling; for he knew that these moments of nervous fear
are best met jestingly. He made her drink the wine and water, and then
he showed her where the bell was, ringing it as he did so. Its
position had been changed in some late alterations to the house.
"Your rooms shall be changed to-morrow, Isabel."
"No, let us remain in these. I shall like to feel that papa was once
their occupant. I won't get nervous again."
But, even as she spoke, her actions belied her words. Mr. Carlyle had
gone to the door and opened it, and she flew close up to him, cowering
behind him.
"Shall you be gone very long, Archibald?" she whispered.
"Not more than an hour," he answered. But he hastily put back one of
his hands, and held her tightly in his protecting grasp. Marvel was
coming along the corridor in answer to the ring.
"Have the goodness to let Miss Carlyle know that I am not coming down
again to-night," he said.
"Yes, sir."
Mr. Carlyle shut the door, and then looked at his wife and laughed.
"He is very kind to me," thought Isabel.
With the morning began the perplexities of Lady Isabel Carlyle. But,
first of all, just fancy the group at breakfast. Miss Carlyle
descended in the startling costume the reader has seen, took her seat
at the breakfast-table, and there sat bolt upright. Mr. Carlyle came
down next; and then Lady Isabel entered, in an elegant half-mourning
dress, with flowing black ribbons.
"Good morning, ma'am. I hope you slept well," was Miss Carlyle's
salutation.
"Quite well, thank you," she answered, as she took her seat opposite
Miss Carlyle. Miss Carlyle pointed to the top of the table.
"That is your place, ma'am; but I will pour out the coffee, and save
you the trouble, if you wish it."
"I should be glad if you would," answered Lady Isabel.
So Miss Carlyle proceeded to her duties, very stern and grim. The meal
was nearly over, when Peter came in, and said the butcher had come up
for orders. Miss Carlyle looked at Lady Isabel, waiting, of course,
for her to give them. Isabel was silent with perplexity; she had never
given such an order in her life. Totally ignorant was she of the
requirements of a household; and did not know whether to suggest a few
pounds of meat or a whole cow. It was the presence of that grim Miss
Corny which put her out. Alone with her husband she would have said,
"What ought I to order, Archibald? Tell me." Peter waited.
"A---- Something to roast and boil, if you please," stammered Lady
Isabel.
She spoke in a low tone. Embarrassment makes cowards of us; and Mr.
Carlyle repeated it after her. He knew no more about housekeeping than
she did.
"Something to roast and boil, tell the man, Peter."
Up started Miss Corny; she could not stand that. "Are you aware, Lady
Isabel, that an order such as that would only puzzle the butcher?
Shall I give the necessary orders for to-day? The fishmonger will be
here presently!"
"Oh, I wish you would!" cried the relieved Lady Isabel. "I have not
been accustomed to it, but I must learn. I don't think I know anything
about housekeeping."
Miss Corny's answer was to stalk from the room. Isabel rose from her
chair, like a bird released from its cage, and stood by his side.
"Have you finished, Archibald?"
"I think I have, dear. Oh! Here's my coffee. There; I have finished
now."
"Let us go around the grounds."
He rose, laid his hands playfully on her slender waist, and looked at
her. "You may as well ask me to take a journey to the moon. It is past
nine, and I have not been to the office for a month."
The tears rose in her eyes. "I wish you would be always with me! East
Lynne will not be East Lynne without you."
"I will be with you as much as ever I can, my dearest," he whispered.
"Come and walk with me through the park."
She ran for her bonnet, gloves and parasol. Mr. Carlyle waited for her
in the hall, and they went out together.
He thought it a good opportunity to speak about his sister. "She
wishes to remain with us," he said. "I do not know what to decide. On
the one hand I think she might save you the worry of household
management; on the other, I fancy we shall be happier by ourselves."
Isabel's heart sank within her at the idea of that stern Miss Corny,
mounted over her as resident guard; but, refined and sensitive, almost
painfully considerate of the feelings of others, she raised no word of
objection. "As you and Miss Carlyle please," she answered.
"Isabel," he said, "I wish it to be as you please; I wish matters to
be arranged as may best please you: and I will have them so arranged.
My chief object in life now is your happiness."
He spoke in all the sincerity of truth, and Isabel knew it: and the
thought came across her that with him by her side, her loving
protector, Miss Carlyle could not mar her life's peace. "Let her stay,
Archibald; she will not incommode us."
"At any rate it can be tried for a month or two, and we shall see how
it works," he musingly observed.
They reached the park gates. "I wish I could go with you and be your
clerk," she cried, unwilling to release his hand. "I should not have
all that long way to go back by myself."
He laughed and shook his head, telling her that she wanted to bribe
him into taking her back, but it could not be. And away he went, after
saying farewell.
CHAPTER XVI.
DOMESTIC TROUBLES.
Isabel wandered back, and then wandered through the rooms; they looked
lovely; not as they had seemed to look in her father's time. In her
dressing-room knelt Marvel, unpacking. She rose when Lady Isabel
entered.
"Can I speak to you a moment, if you please my lady?"
"What is it?"
Then Marvel poured forth her tale. That she feared so small an
establishment would not suit her, and if my lady pleased, she would
like to leave at once--that day. Anticipating it, she had not unpacked
her things.
"There has been some mistake about the servants, Marvel, but it will
be remedied as soon as possible. And I told you before I married that
Mr. Carlyle's establishment would be a limited one."
"My lady perhaps I could put up with that; but I never could stop in
the house with--" "that female Guy" had been on the tip of Marvel's
tongue, but she remembered in time of whom she was speaking--"with
Miss Carlyle. I fear, my lady, we have both got tempers that would
slash, and might be flying at each other. I could not stop, my lady,
for untold gold. And if you please to make me forfeit my running
month's salary, why I must do it. So when I have set your ladyship's
things to rights, I hope you'll allow me to go."
Lady Isabel would not condescend to ask her to remain, but she
wondered how she should manage the inconvenience. She drew her desk
toward her. "What is the amount due to you?" she inquired, as she
unlocked it.
"Up to the end of the quarter, my lady?" cried Marvel, in a brisk
tone.
"No," coldly answered Lady Isabel. "Up to to-day."
"I have not had time to reckon, my lady."
Lady Isabel took a pencil and paper, made out the account, and laid it
down in gold and silver on the table. "It is more than you deserve,
Marvel," she remarked, "and more than you would get in most places.
You ought to have given me proper notice."
Marvel melted into tears, and began a string of excuses. "She should
never have wished to leave so kind a lady, but for attendant ill-
conveniences, and she hoped my lady would not object to testify to her
character."
Lady Isabel quitted the room in the midst of it; and in the course of
the day Marvel took her departure, Joyce telling her that she ought to
be ashamed of herself.
"I couldn't help myself," retorted Marvel, "and I am sorry to leave
her, for she's a pleasant young lady to serve."
"Well, I know I'd have helped myself," was Joyce's remark. "I would
not go off in this unhandsome way from a good mistress."
"Perhaps you wouldn't," loftily returned Marvel, "but my inside
feelings are delicate and can't bear to be trampled upon. The same
house is not going to hold me and that tall female image, who's more
fit to be carried about at a foreign carnival than some that they do
carry."
So Marvel left. And when Lady Isabel went to her room to dress for
dinner, Joyce entered it.
"I am not much accustomed to a lady's maid's duties," began she, "but
Miss Carlyle has sent me, my lady, to do what I can for you, if you
will allow me."
Isabel thought it was kind of Miss Carlyle.
"And if you please to trust me with the keys of your things, I will
take charge of them for you, my lady, until you are suited with a
maid," Joyce resumed.
"I don't know anything about the keys," answered Isabel; "I never keep
them."
Joyce did her best, and Lady Isabel went down. It was nearly six
o'clock, the dinner hour, and she strolled to the park gates, hoping
to meet Mr. Carlyle. Taking a few steps out, she looked down the road,
but could not see him coming; so she turned in again, and sat down
under a shady tree out of view of the road. It was remarkably warm
weather for the closing days of May.
Half an hour, and then Mr. Carlyle came pelting up, passed the gates,
and turned on to the grass. There he saw his wife. She had fallen
asleep, her head leaning against the trunk of a tree. Her bonnet and
parasol lay at her feet, her scarf had dropped, and she looked like a
lovely child, her lips partly open, her cheeks flushed, and her
beautiful hair falling around. It was an exquisite picture, and his
heart beat quicker within him as he felt that it was all his own. A
smile stole to his lips as he stood looking at her. She opened her
eyes, and for a minute could not remember where she was. Then she
started up.
"Oh, Archibald! Have I been asleep?"
"Ay; and might have been stolen and carried off. I could not afford
that, Isabel."
"I don't know how it came about. I was listening for you."
"What have you been doing all day?" he asked, as he drew her arm
within his, and they walked on.
"Oh, I hardly know," she sighed. "Trying the new piano, and looking at
my watch, wishing the time would go quicker, that you might come home.
The ponies and carriage have arrived, Archibald."
"I know they have, my dear. Have you been out of doors much?"
"No, I waited for you." And then she told him about Marvel. He felt
vexed, saying she must replace her with all speed. Isabel said she
knew of one, a young woman who had left Lady Mount Severn while she,
Isabel, was at Castle Marling; her health was delicate, and Lady Mount
Severn's place too hard for her. She might suit.
"Write to her," said Mr. Carlyle.
The carriage came round--a beautiful little equipage--and Isabel was
ready. As Mr. Carlyle drove slowly down the dusty road, they came upon
Miss Corny, striding along in the sun with a great umbrella over her
head. She would not turn to look at them.
Once more, as in the year gone by, St. Jude's Church was in a flutter
of expectation. It expected to see a whole paraphernalia of bridal
finery, and again it was doomed to disappointment, for Isabel had not
put off the mourning for her father. She was in black--a thin gauze
dress--and her white bonnet had small black flowers inside and out.
For the first time in his life, Mr. Carlyle took possession of the pew
belonging to East Lynne, filling the place where the poor earl used to
sit. Not so Miss Corny--she sat in her own.
Barbara was there with the Justice and Mrs. Hare. Her face wore a
gray, dusky hue, of which she was only too conscious, but could not
subdue. Her covetous eyes would wander to that other face, with its
singular loveliness and its sweetly earnest eyes, sheltered under the
protection of him for whose sheltering protection she had so long
yearned. Poor Barbara did not benefit much by the services that day.
Afterward they went across the churchyard to the west corner, where
stood the tomb of Lord Mount Severn. Isabel looked at the inscription,
her veil shading her face.
"Not here, and now, my darling," he whispered, pressing her arm to his
side, for he felt her silent sobs. "Strive for calmness."
"It seems but the other day he was at church with me, and now--here!"
Mr. Carlyle suddenly changed their places, so that they stood with
their backs to the hedge, and to any staring stragglers who might be
lingering on the road.
"There ought to be railings round the tomb," she presently said, after
a successful battle with her emotion.
"I thought so, and I suggested it to Lord Mount Severn but he appeared
to think differently. I will have it done."
"I put you to great expense," she said, "taking one thing with
another."
Mr. Carlyle glanced quickly at her, a dim fear penetrating his mind
that his sister might have been /talking/ in her hearing. "An expense
I would not be without for the whole world. You know it, Isabel."
"And I have nothing to repay you with," she sighed.
He looked expressively amused, and, gazing into her face, the
expression of his eyes made her smile. "Here is John with the
carriage," she exclaimed. "Let us go, Archibald."
Standing outside the gates, talking to the rector's family, were
several ladies, one of them Barbara Hare. She watched Mr. Carlyle
place his wife in the carriage; she watched him drive away. Barbara's
lips were white, as she bowed in return to his greeting.
"The heat is so great!" murmured Barbara, when those around noticed
her paleness.
"Ah! You ought to have gone in the phaeton, with Mr. and Mrs. Hare as
they desired you."
"I wished to walk," returned the unhappy Barbara.
"What a pretty girl that is!" uttered Lady Isabel to her husband.
"What is her name?"
"Barbara Hare."
CHAPTER XVII.
VISIT OF THE HARE FAMILY.
The county carriages began to pour to East Lynne, to pay the wedding
visit, as it is called, to Mr. and Lady Isabel Carlyle. Of course they
displayed themselves in their most courtly state. Mr. Carlyle, always
a popular man, had gained double his former importance by his marriage
with the daughter of the late Earl of Mount Severn. Among the earliest
visitors went Justice and Mrs. Hare, with Barbara.
Isabel was in her dressing-gown, attended by Joyce, whom she was just
asking to take the place of her late maid, if Miss Carlyle would
consent to the transfer.
Joyce's face lighted up with pleasure at the proposal. "Oh, my lady,
you are very kind! I should so like it! I would serve you faithfully
to the best of my ability."
Isabel laughed. "But Miss Carlyle may not be inclined to transfer
you."
"I think she would be, my lady. She said a day or two ago, that I
appeared to suit you, and you might have me altogether if you wished,
provided I could still make her gowns. I make them to please her, you
see, my lady."
"Do you make her caps also?" demurely asked Lady Isabel.
Joyce smiled. "Yes, my lady; but I am allowed to make them only
according to her own pattern."
"Joyce, if you become my maid, you must wear smarter caps yourself. I
do not wish you to be fine like Marvel."
"Oh, my lady! I shall never be fine," shuddered Joyce. And Joyce
believed she had cause to shudder at finery.
She was about to speak further, when a knock came to the dressing-room
door. Joyce went to open it, and saw one of the housemaids, a girl who
had recently been engaged, a native of West Lynne. Isabel heard the
colloquy,--
"Is my lady there?"
"Yes."
"Some visitors. Pete ordered me to come and tell you. I say, Joyce,
it's the Hares. And /she's/ with them. I watched her get out of the
carriage."
"Who?" sharply returned Joyce.
"Why, Miss Barbara. Only fancy her coming to pay the wedding visit
/here/. My lady had better take care that she don't get a bowl of
poison mixed for her. Master's out or else I'd have given a shilling
to see the interview between the three."
Joyce sent the girl away, shut the door, and turned to her mistress,
quite unconscious that the half-whispered conversation had been
audible.
"Some visitors are in the drawing-room, my lady, Susan says. Mr.
Justice Hare and Mrs. Hare and Miss Barbara."
Isabel descended, her mind full of the mysterious words spoken by
Susan. The justice was in a new flaxen wig, obstinate-looking and
pompous; Mrs. Hare, pale, delicate, and lady-like; Barbara beautiful;
such was the impression they made upon Isabel.
They paid rather a long visit, Isabel quite falling in love with the
gentle and suffering Mrs. Hare, and had risen to leave when Miss
Carlyle entered. She wished them to remain longer--had something, she
said, to show Barbara. The justice declined; he had a brother justice
coming to dine with him at five, and it was then half-past four.
Barbara might stop if she liked.
Barbara's faced turned crimson; but nevertheless she accepted the
invitation, immediately proffered her by Miss Carlyle to remain at
East Lynne for the rest of the day.
Dinner time approached, and Isabel went to dress for it. Joyce was
waiting, and entered upon the subject of the service.
"My lady, I have spoken to Miss Carlyle, and she is willing that I
should be transferred to you, but she says I ought first to acquaint
you with certain unpleasant facts in my history, and the same thought
had occurred to me. Miss Carlyle is not over pleasant in manner, my
lady, but she is very upright and just."
"What facts?" asked Lady Isabel, sitting down to have her hair
brushed.
"My lady, I'll tell you as shortly as it can. My father was a clerk in
Mr. Carlyle's office--of course I mean the late Mr. Carlyle. My mother
died when I was eight years old, and my father afterwards married
again, a sister of Mr. Kane's wife--"
"Mr. Kane, the music master?"
"Yes, my lady. She and Mrs. Kane were quite ladies; had been
governesses. People said she lowered herself greatly in marrying my
father. However, they did marry, and at the end of the year my little
sister Afy was born. We lived in a pretty cottage in the wood and were
happy. But in twelve months more my step-mother died, and an aunt of
hers adopted Afy. I lived with my father, going to school, then to
learn dressmaking, and finally going out to work to ladies' houses.
After many years. Afy came home. Her aunt had died and her income with
her, but not the vanity and love of finery that Afy had acquired. She
did nothing but dress herself and read novels. My father was angry; he
said no good could come of it. She had several admirers, Mr. Richard
Hare, Miss Barbara's own brother," continued Joyce, lowering her
voice, "and she flirted with them all. My father used to go out to
shoot on fine evenings after office, or to his duties as secretary to
the library, and so Afy was generally all alone until I came home at
nine o'clock; and was free to flirt with her beaux."
"Had she any she favored particularly, was it thought?" asked Lady
Isabel.
"The chief one, my lady, was Richard Hare. She got acquainted with
somebody else, a stranger, who used to ride over from a distance to
see her; but I fancy there was nothing in it--Richard was the one. And
it went on till--till--he killed her father."
"Who?" uttered the startled Isabel.
"Richard Hare, my lady. Father had told Afy that Mr. Richard should
not come there any longer, for when gentlemen go in secret after poor
girls, it's well known they have not got marriage in their thoughts;
father would have interfered more than he did, but that he judged well
of Mr. Richard, and did not think he was one to do Afy real harm,--but
he did not know how flighty she was. However, one day he heard people
talk about it in West Lynne, coupling her name and Mr. Richard's
offensively together, and at night he told Afy, before me, that it
should not go on any longer, and she must not encourage him. My lady,
the next night Richard Hare shot my father."
"How very dreadful!"
"Whether it was done on purpose, or that they had a scuffle, and the
gun went off accidentally and killed my father, no one can tell. Afy
said she had been in the woods at the back of the house, and when she
came in, father lay dead, and Mr. Locksley was standing over him. He
said he had heard the shot, and come up just in time to see Richard
fly from the house, his shoes covered with blood. He has never been
heard of since; but there is a judgment of murder out against him; and
the fear and shame is killing his mother by inches."
"And Afy?"
"The worst is to come my lady. Afy followed him directly after the
inquest, and nothing has been known since of either of them. I was
taken ill, after all these shocks, with nervous fever, and Miss
Carlyle took care of me, and I have remained with her ever since. This
was what I had to tell you, my lady, before you decided to take me
into service; it is not every lady who would like to engage one whose
sister has turned out so badly."
Lady Isabel did not see that it could make any difference, or that it
ought to. She said so; and then leaned back in her chair and mused.
"What dress, my lady?"
"Joyce, what was that I heard you and Susan gossiping over at the
door?" Lady Isabel suddenly asked. "About Miss Hare giving me a bowl
of poison. Something in the dramatic line that would be. You should
tell Susan not to make her whispers so loud."
"It was only a bit of nonsense, my lady. These ignorant servants will
talk; and every one at West Lynne knew Miss Barbara was in love with
Mr. Carlyle. But I don't fancy she would have been the one to make him
happy with all her love."
A hot flush passed over the brow of Lady Isabel; a sensation very like
jealousy flew to her heart. No woman likes to hear of another's being,
or having been attached to her husband: a doubt always arises whether
the feeling may not have been reciprocated.
Lady Isabel descended. She wore a costly black lace dress, its low
body and sleeves trimmed with as costly white; and ornaments of jet.
She looked inexpressibly beautiful, and Barbara turned from her with a
feeling of sinking jealousy, from her beauty, from her attire, even
from the fine, soft handkerchief, which displayed the badge of her
rank--the coronet of an earl's daughter. Barbara looked well, too; she
was in a light blue silk robe, and her pretty cheeks were damask with
her mind's excitement. On her neck she wore the gold chain given her
by Mr. Carlyle--strange that she had not discarded that.
They stood together at the window, looking at Mr. Carlyle as he came
up the avenue. He saw them, and nodded. Lady Isabel watched the damask
cheeks turn to crimson at sight of him.
"How do you do, Barbara?" he cried, as he shook hands. "Come to pay us
a visit at last? You have been rather tardy over it. And how are you,
my darling?" he whispered over his wife; but she missed his kiss of
greeting. Well, would she have had him give it her in public? No; but
she was in the mood to notice the omission.
Dinner over, Miss Carlyle beguiled Barbara out of doors. Barbara would
far rather have remained in /his/ presence. Of course they discussed
Lady Isabel.
"How do you like her?" abruptly asked Barbara, alluding to Lady
Isabel.
"Better than I thought I should," acknowledged Miss Carlyle. "I had
expected airs and graces and pretence, and I must say she is free from
them. She seems quite wrapped up in Archibald and watches for his
coming home like a cat watches for a mouse. She is dull without him."
Barbara compelled her manner to indifference. "I suppose it is
natural."
"I suppose it is absurd," was the retort of Miss Carlyle. "I give them
little of my company, especially in an evening. They go strolling out
together, or she sings to him, he hanging over her as if she were of
gold: to judge by appearances, she is more precious to him than any
gold that was ever coined into money. I'll tell you what I saw last
night. Archibald had what he is not often subject to, a severe
headache, and he went into the next room after dinner, and lay on the
sofa. She carried a cup of tea to him, and never came back, leaving
her own on the table till it was perfectly cold. I pushed open the
door to tell her so. There was my lady's cambric handkerchief, soaked
in eau-de-Cologne, lying on his forehead; and there was my lady
herself, kneeling down and looking at him, he with his arm thrown
around her there. Now I just ask you, Barbara, whether there's any
sense in fadding with a man like that? If ever he did have a headache
before he was married, I used to mix him up a good dose of salts and
senna, and tell him to go to bed early and sleep the pain off."
Barbara made no reply, but she turned her face from Miss Carlyle.
On Barbara's return to the house, she found that Mr. Carlyle and Lady
Isabel were in the adjoining room, at the piano, and Barbara had an
opportunity of hearing that sweet voice. She did, as Miss Carlyle
confessed to have done, pushed open the door between the two rooms,
and looked in. It was the twilight hour, almost too dusk to see; but
she could distinguish Isabel seated at the piano, and Mr. Carlyle
standing behind her. She was singing one of the ballads from the opera
of the "Bohemian Girl," "When other Lips."
"Why do you like that song so much, Archibald?" she asked when she had
finished it.
"I don't know. I never liked it so much until I heard it from you."
"I wonder if they are come in. Shall we go into the next room?"
"Just this one first--this translation from the German--' 'Twere vain
to tell thee all I feel.' There's real music in that song."
"Yes, there is. Do you know, Archibald, your taste is just like
papa's. He liked all these quiet, imaginative songs, and so do you.
And so do I," she laughingly added, "if I must speak the truth."
She ceased and began the song, singing it exquisitely, in a low,
sweet, earnest tone, the chords of the accompaniment, at its
conclusion, dying off gradually into silence.
"There, Archibald, I am sure I have sung you ten songs at least," she
said, leaning her head back against him, and looking at him from her
upturned face. "You ought to pay me."
He did pay her: holding the dear face to him, and taking from it some
impassioned kisses. Barbara turned to the window, a low moan of pain
escaping her, as she pressed her forehead on one of its panes, and
looked forth at the dusky night. Isabel came in on her husband's arm.
"Are you here alone, Miss Hare? I really beg your pardon. I supposed
you were with Miss Carlyle."
"Where is Cornelia, Barbara?"
"I have just come in," was Barbara's reply. "I dare say she is
following me."
So she was, for she entered a moment after, her voice raised in anger
at the gardener, who had disobeyed her orders, and obeyed the wishes
of Lady Isabel.
The evening wore on to ten, and as the time-piece struck the hour,
Barbara rose from her chair in amazement.
"I did not think it was so late. Surely some one must have come for
me."
"I will inquire," was Lady Isabel's answer, and Mr. Carlyle touched
the bell. No one had come for Miss Hare.
"Then I fear I must trouble Peter," cried Barbara. "Mamma may be gone
to rest, tired, and papa must have forgotten me. It would never do for
me to get locked out," she gaily added.
"As you were one night before," said Mr. Carlyle, significantly.
He alluded to the night when Barbara was in the grove of trees with
her unfortunate brother, and Mr. Hare was on the point, unconsciously,
of locking her out. She had given Mr. Carlyle the history, but its
recollection now called up a smart pain, and a change passed over her
face.
"Oh! Don't, Archibald," she uttered, in the impulse of the moment;
"don't recall it."
Isabel wondered.
"Can Peter take me?" continued Barbara.
"I had better take you," said Mr. Carlyle. "It is late."
Barbara's heart beat at the words; beat as she put her things on--as
she said good-night to Lady Isabel and Miss Carlyle; it beat to
throbbing as she went out with him, and took his arm. All just as it
used to be--only now that he was the husband of another. Only!
It was a warm, lovely June night, not moonlight, but bright with its
summer twilight. They went down the park into the road, which they
crossed, and soon came to a stile. From that stile there led a path
through the fields which would pass the back of Justice Hare's.
Barbara stopped at it.
"Would you choose the field way to-night, Barbara? The grass will be
damp, and this is the longest way."
"But we shall escape the dust of the road."
"Oh, very well, if you prefer it. It will not make three minutes'
difference."
"He is very anxious to get home to /her/!" mentally exclaimed Barbara.
"I shall fly out upon him, presently, or my heart will burst."
Mr. Carlyle crossed the stile, helped over Barbara, and then gave her
his arm again. He had taken her parasol, as he had taken it the last
night they had walked together--an elegant little parasol, this, of
blue silk and white lace, and he did not switch the hedges with it.
That night was present to Barbara now, with all its words and its
delusive hopes; terribly present to her was their bitter ending.
There are women of warm, impulsive temperaments who can scarcely help,
in certain moments of highly wrought excitement, over-stepping the
bounds of nature and decorum, and giving the reins to temper, tongue,
and imagination--making a scene, in short. Barbara had been working
herself into this state during the whole evening. The affection of
Isabel for her husband, her voice, his caresses--seen through the half
open doors--had maddened her. She felt it impossible to restrain her
excitement.
Mr. Carlyle walked on, utterly unconscious that a storm was brewing.
More than that, he was unconscious of having given cause for one, and
dashed into an indifferent, common place topic in the most provoking
manner.
"When does the justice begin haymaking, Barbara?"
There was no reply. Barbara was swelling and panting, and trying to
keep her emotion down. Mr. Carlyle tried again,--
"Barbara, I asked you which day your papa cut his hay."
Still no reply. Barbara was literally incapable of making one. The
steam of excitement was on, nearly to its highest pitch. Her throat
was working, the muscles of her mouth began to twitch, and a
convulsive sob, or what sounded like it, broke from her. Mr. Carlyle
turned his head hastily.
"Barbara! are you ill? What is it?"
On it came, passion, temper, wrongs, and nervousness, all boiling over
together. She shrieked, she sobbed, she was in strong hysterics. Mr.
Carlyle half-carried, half-dragged her to the second stile, and placed
her against it, his arm supporting her; and an old cow and two calves,
wondering what the disturbance could mean at that sober time of night,
walked up and stared at them.
Barbara struggled with her emotion--struggled manfully--and the sobs
and shrieks subsided; not the excitement or the passion. She put away
his arm, and stood with her back to the stile, leaning against it. Mr.
Carlyle felt inclined to fly to the pond for water, but he had nothing
but his hat to get it in.
"Are you better, Barbara? What can have caused it?"
"What can have caused it?" she burst forth, giving full swing to the
reins, and forgetting everything. "/You/ can ask me that?"
Mr. Carlyle was struck dumb; but by some inexplicable laws of
sympathy, a dim and very unpleasant consciousness of the truth began
to steal over him.
"I don't understand you, Barbara. If I have offended you in any way, I
am truly sorry."
"Truly sorry, no doubt!" was the retort, the sobs and the shrieks
alarmingly near. "What do you care for me? If I go under the sod
to-morrow," stamping it with her foot, "you have your wife to care
for; what am I?"
"Hush!" he interposed, glancing round, more mindful for her than she
was for herself.
"Hush, yes! You would like me to hush; what is my misery to you? I
would rather be in my grave, Archibald Carlyle, than endure the life I
have led since you married her. My pain is greater than I well know
how to bear."
"I cannot affect to misunderstand you," he said, feeling more at a
nonplus than he had felt for many a day, and heartily wishing the
whole female creation, save Isabel, somewhere. "But my dear Barbara. I
never gave you cause to think I--that I--cared for you more than I
did."
"Never gave me cause!" she gasped. "When you have been coming to our
house constantly, almost like my shadow; when you gave me this"
dashing open her mantle, and holding up the locket to his view; "when
you have been more intimate with me than a brother."
"Stay, Barbara. There it is--a brother. I have been nothing else; it
never occurred to me to be anything else," he added, in his
straightforward truth.
"Ay, as a brother, nothing else!" and her voice rose once more with
her excitement; it seemed that she would not long control it. "What
cared you for my feelings? What recked you that you gained my love?"
"Barbara, hush!" he implored: "do be calm and reasonable. If I ever
gave you cause to think I regarded you with deeper feelings, I can
only express to you my deep regret, my repentance, and assure you it
was done unconsciously."
She was growing calmer. The passion was fading, leaving her face still
and white. She lifted it toward Mr. Carlyle.
"You treated me ill in showing signs of love, if you felt it not. Why
did you kiss me?"
"I kissed you as I might kiss a sister. Or perhaps as a pretty girl;
man likes to do so. The close terms on which our families have lived,
excused, if it did not justify, a degree of familiarity that might
have been unseemly in--"
"You need not tell me that," hotly interrupted Barbara. "Had it been a
stranger who had won my love and then thrown me from him, do you
suppose I would have reproached him as I am now reproaching you? No; I
would have died, rather than that he should have suspected it. If
/she/ had not come between us, should you have loved me?"
"Do not pursue this unthankful topic," he besought, almost wishing the
staring cow would run away with her.
"I ask you, should you have loved me?" persisted Barbara, passing her
handkerchief over her ashy lips.
"I don't know. How can I know? Do I not say to you, Barbara, that I
only thought of you as a friend, a sister? I cannot tell what might
have been."
"I could bear it better, but that it was known," she murmured. "All
West Lynne had coupled us together in their prying gossip, and they
have only pity to cast on me now. I would far rather you have killed
me, Archibald."
"I can but express to you my deep regret," he repeated. "I can only
hope you will soon forget it all. Let the remembrance of this
conversation pass away with to-night; let us still be to each other as
friends--as brother and sister. Believe me," he concluded, in a deeper
tone, "the confession has not lessened you in my estimation."
He made a movement as though he would get over the stile, but Barbara
did not stir; the tears were silently coursing down her pallid face.
At that moment there was an interruption.
"Is that you, Miss Barbara?"
Barbara started as if she had been shot. On the other side of the
stile stood Wilson, their upper maid. How long might she have been
there? She began to explain that Mr. Hare had sent Jasper out, and
Mrs. Hare had thought it better to wait no longer for the man's
return, so had dispatched her, Wilson, for Miss Barbara. Mr. Carlyle
got over the stile, and handed over Miss Barbara.
"You need not come any further now," she said to him in a low tone.
"I should see you home," was his reply, and he held out his arm.
Barbara took it.
They walked in silence. Arrived at the back gate of the grove, which
gave entrance to the kitchen garden, Wilson went forward. Mr. Carlyle
took both Barbara's hands in his.
"Good-night, Barbara. God bless you."
She had had time for reflection, and the excitement gone, she saw her
outbreak in all its shame and folly. Mr. Carlyle noticed how subdued
and white she looked.
"I think I have been mad," she groaned. "I must have been mad to say
what I did. Forget that it was uttered."
"I told you I would."
"You will not betray me to--to--your wife?" she panted.
"Barbara!"
"Thank you. Good-night."
But he still retained her hands. "In a short time, Barbara, I trust
you will find one more worthy to receive your love than I have been."
"Never!" she impulsively answered. "I do not love and forget so
lightly. In the years to come, in my old age, I shall still be nothing
but Barbara Hare."
Mr. Carlyle walked away in a fit of musing. The revelation had given
him pain, and possibly a little bit of flattery into the bargain, for
he was fond of pretty Barbara. Fond in his way--not hers--not with the
sort of fondness he felt for his wife. He asked his conscience whether
his manner to her in the past days had been a tinge warmer than we
bestow upon a sister, and he decided that it might have been, but he
most certainly never cast a suspicion to the mischief it was doing.
"I heartily hope she'll soon find somebody to her liking and forget
me," was his concluding thought. "As to living and dying Barbara Hare,
that's all moonshine, and sentimental rubbish that girls like to--"
"Archibald!"
He was passing the very last tree in the park, the nearest to his
house, and the interruption came from a dark form standing under it.
"Is it you, my dearest?"
"I came out to meet you. Have you not been very long?"
"I think I have," he answered, as he drew his wife to his side, and
walked on with her.
"We met one of the servants at the second stile, but I went on all the
way."
"You have been intimate with the Hares?"
"Quite so. Cornelia is related to them."
"Do you think Barbara pretty?"
"Very."
"Then--intimate as you were--I wonder you never fell in love with
her."
Mr. Carlyle laughed; a very conscious laugh, considering the recent
interview.
"Did you, Archibald?"
The words were spoken in a low tone, almost, or he fancied it, a tone
of emotion, and he looked at her in amazement. "Did I what, Isabel?"
"You never loved Barbara Hare?"
"Loved /her/! What is your head running on, Isabel? I never loved but
one; and that one I made my own, my cherished wife."
CHAPTER XVIII.
MISS CARLYLE--ISABEL UNHAPPY.
Another year came in. Isabel would have been altogether happy but for
Miss Carlyle; that lady still inflicted her presence upon East Lynne,
and made it the bane of its household. She deferred outwardly to Lady
Isabel as the mistress; but the real mistress was herself. Isabel was
little more than an automaton. Her impulses were checked, her wishes
frustrated, her actions tacitly condemned by the imperiously-willed
Miss Carlyle. Poor Isabel, with her refined manners and her timid and
sensitive temperament, had no chance against the strong-minded woman,
and she was in a state of galling subjection in her own house.
Not a day passed but Miss Carlyle, by dint of hints and innuendoes,
contrived to impress upon Lady Isabel the unfortunate blow to his own
interests that Mr. Carlyle's marriage had been, the ruinous expense
she had entailed upon the family. It struck a complete chill to
Isabel's heart, and she became painfully impressed with the incubus
she must be to Mr. Carlyle--so far as his pocket was concerned. Lord
Mount Severn, with his little son, had paid them a short visit at
Christmas and Isabel had asked him, apparently with unconcern, whether
Mr. Carlyle had put himself very much out to the way to marry her;
whether it had entailed on him an expense and a style of living he
would not otherwise have deemed himself justified in affording. Lord
Mount Severn's reply was an unfortunate one: his opinion was, that it
had, he said; and that Isabel ought to feel grateful to him for his
generosity. She sighed as she listened, and from thenceforth
determined to put up with Miss Carlyle.
More timid and sensitive by nature than many would believe or can
imagine, reared in seclusion more simply and quietly than falls to the
general lot of peers' daughters, completely inexperienced, Isabel was
unfit to battle with the world--totally unfit to battle with Miss
Carlyle. The penniless state in which she was left at her father's
death, the want of a home save that accorded her at Castle Marling,
even the hundred-pound note left in her hand by Mr. Carlyle, all had
imbued her with a deep consciousness of humiliation, and, far from
rebelling at or despising the small establishment, comparatively
speaking, provided for her by Mr. Carlyle, she felt thankful to him
for it. But to be told continuously that this was more than he could
afford, that she was in fact a blight upon his prospects, was enough
to turn her heart to bitterness. Oh, that she had had the courage to
speak out openly to her husband, that he might, by a single word of
earnest love and assurance, have taken the weight from her heart, and
rejoiced it with the truth--that all these miserable complaints were
but the phantoms of his narrow-minded sister! But Isabel never did;
when Miss Corny lapsed into her grumbling mood, she would hear in
silence, or gently bend her aching forehead in her hands, never
retorting.
Never before Mr. Carlyle was the lady's temper vented upon her; plenty
fell to his own share, when he and his sister were alone; and he had
become so accustomed to the sort of thing all his life--had got used
to it, like the eels do to skinning--that it went, as the saying runs,
in at one ear and out at the other, making no impression. He never
dreamt that Isabel also received her portion.
It was a morning early in April. Joyce sat, in its gray dawn, over a
large fire in the dressing-room of Lady Isabel Carlyle, her hands
clasped to pain, and the tears coursing down her cheeks. Joyce was
frightened; she had had some experience in illness; but illness of
this nature she had never witnessed, and she was fervently hoping
never to witness it again. In the adjoining room lay Lady Isabel, sick
nearly unto death.
The door from the corridor slowly opened, and Miss Carlyle slowly
entered. She had probably never walked with so gentle a step in all
her life, and she had got a thick-wadded mantle over her head and
ears. Down she sat in a chair quite meekly, and Joyce saw that her
face looked as gray as the early dawn.
"Joyce," whispered she, "is there any danger?"
"Oh, ma'am, I trust not! But it's hard to witness, and it must be
awful to bear."
"It is our common curse, Joyce. You and I may congratulate ourselves
that we have not chose to encounter it. Joyce," she added, after a
pause, "I trust there's no danger; I should not like her to die."
Miss Carlyle spoke in a low, dread tone. Was she fearing that, if her
poor young sister-in-law did die, a weight would rest on her own
conscience for all time--a heavy, ever-present weight, whispering that
she might have rendered her short year of marriage more happy, had she
chosen; and that she had not so chosen, but had deliberately steeled
every crevice of her heart against her? Very probably; she looked
anxious and apprehensive in the morning's twilight.
"If there's any danger, Joyce--"
"Why, do you think there's danger, ma'am?" interrupted Joyce. "Are
other people not as ill as this?"
"It is to be hoped they are not," rejoined Miss Carlyle. "And why is
the express gone to Lynneborough for Dr. Martin?"
Up started Joyce, awe struck. "An express for Dr. Martin! Oh, ma'am!
Who sent it? When did it go?"
"All I know is, that's its gone. Mr. Wainwright went to your master,
and he came out of his room and sent John galloping to the telegraph
office at West Lynne; where could your ears have been, not to hear the
horse tearing off? /I/ heard it, I know that, and a nice fright it put
me in. I went to Mr. Carlyle's room to ask what was amiss, and he said
he did not know himself--nothing, he hoped. And then he shut his door
again in my face, instead of stopping to speak to me as any other
Christian would."
Joyce did not answer; she was faint with apprehension; and there was a
silence, broken only by the sounds from the next room. Miss Carlyle
rose, and a fanciful person might have thought she was shivering.
"I can't stand this, Joyce; I shall go. If they want coffee, or
anything of that, it can be sent here. Ask."
"I will presently, in a few minutes," answered Joyce, with a real
shiver. "You are not going in, are you, ma'am?" she uttered, in
apprehension, as Miss Carlyle began to steal on tip-toe to the inner-
door, and Joyce had a lively consciousness that her sight would not be
an agreeable one to Lady Isabel. "They want the room free; they sent
me out."
"Not I," answered Miss Corny. "I could do no good; and those who
cannot, are better away."
"Just what Mr. Wainwright said when he dismissed me," murmured Joyce.
And Miss Carlyle finally passed into the corridor and withdrew.
Joyce sat on; it seemed to her an interminable time. And then she
heard the arrival of Dr. Martin; heard him go into the next room. By
and by Mr. Wainwright came out of it, into the room where Joyce was
sitting. Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and before she
could bring out the ominous words, "Is there any danger?" he had
passed through it.
Mr. Wainwright was on his way to the apartment where he expected to
find Mr. Carlyle. The latter was pacing it; he had so paced it all the
night. His pale face flushed as the surgeon entered.
"You have little mercy on my suspense, Wainwright. Dr. Martin has been
here this twenty minutes. What does he say?"
"Well, he cannot say any more than I did. The symptoms are critical,
but he hopes she will do well. There's nothing for it but patience."
Mr. Carlyle resumed his weary walk.
"I come now to suggest that you should send for Little. In these
protracted cases--"
The speech was interrupted by a cry from Mr. Carlyle, half horror,
half despair. For the Rev. Mr. Little was the incumbent of St. Jude's,
and his apprehensions had flown--he hardly knew to what they had
flown.
"Not for your wife," hastily rejoined the surgeon--"what good should a
clergyman do to her? I spoke on the score of the child. Should it not
live, it may be satisfactory to you and Lady Isabel to know that it
was baptized."
"I thank you--I thank you," said Mr. Carlyle grasping his hand, in his
inexpressible relief. "Little shall be sent for."
"You jumped to the conclusion that your wife's soul was flitting.
Please God, she may yet live to bear you other children, if this one
does die."
"Please God!" was the inward aspiration of Mr. Carlyle.
"Carlyle," added the surgeon, in a musing sort of tone, as he laid his
hand on Mr. Carlyle's shoulder, which his own head scarcely reached,
"I am sometimes at death-beds where the clergyman is sent for in this
desperate need to the fleeting spirit, and I am tempted to ask myself
what good another man, priest though he be, can do at the twelfth
hour, where accounts have not been made up previously?"
It was hard upon midday. The Rev. Mr. Little, Mr. Carlyle, and Miss
Carlyle were gathered in the dressing-room, round a table, on which
stood a rich china bowl, containing water for the baptism. Joyce, her
pale face working with emotion, came into the room, carrying what
looked like a bundle of flannel. Little cared Mr. Carlyle for the
bundle, in comparison with his care for his wife.
"Joyce," he whispered, "is it well still?"
"I believe so, sir."
The services commenced. The clergyman took the child. "What name?" he
asked.
Mr. Carlyle had never thought about the name. But he replied, pretty
promptly.
"William;" for he knew it was a name revered and loved by Lady Isabel.
The minister dipped his fingers in the water. Joyce interrupted in
much confusion, looking at her master.
"It is a little girl, sir. I beg your pardon, I'm sure I thought I had
said so; but I'm so flurried as I never was before."
There was a pause, and then the minister spoke again. "Name the
child."
"Isabel Lucy," said Mr. Carlyle. Upon which a strange sort of
resentful sniff was heard from Miss Corny. She had probably thought to
hear him mention her own; but he had named it after his wife and his
mother.
Mr. Carlyle was not allowed to see his wife until evening. His
eyelashes glistened, as he looked down at her. She detected his
emotion, and a faint smile parted her lips.
"I fear I bore it badly, Archibald; but let us be thankful that it is
over. How thankful, none can know, save those who have gone through
it."
"I think they can," he murmured. "I never knew what thankfulness was
until this day."
"That the baby is safe?"
"That /you/ are safe, my darling; safe and spared to me, Isabel," he
whispered, hiding his face upon hers. "I never, until to-day, knew
what prayer was--the prayer of a heart in its sore need."
"Have you written to Lord Mount Severn?" she asked after a while.
"This afternoon," he replied.
"Why did you give baby my name--Isabel?"
"Do you think I could have given it a prettier one? I don't."
"Why do you not bring a chair, and sit down by me?"
He smiled and shook his head. "I wish I might. But they limited my
stay with you to four minutes, and Wainwright has posted himself
outside the door, with his watch in his hand."
Quite true. There stood the careful surgeon, and the short interview
was over almost as soon as it had begun.
The baby lived, and appeared likely to live, and of course the next
thing was to look out for a maid for it. Isabel did not get strong
very quickly. Fever and weakness had a struggle with each other and
with her. One day, when she was dressing and sitting in her easy
chair, Miss Carlyle entered.
"Of all the servants in the neighborhood, who should you suppose is
come up after the place of nurse?"
"Indeed, I cannot guess."
"Why, Wilson, Mrs. Hare's maid. Three years and five months she has
been with them, and now leaves in consequence of a fall out with
Barbara. Will you see her?"
"Is she likely to suit? Is she a good servant?"
"She's not a bad servant, as servants go," responded Miss Carlyle.
"She's steady and respectable; but she has got a tongue as long as
from here to Lynneborough."
"That won't hurt baby," said Lady Isabel. "But if she has lived as
lady's maid, she probably does not understand the care of infants."
"Yes she does. She was upper servant at Squire Pinner's before going
to Mrs. Hare's. Five years she lived there."
"I will see her," said Lady Isabel.
Miss Carlyle left the room to send the servant in, but came back first
alone.
"Mind, Lady Isabel, don't you engage her. If she is likely to suit
you, let her come again for the answer, and meanwhile I will go down
to Mrs. Hare's and learn the ins and outs of her leaving. It is all
very plausible for her to put upon Barbara, but that is only one side
of the question. Before engaging her, it may be well to hear the
other."
Of course this was but right. Isabel acquiesced, and the servant was
introduced; a tall, pleasant-looking woman, with black eyes. Lady
Isabel inquired why she was leaving Mrs. Hare's.
"My lady, it is through Miss Barbara's temper. Latterly--oh, for this
year past, nothing has pleased her; she had grown nearly as imperious
as the justice himself. I have threatened many times to leave, and
last evening we came to another outbreak, and I left this morning."
"Left entirely?"
"Yes, my lady. Miss Barbara provoked me so, that I said last night I
would leave as soon as breakfast was over. And I did so. I should be
very glad to take your situation, my lady, if you would please to try
me."
"You have been the upper maid at Mrs. Hare's?"
"Oh, yes, my lady."
"Then possibly this situation might not suit you so well as you
imagine. Joyce is the upper servant here, and you would, in a manner,
be under her. I have great confidence in Joyce; and in case of my
illness or absence, Joyce would superintend the nursery."
"I should not mind that," was the applicant's answer. "We all like
Joyce, my lady."
A few more questions, and then the girl was told to come again in the
evening for her answer. Miss Carlyle went to the Grove for the "ins
and outs" of the affair, where Mrs. Hare frankly stated that she had
nothing to urge against Wilson, save her hasty manner of leaving, and
believed the chief blame to be due to Barbara. Wilson, therefore, was
engaged, and was to enter upon her new service the following morning.
In the afternoon succeeding to it, Isabel was lying on the sofa in her
bedroom, asleep, as was supposed. In point of fact, she was in that
state, half asleep, half wakeful delirium, which those who suffer from
weakness and fever know only too well. Suddenly she was aroused from
it by hearing her own name mentioned in the adjoining room, where sat
Joyce and Wilson, the latter holding the sleeping infant on her knee,
the former sewing, the door between the rooms being ajar.
"How ill she does look," observed Wilson.
"Who?" asked Joyce.
"Her ladyship. She looks just as if she'd never get over it."
"She is getting over it quickly, now," returned Joyce. "If you had
seen her but a week ago, you would not say she was looking ill now,
speaking in comparison."
"My goodness! Would not somebody's hopes be up again if anything
should happen?"
"Nonsense!" crossly rejoined Joyce.
"You may cry out 'nonsense' forever, Joyce, but they would," went on
Wilson. "And she would snap him up to a dead certainty; she'd never
let him escape her a second time. She is as much in love with him as
she ever was!"
"It was all talk and fancy," said Joyce. "West Lynne must be busy. Mr.
Carlyle never cared for her."
"That's more than you know. I have seen a little, Joyce; I have seen
him kiss her."
"A pack of rubbish!" remarked Joyce. "That tells nothing."
"I don't say it does. There's not a young man living but what's fond
of a sly kiss in the dark, if he can get it. He gave her that locket
and chain she wears."
"Who wears?" retorted Joyce, determined not graciously to countenance
the subject. "I don't want to hear anything about it."
" 'Who,' now! Why, Miss Barbara. She has hardly had it off her neck
since, my belief is she wears it in her sleep."
"More simpleton she," returned Joyce.
"The night before he left West Lynne to marry Lady Isabel--and didn't
the news come upon us like a thunderclap!--Miss Barbara had been at
Miss Carlyle's and he brought her home. A lovely night it was, the
moon rising, and nearly as light as day. He somehow broke her parasol
in coming home, and when they got to our gate there was a love scene."
"Were you a third in it?" sarcastically demanded Joyce.
"Yes--without meaning to be. It was a regular love scene; I could hear
enough for that. If ever anybody thought to be Mrs. Carlyle, Barbara
did that night."
"Why, you great baby! You have just said it was the night before he
went to get married!"
"I don't care, she did. After he was gone, I saw her lift up her hands
and her face in ecstacy, and say he would never know how much she
loved him until she was his wife. Be you very sure, Joyce, many a
love-passage had passed between them two; but I suppose when my lady
was thrown in his way he couldn't resist her rank and her beauty, and
the old love was cast over. It is in the nature of man to be fickle,
specially those that can boast of their own good looks, like Mr.
Carlyle."
"Mr. Carlyle's not fickle."
"I can tell you more yet. Two or three days after that, Miss Corny
came up to our house with the news of his marriage. I was in
mistress's bedroom, and they were in the room underneath, the windows
open, and I heard Miss Corny tell the tale, for I was leaning out. Up
came Miss Barbara upon an excuse and flew into her room, and I went
into the corridor. A few moments and I heard a noise--it was a sort of
wail, or groan--and I opened the door softly, fearing she might be
fainting. Joyce, if my heart never ached for anybody before, it ached
then. She was lying upon the floor, her hands writhed together, and
her poor face all white, like one in mortal agony. I'd have given a
quarter's wages to be able to say a word of comfort to her; but I
didn't dare interfere with such sorrow as that. I came out again and
shut the door without her seeing me."
"How thoroughly stupid she must have been!" uttered Joyce, "to go
caring for one who did not care for her."
"I tell you, Joyce, you don't know that he did not care. You are as
obstinate as the justice, and I wish to goodness you wouldn't
interrupt me. They came up here to pay the wedding visit--master,
mistress, and she, came in state in the grand chariot, with the
coachman and Jasper. If you have got any memory at all, you can't fail
to recollect it. Miss Barbara remained behind at East Lynne to spend
the rest of the day."
"I remember it."
"I was sent to fetch her home in the evening, Jasper being out. I came
the field way; for the dust by the road was enough to smother one, and
by the last stile but one, what do you think I came upon?"
Joyce lifted her eyes. "A snake perhaps."
"I came upon Miss Barbara and Mr. Carlyle. What had passed, nobody
knows but themselves. She was leaning back against the stile, crying;
low, soft sobs breaking from her, like one might expect to hear from a
breaking heart. It seemed as if she had been reproaching him, as if
some explanation had passed, and I heard him say that from henceforth
they could only be brother and sister. I spoke soon, for fear they
should see me, and Mr. Carlyle got over the stile. Miss Barbara said
to him that he need not come any further, but he held out his arm, and
came with her to our back gate. I went on then to open the door, and I
saw him with his head bent down to her, and her two hands held in his.
We don't know how it is between them, I tell you."
"At any rate, she is a downright fool to suffer herself to love him
still!" uttered Joyce, indignantly.
"So she is, but she does do it. She'll often steal out to the gate
about the time she knows he'll be passing, and watch him by, not
letting him see her. It is nothing but her unhappiness, her jealousy
of Lady Isabel, that makes her cross. I assure you, Joyce, in this
past year she had so changed that she's not like the same person. If
Mr. Carlyle should ever get tired of my lady, and--"
"Wilson," harshly interrupted Joyce, "have the goodness to recollect
yourself."
"What have I said not? Nothing but truth. Men are shamefully fickle,
husbands worse than sweethearts, and I'm sure I'm not thinking of
anything wrong. But to go back to the argument that we began with--I
say that if anything happened to my lady, Miss Barbara, as sure as
fate, would step into her shoes."
"Nothing is going to happen to her," continued Joyce, with composure.
"I hope it is not, now or later--for the sake of this dear little
innocent thing upon my lap," went on the undaunted Wilson. "She would
not make a very kind stepmother, for it is certain that where the
first wife had been hated, her children won't be loved. She would turn
Mr. Carlyle against them--"
"I tell you what it is, Wilson," interrupted Joyce, in a firm,
unmistakable tone, "if you think to pursue those sort of topics at
East Lynne, I shall inform my lady that you are unsuitable for the
situation."
"I dare say!"
"And you know that when I make up my mind to a thing I do it,"
continued Joyce. "Miss Carlyle may well say you have the longest
tongue in West Lynne; but you might have the grace to know that this
subject is one more unsuitable to it than another, whether you are
eating Mr. Hare's bread, or whether you are eating Mr. Carlyle's.
Another word, Wilson; it appears to me that you have been carrying on
a prying system in Mrs. Hare's house--do not attempt such a thing in
this."
"You were always one of the straight-laced sort, Joyce," cried Wilson,
laughing good-humoredly. "But now that I have had my say out, I shall
stop; and you need not fear I shall be such a simpleton as to go
prattling of this kind of thing to the servants."
Now just fancy this conversation penetrating to Lady Isabel! She heard
every word. It is all very well to oppose the argument, "Who attends
to the gossip of the servants?" Let me tell you it depends upon what
the subject may be, whether the gossip is attended to or not. It might
not, and indeed would not, have made so great an impression upon her
had she been in strong health, but she was weak, feverish, and in a
state of partial delirium; and she hastily took up the idea that
Archibald Carlyle had never loved her, that he had admired her and
made her his wife in his ambition, but that his heart had been given
to Barbara Hare.
A pretty state of excitement she worked herself into as she lay there,
jealousy and fever, ay, and love too, playing pranks with her brain.
It was near the dinner hour, and when Mr. Carlyle entered, he was
startled to see her; her pallid cheeks were burning with a red hectic
glow, and her eyes glistened with fever.
"Isabel, you are worse!" he uttered, as he approached her with a quick
step.
She partially rose from the sofa, and clasped hold of him in her
emotion. "Oh, Archibald! Archibald!" she uttered, "don't marry her! I
could not rest in my grave."
Mr. Carlyle, in his puzzled astonishment, believed her to be laboring
under some temporary hallucination, the result of weakness. He set
himself to soothe her, but it seemed that she could not be soothed.
She burst into a storm of tears and began again--wild words.
"She would ill-treat my child; she would draw your love from it, and
from my memory. Archibald, you must not marry her!"
"You must be speaking from the influence of a dream, Isabel," he
soothingly said; "you have been asleep and are not yet awake. Be
still, and recollection will return to you. There, love; rest upon
me."
"To think of her as your wife brings pain enough to kill me," she
continued to reiterate. "Promise me that you will not marry her;
Archibald, promise it!"
"I will promise you anything in reason," he replied, bewildered with
her words, "but I do not know what you mean. There is no possibility
of my marrying any one, Isabel; you are my wife."
"But if I die? I may--you know I may; and many think I shall--do not
let her usurp my place."
"Indeed she shall not--whoever you may be talking of. What have you
been dreaming? Who is it that has been troubling your mind?"
"Archibald, do you need to ask? Did you love no one before you married
me? Perhaps you have loved her since--perhaps you love her still?"
Mr. Carlyle began to discern "method in her madness." He changed his
cheering tone to one of grave earnestness. "Of whom to you speak,
Isabel?"
"Of Barbara Hare."
He knitted his brow; he was both annoyed and vexed. Whatever had put
this bygone nonsense into his wife's head? He quitted the sofa where
he had been supporting her, and stood upright before her, calm,
dignified, almost solemn in his seriousness.
"Isabel, what notion can you possibly have picked up about myself and
Barbara Hare; I never entertained the faintest shadow of love for her,
either before my marriage or since. You must tell me what has given
rise to this idea in your mind."
"But she loved you."
A moment's hesitation; for, of course, Mr. Carlyle was conscious that
she had; but, taking all the circumstances into consideration, more
especially how he learnt the fact, he could not, in honor, acknowledge
it to his wife. "If it was so, Isabel, she was more reprehensibly
foolish than I should have given Barbara's good sense could be; for a
woman may almost as well lose herself as to suffer herself to love
unsought. If she did give her love to me, I can only say, I was
entirely unconscious of it. Believe me, you have as much cause to be
jealous of Cornelia as you have of Barbara Hare."
An impulse rose within her that she would tell him all; the few words
dropped by Susan and Joyce, twelve months before, the conversation she
had just overheard; but in that moment of renewed confidence, it did
appear to her that she must have been very foolish to attach
importance to it--that a sort of humiliation, in listening to the
converse of servants, was reflected on her, and she remained silent.
There never was a passion in this world--there never will be one--so
fantastic, so delusive, so powerful as jealousy. Mr. Carlyle dismissed
the episode from his thoughts; he believed his wife's emotion to have
been simply from a feverish dream, and never supposed but that, with
the dream, its recollection would pass away from her. Not so.
Implicitly relying upon her husband's words at the moment, feeling
quite ashamed at her own suspicion, Lady Isabel afterward suffered the
unhappy fear to regain its influence; the ill-starred revelations of
Wilson reasserted their power, overmastering the denial of Mr.
Carlyle. Shakspeare calls jealousy yellow and green; I think it may be
called black and white for it most assuredly views white as black, and
black as white. The most fanciful surmises wear the aspect of truth,
the greatest improbabilities appear as consistent realities. Not
another word said Isabel to her husband; and the feeling--you will
understand this if you have ever been foolish enough to sun yourself
in its delights--only caused her to grow more attached to him, to be
more eager for his love. But certain it is that Barbara Hare dwelt on
her heart like an incubus.
CHAPTER XIX.
CAPTAIN THORN AT WEST LYNNE.
"Barbara, how fine the day seems!"
"It is a beautiful day mamma."
"I do think I should be all the better for going out."
"I am sure you would, mamma," was Barbara's answer. "If you went out
more, you would find the benefit. Every fine day you ought to do so. I
will go and ask papa if he can spare Benjamin and the carriage." She
waltzed gaily out of the room, but returned in a moment.
"Mamma, it is all right. Benjamin is gone to get the carriage ready.
You would like a bit of luncheon before you go--I will order the
tray."
"Anything you please, dear," said the sweet-tempered gentlewoman. "I
don't know why, but I feel glad to go out to-day; perhaps because it
is lovely."
Benjamin made ready his carriage and himself, and drove out of the
yard at the back, and brought the carriage round to the front gate.
The carriage--or phaeton as it was often called--was a somewhat old
fashioned concern, as many country things are apt to be. A small box
in front for the driver, and a wide seat with a head behind,
accommodating Barbara well between them when Mr. and Mrs. Hare both
sat in.
Benjamin drew the rug carefully over his mistress's knees--the
servants did not like Mr. Hare, but would have laid down their lives
for her--ascended to his box, and drove them to their destination, the
linen draper's. It was an excellent shop, situated a little beyond the
office of Mr. Carlyle, and Mrs. Hare and Barbara were soon engaged in
that occupation said to possess for all women a fascination. They had
been in about an hour, when Mrs. Hare discovered that her bag was
missing.
"I must have left it in the carriage, Barbara. Go and bring it, will
you, my dear? The pattern of that silk is in it."
Barbara went out. The carriage and Benjamin and the sleek old horse
were all waiting drowsily together. Barbara could not see the bag, and
she appealed to the servant.
"Find mamma's bag, Benjamin. It must be somewhere in the carriage."
Benjamin got off his box and began to search. Barbara waited, gazing
listlessly down the street. The sun was shining brilliantly, and its
rays fell upon the large cable chain of a gentleman who was sauntering
idly up the pavement, making its gold links and its drooping seal and
key glitter, as they crossed his waistcoat. It shone also upon the
enameled gold studs of his shirt front, making /them/ glitter; and as
he suddenly raised his ungloved hand to stroke his moustache--by which
action you know a vain man--a diamond ring he wore gleamed with a
light that was positively dazzling. Involuntarily Barbara thought of
the description her brother Richard had given of certain dazzling
jewels worn by another.
She watched him advance! He was a handsome man of, perhaps, seven or
eight and twenty, tall, slender and well made, his eyes and hair
black. A very pleasant expression sat upon his countenance; and on the
left hand he wore a light buff kid glove, and was swinging its fellow
by the fingers. But for the light cast at that moment by the sun,
Barbara might not have noticed the jewellery, or connected it in her
mind with the other jewellery in that unhappy secret.
"Hallo, Thorn, is that you? Just step over here."
The speaker was Otway Bethel, who was on the opposite side of the
street; the spoken to, the gentleman with the jewellery. But the
latter was in a brown study, and did not hear. Bethel called out
again, louder.
"Captain Thorn!"
That was heard. Captain Thorn nodded, and turned short off across the
street. Barbara stood like one in a dream, her brain, her mind, her
fancy all in a confused mass together.
"Here's the bag, Miss Barbara. It had got among the folds of the rug."
Benjamin held it out to her, but she took no notice; she was
unconscious of all external things save one. That she beheld the real
murderer of Hallijohn, she entertained no manner of doubt. In every
particular he tallied with the description given by Richard; tall,
dark, vain, handsome, delicate hands, jewellery, and--Captain Thorn!
Barbara's cheeks grew white and her heart turned sick.
"The bag, Miss Barbara."
Away tore Barbara, leaving Benjamin and the bag in wonder. She had
caught sight of Mr. Wainwright, the surgeon, at a little distance, and
sped toward him.
"Mr. Wainwright," began she, forgetting ceremony in her agitation,
"you see that gentleman talking to Otway Bethel--who is he?"
Mr. Wainwright had to put his glasses across the bridge of his nose
before he could answer, for he was short-sighted. "That? Oh, it is a
Captain Thorn. He is visiting the Herberts, I believe."
"Where does he come from? Where does he live?" reiterated Barbara in
her eagerness.
"I don't know anything about him. I saw him this morning with young
Smith, and he told me he was a friend of the Herberts. You are not
looking well, Miss Barbara."
She made no answer. Captain Thorn and Mr. Bethel came walking down the
street, and the latter saluted her, but she was too much confused to
respond to it. Mr. Wainwright then wished her good day, and Barbara
walked slowly back. Mrs. Hare was appearing at the shop door.
"My dear, how long you are! Cannot the bag be found?"
"I went to speak to Mr. Wainwright," answered Barbara, mechanically
taking the bag from Benjamin and giving it to her mother, her whole
heart and eyes still absorbed with that one object moving away in the
distance.
"You look pale, child. Are you well?"
"Oh, yes, quite. Let us get our shopping over, mamma."
She moved on to their places at the counter as she spoke, eager to
"get it over" and be at home, that she might have time for thought.
Mrs. Hare wondered what had come to her; the pleased interest
displayed in their purchases previously was now gone, and she sat
inattentive and absorbed.
"Now, my dear, it is only waiting for you to choose. Which of the two
silks will you have?"
"Either--any. Take which you like, mamma."
"Barbara, what /has/ come to you?"
"I believe I am tired," said Barbara, with a forced laugh, as she
compelled herself to pay some sort of attention. "I don't like the
green; I will take the other."
They arrived at home. Barbara got just five minutes alone in her
chamber before the dinner was on the table. All the conclusion she
could come to was, /she/ could do nothing save tell the facts to
Archibald Carlyle.
How could she contrive to see him? The business might admit of no
delay. She supposed she must go to East Lynne that evening; but where
would be her excuse for it at home? Puzzling over it, she went down to
dinner. During the meal, Mrs. Hare began talking of some silk she had
purchased for a mantle. She should have it made like Miss Carlyle's
new one. When Miss Carlyle was at the grove, the other day, about
Wilson's character, she offered her the pattern, and she, Mrs. Hare,
would send one of the servants up for it after dinner.
"Oh, mamma, let me go!" burst forth Barbara, and so vehemently spoke
she, that the justice paused in carving, and demanded what ailed her.
Barbara made some timid excuse.
"Her eagerness is natural, Richard," smiled Mrs. Hare. "Barbara thinks
she shall get a peep at the baby, I expect. All young folks are fond
of babies."
Barbara's face flushed crimson, but she did not contradict the
opinion. She could not eat her dinner--she was too full of poor
Richard; she played with it, and then sent away her plate nearly
untouched.
"That's through the finery she's been buying," pronounced Justice
Hare. "Her head is stuffed up with it."
No opposition was offered to Barbara's going to East Lynne. She
reached it just as their dinner was over. It was for Miss Carlyle she
asked.
"Miss Carlyle is not at home, miss. She is spending the day out; and
my lady does not receive visitors yet."
It was a sort of checkmate. Barbara was compelled to say she would see
Mr. Carlyle. Peter ushered her into the drawing-room, and Mr. Carlyle
came to her.
"I am so very sorry to disturb you--to have asked for you," began
Barbara, with a burning face, for, somehow, a certain evening
interview of hers with him, twelve months before, was disagreeably
present to her. Never, since that evening of agitation, had Barbara
suffered herself to betray emotion to Mr. Carlyle; her manner to him
had been calm, courteous, and indifferent. And she now more frequently
called him "Mr. Carlyle" than "Archibald."
"Take a seat--take a seat, Barbara."
"I asked for Miss Carlyle," she continued, "for mamma is in want of a
pattern that she promised to lend her. You remember the Lieutenant
Thorn whom Richard spoke of as being the real criminal?"
"Yes."
"I think he is at West Lynne."
Mr. Carlyle was aroused to eager interest.
"He! The same Thorn?"
"It can be no other. Mamma and I were shopping to-day, and I went out
for her bag, which she left in the carriage. While Benjamin was
getting it, I saw a stranger coming up the street--a tall, good-
looking, dark-haired man, with a conspicuous gold chain and studs. The
sun was full upon him, causing the ornaments to shine, especially a
diamond ring which he wore, for he had one hand raised to his face.
The thought flashed over me, 'That is just like the description
Richard gave of the man Thorn.' Why the idea should have occurred to
me in that strange manner, I do not know, but it most assuredly did
occur, though I did not really suppose him to be the same. Just then I
heard him spoken to by some one on the other side of the street; it
was Otway Bethel, and he called him /Captain Thorn/."
"This is curious, indeed, Barbara. I did not know any stranger was at
West Lynne."
"I saw Mr. Wainwright, and asked him who it was. He said a Captain
Thorn, a friend of the Herberts. A Lieutenant Thorn four or five years
ago would probably be Captain Thorn now."
Mr. Carlyle nodded, and there was a pause.
"What can be done?" asked Barbara.
Mr. Carlyle was passing one hand over his brow; it was a habit of his
when in deep thought.
"It is hard to say what is to be done, Barbara. The description you
gave of this man certainly tallies with that given by Richard. Did he
look like a gentleman?"
"Very much so. A remarkably aristocratic looking man, as it struck me.
Mr. Carlyle again nodded assentingly. He remembered Richard's words,
when describing the other: "an out-and-out aristocrat." "Of course,
Barbara, the first thing must be to try and ascertain whether it is
the same," he observed. "If we find it is, then we must deliberate
upon future measures. I will see what I can pick up and let you know."
Barbara rose. Mr. Carlyle escorted her across the hall, and then
strolled down the park by her side, deep in the subject, and quite
unconscious that Lady Isabel's jealous eyes were watching them from
her dressing-room window.
'You say he seemed intimate with Otway Bethel?"
"As to being intimate, I cannot say. Otway Bethel spoke as though he
knew him."
"This must have caused excitement to Mrs. Hare."
"You forget, Archibald, that mamma was not told anything about Thorn,"
was the answer of Barbara. "The uncertainty would have worried her to
death. All Richard said to her was, that he was innocent, that it was
a stranger who did the deed, and she asked for no particulars; she had
implicit faith in Richard's truth."
"True; I did forget," replied Mr. Carlyle. "I wish we could find out
some one who knew the other Thorn; to ascertain that they were the
same would be a great point gained."
He went as far as the park gates with Barbara, shook hands and wished
her good evening. Scarcely had she departed when Mr. Carlyle saw two
gentlemen advancing from the opposite direction, in one of whom he
recognized Tom Herbert, and the other--instinct told him--was Captain
Thorn. He waited till they came up.
"If this isn't lucky, seeing you," cried Mr. Tom Herbert, who was a
free-and-easy sort of a gentleman, the second son of a brother justice
of Mr. Hare. "I wish to goodness you'd give us a draught of your
cider, Carlyle. We went up to Beauchamp's for a stroll, but found them
all out, and I'm awful thirsty. Captain Thorn, Carlyle."
Mr. Carlyle invited them to his house and ordered in refreshments.
Young Herbert coolly threw himself into an arm-chair and lit a cigar.
"Come, Thorn," cried he, "here's a weed for you."
Captain Thorn glanced toward Mr. Carlyle; he appeared of a far more
gentlemanly nature than Tom Herbert.
"You'll have one too, Carlyle," said Herbert, holding out his cigar-
case. "Oh, I forgot--you are a muff; don't smoke one twice a year. I
say how's Lady Isabel?"
"Very ill still."
"By Jove! Is she, though? Tell her I am sorry to hear it, will you,
Carlyle? But--I say! Will she smell the smoke?" asked he, with a
mixture of alarm and concern in his face.
Mr. Carlyle reassured him upon the point, and turned to Captain Thorn.
"Are you acquainted with this neighborhood?"
Captain Thorn smiled. "I only reached West Lynne yesterday."
"You were never here before then?" continued Mr. Carlyle, setting down
the last as a probably evasive answer.
"No."
"He and my brother Jack, you know, are in the same regiment," put in
Tom, with scanty ceremony. "Jack had invited him down for some fishing
and that, and Thorn arrives. But he never sent word he was coming, you
see; Jack had given him up, and is off on some Irish expedition, the
deuce knows where. Precious unlucky that it should have happened so.
Thorn says he shall cut short his stay, and go again."
The conversation turned upon fishing, and in the heat of the argument,
the stranger mentioned a certain pond and its famous eels--the "Low
Pond." Mr. Carlyle looked at him, speaking, however in a careless
manner.
"Which do you mean? We have two ponds not far apart, each called the
'Low Pond' "
"I mean the one on an estate about three miles form here--Squire
Thorpe's, unless I am mistaken."
Mr. Carlyle smiled. "I think you must have been in the neighborhood
before, Captain Thorn. Squire Thorpe is dead and the property has
passed to his daughter's husband, and that Low Pond was filled up
three years ago."
"I have heard a friend mention it," was Captain Thorn's reply, spoken
in an indifferent tone, though he evidently wished not to pursue the
subject.
Mr. Carlyle, by easy degrees, turned the conversation upon Swainson,
the place where Richard Hare's Captain Thorn was suspected to have
come. The present Captain Thorn said he knew it "a little," he had
once been "staying there a short time." Mr. Carlyle became nearly
convinced that Barbara's suspicions were correct. The description
certainly agreed, so far as he could judge, in the most minute
particulars. The man before him wore two rings, a diamond--and a very
beautiful diamond too--on the one hand; a seal ring on the other; his
hands were delicate to a degree, and his handkerchief, a cambric one
of unusually fine texture, was not entirely guiltless of scent. Mr.
Carlyle quitted the room for a moment and summoned Joyce to him.
"My lady has been asking for you," said Joyce.
"Tell her I will be up the moment these gentlemen leave, Joyce," he
added, "find an excuse to come into the room presently; you can bring
something or other in; I want you to look at this stranger who is with
young Mr. Herbert. Notice him well; I fancy you may have seen him
before."
Mr. Carlyle returned to the room, leaving Joyce surprised. However,
she presently followed, taking in some water, and lingered a few
minutes, apparently placing the things on the table in better order.
When the two departed Mr. Carlyle called Joyce, before proceeding to
his wife's room. "Well," he questioned, "did you recognize him?"
"Not at all, sir. He seemed quite strange to me."
"Cast your thoughts back, Joyce. Did you never see him in days gone
by?"
Joyce looked puzzled, and she replied in the negative.
"Is he the man, think you, who used to ride from Swainson to see Afy?"
Joyce's face flushed crimson. "Oh, sir!" was all she uttered.
"The name is the same--Thorn; I thought it possible the men might be,"
observed Mr. Carlyle.
"Sir, I cannot say. I never saw that Captain Thorn but once, and I
don't know, I don't know--" Joyce spoke slowly and with consideration
--"that I should at all know him again. I did not think of him when I
looked at this gentleman; but, at any rate, no appearance in this one
struck upon my memory as being familiar."
So from Joyce Mr. Carlyle obtained no clue, one way or the other. The
following day he sought out Otway Bethel.
"Are you intimate with that Captain Thorn who is staying with the
Herberts?" asked he.
"Yes," answered Bethel, decisively, "if passing a couple of hours in
his company can constitute intimacy. That's all I have seen of Thorn."
"Are you sure," pursued Mr. Carlyle.
"Sure!" returned Bethel; "why, what are you driving at now? I called
in at Herbert's the night before last, and Tom asked me to stay the
evening. Thorn had just come. A jolly bout we had; cigars and cold
punch."
"Bethel," said Mr. Carlyle, dashing to the point, "is it the Thorn who
used to go after Afy Hallijohn? Come, you can tell if you like."
Bethel remained dumb for a moment, apparently with amazement. "What a
confounded lie!" uttered he at length. "Why it's no more that than--
What Thorn?" he broke off abruptly.
"You are equivocating, Bethel. The Thorn who is mixed up--or said to
be--in the Hallijohn affair. Is this the same man?"
"You are a fool, Carlyle, which is what I never took you to be yet,"
was Mr. Bethel's rejoinder, spoken in a savage tone. "I have told you
that I never knew there was any Thorn mixed up with Afy, and I should
like to know why my word is not to be believed? I never saw Thorn in
my life till I saw him the other night at the Herberts', and that I
would take my oath to, if put to it."
Bethel quitted Mr. Carlyle with the last word, and the latter gazed
after him, revolving points in his brain. The mention of Thorn's name,
the one spoken of by Richard Hare, appeared to excite some feeling in
Bethel's mind, arousing it to irritation. Mr. Carlyle remembered that
it had done so previously and now it had done so again, and yet Bethel
was an easy-natured man in general, far better tempered than
principled. That there was something hidden, some mystery connected
with the affair, Mr. Carlyle felt sure; but he could not attempt so
much as a guess at what it might be. And this interview with Bethel
brought him no nearer the point he wished to find out--whether this
Thorn was the same man. In walking back to his office he met Mr. Tom
Herbert.
"Does Captain Thorn purpose making a long stay with you?" he stopped
him to inquire.
"He's gone; I have just seen him off by the train," was the reply of
Tom Herbert. "It seemed rather slow with him without Jack, so he
docked his visit, and says he'll pay us one when Jack's to the fore."
As Mr. Carlyle went home to dinner that evening, he entered the grove,
ostensibly to make a short call on Mrs. Hare. Barbara, on the
tenterhooks of impatience, accompanied him outside when he departed,
and walked down the path.
"What have you learnt?" she eagerly asked.
"Nothing satisfactory," was the reply of Mr. Carlyle. "And the man has
left again."
"Left?" uttered Barbara.
Mr. Carlyle explained. He told her how they had come to his house the
previous evening after Barbara's departure, and his encounter with Tom
Herbert that day; he mentioned, also, his interview with Bethel.
"Can he have gone on purpose, fearing consequences?" wondered Barbara.
"Scarcely; or why should he have come?"
"You did not suffer any word to escape you last night causing him to
suspect for a moment that he was hounded?"
"Not any. You would make a bad lawyer, Barbara."
"Who or what is he?"
"An officer in her majesty's service, in John Herbert's regiment. I
ascertained no more. Tom said he was of good family. But I cannot help
suspecting it is the same man."
"Can nothing more be done?"
"Nothing in the present stage of the affair," continued Mr. Carlyle,
as he passed through the gate to continue his way. "We can only wait
on again with what patience we may, hoping that time will bring about
its own elucidation."
Barbara pressed her forehead down on the cold iron of the gate as his
footsteps died away. "Aye, to wait on," she murmured, "to wait on in
dreary pain; to wait on, perhaps, for years, perhaps forever! And poor
Richard--wearing out his days in poverty and exile!"
CHAPTER XX.
GOING FROM HOME.
"I should recommend a complete change of scene altogether, Mr.
Carlyle. Say some place on the French or Belgian coast. Sea bathing
might do wonders."
"Should you think it well for her to go so far from home?"
"I should. In these cases of protracted weakness, where you can do
nothing but try to coax the strength back again, change of air and
scene are of immense benefit."
"I will propose it to her," said Mr. Carlyle.
"I have just done so," replied Dr. Martin, who was the other speaker.
"She met it with objection, which I expected, for invalids naturally
feel a disinclination to move from home. But it is necessary that she
should go."
The object of their conversation was Lady Isabel. Years had gone on,
and there were three children now at East Lynne--Isabel, William, and
Archibald--the latter twelve months old. Lady Isabel had, a month or
two back, been attacked with illness; she recovered from the disorder;
but it had left her in an alarming state of weakness; she seemed to
get worse instead of better, and Dr. Martin was summoned from
Lynneborough. The best thing he could recommend--as you save seen--was
change of air.
Lady Isabel was unwilling to take the advice; more especially to go so
far as the "French coast." And but for a circumstance that seemed to
have happened purposely to induce her to decide, would probably never
have gone. Mrs. Ducie--the reader may not have forgotten her name--
had, in conjunction with her husband, the honorable Augustus, somewhat
run out at the elbows, and found it convenient to enter for a time on
the less expensive life of the Continent. For eighteen months she had
been staying in Paris, the education of her younger daughters being
the plea put forth, and a very convenient plea it is, and serves
hundreds. Isabel had two or three letters from her during her absence,
and she now received another, saying they were going to spend a month
or two at Boulogne-sur-Mer. Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Wainwright, and Dr.
Martin--in short, everybody--declared this must remove all Lady
Isabel's unwillingness to go from home, for Mrs. Ducie's society would
do away with the loneliness she had anticipated, which had been the
ostensible score of her objection.
"Boulogne-sur-Mer, of all places, in the world!" remonstrated Lady
Isabel. "It is spoken of as being crowded and vulgar."
"The more amusing for you, my lady," cried Dr. Martin, while Mr.
Carlyle laughed at her. And finding she had no chance against them
all, she consented to go, and plans were hastily decided upon.
"Joyce," said Lady Isabel to her waiting maid, "I shall leave you at
home; I must take Wilson instead."
"Oh, my lady! What have I done?"
"You have done all that you ought, Joyce, but you must stay with the
children. If I may not take them, the next best thing will be to leave
them in your charge, not Miss Carlyle's," she said, shaking her voice;
"if it were Wilson who remained, I could not do that."
"My lady, I must do whatever you think best. I wish I could attend you
and stay with them, but of course I cannot do both."
"I am sent away to get health and strength, but it may be that I shall
die, Joyce. If I never come back, will you promise to remain with my
children?"
Joyce felt a creeping sensation in her veins, the sobs rose in her
throat, but she swallowed them down and constrained her voice to
calmness. "My lady, I hope you will come back to us as well as you
used to be. I trust you will hope so too, my lady, and not give way to
low spirits."
"I sincerely hope and trust I shall," answered Lady Isabel, fervently.
"Still, there's no telling, for I am very ill. Joyce, give me your
promise. In case of the worst, you will remain with the children."
"I will, my lady--as long as I am permitted."
"And be kind to them and love them, and shield them from--from--any
unkindness that may be put upon them," she added, her head full of
Miss Carlyle, "and talk to them sometimes of their poor mother, who is
gone?"
"I will, I will--oh my lady, I will!" And Joyce sat down in the
rocking-chair as Lady Isabel quitted her, and burst into tears.
Mr. Carlyle and Lady Isabel, with Wilson and Peter in attendance,
arrived at Boulogne, and proceeded to the Hotel des Bains. It may be
as well to mention that Peter had been transferred from Miss Carlyle's
service to theirs, when the establishment was first formed at East
Lynne. Upon entering the hotel they inquired for Mrs. Ducie, and then
a disappointment awaited them. A letter was handed them which had
arrived that morning from Mrs. Ducie, expressing her regret that
certain family arrangements prevented her visiting Boulogne; she was
proceeding to some of the baths in Germany instead.
"I might almost have known it," remarked Isabel. "She was always the
most changeable of women."
Mr. Carlyle went out in search of lodgings, Isabel objecting to remain
in the bustling hotel. He succeeded in finding some very desirable
ones, situated in the Rue de l'Ecu, near the port, and they moved into
them. He thought the journey had done her good, for she looked better,
and said she already felt stronger. Mr. Carlyle remained with her
three days; he had promised only one, but he was pleased with
everything around him, pleased with Isabel's returning glimpses of
health, and amused with the scenes of the busy town.
The tide served at eight o'clock the following morning, and Mr.
Carlyle left by the Folkestone boat. Wilson made his breakfast, and
after swallowing it in haste, he returned to his wife's room to say
farewell.
"Good-bye, my love," he said, stooping to kiss her, "take care of
yourself."
"Give my dear love to the darlings, Archibald. And--and----"
"And what?" he asked. "I have not a moment to lose."
"Do not get making love to Barbara Hare while I am away."
She spoke in a tone half jest, half serious--could he but have seen
how her heart was breaking! Mr. Carlyle took it wholly as a jest, and
went away laughing. Had he believed she was serious, he could have
been little more surprised had she charged him not to go about the
country on a dromedary.
Isabel rose later, and lingered over her breakfast, listless enough.
She was wondering how she would make the next few weeks pass; what she
should do with her time. She had taken two sea baths since her
arrival, but they had appeared not to agree with her, leaving her low
and shivering afterwards, so it was not deemed advisable that she
should attempt more. It was a lovely morning, and she determined to
venture on to the pier, to where they had sat on the previous evening.
She had not Mr. Carlyle's arm, but it was not far, and she could take
a good rest at the end of it.
She went, attended by Peter, took her seat, and told him to come for
her in an hour. She watched the strollers on the pier as they had done
the previous evening; not in crowds now, but stragglers, coming on at
intervals. There came a gouty man, in a list shoe, there came three
young ladies and their governess, there came two fast puppies in
shooting jackets and eye-glasses, which they turned with a broad stare
on Lady Isabel; but there was something about her which caused them to
drop their glasses and their ill manners together. After an interval,
there appeared another, a tall, handsome, gentlemanly man. Her eyes
fell upon him; and--what was it that caused every nerve in her frame
to vibrate, every pulse to quicken? /Whose/ form was it that was thus
advancing and changing the monotony of her mind into tumult? It was
that of one whom she was soon to find had never been entirely
forgotten.
Captain Levison came slowly on, approaching the pier where she sat. He
glanced at her; not with the hardihood displayed by the two young men,
but with quite sufficiently evident admiration.
"What a lovely girl!" thought he to himself. "Who can she be, sitting
there alone?"
All at once a recollection flashed into his mind; he raised his hat
and extended his hand, his fascinating smile in full play.
"I certainly cannot be mistaken. Have I the honor of once more meeting
Lady Isabel Vane?"
She rose from the seat, and allowed him to take her hand, answering a
few words at random, for her wits seemed wool-gathering.
"I beg your pardon--I should have said Lady Isabel Carlyle. Time has
elapsed since we parted, and in the pleasure of seeing you again so
unexpectedly, I thought of you as you were then."
She sat down again, the brilliant flush of emotion dying away upon her
cheeks. It was the loveliest face Francis Levison had seen since he
saw hers, and he thought so as he gazed at it.
"What can have brought you to this place?" he inquired, taking a seat
beside her.
"I have been ill," she explained, "and am ordered to the sea-side. We
should not have come here but for Mrs. Ducie; we expected to meet her.
Mr. Carlyle only left me this morning."
"Mrs. Ducie is off to Ems. I see them occasionally. They have been
fixtures in Paris for some time. You do indeed look ill," he abruptly
added, in a tone of sympathy, "alarmingly ill. Is there anything I can
do for you?"
She was aware that she looked unusually ill at that moment, for the
agitation and surprise of meeting him were fading away, leaving her
face an ashy whiteness. Exceedingly vexed and angry with herself did
she feel that the meeting should have power to call forth emotion.
Until that moment she was unconscious that she retained any sort of
feeling for Captain Levison.
"Perhaps I have ventured out too early," she said, in a tone that
would seem to apologize for her looks: "I think I will return. I shall
meet my servant, no doubt. Good-morning, Captain Levison."
"But indeed you do not appear fit to walk alone," he remonstrated.
"You must allow me to see you safely home."
Drawing her hand within his own quite as a matter of course, as he had
done many a time in days gone by, he proceeded to assist her down the
pier. Lady Isabel, conscious of her own feelings, felt that it was not
quite the thing to walk thus familiarly with him, but he was a sort of
relation of the family--a connection, at any rate--and she could find
no ready excuse for declining.
"Have you seen Lady Mount Severn lately?" he inquired.
"I saw her when I was in London this spring with Mr. Carlyle. The
first time we have met since my marriage; and we do not correspond.
Lord Mount Severn had paid us two or three visits at East Lynne. They
are in town yet, I believe."
"For all I know; I have not seen them, or England either, for ten
months. I have been staying in Paris, and got here yesterday."
"A long leave of absence," she observed.
"Oh, I have left the army. I sold out. The truth is, Lady Isabel--for
I don't mind telling you--things are rather down with me at present.
My old uncle has behaved shamefully; he has married again."
"I heard that Sir Peter had married."
"He is seventy-three--the old simpleton! Of course this materially
alters my prospects, for it is just possible he may have a son of his
own now; and my creditors all came down upon me. They allowed me to
run into debt with complacency when I was heir to the title and
estates, but as soon as Sir Peter's marriage appeared in the papers,
myself and my consequence dropped a hundred per cent; credit was
stopped, and I dunned for payment. So I thought I'd cut it altogether,
and I sold out and came abroad."
"Leaving your creditors?"
"What else could I do? My uncle would not pay them, or increase my
allowance."
"What are your prospects then?" resumed Lady Isabel.
"Prospects! Do you see that little ragged boy throwing stones into the
harbor?--it is well the police don't drop upon him,--ask him what his
prospects are, and he will stare you in the face, and say, 'None.'
Mine are on a like par."
"You may succeed Sir Peter yet."
"I may, but I may not. When those old idiots get a young wife--"
"Have you quarreled with Sir Peter?" interrupted Lady Isabel.
"I should quarrel with him as he deserves, if it would do any good,
but I might get my allowance stopped. Self interest, you see, Lady
Isabel, is the order of the day with most of us."
"Do you propose staying in Boulogne long?"
"I don't know. As I may find amusement. Paris is a fast capital, with
its heated rooms and its late hours, and I came down for the
refreshment of a few sea dips. Am I walking too fast for you?"
"You increased your pace alarmingly when you spoke of Sir Peter's
marriage. And I am not sorry for it," she added, good-naturedly, "for
it has proved to me how strong I am getting. A week ago I could not
have walked half so fast."
He interrupted with eager apologies, and soon they reached her home.
Captain Levison entered with her--uninvited. He probably deemed
between connections great ceremonies might be dispensed with, and he
sat a quarter of an hour, chatting to amuse her. When he rose, he
inquired what she meant to do with herself in the afternoon.
"To lie down," replied Isabel. "I am not strong enough to sit up all
day."
"Should you be going out afterwards, you must allow me to take care of
you," he observed. "I am glad that I happened to be here, for I am
sure you are not fit to wander out without an arm, and only followed
by a servant. When Mr. Carlyle comes, he will thank me for my pains."
What was she to urge in objection? Simply nothing. He spoke, let us
not doubt, from a genuine wish to serve her, in a plain, easy tone, as
any acquaintance might speak. Lady Isabel schooled herself severely.
If those old feelings were not quite dead within her, why, she must
smother them down again as effectually as if they were; the very fact
of recognizing such to her own heart, brought a glow of shame to her
brow. She would meet Captain Levison, and suffer his companionship, as
she would that of the most indifferent stranger.
It was just the wrong way for her to go to work, though.
As the days passed on, Lady Isabel improved wonderfully. She was soon
able to go to the sands in the morning and sit there to enjoy the sea
air, watching the waves come up to recede with the tide. She made no
acquaintance whatever in the place, and when she had a companion it
was Captain Levison. He would frequently join her there, sometimes
take her, almost always give her his arm home. Of all things, she
disliked the having to take his arm, would a thousand times over
rather have taken good old Peter's. A secret prick of the conscience
whispered it might be better if she did not. One day she said, in a
joking sort of manner--she would not say it in any other--that now she
was strong, she had no need of his arm and his escort. He demanded, in
evident astonishment, what had arisen that he might not still afford
it, seeing her husband was not with her to give her his. She had no
answer in reply to this, no excuse to urge, and, in default of one,
took his arm, as usual. In the evening he would be ready to take her
to the pier, but they sat apart, mixing not with the bustling crowd--
he lending to his manner, as he conversed with her, all that he would
call up of fascination--and fascination, such as Francis Levison's,
might be dangerous to any ear, in the sweet evening twilight. The walk
over, he left her at her own door; she never asked him in in the
evening, and he did not intrude without, as he sometimes would of a
morning.
Now, where was the help for this? You may say that she should have
remained indoors, and not have subjected herself to his companionship.
But the remaining indoors would not have brought her health, and it
was health that she was staying in Boulogne to acquire, and the sooner
it came the better pleased she would be, for she wanted to be at home
with her husband and children.
In a fortnight from the period of his departure, Mr. Carlyle was
expected in Boulogne. But what a marvellous change had this fortnight
wrought in Lady Isabel! She did not dare to analyze her feelings, but
she was conscious that all the fresh emotions of her youth had come
again. The blue sky seemed as of the sweetest sapphire, the green
fields and waving trees were of an emerald brightness, the perfume of
the flowers was more fragrant than any perfume had yet seemed. She
knew that the sky, that the grassy plains, the leafy trees, the
brilliant flowers, were but as they ever had been; she knew that the
sunny atmosphere possessed no more of loveliness or power of imparting
delight than of old; and she knew that the change, the sensation of
ecstacy, was in her own heart. No wonder that she shrank from self-
examination.
The change from listless languor to her present feeling brought the
hue and contour of health to her face far sooner than anything else
could have done. She went down with Captain Levison to meet Mr.
Carlyle, the evening he came in, and when Mr. Carlyle saw her behind
the cords, as he was going to the custom-house, he scarcely knew her.
Her features had lost their sharpness, her cheeks wore a rosy flush,
and the light of pleasure at meeting him again shone in her eyes.
"What can you have been doing to yourself, my darling?" he uttered in
delight as he emerged from the custom-house and took her hands in his.
"You look almost well."
"Yes, I am much better, Archibald, but I am warm now and flushed. We
have waited here some time, and the setting sun was full upon us. How
long the boat was in coming in!"
"The wind was against us," replied Mr. Carlyle, wondering who the
exquisite was at his wife's side. He thought he remembered his face.
"Captain Levison," said Lady Isabel. "I wrote you word in one of my
letters that he was here. Have you forgotten it?" Yes, it had slipped
from his memory.
"And I am happy that it happened so," said that gentleman,
interposing, "for it has enabled me to attend Lady Isabel in some of
her walks. She is stronger now, but at first she was unfit to venture
alone."
"I feel much indebted to you," said Mr. Carlyle, warmly.
The following day was Sunday, and Francis Levison was asked to dine
with them--the first meal he had been invited to in the house. After
dinner, when Lady Isabel left them, he grew confidential over his
claret to Mr. Carlyle, laying open all his intricate affairs and his
cargo of troubles.
"This compulsory exile abroad is becoming intolerable," he concluded;
"and a Paris life plays the very deuce with one. Do you see any chance
of my getting back to England?"
"Not the least," was the candid answer, "unless you can manage to
satisfy or partially satisfy those claims you have been telling me of.
Will not Sir Peter assist you?"
"I believe he would, were the case fairly represented to him; but how
am I to get over to do it? I have written several letters to him
lately, and for some time I got no reply. Then came an epistle from
Lady Levison; not short and sweet, but short and sour. It was to the
effect that Sir Peter was ill, and could not at present be troubled
with business matters."
"He cannot be very ill," remarked Mr. Carlyle; "he passed through West
Lynne, in his open carriage, a week ago."
"He ought to help me," grumbled Captain Levison. "I am his heir, so
long as Lady Levison does not give him one. I do not hear that she has
expectations."
"You should contrive to see him."
"I know I should; but it is not possible under present circumstances.
With these thunder-clouds hanging over me, I dare not set foot in
England, and run the risk to be dropped upon. I can stand a few
things, but I shudder at the bare idea of a prison. Something peculiar
in my idiosyncrasy, I take it, for those who have tried it, say that
it's nothing when you're used to it."
"Some one might see him for you."
"Some one--who? I have quarreled with my lawyers, Sharp & Steel, of
Lincoln's Inn."
"Keen practitioners," put in Mr. Carlyle.
"Too keen for me. I'd send them over the herring-pond if I could. They
have used me shamefully since my uncle's marriage. If ever I do come
into the Levison estates they'll be ready to eat their ears off; they
would like a finger in a pie with such property as that."
"Shall I see Sir Peter Levison for you?"
"/Will/ you?" returned Captain Levison, his dark eyes lighting up.
"If you like as your friend, you understand; not as your solicitor;
that I decline. I have a slight knowledge of Sir Peter; my father was
well acquainted with him; and if I can render you any little service,
I shall be happy, in return for your kind attention to my wife. I
cannot promise to see him for those two or three weeks, though,"
resumed Mr. Carlyle, "for we are terribly busy. I never was so driven;
but for being so I should stay here with my wife."
Francis Levison expressed his gratitude, and the prospect, however
remote, of being enabled to return to England increased his spirits to
exultation. Whilst they continued to converse, Lady Isabel sat at the
window in the adjoining room, listlessly looking out on the crowds of
French who were crowding to and from the port in their Sunday holiday
attire. Looking at them with her eyes, not with her senses--her senses
were holding commune with herself, and it was not altogether
satisfactory--she was aware that a sensation all too warm, a feeling
of attraction toward Francis Levison, was working within her. Not a
voluntary one; she could no more repress it than she could repress her
own sense of being; and, mixed with it, was the stern voice of
conscience, overwhelming her with the most lively terror. She would
have given all she possessed to be able to overcome it. She would have
given half the years of her future life to separate herself at once
and forever from the man.
But do not mistake the word terror, or suppose that Lady Isabel
Carlyle applied it here in the vulgar acceptation of the term. She did
not fear for herself; none could be more conscious of self-rectitude
of principle and conduct; and she would have believed it as impossible
for her ever to forsake her duty as a wife, a gentlewoman, and a
Christian, as for the sun to turn round from west to east. That was
not the fear which possessed her; it had never presented itself to her
mind; what she did fear was, that further companionship with Francis
Levison might augment the sentiments she entertained for him to a
height that her life, for perhaps years to come, would be one of
unhappiness, a sort of concealment; and, more than all, she shrank
form the consciousness of the bitter wrong that these sentiments cast
upon her husband.
"Archibald, I have a favor to ask you," she said, after Captain
Levison's departure. "Take me back with you."
"Impossible, my love. The change is doing you so much good; and I took
the apartments for six weeks. You must at least remain that time."
The color flowed painfully into her cheek. "I cannot stay without you,
Archibald."
"Tell me why."
"I am so dull without you," was all she could say. He felt that this
was not reason enough for altering an arrangement that was so
beneficial to her; so he left her the following morning, commending
her to the continued care of Captain Levison.
CHAPTER XXI.
QUITTING THE DANGER.
Lady Isabel was seated on one of the benches of the Petit Camp, as it
is called, underneath the ramparts of the upper tower. A week or ten
days had passed away since the departure of Mr. Carlyle, and in her
health there was a further visible improvement.
It was still evening, cool for July; no sound was heard save the hum
of the summer insects, and Lady Isabel sat in silence with her
companion, her rebellious heart beating with a sense of its own
happiness. But for the voice of conscience, strong within her; but for
the sense of right and wrong; but for the existing things; in short,
but that she was a wife, she might have been content to sit by his
side forever, never to wish to move or to break the silence. Did he
read her feelings? He told her, months afterward, that he did; but it
may have been a vain boast, an excuse.
"Do you remember the evening, Lady Isabel, just such a one as this,
that we all passed at Richmond?" he suddenly asked. "Your father, Mrs.
Vane, you, I and others?"
"Yes, I remember it. We had spent a pleasant day; the two Miss
Challoners were with us. You drove Mrs. Vane home, and I went with
papa. You drove recklessly, I recollect, and Mrs. Vane said when we
got home that you should never drive her again."
"Which meant, not until the next time. Of all capricious, vain,
exacting women, Emma Vane was the worst; and Emma Mount Severn is no
improvement upon it; she's a systematic flirt, and nothing better. I
drove recklessly on purpose to put her in a fright, and pay her off."
"What had she done?"
"Put me in a rage. She had saddled herself upon me, when I wanted--I
wished for another to be my companion."
"Blanche Challoner."
"Blanche Challoner!" echoed Captain Levison, in a mocking tone; "what
did I care for Blanche Challoner?"
Isabel remembered that he had been supposed in those days to care a
great deal for Miss Blanche Challoner--a most lovely girl of
seventeen. "Mrs. Vane used to accuse you of caring too much for her,"
she said, aloud.
"She accused me of caring for some one else more than for Blanche
Challoner," he significantly returned; "and for once her jealous
surmises were not misplaced. No Lady Isabel, it was not Blanche
Challoner I had wished to drive home. Could you not have given a
better guess than that at the time?" he added, turning to her.
There was no mistaking the tone of his voice or the glance of his eye.
Lady Isabel felt a crimson flush rising and she turned her face away.
"The past is gone, and cannot be recalled," he continued, "but we both
played our cards like simpletons. If ever two beings were formed to
love each other, you and I were. I sometimes thought you read my
feelings--"
Surprise had kept her silent, but she interrupted him now, haughtily
enough.
"I must speak, Lady Isabel; it is but a few words, and then I am
silent forever. I would have declared myself had I dared, but my
uncertain position, my debts, my inability to keep a wife, weighed me
down; and, instead of appealing to Sir Peter, as I ought to have done,
for the means to assume a position that would justify me in asking
Lord Mount Severn's daughter, I crushed my hopes within me, and
suffered you to escape--"
"I will not hear this, Captain Levison," she cried, rising from her
seat in anger.
He touched her arm to place her on it again.
"One single moment yet, I pray you. I have for years wished that you
should know why I lost you--a loss that tells upon me yet. I have
bitterly worked out my own folly since I knew not how passionately I
loved you until you became the wife of another. Isabel, I love you
passionately still."
"How dare you presume so to address me?"
She spoke in a cold, dignified tone of hauteur, as it was her bounden
duty to speak; but, nevertheless, she was conscious of an undercurrent
of feeling, whispering that, under other auspices, the avowal would
have brought to her heart the most intense bliss.
"What I have said can do no hurt now," resumed Captain Levison; "the
time has gone by for it; for neither you nor I are likely to forget
that you are a wife. We have each chosen our path in life, and must
abide by it; the gulf between us is impassable but the fault was mine.
I ought to have avowed my affection, and not have suffered you to
throw yourself away upon Mr. Carlyle."
"Throw myself away!" she indignantly uttered, roused to the retort.
"Mr. Carlyle is my dear husband, esteemed, respected, and beloved. I
married him of my own free choice, and I have never repented it; I
have grown more attached to him day by day. Look at his noble nature,
his noble form; what are /you/ by his side? You forget yourself,
Francis Levison."
He bit his lip. "No, I do not."
"You are talking to me as you have no right to talk!" she exclaimed,
in agitation. "Who but you, would so insult me, taking advantage of my
momentarily unprotected condition. Would you dare to do it, were Mr.
Carlyle within reach! I wish you good-evening, sir."
She walked away as quickly as her tired frame would permit. Captain
Levison strode after her. He took forcible possession of her hand, and
placed it within his arm.
"I pray you forgive and forget what has escaped me, Lady Isabel.
Suffer me to be, as before, the kind friend, the anxious brother
endeavoring to be of service to you in the absence of Mr. Carlyle."
"It is what I have suffered you to be, looking upon you as, I may say,
a relative," she coldly rejoined, withdrawing her hand from his
contact. "Not else should I have permitted your incessant
companionship; and this is how you have repaid it! My husband thanked
you for your attention to me; could he have read what was in your
false heart, he had offered you different sort of thanks, I fancy."
"I ask your pardon, Lady Isabel; I have acknowledged my fault, and I
can do no more. I will not so offend again; but there are moments when
our dearest feelings break through the convenances of life and betray
themselves, in spite of our sober judgment. Suffer me to support you
down this steep hill," he added, for they were then going over the
sharp stones of the Grand Rue; "you are not strong enough to proceed
alone, after this evening's long walk."
"You should have thought of that before," she said, with some sarcasm
in her tone. "No; I have declined."
So she had to put his arm back, which he was holding out, as she
walked on unsupported, with what strength she had, he continuing by
her side. Arriving at her own door, she wished him a cool good-
evening, and he turned away in the direction of his hotel.
Lady Isabel brushed past Peter, and flew upstairs, startling Wilson,
who had taken possession of the drawing-room to air her smart cap at
its windows in the absence of her lady.
"My desk, Wilson, immediately," cried she, bearing off her gloves, her
bonnet, and her shawl. "Tell Peter to be in readiness to take a letter
to the post; and he must walk fast, or he will not catch it before the
English mail is closed."
The symptoms of sinful happiness throbbing at her heart while Francis
Levison told her of his love, spoke plainly to Lady Isabel of the
expediency of withdrawing entirely from his society, and his dangerous
sophistries; she would be away from the very place that contained him;
put the sea between them. So she dashed off a letter to her husband;
an urgent summons that he should come to her without delay for remain
away longer she /would not/. It is probable she would have started
alone, not waiting for Mr. Carlyle, but for fear of not having
sufficient funds for the journey, after the rent and other things were
paid.
Mr. Carlyle, when he received the letter and marked its earnest tone,
wondered much. In reply, he stated that he would be with her on the
following Saturday, and then her returning, or not, with him could be
settled. Fully determined not to meet Captain Levison, Isabel, in the
intervening days, only went out in a carriage. He called once, and was
shown into the drawing-room; but Lady Isabel, who happened to be in
her own chamber, sent out a message, which was delivered by Peter. "My
lady's compliments, but she must decline receiving visitors."
Sunday morning--it had been impossible for him to get away before--
brought Mr. Carlyle. He strongly combatted her wish to return home
until six weeks should have expired, he nearly said he would not take
her, and she grew earnest over it, almost to agitation.
"Isabel," he said, "let me know your motive, for it appears to me you
have one. The sojourn here is evidently doing you a vast deal of good,
and what you urge about 'being dull,' sounds very like nonsense. Tell
me what it is."
A sudden impulse flashed over her that she /would/ tell him the truth.
Not tell him that she loved Francis Levison, or that he had spoken to
her as he did; she valued her husband too greatly to draw him into any
unpleasantness whose end could not be seen; but own to him that she
had once felt a passing fancy for Francis Levison, and preferred not
to be subjected to his companionship now. Oh, that she had done so!
Her kind, her noble, her judicious husband! Why did she not? The whole
truth, as to her present feelings, it was not expedient that she
should tell, but she might have confided to him quite sufficient. He
would only have cherished her the more deeply, and sheltered her under
his fostering care, safe from harm.
Why did she not? In the impulse of the moment she was about to do so,
when Mr. Carlyle, who had been taking a letter from his pocket book
put it into her hand. Upon what slight threads the events of life
turn! Her thoughts diverted, she remained silent while she opened the
letter. It was from Miss Carlyle, who had handed it to her brother in
the moment of his departure, to carry to Lady Isabel and save postage.
Mr. Carlyle had nearly dropped it into the Folkestone post office.
A letter as stiff as Miss Corny herself. The children were well, and
the house was going on well, and she hoped Lady Isabel was better. It
filled three sides of note paper, but that was all the news it
contained, and it wound up with the following sentence, "I would
continue my epistle, but Barbara Hare, who is to spend the day with
us, has just arrived."
Barbara Hare spending the day at East Lynne! That item was quite
enough for Lady Isabel, and her heart and her confidence closed to her
husband. She must go home to her children, she urged; she could not
remain longer away from them; and she urged it at length with tears.
"Nay, Isabel," said Mr. Carlyle; "if you are so much in earnest as
this, you shall certainly go back with me."
Then she was like a child let loose from school. She laughed, she
danced in her excess of content; she showered kisses on her husband,
thanking him in her gleeful gratitude. Mr. Carlyle set it down to her
love for him; he arrived at the conclusion that, in reiterating that
she could not bear to be away from him, she spoke the fond truth.
"Isabel," he said, smiling tenderly upon her, "do you remember, in the
first days of our marriage, you told me you did not yet love me, but
that the love would come. I think this is it."
Her face flushed nearly to tears at the words; a bright, glowing, all
too conscious flush. Mr. Carlyle mistook its source, and caught her to
his heart.
Lady Isabel had returned home to bodily health, to the delight of
meeting her children, to the glad sensation of security. But as the
days went on, a miserable feeling of apathy stole over her: a feeling
as if all whom she had loved in the world had died, leaving her living
and alone.
She did not encourage these reflections; knowing what you do know of
her, you may be sure of that, but they thrust themselves continually
forward. The form of Francis Levison was ever present to her; not a
minute of the day but it gave the coloring to her thoughts, and at
night it made the subject of her dreams. Oh, those dreams! They were
painful to wake from; painful from the contrasts they presented to
reality; and equally painful to her conscience, in its strife after
what was right.
Mr. Carlyle mounted his horse one morning and rode over to Levison
Park. He asked for Sir Peter, but was shown into the presence of Lady
Levison--a young and pretty woman dressed showily. She inquired his
business.
"My business, madam, is with Sir Peter."
"But Sir Peter is not well enough to attend to business; it upsets him
--worries him."
"Nevertheless, I am here by his own appointment. Twelve o'clock he
mentioned; and the hour has barely struck."
Lady Levison bit her lip and bowed coldly; and at that moment a
servant appeared to conduct Mr. Carlyle to Sir Peter. The matter which
had taken Mr. Carlyle thither was entered upon immediately--Francis
Levison, his debts, and his gracelessness. Sir Peter, an old gentleman
in a velvet skullcap, particularly enlarged upon the latter.
"I'd pay his debts to-day and set him upon his legs again, but that I
know I should have to do the same thing over and over again to the end
of the chapter, as I have done it repeatedly hitherto," cried Sir
Peter. "His grandfather was my only brother, his father my dutiful and
beloved nephew; but he is just as bad as they were estimable. He is a
worthless fellow and nothing else, Mr. Carlyle."
"His tale drew forth my compassion, and I promised I would see you and
speak for him," returned Mr. Carlyle. "Of Captain Levison's personal
virtues or vices, I know nothing."
"And the less you know the better," growled Sir Peter. "I suppose he
wants me to clear him and start him afresh."
"Something of that sort, I conclude."
"But how is it to be done? I am at home, and he is over there. His
affairs are in a state of confusion, and nobody can come to the bottom
of them without an explanation from him. Some liabilities, for which I
have furnished the money, the creditors swear have not been
liquidated. He must come over if he wants anything done."
"Where is he to come to? He must be in England /sub rosa/."
"He can't be here," hastily rejoined Sir Peter. "Lady Levison would
not have him for a day."
"He might be at East Lynne," good-naturedly observed Mr. Carlyle.
"Nobody would think of looking for him there. I think it is a pity
that you should not meet, if you do feel inclined to help him."
"You are a deal more considerate to him than he deserves, Mr. Carlyle.
May I ask if you intend to act for him in a professional capacity?"
"I do not."
A few more words, and it was decided that Captain Levison should be
immediately sent for. As Mr. Carlyle left Sir Peter's presence, he
encountered Lady Levison.
"I can scarcely be ignorant that your conference with my husband has
reference to his grandnephew," she observed.
"It has," replied Mr. Carlyle.
"I have had a very bad opinion of him, Mr. Carlyle; at the same time I
do not wish you to carry away a wrong impression of me. Francis
Levison is my husband's nephew, his presumptive heir; it may,
therefore, appear strange that I set my face against him. Two or three
years ago, previous to my marriage with Sir Peter, in fact before I
knew Sir Peter, I was brought into contact with Francis Levison. He
got acquainted with some friends of mine, and at their house I met
him. He behaved shamefully ill; he repaid their hospitality with gross
ingratitude; other details and facts regarding his conduct also became
known to me. Altogether I believe him to be a base and despicable man,
both by nature and inclination, and that he will remain such to the
end of time."
"I know very little indeed of him," observed Mr. Carlyle. "May I
inquire the nature of his ill-conduct in that instance?"
"He ruined them--he ruined them, Mr. Carlyle. They were simple,
unsuspicious country people, understanding neither fraud nor vice, nor
the ways of an evil world. Francis Levison got them to put their names
to bills, 'as a matter of form, to accommodate him for a month or so,'
he stated, and so they believed. They were not wealthy; they lived
upon their own small estate, with none too much of superfluous money
to spare, and when the time came for them to pay--as come it did--it
brought ruin, and they had to leave their home. He deliberately did it
--knowing what would be the end. And I could tell you of other things.
Sir Peter may have informed you that I object to receive him here. I
do. My objection is to the man--to his character; not owing, as I hear
it has been said, to any jealous paltry feeling touching his being the
heir. I must lose my own self-respect before I admit Francis Levison
to my house as an inmate. Sir Peter may assist him in welcome--may pay
his debt, and get him out of his scrapes as often as he pleases, but I
will not have him here."
"Sir Peter said you declined to receive him. But it is necessary that
he should come to England, if his affairs are to be set straight, and
also that he should see Sir Peter."
"Come to England!" interrupted Lady Levison. "How can he come to
England under present circumstances, unless, indeed, he comes /en
cachette/?"
"/En cachette/, of course," replied Mr. Carlyle. "There is no other
way. I have offered to let him stay at East Lynne. He is, you may be
aware, a sort of connection of Lady Isabel's."
"Take care that he does not repay /your/ hospitality with
ingratitude," warmly returned Lady Levison. "It would only be in
accordance with his practice."
Mr. Carlyle laughed.
"I do not see what harm he could do me, allowing that he had the
inclination. He would not scare my clients from me, or beat my
children, and I can take care of my pocket. A few days will, no doubt,
be the extent of his sojourn."
Lady Levison smiled too, and shook hands with Mr. Carlyle.
"In your house, perhaps, there may be no field for his vagaries, but
rely upon it, where there is one he is sure to be at some mischief or
other."
This visit of Mr. Carlyle's to Levison Park took place on a Friday
morning, and on his return to his office he dispatched an account of
it to Captain Levison at Boulogne, telling him he had better come
over. But now Mr. Carlyle, like many another man whose mind has its
share of work, was sometimes forgetful of trifles, and it entirely
slipped his memory to mention the expected arrival at home. The
following evening, Saturday, he and Lady Isabel were dining in the
neighborhood, when the conversation at table turned upon the Ducies
and their embarrassments. The association of ideas led Mr. Carlyle's
thoughts to Boulogne, to Captain Levison and /his/ embarrassments, and
it immediately occurred to him that he had not told his wife of the
anticipated visit. He kept it in his mind then, and spoke as soon as
they were in the chariot returning home.
"Isabel," began he, "I suppose we have always rooms ready for
visitors, because I am expecting one."
"Oh, yes; or if not, they are soon made ready."
"Ah, but to-morrow's Sunday, and I have no doubt that's the day he
will take advantage of to come. I am sorry I forgot to mention it
yesterday."
"Who is coming, then?"
"Captain Levison."
"Who?" repeated Lady Isabel, in a sharp tone of consternation.
"Captain Levison. Sir Peter consents to see him, with a view to the
settlement of his liabilities, but Lady Levison declines to receive
him at the Park. So I offered to give him house-room at East Lynne for
a few days."
There is an old saying, "the heart leaping into the mouth;" and Lady
Isabel's leaped into hers. She grew dizzy at the words--her senses
seemed momentarily to desert her. Her first sensation was as if the
dull earth had opened and shown her a way into Paradise; her second, a
lively consciousness that Francis Levison ought not to be suffered to
come again into companionship with her. Mr. Carlyle continued to
converse of the man's embarrassments, of his own interview with Sir
Peter and Lady Levison; but Isabel was as one who heard not. She was
debating the question, how she could prevent his coming?
"Archibald," she presently said, "I do not wish Francis Levison to
stay at East Lynne."
"It will only be for a few days--perhaps but a day or two. Sir Peter
is in the humor to discharge the claims, and, the moment his resolve
is known, the ex-captain can walk on her majesty's dominions, an
unmolested man, free to go where he will."
"That may be," interrupted Lady Isabel, in an accent of impatience;
"but why should he come to our house?"
"I proposed it myself. I had no idea you would dislike his coming. Why
should you?"
"I don't like Francis Levison," she murmured. "That is, I don't care
to have him at East Lynne."
"My dear, I fear there is no help for it now; he is most likely on his
road, and will arrive to-morrow. I cannot turn him out again, after my
own voluntary invitation. Had I known it would be disagreeable to you,
I would not have proposed it."
"To-morrow!" she exclaimed, all the words that caught her ear. "Is he
coming to-morrow?"
"Being Sunday, a free day, he will be sure to take advantage of it.
What has he done that you should object to his coming? You did not say
in Boulogne that you disliked him."
"He had done nothing," was her faltering answer, feeling that her
grounds of opposition must melt under her one by one.
"Lady Levison appears to possess a very ill opinion of him," resumed
Mr. Carlyle. "She says she knew him in years gone by. She mentioned
one or two things which, if true, must be bad enough. But possibly she
may be prejudiced."
"She is prejudiced," said Isabel. "At least Francis Levison told me at
Boulogne. There appeared to be no love lost between them."
"At any rate, his ill doings or well doings cannot affect us for the
short period he is likely to remain. You have taken a prejudice
against him also, I suppose, Isabel."
She suffered Mr. Carlyle to remain in the belief, and sat with clasped
hands and a despairing spirit feeling that fate was against her.
How could she accomplish her task of forgetting this man, if he was
thus to be thrown into her home and her companionship? Suddenly she
turned to her husband, and laid her cheek upon his shoulder.
He thought she was tired. He passed his arm round her waist, drew her
face to a more comfortable position, and bent his own lovingly upon
it. It came to her mind, as she lay there, to tell him a portion of
the truth, like it had done once before. It was a strong arm of
shelter, that round her--a powerful pillar of protection, him upon
whom she leaned; why did she not confide herself to him as trustingly
as a little child? Simply because her courage failed. Once, twice, the
opening words were upon her lips, but come forth they did not; and
then the carriage stopped at East Lynne, and the opportunity was over.
Oh! How many a time in her after years did Lady Isabel recall that
midnight drive with her husband, and wish, in her vain repentance,
that she had opened his eyes to that dangerous man.
On Sunday Captain Levison arrived at East Lynne.
CHAPTER XXII.
MRS. HARE'S DREAM.
The next day rose bright, warm, and cloudless, and the morning sun
streamed into the bedroom of Mrs. Hare. Mr. and Mrs. Hare were of the
old-fashioned class who knew nothing about dressing-rooms, their
bedrooms were very large, and they never used a dressing-room in their
lives, or found the want of one. The justice rubbed his face to a
shining brilliancy, settled on his morning wig and his dressing-gown,
and then turned to the bed.
"What will you have for breakfast?"
"Thank you, Richard, I do not think that I can eat any thing. I shall
be glad of my tea; I am very thirsty."
"All nonsense," responded the justice, alluding to the intimation of
not eating. "Have a poached egg."
Mrs. Hare smiled at him, and gently shook her head. "You are very
kind, Richard, but I could not eat it this morning. Barbara may send
up the smallest bit of dry toast. Would you please throw the window
open before you go down; I should like to feel the air."
"You will get the air too near from this window," replied Mr. Justice
Hare, opening the further one. Had his wife requested that the further
one to be opened, he would have opened the other; his own will and
opinions were ever paramount. Then he descended.
A minute or two, and up ran Barbara, looking bright and fair as the
morning, her pink muslin dress, with its ribbons and its open white
lace sleeves, as pretty as she was. She leaned over to kiss her
mother.
"Mamma, are you ill? And you have been so well lately; you went to bed
so well last night. Papa says--"
"Barbara, dear," interrupted Mrs. Hare, glancing round the room with
dread, and speaking in a deep whisper, "I have had one of those
dreadful dreams again."
"Oh, mamma, how /can/ you!" exclaimed Barbara, starting up in
vexation. "How can you suffer a foolish dream to overcome you as to
make you ill? You have good sense in other matters, but, in this, you
seem to put all sense away from you."
"Child, will you tell me how I am to help it?" returned Mrs. Hare,
taking Barbara's hand and drawing her to her again. "I do not give
myself the dreams; I cannot prevent their making me sick, prostrate,
feverish. How can I help these things, I ask?"
At this moment the bedroom door was flung open, and the face of the
justice, especially stern and cross then was pushed in. So startled
was Mrs. Hare, that she shook till she shook the pillow, and Barbara
sprang away from the bed. Surely he had not distinguished their topic
of conversation!
"Are you coming to make the breakfast to-day, or not Barbara? Do you
expect me to make it?"
"She is coming this instant, Richard," said Mrs. Hare, her voice more
faint than usual. And the justice turned and stamped down again.
"Barbara, could your papa have heard me mention Richard?"
"No, no, mamma impossible: the door was shut. I will bring up your
breakfast myself and then you can tell me the dream."
Barbara flew after Mr. Hare, poured out his coffee, saw him settled at
his breakfast, with a plateful of grouse-pie before him, and then
returned upstairs with her mamma's tea and dry toast.
"Go on with your dream, mamma," she said.
"But your breakfast will be cold, child."
"Oh, don't mind that. Did you dream of Richard?"
"Not very much of Richard; except that the old and continuous trouble
of his being away and unable to return, seemed to pervade it all
through. You remember, Barbara, Richard asserted to us, in that short,
hidden night visit, that he did not commit the murder; that it was
another who did?"
"Yes, I remember it," replied Barbara.
"Barbara, I am convinced he spoke the truth; I trust him implicitly."
"I feel sure of it also, mamma."
"I asked him, you remember, whether it was Otway Bethel who committed
it; for I have always doubted Bethel, in an indefinite, vague manner.
Richard replied it was not Bethel, but a stranger. Well, Barbara, in
my dream I thought that stranger came to West Lynne, that he came to
this house here, and we were talking to him of him, conversing as we
might with any other visitor. Mind you, we seemed to /know/ that he
was the one who actually did it; but he denied it. He wanted to put it
upon Richard; and I saw him, yes I did, Barbara--whisper to Otway
Bethel. But oh, I cannot tell you the sickening horror that was upon
me throughout, and seemed to be upon you also, lest he should make
good his own apparent innocence, and crush Richard, his victim. I
think the dread and horror awoke me."
"What was he like, this stranger?" asked Barbara, in a low tone.
"Well, I cannot quite tell. The recollection of his appearance seemed
to pass away from me with the dream. He was dressed as a gentleman,
and we conversed, with him as an equal."
Barbara's mind was full of Captain Thorn, but his name had not been
mentioned to Mrs. Hare, and neither would she mention it now. She fell
into deep thought; and Mrs. Hare had to speak twice before she could
be aroused.
"Barbara, I say, don't you think this dream, coming uncalled for
uninduced, must forebode some ill? Rely upon it, something connected
with that wretched murder is going to be stirred up again."
"You know, I do not believe in dreams," was Barbara's answer. "I think
when people say, 'this dream is a sign of such and such a thing,' it
is the greatest absurdity in the world. I wish you could remember what
the man seemed like in your dream."
"I wish I could," answered Mrs. Hare, breaking off a particle of her
dry toast. "All I can remember is, that he appeared to be a
gentleman."
"Was he tall? Had he black hair?"
Mrs. Hare shook her heard. "I tell you, my dear, the remembrance has
passed from me; so whether his hair was black or light, I cannot say.
I think he was tall, but he was sitting down, and Otway Bethel stood
behind his chair. I seemed to feel that Richard was outside the door
in hiding, trembling lest the man should go out and see him there; and
I trembled, too. Oh, Barbara, it was a distressing dream!"
"I wish you could avoid having them, mamma, for they seem to upset you
very much."
"Why did you ask whether the man was tall, and had black hair?"
Barbara returned an evasive answer. It would not do to tell Mrs. Hare
that her suspicions pointed to one particular quarter; it would have
agitated her too greatly.
So vivid was the dream, she could scarcely persuade herself, when she
awoke, that it was not real, and the murderer actually at West Lynne.
"Oh, Barbara, Barbara!" she exclaimed, in a wailing tone, "when will
this mystery be cleared, and my own restored to me? Seven years since
he stole here to see us, and no tidings yet."
"People say that changes come every seven years, mamma," said Barbara,
hopefully; "but I will go down and send you up some more tea."
"And guard your countenance well," returned her mother. "Don't let
your father suspect anything. Remember his oath to bring Richard to
justice. If he thought we dwelt on his innocence, there is no knowing
what he might do to find him, he is so very just."
"So very cruel and unnatural, I call it, mamma. But never fear my
betraying anything. But have you heard about Joyce?"
"No. What is it?"
"She had a severe fall while playing with little Isabel, and it is
said she will be confined to bed for several weeks. I am very sorry
for her." And, composing her face, she descended to the breakfast-
room.
The dinner hour at the Hares', when they were alone, was four o'clock
and it arrived that day as usual, and they sat down to table. Mrs.
Hare was better then; the sunshine and the business of stirring life
had in some measure effaced the visions of the night, and restored her
to her wonted frame of mind.
The cloth removed, the justice sat but a little while over his port
wine, for he was engaged to smoke an after-dinner pipe with a brother
magistrate, Mr. Justice Herbert.
"Shall you be home to tea, papa?" inquired Barbara.
"Is it any business of yours, young lady?"
"Oh, not in the least," answered Miss Barbara. "Only if you had been
coming home to tea, I suppose we must have waited, had you not been in
time."
"I thought you said, Richard, that you were going to stay the evening
with Mr. Herbert?" observed Mrs. Hare.
"So I am," responded the justice. "But Barbara has a great liking for
the sound of her own tongue."
The justice departed, striding pompously down the gravel walk. Barbara
waltzed round the large room to a gleeful song, as if she felt his
absence a relief. Perhaps she did. "You can have tea now, mamma, at
any time you please, if you are thirsty, without waiting till seven,"
quoth she.
"Barbara!" said Mrs. Hare.
"What, mamma?"
"I am sorry to hear of the calamity which has fallen upon Joyce! I
should like to walk to East Lynne this evening and inquire after her,
and see her, if I may; it would be but neighborly. I feel quite equal
to it. Since I have accustomed myself to take more exercise I feel
better for it, you know; and we have not been out to-day. Poor Joyce!
What time shall we go, Barbara?"
"If we were to get there by--by seven, I should think; their dinner
will be over then."
"Yes," answered Mrs. Hare, with alacrity, who was always pleased when
somebody else decided for her. "But I should like some tea before we
start, Barbara."
Barbara took care that her mamma should have some tea and then they
proceeded toward East Lynne. It was a lovely evening--the air warm,
and the humming gnats sported in it as if to make the most of the
waning summer. Mrs. Hare enjoyed it at first, but ere she reached East
Lynne, she became aware that the walk was too much for her. She did
not usually venture upon half so long a one, and probably the fever
and agitation of the morning had somewhat impaired her day's strength.
She laid her hand upon the iron gate as they turned into the park, and
stood still.
"I did wrong to come, Barbara."
"Lean on me, mamma. When you reach those benches, you can take a good
rest before proceeding to the house. It is very warm, and that may
have fatigued you."
They gained the benches, which were placed under some of the park
trees, in front of the gates and the road, but not of the house, and
Mrs. Hare sat down. Another minute and they were surrounded. Mr.
Carlyle, his wife, and sister, who were taking an after-dinner stroll
amidst the flowers with their guest, Francis Levison, discerned them,
and came up. The children, except the youngest, were of the party.
Lady Isabel warmly welcomed Mrs. Hare; she had become quite attached
to the delicate and suffering woman.
"A pretty one, I am, am I not, Archibald, to come inquiring after one
invalid, and am so much of an invalid myself that I have to stop half-
way?" Mrs. Hare exclaimed, as Mr. Carlyle shook her hand. "I was so
greatly concerned to hear of poor Joyce."
"You must stay the evening, now you are here," cried Lady Isabel. "It
will afford you a good rest; and tea will refresh you."
"Oh thank you, but we have taken tea," said Mrs. Hare.
"There is no reason why you should not take some more," she laughed.
"Indeed, you seem too fatigued to be anything but a prisoner with us
for the next hour or two."
"I fear I am," answered Mrs. Hare.
"Who the dickens are they?" Captain Levison was muttering to himself,
as he contemplated the guests from a distance. "It's a deuced pretty
girl, whoever she may be. I think I'll approach, they don't look
formidable."
He did approach, and the introduction was made: "Captain Levison, Mrs.
Hare and Miss Hare." A few formal words, and Captain Levison
disappeared again, challenging little William Carlyle to a foot-race.
"How very poorly your mamma looks!" Mr. Carlyle exclaimed to Barbara,
when they were beyond the hearing of Mrs. Hare, who was busy talking
with Lady Isabel and Miss Carlyle. "And she has appeared so much
stronger lately; altogether better."
"The walk here has fatigued her; I feared it would be too long; so
that she looks unusually pale," replied Barbara. "But what do you
think it is that has upset her again, Mr. Carlyle?"
He turned his inquiring eyes upon Barbara.
"Papa came downstairs this morning, saying mamma was ill, that she had
one of her old attacks of fever and restlessness. I declare, as papa
spoke, I thought to myself could mamma have been dreaming some foolish
dream again--for you remember how ill she used to be after them. I ran
upstairs and the first thing that mamma said to me was, that she had
had one of those dreadful dreams."
"I fancied she must have outlived her fear of them; that her own plain
sense had come to her aid long ago, showing her how futile dreams are,
meaning nothing, even if hers do occasionally touch upon that--that
unhappy mystery."
"You may just as well reason with a post as reason with mamma when she
is suffering from the influence of one of those dreams," returned
Barbara. "I tried it this morning. I asked her to call up--as you
observe--good sense to her aid. And her reply was, 'How could she help
her feelings? She did not induce the dream by thinking of Richard, or
in any other way, and yet it came and shattered her.' Of course so
far, mamma is right, for she cannot help the dreams coming."
Mr. Carlyle made no immediate reply. He picked up a ball belonging to
one of the children, which lay in his path, and began tossing it
gently in his hand. "It is a singular thing," he observed, presently,
"that we do not hear from Richard."
"Oh, very, very. And I know mamma distresses over it. A few words
which she let fall this morning, betrayed it plainly. I am no believer
in dreams," continued Barbara, "but I cannot deny that these, which
take such a hold upon mamma, do bear upon the case in a curious manner
--the one she had last night especially."
"What was it?" asked Mr. Carlyle.
"She dreamed that the real murderer was at West Lynne. She thought he
was at our house--as a visitor, she said, or like one making a morning
call--and we, she and I, were conversing with him about the murder. He
wanted to deny it--to put it on Richard; and he turned and whispered
to Otway Bethel, who stood behind his chair. This is another strange
thing," added Barbara, lifting her blue eyes in their deep earnestness
to the face of Mr. Carlyle.
"What is strange? You speak in enigmas, Barbara."
"I mean that Otway Bethel should invariably appear in her dreams.
Until that stolen visit of Richard's we had no idea he was near the
spot at the time, and yet he had always made a prominent feature in
these dreams."
"And who was the murderer--in your mamma's dream?" continued Mr.
Carlyle, speaking as gravely as though he were upon a subject that men
ridicule not.
"She cannot remember, except that he seemed a gentleman, and that we
held intercourse with him as such. Now, that again is remarkable. We
never told her, you know, of our suspicions of Captain Thorn."
"I think you must be becoming a convert to the theory of dreams
yourself, Barbara; you are so very earnest," smiled Mr. Carlyle.
"No, not to dreams; but I am earnest for my dear brother Richard's
sake."
"That Thorn does not appear in a hurry again to favor West Lynne with
his----"
Mr. Carlyle paused, for Barbara had hurriedly laid her hand upon his
arm, with a warning gesture. In talking they had wandered across the
park to its ornamental grounds, and were now in a quiet path,
overshadowed on the other side by a chain of imitation rocks. Seated
astride on the summit of these rocks, right above where Mr. Carlyle
and Barbara were standing was Francis Levison. His face was turned
from them and he appeared intent upon a child's whip, winding leather
round its handle. Whether he heard their footsteps or not, he did not
turn. They quickened their pace, and quitted the walk, bending their
steps backward toward the group of ladies.
"Could he have heard what we were saying?" ejaculated Barbara, below
her breath.
Mr. Carlyle looked down upon the concerned, flushed cheeks with a
smile. Barbara was so evidently perturbed. But for a certain episode
of their lives, some years ago, he might have soothed her tenderly.
"I think he must have heard a little, Barbara, unless his wits were
wool-gathering. He might not be attending. What if he did hear? It is
of no consequence."
"I was speaking, you know, of Captain Thorn--of his being the
murderer."
"You were not speaking of Richard or his movements, so never mind.
Levison is a stranger to the whole. It is nothing to him. If he did
hear the name of Thorn mentioned, or even distinguished the subject,
it would bear for him no interest--would go, as the saying runs, 'in
at one ear and out at the other.' Be at rest, Barbara."
He really did look somewhat tenderly upon her as he spoke--and they
were near enough to Lady Isabel for her to note the glance. She need
not have been jealous: it bore no treachery to her. But she did note
it; she had noted also their wandering away together, and she jumped
to the conclusion that it was premeditated, that they had gone beyond
her sight to enjoy each other's society for a few stolen moments.
Wonderfully attractive looked Barbara that evening, for Mr. Carlyle or
any one else to steal away with. Her tasty, elegant airy summer
attire, her bright blue eyes, her charming features, and her damask
cheeks! She had untied the strings of her pretty white bonnet, and was
restlessly playing with them, more in thought than nervousness.
"Barbara, love, how are we to get home?" asked Mrs. Hare. "I do fear I
shall never walk it. I wish I had told Benjamin to bring the phaeton."
"I can send to him," said Mr. Carlyle.
"But it is too bad of me, Archibald, to take you and Lady Isabel by
storm in this unceremonious manner; and to give your servants trouble
besides."
"A great deal too bad, I think," returned Mr. Carlyle, with mock
gravity. "As to the servants, the one who has to go will never get
over the trouble, depend upon it. You always were more concerned for
others than for yourself, dear Mrs. Hare."
"And you were always kind, Archibald, smoothing difficulties for all,
and making a trouble of nothing. Ah, Lady Isabel, were I a young
woman, I should be envying you your good husband; there are not many
like him."
Possibly the sentence reminded Lady Isabel that another, who was
young, might be envying her, for her cheeks--Isabel's--flushed
crimson. Mr. Carlyle held out his strong arm of help to Mrs. Hare.
"If sufficiently rested, I fancy you would be more comfortable on a
sofa indoors. Allow me to support you thither."
"And you can take my arm on the other side," cried Miss Carlyle,
placing her tall form by Mrs. Hare. "Between us both we will pull you
bravely along; your feet need scarcely touch the ground."
Mrs. Hare laughed, but said she thought Mr. Carlyle's arm would be
sufficient. She took it, and they were turning toward the house, when
her eye caught the form of a gentleman passing along the road by the
park gate.
"Barbara, run," she hurriedly exclaimed. "There's Tom Herbert going
toward our house, and he will just call in and tell them to send the
phaeton, if you ask him, which will save the trouble to Mr. Carlyle's
servants of going expressly. Make haste, child! You will be up with
him in half a minute."
Barbara, thus urged, set off, on the spur of the moment, toward the
gates, before the rest of the party well knew what was being done. It
was too late for Mr. Carlyle to stop her and repeat that the servant
should go, for Barbara was already up with Mr. Tom Herbert. The latter
had seen her running toward him, and waited at the gate.
"Are you going past our house?" inquired Barbara, perceiving then that
Otway Bethel also stood there, but just beyond the view of the women.
"Yes. Why?" replied Tom Herbert, who was not famed for his politeness,
being blunt by nature and "fast" by habit.
"Mamma would be so much obliged to you, if you would just call in and
leave word that Benjamin is to bring up the phaeton. Mamma walked
here, intending to walk home, but she finds herself so fatigued as to
be unequal to it."
"All right. I'll call and send him. What time?"
Nothing had been said to Barbara about the time, so she was at liberty
to name her own. "Ten o'clock. We shall be home then before papa."
"That you will," responded Tom Herbert. "He and the governor, and two
or three more old codgers, are blowing clouds till you can't see
across the room; and they are sure to get at it after supper. I say,
Miss Barbara are you engaged for a few picnics?"
"Good for a great many," returned Barbara.
"Our girls want to get up some in the next week or two. Jack's home,
you know."
"Is he?" said Barbara, in surprise.
"We had a letter yesterday, and he came to-day--a brother officer with
him. Jack vows if the girls don't cater well for them in the way of
amusement, he'll never honor them by spending his leave at home again;
so mind you keep yourself in readiness for any fun that may turn up.
Good evening."
"Good evening, Miss Hare," added Otway Bethel.
As Barbara was returning the salutation, she became conscious of other
footsteps advancing from the same direction that they had come, and
moved her head hastily round. Two gentlemen, walking arm-in-arm, were
close upon her, in one of whom she recognized "Jack," otherwise Major
Herbert. He stopped, and held out his hand.
"It is some years since we met, but I have not forgotten the pretty
face of Miss Barbara," he cried. "A young girl's face it was then, but
it is a stately young lady's now."
Barbara laughed. "Your brother has just told me you had arrived at
West Lynne; but I did not know you were so close to me. He has been
asking me if I am ready for some pic--"
Barbara's voice faltered, and the rushing crimson dyed her face. Whose
face was /that/, who was he, standing opposite to her, side by side
with John Herbert? She had seen the face but once, yet it had
implanted itself upon her memory in characters of fire. Major Herbert
continued to talk, but Barbara for once lost her self-possession; she
could not listen, she could only stare at that face as if fascinated
to the gaze, looking herself something like a simpleton, her shy blue
eyes anxious and restless, and her lips turning to an ashy whiteness.
A strange feeling of wonder, of superstition was creeping over
Barbara. Was that man behind her in sober, veritable reality--or was
it but a phantom called up in her mind by the associations rising from
her mamma's dream; or by the conversation held not many moments ago
with Mr. Carlyle.
Major Herbert may have deemed that Barbara, who evidently could not
attend to himself, but was attending to his companion, wished for an
introduction, and he accordingly made it. "/Captain Thorn/--Miss
Hare."
Then Barbara roused herself; her senses were partially coming to her,
and she became alive to the fact that they must deem her behavior
unorthodox for a young lady.
"I--I looked at Captain Thorn, for I thought I remembered his face,"
she stammered.
"I was in West Lynne for a day or two, some five years ago," he
observed.
"Ah--yes," returned Barbara. "Are you going to make a long stay now?"
"We have several weeks' leave of absence. Whether we shall remain here
all the time I cannot say."
Barbara parted from them. Thought upon thought crowded upon her brain
as she flew back to East Lynne. She ran up the steps to the hall,
gliding toward a group which stood near its further end--her mother,
Miss Carlyle, Mr. Carlyle, and little Isabel; Lady Isabel she did not
see. Mrs. Hare was then going up to see Joyce.
In the agitation of the moment she stealthily touched Mr. Carlyle, and
he stepped away from the rest to speak to her, she drawing back toward
the door of one of the reception rooms, and motioning him to approach.
"Oh, Archibald, I must speak to you alone! Could you not come out
again for a little while?"
He nodded, and walked out openly by her side. Why should he not? What
had he to conceal? But, unfortunately, Lady Isabel, who had but gone
into that same room for a minute, and was coming out again to join
Mrs. Hare, both saw Barbara's touch upon her husband's arm, marked her
agitation, and heard her words. She went to one of the hall windows
and watched them saunter toward the more private part of the ground;
she saw her husband send back Isabel. Never, since her marriage, had
Lady Isabel's jealousy been excited as it was excited that evening.
"I--I feel--I scarcely know whether I am awake or dreaming," began
Barbara, putting up her hand to her brow and speaking in a dreamy
tone. "Pardon me for bringing you out in this unceremonious fashion."
"What state secrets have you to discuss?" asked Mr. Carlyle in a
jesting manner.
"We were speaking of mamma's dream. She said the impression it had
left upon her mind--that the murderer was in West Lynne--was so vivid
that in spite of common sense she could not persuade herself that he
was not. Well--just now----"
"Barbara, what /can/ be the matter?" uttered Mr. Carlyle, perceiving
that her agitation was so great as to impede her words.
"/I have just seen him!/" she rejoined.
"Seen him!" echoed Mr. Carlyle, looking at her fixedly, a doubt
crossing his mind whether Barbara's mind might be as uncollected as
her manner.
"What were nearly my last words to you? That if ever that Thorn did
come to West Lynne again, I would leave no stone unturned to bring it
home to him. He is here, Archibald. Now, when I went to the gate to
speak to Tom Herbert, his brother, Major Herbert, was also there, and
with him Captain Thorn. Bethel, also. Do you wonder I say that I know
not whether I am awake or dreaming? They have some weeks' holiday, and
are here to spend it."
"It is a singular coincidence," exclaimed Mr. Carlyle.
"Had anything been wanting to convince me that Thorn is the guilty
man, this would have done it," went on Barbara, in her excitement.
"Mamma's dream, with the steadfast impression it left upon her that
Hallijohn's murderer was now at West Lynne--"
In turning the sharp corner of the covered walk they came in contact
with Captain Levison, who appeared to be either standing or sauntering
there, his hands underneath his coat-tails. Again Barbara felt vexed,
wondering how much he had heard, and beginning in her heart to dislike
the man. He accosted them familiarly, and appeared as if he would have
turned with them; but none could put down presumption more effectually
than Mr. Carlyle, calm and gentlemanly though he always was.
"I will join you presently, Captain Levison," he said with a wave of
the hand. And he turned back with Barbara toward the open parts of the
park.
"Do you like that Captain Levison?" she abruptly inquired, when they
were beyond hearing.
"I cannot say I do," was Mr. Carlyle's reply. "He is one who does not
improve upon acquaintance."
"To me it looks as though he had placed himself in our way to hear
what we were saying."
"No, no, Barbara. What interest could it bear for him?"
Barbara did not contest the point; she turned to the one nearer at
heart. "What must be our course with regard to Thorn?"
"It is more than I can tell you," replied Mr. Carlyle. "I cannot go up
to the man and unceremoniously accuse him of being Hallijohn's
murderer."
They took their way to the house, for there was nothing further to
discuss. Captain Levison entered it before them, and saw Lady Isabel
standing at the hall window. Yes, she was standing and looking still,
brooding over her fancied wrongs.
"Who is that Miss Hare?" he demanded in a cynical tone. "They appear
to have a pretty good understanding together. Twice this evening I
have met them enjoying a private walk and a private confab."
"What did you say?" sharply and haughtily returned Lady Isabel.
"Nay, I did not mean to offend you," was the answer, for he knew that
she heard his words distinctly in spite of her question. "I spoke of
/Monsieur votre mari/."
CHAPTER XXIII.
CAPTAIN THORN IN TROUBLE ABOUT "A BILL."
In talking over a bygone misfortune, we sometimes make the remark, or
hear it made to us, "Circumstances worked against it." Such and such a
thing might have turned out differently, we say, had the surrounding
circumstances been more favorable, but they were in opposition; they
were dead against it. Now, if ever attendant circumstances can be said
to have borne a baneful influence upon any person in this world, they
most assuredly did at this present time against Lady Isabel Carlyle.
Coeval, you see, with the arrival of the ex-captain, Levison, at East
Lynne, all the jealous feeling, touching her husband and Barbara Hare,
was renewed, and with greater force than ever. Barbara, painfully
anxious that something should be brought to light, it would have
puzzled her to say how or by what means, by which her brother should
be exonerated from the terrible charge under which he lay; fully
believing that Frederick Thorn, captain in her majesty's service, was
the man who had committed the crime, as asserted by Richard, was in a
state of excitement bordering upon frenzy. Too keenly she felt the
truth of her own words, that she was powerless, that she could,
herself, do nothing. When she rose in the morning, after a night
passed in troubled reflection more than in sleep, her thoughts were,
"Oh, that I could this day find out something certain!" She was often
at the Herberts'; frequently invited there--sometimes going uninvited.
She and the Herberts were intimate and they pressed Barbara into all
the impromptu gay doings, now their brother was at home. There she of
course saw Captain Thorn, and now and then she was enabled to pick up
scraps of his past history. Eagerly were these scraps carried to Mr.
Carlyle. Not at his office; Barbara would not appear there. Perhaps
she was afraid of the gossiping tongues of West Lynne, or that her
visits might have come to the knowledge of that stern, prying, and
questioning old gentleman whom she called sire. It may be too, that
she feared, if seen haunting Mr. Carlyle's office, Captain Thorn might
come to hear of it and suspect the agitation, that was afloat--for who
could know better than he, the guilt that was falsely attaching to
Richard? Therefore she chose rather to go to East Lynne, or to waylay
Mr. Carlyle as he passed to and from business. It was little she
gathered to tell him; one evening she met him with the news that Mr.
Thorn /had/ been in former years at West Lynne, though she could not
fix the date; another time she went boldly to East Lynne in eager
anxiety, ostensibly to make a call on Lady Isabel--and a very restless
one it was--contriving to make Mr. Carlyle understand that she wanted
to see him alone. He went out with her when she departed, and
accompanied her as far as the park gates, the two evidently absorbed
in earnest converse. Lady Isabel's jealous eye saw that. The
communication Barbara had to make was, that Captain Thorn had let fall
the avowal that he had once been "in trouble," though of its nature
there was no indication given. Another journey of hers took the scrap
of news that she had discovered he knew Swainson well. Part of this,
nay, perhaps the whole of it, Mr. Carlyle had found out for himself;
nevertheless he always received Barbara with vivid interest. Richard
Hare was related to Miss Carlyle, and if his innocence could be made
clear in the sight of men, it would be little less gratifying to them
than to the Hares. Of Richard's innocence, Mr. Carlyle now entertained
little, if any doubt, and he was becoming impressed with the guilt of
Captain Thorn. The latter spoke mysteriously of a portion of his past
life--when he could be brought to speak of it at all--and he bore
evidently some secret that he did not care to have alluded to.
But now look at the mean treachery of that man, Francis Levison! The
few meetings that Lady Isabel did witness between her husband and
Barbara would have been quite enough to excite her anger and jealousy,
to trouble her peace; but, in addition, Francis Levison took care to
tell her of those she did not see. It pleased him--he could best tell
with what motive--to watch the movements of Mr. Carlyle and Barbara.
There was a hedge pathway through the fields, on the opposite side of
the road to the residence of Justice Hare, and as Mr. Carlyle walked
down the road to business in his unsuspicion (not one time in fifty
did he choose to ride; the walk to and fro kept him in health, he
said), Captain Levison would be strolling down like a serpent behind
the hedge, watching all his movements, watching his interviews with
Barbara, did any take place, watching Mr. Carlyle turn into the grove,
as he sometimes did, and perhaps watch Barbara run out of the house to
meet him. It was all related over, and with miserable exaggeration, to
Lady Isabel, whose jealousy, as a natural sequence, grew feverish in
its extent.
It is scarcely necessary to explain, that of this feeling of Lady
Isabel's Barbara knew nothing; not a shadow of suspicion had ever
penetrated to her mind that Lady Isabel was jealous of her. Had she
been told that such was the fact, she would have laughed in derision
at her informant. Mr. Carlyle's happy wife, proudly secure in her
position and in his affection, jealous of /her!/ of her, to whom he
had never given an admiring look or a loving word! It would have taken
a great deal to make Barbara believe that.
How different were the facts in reality. These meetings of Mr.
Carlyle's and Barbara's, instead of episodes of love-making and tender
speeches, were positively painful, especially to Barbara, from the
unhappy nature of the subject to be discussed. Far from feeling a
reprehensible pleasure at seeking the meetings with Mr. Carlyle,
Barbara shrank from them; but that she was urged by dire necessity, in
the interests of Richard, she would wholly have avoided such. Poor
Barbara, in spite of that explosion of bottled-up excitement years
back, was a lady, possessed of a lady's ideas and feelings, and--
remembering the explosion--it did not accord with her pride at all to
be pushing herself into what might be called secret meetings with
Archibald Carlyle. But Barbara, in her sisterly love, pressed down all
thought of self, and went perseveringly forward for Richard's sake.
Mr. Carlyle was seated one morning in his private room at his office,
when his head clerk, Mr. Dill came in. "A gentleman is asking to see
you, Mr. Archibald."
"I am too busy to see anybody for this hour to come. You know that,
Dill."
"So I told him, sir, and he says he'll wait. It is that Captain Thorn
who is staying here with John Herbert."
Mr. Carlyle raised his eyes, and they encountered those of the old
man; a peculiar expression was in the face of both. Mr. Carlyle
glanced down at the parchment he was perusing, as if calculating his
time. Then he looked up again and spoke.
"I will see /him/, Dill. Send him in."
The business leading to the visit was quite simple. Captain Frederick
Thorn had got himself into some trouble and vexation about "a bill"--
as too many captains will do--and he had come to crave advice of Mr.
Carlyle.
Mr. Carlyle felt dubious about giving it. This Captain Thorn was a
pleasant, attractive sort of a man, who won much on acquaintance; one
whom Mr. Carlyle would have been pleased, in a friendly point of view,
and setting professional interest apart, to help out of his
difficulties; but if he were the villain they suspected him to be, the
man with crime upon his hand, then Mr. Carlyle would have ordered his
office door held wide for him to slink out of it.
"Cannot you advise me what my course ought to be?" he inquired,
detecting Mr. Carlyle's hesitation.
"I could advise you, certainly. But--you must excuse my being plain,
Captain Thorn--I like to know who my clients are before I take up
their cause or accept them as clients."
"I am able to pay you," was Captain Thorn's reply. "I am not short of
ready money; only this bill--"
Mr. Carlyle laughed out, after having bit his lip with annoyance. "It
was a natural inference of yours," he said, "but I assure you I was
not thinking of your purse or my pocket. My father held it right never
to undertake business for a stranger--unless a man was good, in a
respectable point of view, and his cause was good, he did not mention
it--and I have acted on the same principle. By these means, the
position and character of our business, is rarely attained by a
solicitor. Now, in saying that you are a stranger to me, I am not
casting any doubt upon you, Captain Thorn, I am merely upholding my
common practice."
"My family is well connected," was Captain Thorn's next venture.
"Excuse me; family has nothing to do with it. If the poorest day
laborer, if a pauper out of the workhouse came to me for advice, he
should be heartily welcome to it, provided he were an honest man in
the face of the day. Again I repeat, you must take no offence at what
I say, for I cast no reflection on you; I only urge that you and your
character are unknown to me."
Curious words from a lawyer to a client-aspirant, and Captain Thorn
found them so. But Mr. Carlyle's tone was so courteous, his manner so
affable, in fact he was so thoroughly the gentleman, that it was
impossible to feel hurt.
"Well, how can I convince you that I am respectable? I have served my
country ever since I was sixteen, and my brother officers have found
no cause of complaint--any position as an officer and a gentleman
would be generally deemed a sufficient guarantee. Inquire of John
Herbert. The Herberts, too, are friends of yours, and they have not
disdained to give me room amidst their family."
"True," returned Mr. Carlyle, feeling that he could not well object
further; and also that all men should be deemed innocent until proved
guilty. "At any rate, I will advise you what must be done at present,"
he added, "though if the affair is one that must go on, I do not
promise that I can continue to act for you. I am very busy just now."
Captain Thorn explained his dilemma, and Mr. Carlyle told him what to
do in it. "Were you not at West Lynne some ten years ago?" he suddenly
inquired, at the close of the conversation. "You denied it to me once
at my house; but I concluded from an observation you let fall, that
you had been here."
"Yes, I was," replied Captain Thorn, in a confidential tone. "I don't
mind owning it to you in confidence, but I do not wish it to get
abroad. I was not at West Lynne, but in its neighborhood. The fact is,
when I was a careless young fellow, I was stopping a few miles from
here, and got into a scrape, though a--a--in short it was an affair of
gallantry. I did not show out very well at the time, and I don't care
that it should be known in the country again."
Mr. Carlyle's pulse--for Richard Hare's sake--beat a shade quicker.
The avowal of "an affair of gallantry" was almost a confirmation of
his suspicions.
"Yes," he pointedly said. "The girl was Afy Hallijohn."
"Afy--who?" repeated Captain Thorn, opening his eyes, and fixing them
on Mr. Carlyle's.
"Afy Hallijohn."
Captain Thorn continued to look at Mr. Carlyle, an amused expression,
rather than any other, predominant on his features. "You are
mistaken," he observed. "Afy Hallijohn? I never heard the name before
in my life."
"Did you ever hear or know that a dreadful tragedy was enacted in this
place about that period?" replied Mr. Carlyle, in a low, meaning tone.
"That Afy Hallijohn's father was--"
"Oh, stay, stay, stay," hastily interrupted Captain thorn. "I am
telling a story in saying I never heard her name. Afy Hallijohn? Why,
that's the girl Tom Herbert was telling me about--who--what was it?--
disappeared after her father was murdered."
"Murdered in his own cottage--almost in Afy's presence--murdered by--
by----" Mr. Carlyle recollected himself; he had spoken more
impulsively than was his custom. "Hallijohn was my father's faithful
clerk for many years," he more calmly concluded.
"And he who committed the murder was young Hare, son of Justice Hare,
and brother to that attractive girl, Barbara. Your speaking of this
has recalled, what they told me to my recollection, the first evening
I was at the Herberts. Justice Hare was there, smoking--half a dozen
pipes there were going at once. I also saw Miss Barbara that evening
at your park gates, and Tom told me of the murder. An awful calamity
for the Hares. I suppose that is the reason the young lady is Miss
Hare still. One with her good fortune and good looks ought to have
changed her name ere this."
"No, it is not the reason," returned Mr. Carlyle.
"What is the reason, then?"
A faint flush tinged the brow of Mr. Carlyle. "I know more than one
who would be glad to get Barbara, in spite of the murder. Do not
depreciate Miss Hare."
"Not I, indeed; I like the young lady too well," replied Captain
Thorn. "The girl, Afy, has never been heard of since, has she?"
"Never," said Mr. Carlyle. "Do you know her well?" he deliberately
added.
"I never knew her at all, if you mean Afy Hallijohn. Why should you
think I did? I never heard of her till Tom Herbert amused me with the
history."
Mr. Carlyle most devoutly wished he could tell whether the man before
him was speaking the truth or falsehood. He continued,--
"Afy's favors--I speak in no invidious sense--I mean her smiles and
chatter--were pretty freely dispersed, for she was heedless and vain.
Amidst others who got the credit for occasional basking in her rays,
was a gentleman of the name of Thorn. Was it not yourself?"
Captain Thorn stroked his moustache with an air that seemed to say he
/could/ boast of his share of such baskings: in short, as if he felt
half inclined to do it. "Upon my word," he simpered, "you do me too
much honor; I cannot confess to having been favored by Miss Afy."
"Then she was not the--the damsel you speak of, who drove you--if I
understand aright--from the locality?" resumed Mr. Carlyle, fixing his
eyes upon him, so as to take in every tone of the answer and shade of
countenance as he gave it.
"I should think not, indeed. It was a married lady, more's the pity;
young, pretty, vain and heedless, as you represent this Afy. Things
went smoother after a time, and she and her husband--a stupid country
yeoman--became reconciled; but I have been ashamed of it since I have
grown wiser, and I do not care ever to be recognized as the actor in
it, or to have it raked up against me."
Captain Thorn rose and took a somewhat hasty leave. Was he, or was he
not, the man? Mr. Carlyle could not solve the doubt.
Mr. Dill came in as he disappeared, closed the door, and advanced to
his master, speaking in an under tone.
"Mr. Archibald, has it struck you that the gentleman just gone out may
be the Lieutenant Thorn you once spoke to me about--he who had used to
gallop over from Swainson to court Afy Hallijohn?"
"It has struck me so, most forcibly," replied Mr. Carlyle. "Dill, I
would give five hundred pounds out of my pocket this moment to be
assured of the fact--if he is the same."
"I have seen him several times since he has been staying with the
Herberts," pursued the old gentleman, "and my doubts have naturally
been excited as to whether it could be the man in question. Curious
enough, Bezant, the doctor, was over here yesterday from Swainson; and
as I was walking with him, arm-in-arm, we met Captain Thorn. The two
recognized each other and bowed, merely as distant acquaintances. 'Do
you know that gentleman?' said I to Bezant. 'Yes,' he answered, 'it is
Mr. Frederick.' 'Mr. Frederick with something added on to it,' said I;
'his name is Thorn.' 'I know that,' returned Bezant; 'but when he was
in Swainson some years ago, he chose to drop the Thorn, and the town
in general knew him only as Mr. Frederick.' 'What was he doing there,
Bezant?' I asked. 'Amusing himself and getting into mischief,' was the
answer; 'nothing very bad, only the random scrapes of young men.' 'Was
he often on horseback, riding to a distance?' was my next question.
'Yes, that he was,' replied Bezant; 'none more fond of galloping
across the country than he; I used to tell him he'd ride his horse's
tail off.' Now, Mr. Archibald, what do you think?" concluded the old
clerk; "and so far as I could make out, this was about the very time
of the tragedy at Hallijohn's."
"Think?" replied Mr. Carlyle. "What can I think but that it is the
same man. I am convinced of it now."
And, leaning back into his chair, he fell into a deep reverie,
regardless of the parchments that lay before him.
The weeks went on--two or three--and things seemed to be progressing
backward, rather than forward--if that's not Irish. Francis Levison's
affairs--that is, the adjustment of them--did not advance at all.
Another thing that may be said to be progressing backward, for it was
going on fast to bad, instead of good, was the jealousy of Lady
Isabel. How could it be otherwise, kept up, as it was, by Barbara's
frequent meetings with Mr. Carlyle, and by Captain Levison's
exaggerated whispers of them. Discontented, ill at ease with herself
and with everybody about her, Isabel was living now in a state of
excitement, a dangerous resentment against her husband beginning to
rise up in her heart. That very day--the one of Captain Levison's
visit to Levison Park--in driving through West Lynne in the pony
carriage, she had come upon her husband in close converse with Barbara
Hare. So absorbed were they, that they never saw her, though her
carriage passed close to the pavement where they stood.
On the morning following this, as the Hare family were seated at
breakfast, the postman was observed coming toward the house. Barbara
sprang from her seat to the open window, and the man advanced to her.
"Only one miss. It is for yourself."
"Who is it from?" began the justice, as Barbara returned to her chair.
In letters as in other things, he was always curious to know their
contents, whether they might be addressed to himself or not.
"It is from Anne, papa," replied Barbara, as she laid the letter by
her side on the table.
"Why don't you open it and see what she says?"
"I will, directly; I am just going to pour out some more tea for
mamma."
Finally the justice finished his breakfast, and strolled out into the
garden.
Barbara opened her letter; Mrs. Hare watched her movements and her
countenance. She saw the latter flush suddenly and vividly, and then
become deadly pale; she saw Barbara crush the note in her hand when
read.
"Oh, mamma!" she uttered.
The flush of emotion came also into Mrs. Hare's delicate cheeks.
"Barbara, is it bad news?"
"Mamma, it--it--is about Richard," she whispered, glancing at the door
and window, to see that none might be within sight or hearing. "I
never thought of him; I only fancied Anne might be sending me some bit
of news concerning her own affairs. Good Heavens! How fortunate--how
providential that papa did not see the paper fall; and that you did
not persist in your inquiries. If he--"
"Barbara, you are keeping me in suspense," interrupted Mrs. Hare, who
had also grown white. "What should Anne know about Richard?"
Barbara smoothed out the writing, and held it before her mother. It
was as follows:--
"I have had a curious note from R. It was without date or
signature, but I knew his handwriting. He tells me to let you
know, in the most sure and private manner that I can, that he will
soon be paying another night visit. You are to watch the grove
every evening when the present moon gets bright."
Mrs. Hare covered her face for some minutes. "Thank God for all his
mercies," she murmured.
"Oh, mamma, but it is an awful risk for him to run!"
"But to know that he is in life--to know that he is in life! And for
the risk--Barbara, I dread it not. The same God who protected him
through the last visit, will protect him through this. He will not
forsake the oppressed, the innocent. Destroy the paper, child."
"Archibald Carlyle must first see it, mamma."
"I shall not be easy until it is destroyed, Barbara."
Braving the comments of the gossips, hoping the visit would not reach
the ears or eyes of the justice, Barbara went that day to the office
of Mr. Carlyle. He was not there, he was at West Lynne; he had gone to
Lynneborough on business, and Mr. Dill thought it a question if he
would be at the office again that day. If so, it would be late in the
afternoon. Barbara, as soon as their own dinner was over, took up her
patient station at the gate, hoping to see him pass; but the time went
by and he did not. She had little doubt that he had returned home
without going to West Lynne.
What should she do? "Go up to East Lynne and see him," said her
conscience. Barbara's mind was in a strangely excited state. It
appeared to her that this visit of Richard's must have been specially
designed by Providence, that he might be confronted by Thorn.
"Mamma," she said, returning indoors, after seeing the justice depart
upon an evening visit to the Buck's Head, where he and certain other
justices and gentlemen sometimes congregated to smoke and chat, "I
shall go up to East Lynne, if you have no objection. I must see Mr.
Carlyle."
Away went Barbara. It had struck seven when she arrived at East Lynne.
"Is Mr. Carlyle disengaged?"
"Mr. Carlyle is not yet home, miss. My lady and Miss Carlyle are
waiting dinner for him."
A check for Barbara. The servant asked her to walk in, but she
declined and turned from the door. She was in no mood for visit
paying.
Lady Isabel had been standing at the window watching for her husband
and wondering what made him so late. She observed Barbara approach the
house, and saw her walk away again. Presently the servant who had
answered the door, entered the drawing-room.
"Was not that Miss Hare?"
"Yes, my lady," was the man's reply. "She wanted master. I said your
ladyship was at home, but she would not enter."
Isabel said no more; she caught the eyes of Francis Levison fixed on
her with as much meaning, compassionate meaning, as they dared
express. She clasped her hands in pain, and turned again to the
window.
Barbara was slowly walking down the avenue, Mr. Carlyle was then in
sight, walking quickly up it. Lady Isabel saw their hands meet in
greeting.
"Oh, I am so thankful to have met you!" Barbara exclaimed to him,
impulsively. "I actually went to your office to-day, and I have been
now to your house. We have such news!"
"Ay! What? About Thorn?"
"No; about Richard," replied Barbara, taking the scrap of paper from
the folds of her dress. "This came to me this morning from Anne."
Mr. Carlyle took the document, and Barbara looked over him whilst he
read it; neither of them thinking that Lady Isabel's jealous eyes, and
Captain Levison's evil ones, were strained upon them from the distant
windows. Miss Carlyle's also, for the matter of that.
"Archibald, it seems to me that Providence must be directing him
hither at this moment. Our suspicions with regard to Thorn can now be
set at rest. You must contrive that Richard shall see him. What can he
be coming again for?"
"More money," was the supposition of Mr. Carlyle. "Does Mrs. Hare know
of this?"
"She does, unfortunately. I opened the paper before her, never
dreaming it was connected with Richard--poor, unhappy Richard!--and
not to be guilty."
"He acted as though he were guilty, Barbara; and that line of conduct
often entails as much trouble as real guilt."
"You do not believe him guilty?" she most passionately uttered.
"I do not. I have little doubt of the guilt of Thorn."
"Oh, if it could but be brought home to him!" returned Barbara, "so
that Richard might be cleared in the sight of day. How can you
contrive that he shall see Thorn?"
"I cannot tell; I must think it over. Let me know the instant he
arrives, Barbara."
"Of course I shall. It may be that he does not want money; that his
errand is only to see mamma. He was always so fond of her."
"I must leave you," said Mr. Carlyle, taking her hand in token of
farewell. Then, as a thought occurred to him, he turned and walked a
few steps with her without releasing it. He was probably unconscious
that he retained it; she was not.
"You know, Barbara, if he should want money, and it be not convenient
to Mrs. Hare to supply it at so short a notice, I can give it to him,
as I did before."
"Thank you, thank you, Archibald. Mamma felt sure you would."
She lifted her eyes to his with an expression of gratitude; a warmer
feeling for an uncontrolled moment mingled with it. Mr. Carlyle nodded
pleasantly, and then set off toward his house at the pace of a steam
engine.
Two minutes in his dressing-room, and he entered the drawing-room,
apologizing for keeping them waiting dinner, and explaining that he
had been compelled to go to his office to give some orders subsequent
to his return to Lynneborough. Lady Isabel's lips were pressed
together, and she preserved an obstinate silence. Mr. Carlyle, in his
unsuspicion, did not notice it.
"What did Barbara Hare want?" demanded Miss Carlyle, during dinner.
"She wanted to see me on business," was his reply, given in a tone
that certainly did not invite his sister to pursue the subject. "Will
you take some more fish, Isabel?"
"What was that you were reading over with her?" pursued the
indefatigable Miss Corny. "It looked like a note."
"Ah, that would be telling," returned Mr. Carlyle, willing to turn it
off with gayety. "If young ladies choose to make me party to their
love letters, I cannot betray confidence, you know."
"What rubbish Archibald!" quoth she. "As if you could not say outright
what Barbara wants, without making a mystery of it. And she seems to
be always wanting you now."
Mr. Carlyle glanced at his sister a quick, peculiar look; it seemed to
her to speak both of seriousness and warning. Involuntarily her
thoughts--and her fears--flew back to the past.
"Archibald, Archibald!" she uttered, repeating the name, as if she
could not get any further words out in her dread. "It--it--is never--
that old affair is never being raked up again?"
Now Miss Carlyle's "old affair" referred to one sole and sore point--
Richard Hare, and so Mr. Carlyle understood it. Lady Isabel unhappily
believing that any "old affair" could only have reference to the
bygone loves of her husband and Barbara.
"You will oblige me by going on with your dinner, Cornelia," gravely
responded Mr. Carlyle. Then--assuming a more laughing tone--"I tell
you it is unreasonable to expect me to betray a young woman's secrets,
although she may choose to confide them professionally to me. What say
you, Captain Levison?"
The gentleman addressed bowed, a smile of mockery, all too perceptible
to Lady Isabel, on his lips. And Miss Carlyle bent her head over her
plate, and went on with her dinner as meek as any lamb.
That same evening, Lady Isabel's indignant and rebellious heart
condescended to speak of it when alone with her husband.
"What is it that she wants with you so much, that Barbara Hare?"
"It is private business, Isabel. She has to bring me messages from her
mother."
"Must the business be kept from me?"
He was silent for a moment, considering whether he might tell her. But
it was impossible he could speak, even to his wife, of the suspicion
they were attaching to Captain Thorn. It would have been unfair and
wrong; neither could he betray that a secret visit was expected from
Richard. To no one in the world could he betray that, however safe and
true.
"It would not make you the happier to know it, Isabel. There is a dark
secret, you are aware, touching the Hare family. It is connected with
that."
She did not put faith in a word of the reply. She believed he could
not tell her because her feelings, as his wife, would be outraged by
the confession; and it goaded her anger into recklessness. Mr.
Carlyle, on his part, never gave a thought to the supposition that she
might be jealous; he had believed that nonsense at an end years ago.
He was perfectly honorable and true; strictly faithful to his wife,
giving her no shadow of cause or reason to be jealous of him; and
being a practical, matter-of-fact man, it did not occur to him that
she could be so.
Lady Isabel was sitting, the following morning, moody and out of
sorts. Captain Levison, who had accompanied Mr. Carlyle in the most
friendly manner possible to the park gate on his departure, and then
stolen along the hedgewalk, had returned to Lady Isabel with the news
of an "ardent" interview with Barbara, who had been watching for his
going by at the gate of the grove. She sat, sullenly digesting the
tidings, when a note was brought in. It proved to be an invitation to
dinner for the following Tuesday, at a Mrs. Jefferson's--for Mr. and
Lady Isabel Carlyle and Miss Carlyle.
"Do you go?" asked Miss Carlyle.
"Yes," replied Isabel. "Mr. Carlyle and I both want a change of some
sort," she added, in a mocking sort of spirit; "it may be well to have
it, if only for an evening."
In truth this unhappy jealousy, this distrust of her husband, appeared
to have altered Lady Isabel's very nature.
"And leave Captain Levison?" returned Miss Carlyle.
Lady Isabel went over to her desk, making no reply.
"What will you do with him, I ask?" persisted Miss Carlyle.
"He can remain here--he can dine by himself. Shall I accept the
invitation for you?"
"No; I shall not go," said Miss Carlyle.
"Then, in that case, there can be no difficulty in regard to Captain
Levison," coldly spoke Lady Isabel.
"I don't want his company--I am not fond of it," cried Miss Carlyle.
"I would go to Mrs. Jefferson's, but that I should want a new dress."
"That's easily had," said Lady Isabel. "I shall want one myself."
"/You/ want a new dress!" uttered Miss Carlyle. "Why, you have a
dozen!"
"I don't know that I could count a dozen in all," returned Lady
Isabel, chafing at the remark, and the continual thwarting put upon
her by Miss Carlyle, which had latterly seemed more than hard to
endure. Petty evils are more difficult to support than great ones,
take notice.
Lady Isabel concluded her note, folded, sealed it, and then rang the
bell. As the man left the room with it, she desired that Wilson might
be sent to her.
"Is it this morning, Wilson, that the dressmaker comes to try on Miss
Isabel's dress?" she inquired.
Wilson hesitated and stammered, and glanced from her mistress to Miss
Carlyle. The latter looked up from her work.
"The dressmaker's not coming," spoke she, sharply. "I countermanded
the order for the frock, for Isabel does not require it."
"She does require it," answered Lady Isabel, in perhaps the most
displeased tone she had ever used to Miss Carlyle. "I am a competent
judge of what is necessary for my children."
"She no more requires a new frock than that table requires one, or
that you require the one you are longing for," stoically persisted
Miss Carlyle. "She has got ever so many lying by, and her striped
silk, turned, will make up as handsome as ever."
Wilson backed out of the room and closed the door softly, but her
mistress caught a compassionate look directed toward her. Her heart
seemed bursting with indignation and despair; there seemed to be no
side on which she could turn for refuge. Pitied by her own servants!
She reopened her desk and dashed off a haughty, peremptory note for
the attendance of the dressmaker at East Lynne, commanding its
immediate dispatch.
Miss Corny groaned in her wrath.
"You will be sorry for not listening to me, ma'am, when your husband
shall be brought to poverty. He works like a horse now, and with all
his slaving, can scarcely, I fear, keep expenses down."
Poor Lady Isabel, ever sensitive, began to think they might, with one
another, be spending more than Mr. Carlyle's means would justify; she
knew their expenses were heavy. The same tale had been dinned into her
ears ever since she married him. She gave up in that moment all
thought of the new dress for herself and for Isabel; but her spirit,
in her deep unhappiness, felt sick and faint within her.
Wilson, meanwhile, had flown to Joyce's room, and was exercising her
dearly beloved tongue in an exaggerated account of the matter--how
Miss Carlyle put upon my lady, and had forbidden a new dress to her,
as well as the frock to Miss Isabel.
And yet a few more days passed on.
CHAPTER XXIV.
RICHARD HARE AT MR. DILL'S WINDOW.
Bright was the moon on that genial Monday night, bright was the
evening star, as they shone upon a solitary wayfarer who walked on the
shady side of the road with his head down, as though he did not care
to court observation. A laborer, apparently, for he wore a smock-frock
and had hobnails in his shoes; but his whiskers were large and black,
quite hiding the lower part of his face, and his broad-brimmed "wide-
awake" came far over his brows. He drew near the dwelling of Richard
Hare, Esq., plunged rapidly over some palings, after looking well to
the right and to the left, into a field, and thence over the side wall
into Mr. Hare's garden, where he remained amidst the thick trees.
Now, by some mischievous spirit of intuition or contrariety, Justice
Hare was spending this evening at home, a thing he did not do once in
six months unless he had friends with him. Things in real life do
mostly go by the rules of contrary, as children say in their play,
holding the corners of the handkerchief, "Here we go round and round
by the rules of conte-rary; if I tell you to hold fast, you must
loose; if I tell you to loose, you must hold fast." Just so in the
play of life. When we want people to "hold fast," they "loose;" and
when we want them to "loose," they "hold fast."
Barbara, anxious, troubled, worn out almost with the suspense of
looking and watching for her brother, feeling a feverish expectation
that night would bring him--but so had she felt for the two or three
nights past--would have given her hand for her father to go out. But
no--things were going by the rule of contrary. There sat the stern
justice in full view of the garden and the grove, his chair drawn
precisely in front of the window, his wig awry, and a long pipe in his
mouth.
"Are you not going out, Richard?" Mrs. Hare ventured to say.
"No."
"Mamma, shall I ring for the shutters to be closed?" asked Barbara, by
and by.
"Shutters closed?" said the justice. "Who'd shut out this bright moon?
You have got the lamp at the far end of the room, young lady, and can
go to it."
Barbara ejaculated an inward prayer for patience--for safety of
Richard, if he did come, and waited on, watching the grove in the
distance. It came, the signal, her quick eye caught it; a movement as
if some person or thing had stepped out beyond the trees and stepped
back again. Barbara's face turned white and her lips dry.
"I am so hot!" she exclaimed, in her confused eagerness for an excuse;
"I must take a turn in the garden."
She stole out, throwing a dark shawl over her shoulders, that might
render her less conspicuous to the justice, and her dress that evening
was a dark silk. She did not dare to stand still when she reached the
trees, or to penetrate them, but she caught glimpses of Richard's
face, and her heart ached at the change in it. It was white, thin, and
full of care; and his hair, he told her, was turning gray.
"Oh, Richard, darling, and I may not stop to talk to you!" she wailed,
in a deep whisper. "Papa is at home, you see, of all the nights in the
world."
"Can't I see my mother?"
"How can you? You must wait till to-morrow night."
"I don't like waiting a second night, Barbara. There's danger in every
inch of ground that this neighborhood contains."
"But you must wait, Richard, for reasons. That man who caused all the
mischief--Thorn--"
"Hang him!" gloomily interrupted Richard.
"He is at West Lynne. At least there is a Thorn, we--I and Mr. Carlyle
--believe to be the same, and we want you to see him."
"Let me see him," panted Richard, whom the news appeared to agitate;
"let me see him, Barbara, I say----"
Barbara had passed on again, returning presently.
"You know, Richard, I must keep moving, with papa's eyes there. He is
a tall man, very good-looking, very fond of dress and ornament,
especially of diamonds."
"That's he," cried Richard, eagerly.
"Mr. Carlyle will contrive that you shall see him," she continued,
stooping as if to tie her shoe. "Should it prove to be the same,
perhaps nothing can be done--immediately done--toward clearing you,
but it shall be a great point ascertained. Are you sure you should
know him again?"
"Sure! That I should know /him/?" uttered Richard Hare. "Should I know
my own father? Should I know you? And are you not engraven on my heart
in letters of blood, as is he? How and when am I to see him, Barbara?"
"I can tell you nothing till I have seen Mr. Carlyle. Be here
to-morrow, as soon as ever the dusk will permit you. Perhaps Mr.
Carlyle will contrive to bring him here. If--"
The window was thrown open, and the stentorian voice of Justice Hare
was heard from it.
"Barbara, are you wandering about there to take cold? Come in! Come
in, I say!"
"Oh, Richard, I am so sorry!" she lingered to whisper. "But papa is
sure to be out to-morrow evening; he would not stay in two evenings
running. Good-night, dear."
There must be no delay now, and the next day Barbara, braving
comments, appeared once more at the office of Mr. Carlyle. Terribly
did the rules of contrary seem in action just then. Mr. Carlyle was
not in, and the clerks did not know when to expect him; he was gone
out for some hours, they believed.
"Mr. Dill," urged Barbara, as the old gentleman came to the door to
greet her, "I /must/ see him."
"He will not be in till late in the afternoon, Miss Barbara. I expect
him then. Is it anything I can do?"
"No, no," sighed Barbara.
At that moment Lady Isabel and her little girl passed in the chariot.
She saw Barbara at her husband's door; what should she be doing there,
unless paying him a visit? A slight, haughty bow to Barbara, a
pleasant nod and smile to Mr. Dill, and the carriage bowled on.
It was four o'clock before Barbara could see Mr. Carlyle, and
communicate her tidings that Richard had arrived.
Mr. Carlyle held deceit and all underhand doings in especial
abhorrence; yet he deemed that he was acting right, under the
circumstances, in allowing Captain Thorn to be secretly seen by
Richard Hare. In haste he arranged his plans. It was the evening of
his own dinner engagement at Mrs. Jefferson's but that he must give
up. Telling Barbara to dispatch Richard to his office as soon as he
should make his appearance at the grove, and to urge him to come
boldly and not fear, for none would know him in his disguise, he wrote
a hurried note to Thorn, requesting him also to be at his office at
eight o'clock that evening, as he had something to communicate to him.
The latter plea was no fiction, for he had received an important
communication that morning relative to the business on which Captain
Thorn had consulted him, and his own absence from the office in the
day had alone prevented his sending for him earlier.
Other matters were calling the attention of Mr. Carlyle, and it was
five o'clock ere he departed for East Lynne; he would not have gone so
early, but that he must inform his wife of his inability to keep his
dinner engagement. Mr. Carlyle was one who never hesitated to
sacrifice personal gratification to friendship or to business.
The chariot was at the door, and Lady Isabel dressed and waiting for
him in her dressing-room. "Did you forget that the Jeffersons dined at
six?" was her greeting.
"No, Isabel; but it was impossible for me to get here before. And I
should not have come so soon, but to tell you that I cannot accompany
you. You must make my excuses to Mrs. Jefferson."
A pause. Strange thoughts were running through Lady Isabel's mind.
"Why so?" she inquired.
"Some business has arisen which I am compelled to attend to this
evening. As soon as I have snatched a bit of dinner at home I must
hasten back to the office."
Was he making this excuse to spend the hours of her absence with
Barbara Hare? The idea that it was so took firm possession of her
mind, and remained there. Her face expressed a variety of feelings,
the most prominent that of resentment. Mr. Carlyle saw it.
"You must not be vexed, Isabel. I assure you it is no fault of mine.
It is important private business which cannot be put off, and which I
cannot delegate to Dill. I am sorry it should have so happened."
"You never return to the office in the evening," she remarked, with
pale lips.
"No; because if anything arises to take us there after hours, Dill
officiates. But the business to-night must be done by myself."
Another pause. Lady Isabel suddenly broke it. "Shall you join us later
in the evening?"
"I believe I shall not be able to do so."
She drew her light shawl around her shoulders, and swept down the
staircase. Mr. Carlyle followed to place her in the carriage. When he
said farewell, she never answered but looked out straight before her
with a stony look.
"What time, my lady?" inquired the footman, as he alighted at Mrs.
Jefferson's.
"Early. Half-past nine."
A little before eight o'clock, Richard Hare, in his smock-frock and
his slouching hat and his false whiskers, rang dubiously at the outer
door of Mr. Carlyle's office. That gentleman instantly opened it. He
was quite alone.
"Come in, Richard," said he, grasping his hand. "Did you meet any whom
you knew?"
"I never looked at whom I met, sir," was the reply. "I thought that if
I looked at people, they might look at me, so I came straight ahead
with my eyes before me. How the place has altered! There's a new brick
house on the corner where old Morgan's shop used to stand."
"That's the new police station. West Lynne I assure you, is becoming
grand in public buildings. And how have you been, Richard?"
"Ailing and wretched," answered Richard Hare. "How can I be otherwise,
Mr. Carlyle, with so false an accusation attached to me; and working
like a slave, as I have to do?"
"You may take off the disfiguring hat, Richard. No one is here."
Richard slowly heaved it from his brows, and his fair face, so like
his mother's, was disclosed. But the moment he was uncovered he turned
shrinkingly toward the entrance door. "If any one should come in,
sir?"
"Impossible!" replied Mr. Carlyle. "The front door is fast, and the
office is supposed to be empty at this hour."
"For if I should be seen and recognized, it might come to hanging, you
know, sir. You are expecting that cursed Thorn here, Barbara told me."
"Directly," replied Mr. Carlyle, observing the mode of addressing him
"sir." It spoke plainly of the scale of society in which Richard had
been mixing; that he was with those who said it habitually; nay, that
he used it habitually himself. "From your description of the
Lieutenant Thorn who destroyed Hallijohn, we believe this Captain
Thorn to be the same man," pursued Mr. Carlyle. "In person he appears
to tally exactly; and I have ascertained that a few years ago he was a
deal at Swainson, and got into some sort of scrape. He is in John
Herbert's regiment, and is here with him on a visit."
"But what an idiot he must be to venture here!" uttered Richard. "Here
of all places in the world!"
"He counts, no doubt, on not being known. So far as I can find out,
Richard, nobody here did know him, save you and Afy. I shall put you
in Mr. Dill's room--you may remember the little window in it--and from
thence you can take a full view of Thorn, whom I shall keep in the
front office. You are sure you would recognize him at this distance of
time?"
"I should know him if it were fifty years to come; I should know him
were he disguised as I am disguised. We cannot," Richard sank his
voice, "forget a man who has been the object of our frenzied
jealousy."
"What has brought you to East Lynne again, Richard? Any particular
object?"
"Chiefly a hankering within me that I could not get rid of," replied
Richard. "It was not so much to see my mother and Barbara--though I
did want that, especially since my illness--as that a feeling was
within me that I could not rest away from it. So I said I'd risk it
again, just for a day."
"I thought you might possibly want some assistance, as before."
"I do want that, also," said Richard. "Not much. My illness has run me
into debt, and if my mother can let me have a little, I shall be
thankful."
"I am sure she will," answered Mr. Carlyle. "You shall have it from me
to-night. What has been the matter with you?"
"The beginning of it was a kick from a horse, sir. That was last
winter, and it laid me up for six weeks. Then, in the spring, after I
got well and was at work again, I caught some sort of fever, and down
again I was for six weeks. I have not been to say well since."
"How is it you have never written or sent me your address?"
"Because I dared not," answered Richard, timorously, "I should always
be in fear; not of you, Mr. Carlyle, but of its becoming known some
way or other. The time is getting on, sir; is that Thorn sure to
come?"
"He sent me word that he would, in reply to my note. And--there he
is!" uttered Mr. Carlyle, as a ring was heard at the bell. "Now,
Richard, come this way. Bring your hat."
Richard complied by putting his hat on his head, pulling it so low
that it touched his nose. He felt himself safer in it. Mr. Carlyle
showed him into Mr. Dill's room, and then turned the key upon him, and
put it in his pocket. Whether this precautionary measure was intended
to prevent any possibility of Captain Thorn's finding his way in, or
of Richard's finding his way out, was best known to himself.
Mr. Carlyle came to the front door, opened it, and admitted Captain
Thorn. He brought him into the clerk's office, which was bright with
gas, keeping him in conversation for a few minutes standing, and then
asking him to be seated--all in full view of the little window.
"I must beg your pardon, for being late," Captain Thorn observed. "I
am half an hour beyond the time you mentioned, but the Herberts had
two or three friends at dinner, and I could not get away. I hope, Mr.
Carlyle, you have not come to your office to-night purposely for me."
"Business must be attended to," somewhat evasively answered Mr.
Carlyle; "I have been out myself nearly all day. We received a
communication from London this morning, relative to your affair, and I
am sorry to say anything but satisfactory. They will not wait."
"But I am not liable, Mr. Carlyle, not liable in justice."
"No--if what you tell me be correct. But justice and law are sometimes
in opposition, Captain Thorn."
Captain Thorn sat in perplexity. "They will not get me arrested here,
will they?"
"They would have done it, beyond doubt; but I have caused a letter to
be written and dispatched to them, which must bring forth an answer
before any violent proceedings are taken. That answer will be here the
morning after to-morrow."
"And what am I do to then?"
"I think it is probable there may be a way of checkmating them. But I
am not sure, Captain Thorn, that I can give my attention further to
this affair."
"I hope and trust you will," was the reply.
"You have not forgotten that I told you at first I could not promise
to do so," rejoined Mr. Carlyle. "You shall hear from me to-morrow. If
I carry it on for you, I will then appoint an hour for you to be here
on the following day; if not--why, I dare say you will find a
solicitor as capable of assisting you as I am."
"But why will you not? What is the reason?"
"I cannot always give reasons for what I do," was the response. "You
will hear from me to-morrow."
He rose as he spoke; Captain Thorn also rose. Mr. Carlyle detained him
yet a few moments, and then saw him out at the front door and fastened
it.
He returned and released Richard. The latter took off his hat as he
advanced into the blaze of light.
"Well, Richard, is it the same man?"
"No, sir. Not in the least like him."
Mr. Carlyle, though little given to emotion, felt a strange relief--
relief for Captain Thorn's sake. He had rarely seen one whom he could
so little associate with the notion of a murderer as Captain Thorn,
and he was a man who exceedingly won upon the regard. He would
heartily help him out of his dilemma now.
"Excepting that they are both tall, with nearly the same color of
hair, there is no resemblance whatever between them," proceeded
Richard. "Their faces, their figures, are as opposite as light is from
dark. That other, in spite of his handsome features, had the
expression at times of a demon, but this one's expression is the best
part of his face. Hallijohn's murderer had a curious look here, sir."
"Where?" questioned Mr. Carlyle, for Richard had only pointed to his
face generally.
"Well--I cannot say precisely where it lay, whether in the eyebrows or
the eyes; I could not tell when I used to have him before me; but it
was in one of them. Ah, Mr. Carlyle, I thought, when Barbara told me
Thorn was here, it was too good news to be true; depend upon it, he
won't venture to West Lynne again. This man is no more like that other
villain than you are like him."
"Then--as that is set at rest--we had better be going, Richard. You
have to see your mother, and she must be waiting in anxiety. How much
money do you want?"
"Twenty-five pounds would do, but----" Richard stopped in hesitation.
"But what?" asked Mr. Carlyle. "Speak out, Richard."
"Thirty would be more welcome. Thirty would put me at ease."
"You shall take thirty," said Mr. Carlyle, counting out the notes to
him. "Now--will you walk with me to the grove, or will you walk alone?
I mean to see you there in safety."
Richard thought he would prefer to walk alone; everybody they met
might be speaking to Mr. Carlyle. The latter inquired why he chose
moonlight nights for his visits.
"It is pleasanter for travelling. And had I chosen dark nights,
Barbara could not have seen my signal from the trees," was the answer
of Richard.
They went out and proceeded unmolested to the house of Justice Hare.
It was past nine, then. "I am so much obliged to you Mr. Carlyle,"
whispered Richard, as they walked up the path.
"I wish I could help you more effectually, Richard, and clear up the
mystery. Is Barbara on the watch? Yes; there's the door slowly
opening."
Richard stole across the hall and into the parlor to his mother.
Barbara approached and softly whispered to Mr. Carlyle, standing, just
outside the portico; her voice trembled with the suspense of what the
answer might be.
"Is it the same man--the same Thorn?"
"No. Richard says this man bears no resemblance to the real one."
"Oh!" uttered Barbara, in her surprise and disappointment. "Not the
same! And for the best part of poor Richard's evening to have been
taken up for nothing."
"Not quite nothing," said Mr. Carlyle. "The question is now set at
rest."
"Set at rest!" repeated Barbara. "It is left in more uncertainty than
ever."
"Set at rest so far as regards Captain Thorn. And whilst our
suspicions were concentrated upon him, we thought not of looking to
other quarters."
When they entered the sitting-room Mrs. Hare was crying over Richard,
and Richard was crying over her; but she seized the hand of Mr.
Carlyle.
"You have been very kind; I don't know whatever we should do without
you. And I want to tax your kindness further. Has Barbara mentioned
it?"
"I could not talk in the hall, mamma; the servants might have
overheard."
"Mr. Hare is not well, and we terribly fear he will be home early, in
consequence; otherwise we should have been quite safe until after ten,
for he is gone to the Buck's Head, and they never leave, you know,
till that hour has struck. Should he come in and see Richard--oh, I
need not enlarge upon the consequences to you, Archibald; the very
thought sends me into a shiver. Barbara and I have been discussing it
all the evening, and we can only think of one plan; it is, that you
will kindly stay in the garden, near the gate; and, should he come in,
stop him, and keep him in conversation. Barbara will be with you, and
will run in with the warning, and Richard can go inside the closet in
the hall till Mr. Hare has entered and is safe in this room, and then
he can make his escape. Will you do this, Archibald?"
"Certainly I will."
"I cannot part with him before ten o'clock, unless I am forced," she
whispered, pressing Mr. Carlyle's hands, in her earnest gratitude.
"You don't know what it is, Archibald, to have a lost son home for an
hour but once in seven years. At ten o'clock we will part."
Mr. Carlyle and Barbara began to pace in the path in compliance with
the wish of Mrs. Hare, keeping near the entrance gate. When they were
turning the second time, Mr. Carlyle offered her his arm; it was an
act of mere politeness. Barbara took it; and there they waited and
waited; but the justice did not come.
Punctually to the minute, half after nine, Lady Isabel's carriage
arrived at Mrs. Jefferson's, and she came out immediately--a headache
being the plea for her early departure. She had not far to go to reach
East Lynne--about two miles--and it was a by-road nearly all the way.
They could emerge into the open road, if they pleased, but it was a
trifle further. Suddenly a gentleman approached the carriage as it was
bowling along, and waved his hand to the coachman to pull up. In spite
of the glowing moonlight, Lady Isabel did not at first recognize him,
for he wore a disfigured fur cap, the ears of which were tied over his
ears and cheeks. It was Francis Levison. She put down the window.
"I thought it must be your carriage. How early you are returning! Were
you tired of your entertainers?"
"Why, he knew what time my lady was returning," thought John to
himself; "he asked me. A false sort of a chap that, I've a notion."
"I came out for a midnight stroll, and have tired myself," he
proceeded. "Will you take compassion on me, and give me a seat home?"
She acquiesced. She could not do otherwise. The footman sprang from
behind the door, and Francis Levison took his place beside Lady
Isabel. "Take the high road," he put out his head to say to the
coachman; and the man touched his hat--which high road would cause
them to pass Mr. Hare's.
"I did not know you," she began, gathering herself into her own
corner. "What ugly thing is that you have on? It is like a disguise."
He was taking off the "ugly thing" as she spoke and began to twirl it
round his hand. "Disguise? Oh, no; I have no creditors in the
immediate neighborhood of East Lynne."
False as ever it was worn as a disguise and he knew it.
"Is Mr. Carlyle at home?" she inquired.
"No." Then, after a pause--"I expect he is more agreeably engaged."
The tone, a most significant one, brought the tingling blood to the
cheeks of Lady Isabel. She wished to preserve a dignified silence, and
did for a few moments; but the jealous question broke out,--
"Engaged in what manner?"
"As I came by Hare's house just now, I saw two people, a gentleman and
a young lady, coupled lovingly together, enjoying a /tete-a-tete/ by
moonlight. Unless I am mistaken, he was the favored individual whom
you call lord and master."
Lady Isabel almost gnashed her teeth; the jealous doubts which had
been tormenting her all the evening were confirmed. That the man whom
she hated--yes, in her blind anger, she hated him then--should so
impose upon her, should excuse himself by lies, lies base and false as
he was, from accompanying her out, on purpose to pass the hours with
Barbara Hare! Had she been alone in the carriage, a torrent of passion
had probably escaped her.
She leaned back, panting in her emotion, but hiding it from Captain
Levison. As they came opposite to Justice Hare's she deliberately bent
forward and scanned the garden with eager eyes.
There, in the bright moonlight, all too bright and clear, slowly paced
arm in arm, and drawn close to each other, her husband and Barbara
Hare. With a choking sob that could no longer be controlled or hidden,
Lady Isabel sunk back again.
He, that bold, bad man, dared to put his arm around her, to draw her
to his side; to whisper that /his/ love was left to her, if another's
was withdrawn. She was most assuredly out of her senses that night, or
she never would have listened.
A jealous woman is mad; an outraged woman is doubly mad; and the ill-
fated Lady Isabel truly believed that every sacred feeling which ought
to exist between man and wife was betrayed by Mr. Carlyle.
"Be avenged on that false hound, Isabel. He was never worthy of you.
Leave your life of misery, and come to happiness."
In her bitter distress and wrath, she broke into a storm of sobs. Were
they caused by passion against her husband, or by those bold and
shameless words? Alas! Alas! Francis Levison applied himself to soothe
her with all the sweet and dangerous sophistry of his crafty nature.
The minutes flew on. A quarter to ten; now a quarter past ten; and
still Richard Hare lingered on with his mother, and still Mr. Carlyle
and Barbara paced patiently the garden path. At half-past ten Richard
came forth, after having taken his last farewell. Then came Barbara's
tearful farewell, which Mr. Carlyle witnessed; and then a hard grasp
of that gentleman's hand, and Richard plunged amidst the trees to
depart the way he came.
"Good night, Barbara," said Mr. Carlyle.
"Will you not come in and say good night to mamma?"
"Not now; it is late. Tell her how glad I am things have gone off so
well."
He started off at a strapping pace toward his home, and Barbara leaned
on the gate to indulge her tears. Not a soul passed to interrupt her,
and the justice did not come. What could have become of him? What
could the Buck's Head be thinking of, to retain respectable elderly
justices from their beds, who ought to go home early and set a good
example to the parish? Barbara knew, the next day, that Justice Hare,
with a few more gentlemen, had been seduced from the staid old inn to
a friend's house, to an entertainment of supper, pipes, and whist, two
tables, penny points, and it was between twelve and one ere the party
rose from the fascination. So far, well--as it happened.
Barbara knew not how long she lingered at the gate; ten minutes it may
have been. Nobody summoned her. Mrs. Hare was indulging her grief
indoors, giving no thought to Barbara, and the justice did not make
his appearance. Exceedingly surprised was Barbara to hear fast
footsteps, and to find that they were Mr. Carlyle's.
"The more haste, the less speed, Barbara," he called out as he came
up. "I had got half-way home and have had to come back again. When I
went into your sitting-room, I left a small parcel, containing a
parchment, on the sideboard. Will you get it for me?"
Barbara ran indoors and brought forth the parcel, and Mr. Carlyle,
with a brief word of thanks, sped away with it.
She leaned on the gate as before, the ready tears flowing again; her
heart was aching for Richard; it was aching for the disappointment the
night had brought forth respecting Captain Thorn. Still nobody passed;
still the steps of her father were not heard, and Barbara stayed on.
But--what was that figure cowering under the shade of the hedge at a
distance, and seemingly, watching her? Barbara strained her eyes,
while her heart beat as if it would burst its bounds. Surely, surely,
it was her brother? What had he ventured back for?
Richard Hare it was. When fully assured that Barbara was standing
there, he knew the justice was still absent, and ventured to advance.
He appeared to be in a strange state of emotion--his breath labored,
his whole frame trembling.
"Barbara! Barbara!" he called. "I have seen Thorn."
Barbara thought him demented. "I know you saw him," she slowly said,
"but it was not the right Thorn."
"Not he," breathed Richard; "and not the gentleman I saw to-night in
Carlyle's office. I have seen the fellow himself. Why to you stare at
me so, Barbara?"
Barbara was in truth scanning his face keenly. It appeared to her a
strange tale that he was telling.
"When I left here, I cut across into Bean lane, which is more private
for me than this road," proceeded Richard. "Just as I got to that
clump of trees--you know it, Barbara--I saw somebody coming toward me
from a distance. I stepped back behind the trunks of the trees, into
the shade of the hedge, for I don't care to be met, though I am
disguised. He came along the middle of the lane, going toward West
Lynne, and I looked out upon him. I knew him long before he was
abreast of me; it was Thorn." Barbara made no comment; she was
digesting the news.
"Every drop of blood within me began to tingle, and an impulse came
upon me to spring upon him and accuse him of the murder of Hallijohn,"
went on Richard, in the same excited manner. "But I resisted it; or,
perhaps, my courage failed. One of the reproaches against me had used
to be that I was a physical coward, you know, Barbara," he added, in a
tone of bitterness. "In a struggle, Thorn would have had the best of
it; he is taller and more powerful than I, and might have battered me
to death. A man who can commit one murder won't hesitate at a second."
"Richard, do you think you could have been deceived?" she urged. "You
had been talking of Thorn, and your thoughts were, naturally bearing
upon him. Imagination--"
"Be still, Barbara," he interrupted in a tone of pain. "Imagination,
indeed! Did I not tell you he was stamped here?" touching his breast.
"Do you take me for a child, or an imbecile, that I should fancy I see
Thorn in every shadow, or meet people where I do not? He had his hat
off, as if he had been walking fast and had got hot--fast he was
walking; and he carried the hat in one hand, and what looked like a
small parcel. With the other hand he was pushing the hair from his
brow--in this way--a peculiar way," added Richard, slightly lifting
his own hat and pushing back his hair. "By that action alone I should
have known him, for he was always doing it in the old days. And there
was his white hand, adorned with his diamond ring! Barbara, the
diamond glittered in the moonlight!"
Richard's voice and manner were singularly earnest, and a conviction
of the truth of his assertion flashed over his sister.
"I saw his face as plainly as I ever saw it--every feature--he is
scarcely altered, save for a haggardness in his cheeks now. Barbara,
you need not doubt me; I swear it was Thorn!"
She grew excited as he was; now that she believed the news, it was
telling upon her; reason left its place and impulse succeeded; Barbara
did not wait to weigh her actions.
"Richard! Mr. Carlyle ought to know this. He has but just gone; we may
overtake him, if we try."
Forgetting the strange appearances it would have--her flying along the
public road at that hour of the night--should she meet any who knew
her--forgetting what the consequence might be, did Justice Hare return
and find her absent, Barbara set off with a fleet foot, Richard more
stealthily following her--his eyes cast in all directions. Fortunately
Barbara wore a bonnet and mantle, which she had put on to pace the
garden with Mr. Carlyle; fortunately, also, the road was remarkably
empty of passengers. She succeeded in reaching Mr. Carlyle before he
turned into East Lynne gates.
"Barbara!" he exclaimed in the extreme of astonishment. "Barbara!"
"Archibald! Archibald! She panted, gasping for breath. "I am not out
of my mind--but do come and speak to Richard! He has just seen the
real Thorn."
Mr. Carlyle, amazed and wondering, turned back. They got over the
field stile, nearly opposite the gates, drew behind the hedge, and
there Richard told his tale. Mr. Carlyle did not appear to doubt it,
as Barbara had done; perhaps he could not, in the face of Richard's
agitated and intense earnestness.
"I am sure there is no one named Thorn in the neighborhood, save the
gentleman you saw in my office to-night, Richard," observed Mr.
Carlyle, after some deliberation. "It is very strange."
"He may be staying here under a feigned name," replied Richard. "There
can be no mistake that it was Thorn whom I have just met."
"How was he dressed? As a gentleman?"
"Catch him dressing as anything else," returned Richard. "He was in an
evening suit of black, with a sort of thin overcoat thrown on, but it
was flung back at the shoulders, and I distinctly saw his clothes. A
gray alpaca, it looked like. As I have told Barbara, I should have
known him by this action of the hand," imitating it, "as he pushed his
hair off his forehead; it was the delicate white hand of the days gone
by, Mr. Carlyle; it was the flashing of the diamond ring!"
Mr. Carlyle was silent; Barbara also; but the thoughts of both were
busy. "Richard," observed the former, "I should advise you to remain a
day or two in the neighborhood, and look out for this man. You may see
him again, and may track him home; it is very desirable to find out
who he really is if practicable."
"But the danger?" urged Richard.
"Your fears magnify that. I am quite certain that nobody would know
you in broad daylight, disguised as you are now. So many years have
flown since, that people have forgotten to think about you, Richard."
But Richard could not be persuaded; he was full of fears. He described
the man as accurately as he could to Mr. Carlyle and Barbara, and told
them /they/ must look out. With some trouble, Mr. Carlyle got from him
an address in London, to which he might write, in case anything turned
up, and Richard's presence should be necessary. He then once more said
farewell, and quitted them, his way lying past East Lynne.
"And now to see you back, Barbara," said Mr. Carlyle.
"Indeed you shall not do it--late as it is, and tired as you must be.
I came here alone; Richard did not keep near me."
"I cannot help your having come here alone, but you may rely upon it,
I do not suffer you to go back so. Nonsense, Barbara! Allow you to go
along the high road by yourself at eleven o'clock at night? What are
you thinking of?"
He gave Barbara his arm, and they pursued their way. "How late Lady
Isabel will think you!" observed Barbara.
"I don't know that Lady Isabel has returned home yet. My being late
once in a while is of no consequence."
Not another word was spoken, save by Barbara. "Whatever excuse can I
make, should papa come home?" Both were buried in their own
reflections. "Thank you very greatly," she said as they reached her
gate, and Mr. Carlyle finally turned away. Barbara stole in, and found
the coast clear; her papa had not arrived.
Lady Isabel was in her dressing-room when Mr. Carlyle entered; she was
seated at a table, writing. A few questions as to her evening's visit,
which she answered in the briefest way possible, and then he asked her
if she was not going to bed.
"By and by. I am not sleepy."
"I must go at once, Isabel, for I am dead tired." And no wonder.
"You can go," was her answer.
He bent down to kiss her, but she dexterously turned her face away. He
supposed that she felt hurt that he had not gone with her to the
party, and placed his hand on her shoulder with a pleasant smile.
"You foolish child, to be aggrieved at that! It was no fault of mine,
Isabel; I could not help myself. I will talk to you in the morning; I
am too tired to-night. I suppose you will not be long."
Her head was bent over her writing again, and she made no reply. Mr.
Carlyle went into his bedroom and shut the door. Some time after, Lady
Isabel went softly upstairs to Joyce's room. Joyce, fast in her first
sleep, was suddenly aroused from it. There stood her mistress, a wax
light in her hand. Joyce rubbed her eyes, and collected her senses,
and finally sat up in bed.
"My lady! Are you ill?"
"Ill! Yes; ill and wretched," answered Lady Isabel; and ill she did
look, for she was perfectly white. "Joyce, I want a promise from you.
If anything should happen to me, stay at East Lynne with my children."
Joyce stared in amazement, too much astonished to make any reply.
"Joyce, you promised it once before; promise it again. Whatever betide
you, you will stay with my children when I am gone."
"I will stay with them. But, oh, my lady, what can be the matter with
you? Are you taken suddenly ill?"
"Good-bye, Joyce," murmured Lady Isabel, gliding from the chamber as
quietly as she had entered it. And Joyce, after an hour of perplexity,
dropped asleep again.
Joyce was not the only one whose rest was disturbed that eventful
night. Mr. Carlyle himself awoke, and to his surprise found that his
wife had not come to bed. He wondered what the time was, and struck
his repeater. A quarter past three!
Rising, he made his way to the door of his wife's dressing-room. It
was in darkness; and, so far as he could judge by the absence of
sound, unoccupied.
"Isabel!"
No reply. Nothing but the echo of his own voice in the silence of the
night.
He struck a match and lighted a taper, partially dressed himself, and
went about to look for her. He feared she might have been taken ill;
or else that she had fallen asleep in some one of the rooms. But
nowhere could he find her, and feeling perplexed, he proceeded to his
sister's chamber door and knocked.
Miss Carlyle was a slight sleeper, and rose up in bed at once. "Who's
that?" cried out she.
"It is only I, Cornelia," said Mr. Carlyle.
"You!" cried Miss Corny. "What in the name of fortune do you want? You
can come in."
Mr. Carlyle opened the door, and met the keen eyes of his sister bent
on him from the bed. Her head was surmounted by a remarkable nightcap,
at least a foot high.
"Is anybody ill?" she demanded.
"I think Isabel must be, I cannot find her."
"Not find her?" echoed Miss Corny. "Why, what's the time? Is she not in
bed?"
"It is three o'clock. She had not been to bed. I cannot find her in
the sitting-rooms; neither is she in the children's room."
"Then I'll tell you what it is, Archibald; she's gone worrying after
Joyce. Perhaps the girl may be in pain to-night."
Mr. Carlyle was in full retreat toward Joyce's room, at this
suggestion, when his sister called to him.
"If anything is amiss with Joyce, you come and tell me, Archibald, for
I shall get up and see after her. The girl was my servant before she
was your wife's."
He reached Joyce's room, and softly unlatched the door, fully
expecting to find a light there, and his wife sitting by the bedside.
There was no light there, however, save that which came from the taper
he held, and he saw no signs of his wife. /Where/ was she? Was it
probable that Joyce should tell him? He stepped inside the room and
called to her.
Joyce started up in a fright, which changed to astonishment when she
recognized her master. He inquired whether Lady Isabel had been there,
and for a few moments Joyce did not answer. She had been dreaming of
Lady Isabel, and could not at first detach the dream from the visit
which had probably given rise to it.
"What did you say, sir? Is my lady worse?"
"I asked if she had been here. I cannot find her."
"Why, yes," said Joyce, now fully aroused. "She came here and woke me.
That was just before twelve, for I heard the clock strike. She did not
stay here a minute, sir."
"Woke you!" repeated Mr. Carlyle. "What did she want? What did she
come here for?"
Thoughts are quick; imagination is still quicker; and Joyce was giving
the reins to both. Her mistress's gloomy and ambiguous words were
crowding on her brain. Three o'clock and she had not been in bed, and
was not to be found in the house? A nameless horror struggled to
Joyce's face, her eyes were dilating with it; she seized and threw on
a large flannel gown which lay on a chair by the bed, and forgetful of
her master who stood there, out she sprang to the floor. All minor
considerations faded to insignificance beside the terrible dread which
had taken possession of her. Clasping the flannel gown tight around
her with one hand, she laid the other on the arm of Mr. Carlyle.
"Oh, master! Oh, master! She has destroyed herself! I see it all now."
"Joyce!" sternly interrupted Mr. Carlyle.
"She has destroyed herself, as true as that we two are living here,"
persisted Joyce, her own face livid with emotion. "I can understand
her words now; I could not before. She came here--and her face was
like a corpse as the light fell upon it--saying she had come to get a
promise from me to stay with her children when she was gone, I asked
whether she was ill, and she answered, 'Yes, ill and wretched.' Oh,
sir, may heaven support you under this dreadful trial!"
Mr. Carlyle felt bewildered--perplexed. Not a syllable did he believe.
He was not angry with Joyce, for he thought she had lost her reason.
"It is so, sir, incredible as you may deem my words," pursued Joyce,
wringing her hands. "My lady has been miserably unhappy; and that has
driven her to it."
"Joyce, are you in your senses or out of them?" demanded Mr. Carlyle,
a certain sternness in his tone. "Your lady miserably unhappy! What do
you mean?"
Before Joyce could answer, an addition was received to the company in
the person of Miss Carlyle, who appeared in black stockings and a
shawl, and the lofty nightcap. Hearing voices in Joyce's room, which
was above her own, and full of curiosity, she ascended, not choosing
to be shut out from the conference.
"Whatever's up?" cried she. "Is Lady Isabel found?"
"She is not found, and she never will be found but in her winding-
sheet," returned Joyce, whose lamentable and unusual state of
excitement completely overpowered her customary quiet respect and
plain good sense. "And, ma'am, I am glad that you have come up; for
what I was about to say to my master I would prefer to say in your
presence. When my lady is brought into this house, and laid before us
dead, what will your feelings be? My master has done his duty by her
in love; but you--you have made her life a misery. Yes, ma'am, you
have."
"Hoity-toity!" muttered Miss Carlyle, staring at Joyce in
consternation. "What is all this? Where's my lady?"
"She has gone and taken the life that was not hers to take," sobbed
Joyce, "and I say she has been driven to it. She has not been allowed
to indulge a will of her own, poor thing, since she came to East
Lynne; in her own house she has been less free than either of her
servants. You have curbed her, ma'am, and snapped at her, and you made
her feel that she was but a slave to your caprices and temper. All
these years she has been crossed and put upon; everything, in short,
but beaten--ma'am, you know she has--and has borne it all in silence,
like a patient angel, never, as I believe, complaining to master; he
can say whether she has or not. We all loved her, we all felt for her;
and my master's heart would have bled had he suspected what she had to
put up with day after day, and year after year."
Miss Carlyle's tongue was glued to her mouth. Her brother, confounded
at the rapid words, could scarcely gather in their sense.
"What is it that you are saying, Joyce?" he asked, in a low tone. "I
do not understand."
"I have longed to say it to you many a hundred times, sir; but it is
right that you should hear it, now things have come to this dreadful
ending. Since the very night Lady Isabel came home here, your wife,
she had been taunted with the cost she has brought to East Lynne and
to you. If she wanted but the simplest thing, she was forbidden to
have it, and told that she was bringing her husband to poverty. For
this very dinner party that she went to to-night she wished for a new
dress, and your cruel words, ma'am, forbade her having it. She ordered
a new frock for Miss Isabel, and you countermanded it. You have told
her that master worked like a dog to support her extravagances, when
you know that she never was extravagant; that none were less inclined
to go beyond proper limits than she. I have seen her, ma'am, come away
from your reproaches with the tears in her eyes, and her hands meekly
clasped upon her bosom, as though life was heavy to bear. A gentle-
spirited, high-born lady, as I know she was, could not fail to be
driven to desperation; and I know that she has been."
Mr. Carlyle turned to his sister. "Can this be true?" he inquired, in
a tone of deep agitation.
She did not answer. Whether it was the shade cast by the nightcap, or
the reflection of the wax taper, her face looked of a green cast, and,
for the first time probably in Miss Carlyle's life, her words failed
her.
"May God forgive you, Cornelia!" he muttered, as he went out of the
chamber.
He descended to his own. That his wife had laid violent hands upon
herself, his reason utterly repudiated, she was one of the least
likely to commit so great a sin. He believed that, in her unhappiness,
she might have wandered out in the grounds, and was lingering there.
By this time the house was aroused, and the servants were astir. Joyce
--surely a supernatural strength was given her, for though she had
been able to put her foot to the ground, she had not yet walked upon
it--crept downstairs, and went into Lady Isabel's dressing-room. Mr.
Carlyle was hastily assuming the articles of attire he had not yet put
on, to go out and search the grounds, when Joyce limped in, holding
out a note. Joyce did not stand on ceremony that night.
"I found this in the dressing-glass drawer, sir. It is my lady's
writing."
He took it in his hand and looked at the address--"Archibald Carlyle."
Though a calm man, one who had his emotions under his own control, he
was no stoic, and his fingers shook as he broke the seal.
"When years go on, and my children ask where their mother is, and
why she left them, tell them that you, their father, goaded her to
it. If they inquire what she is, tell them, also, if you so will;
but tell them, at the same time, that you outraged and betrayed
her, driving her to the very depth of desperation ere she quitted
them in her despair."
The handwriting, his wife's, swam before the eyes of Mr. Carlyle. All,
save the disgraceful fact that she had /flown/--and a horrible
suspicion began to dawn upon him, with whom--was totally
incomprehensible. How had he outraged her? In what manner had he
goaded her to it. The discomforts alluded to by Joyce, and the work of
his sister, had evidently no part in this; yet what had /he/ done? He
read the letter again, more slowly. No he could not comprehend it; he
had not the clue.
At that moment the voices of the servants in the corridor outside
penetrated his ears. Of course they were peering about, and making
their own comments. Wilson, with her long tongue, the busiest. They
were saying that Captain Levison was not in his room; that his bed had
not been slept in.
Joyce sat on the edge of a chair--she could not stand--watching her
master with a blanched face. Never had she seen him betray agitation
so powerful. Not the faintest suspicion of the dreadful truth yet
dawned upon her. He walked to the door, the open note in his hand;
then turned, wavered, and stood still, as if he did not know what he
was doing. Probably he did not. Then he took out his pocket-book, put
the note inside it, and returned it to his pocket, his hands trembling
equally with his livid lips.
"You need not mention this," he said to Joyce, indicating the note.
"It concerns myself alone."
"Sir, does it say she's dead?"
"She is not dead," he answered. "Worse than that," he added in his
heart.
"Why--who's this?" uttered Joyce.
It was little Isabel, stealing in with a frightened face, in her white
nightgown. The commotion had aroused her.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "Where's mamma?"
"Child, you'll catch your death of cold," said Joyce. "Go back to
bed."
"But I want mamma."
"In the morning, dear," evasively returned Joyce. "Sir, please, must
not Isabel go back to bed?"
Mr. Carlyle made no reply to the question; most likely he never heard
its import. But he touched Isabel's shoulder to draw Joyce's attention
to the child.
"Joyce--/Miss Lucy/ in future."
He left the room, and Joyce remained silent from amazement. She heard
him go out at the hall door and bang it after him. Isabel--nay, we
must say "Lucy" also--went and stood outside the chamber door; the
servants gathered in a group near, did not observe her. Presently she
came running back, and disturbed Joyce from her reverie.
"Joyce, is it true?"
"Is what true, my dear?"
"They are saying that Captain Levison has taken away my mamma."
Joyce fell back in her chair with a scream. It changed to a long, low
moan of anguish.
"What has he taken her for--to kill her? I thought it was only
kidnappers who took people."
"Child, child, go to bed."
"Oh, Joyce, I want mamma. When will she come back?"
Joyce hid her face in her hands to conceal its emotion from the
motherless child. And just then Miss Carlyle entered on tiptoe, and
humbly sat down on a low chair, her green face--green that night--in
its grief, its remorse, and its horror, looking nearly as dark as her
stockings.
She broke into a subdued wail.
"God be merciful to this dishonored house!"
Mr. Justice Hare turned into the gate between twelve and one--turned
in with a jaunty air; for the justice was in spirits, he having won
nine sixpences, and his friend's tap of ale having been unusually
good. When he reached his bedroom, he told Mrs. Hare of a chaise and
four which had gone tearing past at a furious pace as he was closing
the gate, coming from the direction of East Lynne. He wondered where
it could be going at that midnight hour, and whom it contained.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHARMING RESULTS.
Nearly a year went by.
Lady Isabel Carlyle had spent it on the continent--that refuge for
such fugitives--now moving about from place to place with her
companion, now stationary and alone. Quite half the time--taking one
absence with the other--he had been away from her, chiefly in Paris,
pursuing his own course and his own pleasure.
How fared it with Lady Isabel? Just as it must be expected to fare,
and does fare, when a high-principled gentlewoman falls from her
pedestal. Never had she experienced a moment's calm, or peace, or
happiness, since the fatal night of quitting her home. She had taken a
blind leap in a moment of wild passion, when, instead of the garden of
roses it had been her persuader's pleasure to promise her she would
fall into, but which, in truth, she had barely glanced at, for that
had not been her moving motive, she had found herself plunged into a
yawning abyss of horror, from which there was never more any escape--
never more, never more. The very instant--the very night of her
departure, she awoke to what she had done. The guilt, whose aspect had
been shunned in the prospective, assumed at once its true frightful
color, the blackness of darkness; and a lively remorse, a never-dying
anguish, took possession of her soul forever. Oh, reader, believe me!
Lady--wife--mother! Should you ever be tempted to abandon your home,
so will you awake. Whatever trials may be the lot of your married
life, though they may magnify themselves to your crushed spirit as
beyond the nature, the endurance of woman to bear, /resolve/ to bear
them; fall down upon your knees, and pray to be enabled to bear them--
pray for patience--pray for strength to resist the demon that would
tempt you to escape; bear unto death, rather than forfeit your fair
name and your good conscience; for be assured that the alternative, if
you do rush on to it, will be found worse than death.
Poor thing--poor Lady Isabel! She had sacrificed husband, children,
reputation, home, all that makes life of value to woman. She had
forfeited her duty to God, had deliberately broken his commandments,
for the one poor miserable mistake of flying with Francis Levison. But
the instant the step was irrevocable, the instant she had left the
barrier behind, repentance set in. Even in the first days of her
departure, in the fleeting moments of abandonment, when it may be
supposed she might momentarily forget conscience, it was sharply
wounding her with its adder stings; and she knew that her whole future
existence, whether spent with that man or without him, would be a dark
course of gnawing retribution.
Nearly a year went by, save some six or eight weeks, when, one morning
in July, Lady Isabel made her appearance in the breakfast-room. They
were staying now at Grenoble. Taking that town on their way to
Switzerland through Savoy, it had been Captain Levison's pleasure to
halt in it. He engaged apartments, furnished, in the vicinity of the
Place Grenette. A windy, old house it was, full of doors and windows,
chimneys and cupboards; and he said he should remain there. Lady
Isabel remonstrated; she wished to go farther on, where they might get
quicker news from England; but her will now was as nothing. She was
looking like the ghost of her former self. Talk of her having looked
ill when she took that voyage over the water with Mr. Carlyle; you
should have seen her now--misery marks the countenance worse than
sickness. Her face was white and worn, her hands were thin, her eyes
were sunken and surrounded by a black circle--care was digging caves
for them. A stranger might have attributed these signs to the state of
her health; /she/ knew better--knew that they were the effects of her
wretched mind and heart.
It was very late for breakfast, but why should she rise early only to
drag through another endless day? Languidly she took her seat at the
table, just as Captain Levison's servant, a Frenchman whom he had
engaged in Paris, entered the room with two letters.
"/Point de gazette/, Pierre?" she said.
"/Non, miladi/."
And all the time the sly fox had got the /Times/ in his coat pocket.
But he was only obeying the orders of his master. It had been Captain
Levison's recent pleasure that the newspapers should not be seen by
Lady Isabel until he had over-looked them. You will speedily gather
his motive.
Pierre departed toward Captain Levison's room, and Lady Isabel took up
the letters and examined their superscription with interest. It was
known to her that Mr. Carlyle had not lost a moment in seeking a
divorce and the announcement that it was granted was now daily
expected. She was anxious for it--anxious that Captain Levison should
render her the only reparation in his power before the birth of her
unhappy child. Little thought she that there was not the least
intention on his part to make her reparation, any more than he had
made it to others who had gone before her. She had become painfully
aware of the fact that the man for whom she had chosen to sacrifice
herself was bad, but she had not learned all his badness yet.
Captain Levison, unwashed, unshaven, with a dressing-gown loosely
flung on, lounged in to breakfast. The decked-out dandies before the
world are frequently the greatest slovens in domestic privacy. He
wished her good morning in a careless tone of apathy, and she as
apathetically answered to it.
"Pierre says there are some letters," he began. "What a precious hot
day it is!"
"Two," was her short reply, her tone sullen as his. For if you think
my good reader, that the flattering words, the ardent expressions,
which usually attend the first go-off of these promising unions last
out a whole ten months, you are in egregious error. Compliments the
very opposite to honey and sweetness have generally supervened long
before. Try it, if you don't believe me.
"Two letters," she continued, "and they are both in the same
handwriting--your solicitors', I believe."
Up went his hand at the last word, and he made a sort of grab at the
letters, stalked to the farthest window, opened it, and glanced over
its contents.
"Sir--We beg to inform you that the suit Carlyle vs. Carlyle, is at
an end. The divorce was pronounced without opposition. According
to your request, we hasten to forward you the earliest intimation
of the fact.
"We are, sir, faithfully yours,
"MOSS & GRAB.
"F. LEVISON, Esq."
It was over, then, and all claim to the name of Carlyle was declared
to have been forfeited by the Lady Isabel forever. Captain Levison
folded up the letter, and placed it securely in an inner pocket.
"Is there any news?" she asked.
"News!"
"Of the divorce, I mean?"
"Tush!" was the response of Captain Levison, as if wishing to imply
that the divorce was yet a far-off affair, and he proceeded to open
the other letter.
"Sir--After sending off our last, dated to-day, we received tidings
of the demise of Sir Peter Levison, your grand-uncle. He expired
this afternoon in town, where he had come for the benefit of
medical advice. We have much pleasure in congratulating you upon
your accession to the title and estates, and beg to state that
should it not be convenient to you to visit England at present, we
will be happy to transact all necessary matters for you, on your
favoring us with instructions. And we remain, sir, most faithfully
yours,
"MOSS & GRAB.
"SIR FRANCIS LEVISON, Bart."
The outside of the letter was superscribed as the other, "F. Levison,
Esquire," no doubt with a view to its more certain delivery.
"At last, thank the pigs!" was the gentleman's euphonious expression,
as he tossed the letter, open, on the breakfast-table.
"The divorce is granted!" feverishly uttered Lady Isabel.
He made no reply, but seated himself to breakfast.
"May I read the letter? Is it for me to read?"
"For what else should I have thrown it there?" he said.
"A few days ago you put a letter, open on the table, I thought for me;
but when I took it up you swore at me. Do you remember it Captain
Levison?"
"You may drop that odious title, Isabel, which has stuck to me too
long. I own a better, now."
"What one, pray?"
"You can look and see."
Lady Isabel took up the letter and read it. Sir Francis swallowed down
his coffee, and rang the table hand-bell--the only bell you generally
meet with in France. Pierre answered it.
"Put me up a change of things," said he, in French. "I start for
England in an hour."
"It is very well," Pierre responded; and departed to do it. Lady
Isabel waited till the man was gone, and then spoke, a faint flush of
emotion in her cheeks.
"You do not mean what you say? You will not leave me yet?"
"I cannot do otherwise," he answered. "There's a mountain of business
to be attended to, now that I am come into power."
"Moss & Grab say they will act for you. Had there been a necessity for
your going, they would not have offered that."
"Ay, they do say so--with a nice eye to the feathering of their
pockets! Besides, I should not choose for the old man's funeral to
take place without me."
"Then I must accompany you," she urged.
"I wish you would not talk nonsense, Isabel. Are you in a state to
travel night and day? Neither would home be agreeable to you yet
awhile."
She felt the force of the objections. Resuming after a moment's pause
--"Were you to go to England, you might not be back in time."
"In time for what?"
"Oh, how can you ask?" she rejoined, in a sharp tone of reproach; "you
know too well. In time to make me your wife when the divorce shall
appear."
"I shall chance it," coolly observed Sir Francis.
"Chance it! /chance/ the legitimacy of the child? You must assure
that, before all things. More terrible to me than all the rest would
it be, if--"
"Now don't put yourself in a fever, Isabel. How many times am I to be
compelled to beg that of you! It does no good. Is it my fault, if I am
called suddenly to England?"
"Have you no pity for your child?" she urged in agitation. "Nothing
can repair the injury, if you once suffer it to come upon him. He will
be a by-word amidst men throughout his life."
"You had better have written to the law lords to urge on the divorce,"
he returned. "I cannot help the delay."
"There has been no delay; quite the contrary. But it may be expected
hourly now."
"You are worrying yourself for nothing, Isabel. I shall be back in
time."
He quitted the room as he spoke, and Lady Isabel remained in it, the
image of despair. Nearly an hour elapsed when she remembered the
breakfast things, and rang for them to be removed. A maid-servant
entered to do it, and she thought how ill miladi looked.
"Where is Pierre?" miladi asked.
"Pierre was making himself ready to attend monsieur to England."
Scarcely had she closed the door upon herself and the tray when Sir
Francis Levison appeared, equipped for traveling. "Good-bye, Isabel,"
said he, without further circumlocution or ceremony.
Lady Isabel, excited beyond all self-control, slipped the bolt of the
door; and, half leaning against it, half leaning at his feet, held up
her hand in supplication.
"Francis, have you any consideration left for me--any in the world?"
"How can you be so alarmed, Isabel? Of course I have," he continued,
in a peevish, though kind tone, as he took hold of her hands to raise
her.
"No, not yet. I will remain here until you say you will wait another
day or two. You know that the French Protestant minister is prepared
to marry us the instant news of the divorce shall arrive; if you do
care still for me, you will wait."
"I cannot wait," he replied, his tone changing to one of
determination. "It is useless to urge it."
He broke from her and left the room, and in another minute had left
the house, Pierre attending him. A feeling, amounting to a conviction,
rushed over the unhappy lady that she had seen him for the last time
until it was too late.
She was right. It was too late by weeks and months.
December came in. The Alps were covered with snow; Grenoble borrowed
the shade, and looked cold, and white, and sleety, and sloppy; the
gutters, running through the middle of certain of the streets, were
unusually black, and the people crept along especially dismal. Close
to the fire in the barn of a French bedroom, full of windows, and
doors, and draughts, with its wide hearth and its wide chimney, into
which we could put four or five of our English ones, shivered Lady
Isabel Vane. She had an invalid cap on, and a thick woolen invalid
shawl, and she shook and shivered perpetually; though she had drawn so
close to the wood fire that there was a danger of her petticoats
igniting, and the attendant had frequently to spring up and interpose
between them and the crackling logs. Little did it seem to matter to
Lady Isabel; she sat in one position, her countenance the picture of
stony despair.
So had she sat, so looking, since she began to get better. She had had
a long illness, terminating in a low fever; but the attendants
whispered among themselves that miladi would soon get about if she
would only rouse herself. She had got so far about as to sit up in the
windy chamber; and it seemed to be to her a matter of perfect
indifference whether she ever got out of it.
This day she had partaken of her early dinner--such as it was, for her
appetite failed--and had dozed asleep in the arm chair, when a noise
arose from below, like a carriage driving into the courtyard through
the /porte cochere/. It instantly aroused her. Had /he/ come?
"Who is it?" she asked of the nurse.
"Miladi, it is monsieur; and Pierre is with him. I have begged milady
often and often not to fret, for monsieur would surely come; miladi,
see, I am right."
The girl departed, closing the door, and Lady Isabel sat looking at
it, schooling her patience. Another moment, and it was flung open.
Sir Francis Levison approached to greet her as he came in. She waved
him off, begging him, in a subdued, quiet tone, not to draw too near,
as any little excitement made her faint now. He took a seat opposite
to her, and began pushing the logs together with his boot, as he
explained that he really could not get away from town before.
"Why did you come now?" she quietly rejoined.
"Why did I come?" repeated he. "Are these all the thanks a fellow gets
for travelling in this inclement weather? I thought you would at least
have been glad to welcome me, Isabel."
"Sir Francis," she rejoined, speaking still with almost unnatural
calmness, as she continued to do throughout the interview--though the
frequent changes in her countenance, and the movement of her hands,
when she laid them from time to time on her chest to keep down its
beating, told what effort the struggle cost her--"Sir Francis, I am
glad, for one reason, to welcome you; we must come to an understanding
one with the other; and, so far, I am pleased that you are here. It
was my intention to have communicated with you by letter as soon as I
found myself capable of the necessary exertion, but your visit has
removed the necessity. I wish to deal with you quite unreservedly,
without concealment, or deceit; I must request you so to deal with
me."
"What do you mean by 'deal?' " he asked, settling the logs to his
apparent satisfaction.
"To speak and act. Let there be plain truth between us at this
interview, if there never has been before."
"I don't understand you."
"Naked truth, unglossed over," she pursued, bending her eyes
determinately upon him. "It /must/ be."
"With all my heart," returned Sir Francis. "It is you who have thrown
out the challenge, mind."
"When you left in July you gave me a sacred promise to come back in
time for our marriage; you know what I mean when I say 'in time,'
but--"
"Of course I meant to do so when I gave the promise," he interrupted.
"But no sooner had I set my foot in London than I found myself
overwhelmed with business, and away from it I could not get. Even now
I can only remain with you a couple of days, for I must hasten back to
town."
"You are breaking faith already," she said, after hearing him calmly
to the end. "Your words are not words of truth, but of deceit. You did
not intend to be back in time for the marriage, or otherwise you would
have caused it to take place ere you went at all."
"What fancies you do take up!" uttered Francis Levison.
"Some time subsequent to your departure," she quietly went on, "one of
the maids was setting to rights the clothes in your dressing-closet,
and she brought me a letter she found in one of the pockets. I saw by
the date that it was one of those two which you received on the
morning of your departure. It contained the information that the
divorce was pronounced."
She spoke so quietly, so apparently without feeling or passion, that
Sir Francis was agreeably astonished. He should have less trouble in
throwing off the mask. But he was an ill-tempered man; and to hear
that the letter had been found to have the falseness of his fine
protestations and promises laid bare, did not improve his temper now.
Lady Isabel continued,--
"It would have been better to have undeceived me then; to have told me
that the hopes I was cherishing for the sake of the unborn child were
worse than vain."
"I did not judge so," he replied. "The excited state you then appeared
to be in, would have precluded your listening to any sort of reason."
Her heart beat a little quicker; but she stilled it.
"You deem that it was not in reason that I should aspire to be the
wife of Sir Francis Levison?"
He rose and began kicking at the logs; with the heel of his boot this
time.
"Well, Isabel, you must be aware that it is an awful sacrifice for a
man in my position to marry a divorced woman."
The hectic flushed into her thin cheeks, but her voice sounded calm as
before.
"When I expected or wished, for the 'sacrifice,' it was not for my own
sake; I told you so then. But it was not made; and the child's
inheritance is that of sin and shame. There he lies."
Sir Francis half turned to where she pointed, and saw an infant's
cradle by the side of the bed. He did not take the trouble to look at
it.
"I am the representative now of an ancient and respected baronetcy,"
he resumed, in a tone as of apology for his previous heartless words,
"and to make you my wife would so offend all my family, that--"
"Stay," interrupted Lady Isabel, "you need not trouble yourself to
find needless excuses. Had you taken this journey for the purpose of
making me your wife, were you to propose to do so this day, and bring
a clergyman into the room to perform the ceremony, it would be futile.
The injury to the child can never be repaired; and, for myself, I
cannot imagine any fate in life worse than being compelled to pass it
with you."
"If you have taken this aversion to me, it cannot be helped," he
coldly said, inwardly congratulating himself, let us not doubt, at
being spared the work of trouble he had anticipated. "You made
commotion enough once about me making you reparation."
She shook her head.
"All the reparation in your power to make--all the reparation that the
whole world can invent could not undo my sin. It and the effects must
lie upon me forever."
"Oh--sin!" was the derisive exclamation. "You ladies should think of
that beforehand."
"Yes," she sadly answered. "May heaven help all to do so who may be
tempted as I was."
"If you mean that as a reproach to me, it's rather out of place,"
chafed Sir Francis, whose fits of ill-temper were under no control,
and who never, when in them, cared what he said to outrage the
feelings of another. "The temptation to sin, as you call it, lay not
in my persuasions half so much as in your jealous anger toward your
husband."
"Quite true," was her reply.
"And I believe you were on the wrong scent, Isabel--if it will be any
satisfaction to you to hear it. Since we are mutually on this
complimentary discourse, it is of no consequence to smooth over
facts."
"I do not understand what you would imply," she said, drawing her
shawl round her with a fresh shiver. "How on the wrong scent?"
"With regard to your husband and that Hare girl. You were blindly,
outrageously jealous of him."
"Go on."
"And I say I think you are on the wrong scent. I do not believe Mr.
Carlyle ever thought of the girl--in that way."
"What do you mean?" she gasped.
"They had a secret between them--not of love--a secret of business;
and those interviews they had together, her dancing attendance upon
him perpetually, related to that, and that alone."
Her face was more flushed than it had been throughout the interview.
He spoke quietly now, quite in an equal tone of reasoning; it was his
way when the ill-temper was upon him: and the calmer he spoke, the
more cutting were his words. He /need/ not have told her this.
"What was the secret?" she inquired, in a low tone.
"Nay, I can't explain all; they did not take me into their confidence.
They did not even take you; better, perhaps that they had though, as
things have turned out, or seem to be turning. There's some
disreputable secret attaching to the Hare family, and Carlyle was
acting in it, under the rose, for Mrs. Hare. She could not seek out
Carlyle herself, so she sent the young lady. That's all I know."
"How did you know it?"
"I had reason to think so."
"What reason? I must request you to tell me."
"I overheard scraps of their conversation now and then in those
meetings, and so gathered my information."
"You told a different tale to me, Sir Francis," was her remark, as she
turned her indignant eyes toward him.
Sir Francis laughed.
"All stratagems are fair in love and war."
She dared not immediately trust herself to reply, and a silence
ensued. Sir Francis broke it, pointing with his left thumb over his
shoulder in the direction of the cradle.
"What have you named that young article there?"
"The name which ought to have been his by inheritance--'Francis
Levison,' " was her icy answer.
"Let's see--how old is he now?"
"He was born on the last day of August."
Sir Francis threw up his arms and stretched himself, as if a fit of
idleness had overtaken him; then advanced to the cradle and pulled
down the clothes.
"Who is he like, Isabel? My handsome self?"
"Were he like you in spirit, I would pray that he might die ere he
could speak, or think!" she burst forth. And then remembering the
resolution marked out for herself, subsided outwardly into calmness
again.
"What else?" retorted Sir Francis. "You know my disposition pretty
well by this time, Isabel, and may be sure that if you deal out small
change to me, you will get it back again with interest."
She made no reply. Sir Francis put the clothes back over the sleeping
child, returned to the fire, and stood a few moments with his back to
it.
"Is my room prepared for me, do you know?" he presently asked.
"No, it is not," she quietly rejoined. "These apartments are mine now;
they have been transferred into my name, and they can never again
afford you accommodation. Will you be so obliging--I am not strong--as
to hand me that writing case?"
Sir Francis walked to the table she indicated, which was at the far
end of the great barn of a room, and taking the writing-case from it,
gave it to her.
She reached her keys from the stand at her elbow, unlocked the case,
and took from it some bank-notes.
"I received these from you a month ago," she said. "They came by
post."
"And never had the grace to acknowledge them," he returned, in a sort
of mock reproachful tone.
"Forty pounds. That was the amount, was it not?"
"I believe so."
"Allow me to return them to you. Count them."
"Return them to me--for what?" inquired Sir Francis, in amazement.
"I have no longer anything whatever to do with you in any way. Do not
make my arm ache, holding out these notes to you so long! Take them!"
Sir Francis took the notes from her hand and placed them on a stand
near to her.
"If it be your wish that all relations should end between us, why, let
it be so," he said. "I must confess I think it may be the wisest
course, as things have come to this pass; for a cat and dog life,
which would seemingly be ours, is not agreeable. Remember, though,
that it is your doing, not mine. But you cannot think I am going to
see you starve, Isabel. A sum--we will fix upon the amount amicably--
shall be placed to your credit half-yearly, and--"
"I beg of you to cease," she passionately interrupted. "What do you
take me for?"
"Take you for! Why, how can you live? You have no fortune--you must
receive assistance from some one."
"I will not receive it from you. If the whole world denied me, and I
could find no help from strangers, or means of earning my own bread,
and it was necessary that I should still exist, I would apply to my
husband for means, rather than to you. In saying this, it ought to
convince you that the topic may cease."
"Your husband!" sarcastically rejoined Sir Francis. "Generous man!"
A flush, deep and painful, dyed her cheeks. "I should have said my
late husband. You need not have reminded me of the mistake."
"If you will accept nothing for yourself, you must for the child. He,
at any rate, falls to my share. I shall give you a few hundred a year
with him."
She beat her hands before her, as if beating off the man and his
words. "Not a farthing, now or ever. Were you to attempt to send money
to him, I would throw it into the nearest river. /Whom/ do you take me
for? What do you take me for?" she repeated, rising in her bitter
mortification. "If you have put me beyond the pale of the world, I am
still Lord Mount Severn's daughter!"
"You did as much toward putting yourself beyond its pale as--"
"Don't I know it? Have I not said so?" she sharply interrupted. And
then she sat, striving to calm herself, clasping together her shaking
hands.
"Well, if you will persist in this perverse resolution, I cannot mend
it," resumed Sir Francis. "In a little time you may probably wish to
recall it; in which case a line, addressed to me at my banker's,
will--"
Lady Isabel drew herself up. "Put away those notes, if you please,"
she interrupted, not allowing him to finish his sentence."
He took out his pocket-book and placed the bank notes within it.
"Your clothes--those you left here when you went to England--you will
have the goodness to order Pierre to take away this afternoon. And
now, Sir Francis, I believe that is all: we will part."
"To remain mortal enemies from henceforth? Is that to be it?"
"To be strangers," she replied, correcting him. "I wish you a good
day."
"So you will not even shake hands with me, Isabel?"
"I would prefer not."
And thus they parted. Sir Francis left the room, but not immediately
the house. He went into a distant apartment, and, calling the servants
before him--there were but two--gave them each a year's wages in
advance--"That they might not have to trouble miladi for money," he
said to them. Then he paid a visit to the landlord, and handed him,
likewise a year's rent in advance, making the same remark. After that,
he ordered dinner at a hotel, and the same night he and Pierre
departed on their journey home again, Sir Francis thanking his lucky
star that he had so easily got rid of a vexatious annoyance.
And Lady Isabel? She passed her evening alone, sitting in the same
place, close to the fire and the sparks. The attendant remonstrated
that miladi was remaining up too late for her strength, but miladi
ordered her and her remonstrances into an adjoining room.
When Lady Isabel lay down to rest, she sank into a somewhat calmer
sleep than she had known of late; also into a dream. She thought she
was back at East Lynne--not /back/, in one sense, but that she seemed
never to have gone away from it--walking in the flower garden with Mr.
Carlyle, while the three children played on the lawn. Her arm was
within her husband's, and he was relating something to her. What the
news was, she could not remember afterward, excepting that it was
connected with the office and old Mr. Dill, and that Mr. Carlyle
laughed when he told it. They appeared to be interrupted by the crying
of Archibald; and, in turning to the lawn to ask what was the matter,
she awoke. Alas! It was the actual crying of her own child which awoke
her--this last child--the ill-fated little being in the cradle beside
her. But, for a single instant, she forgot recent events and doings,
she believed she was indeed in her happy home at East Lynne, a proud
woman, an honored wife. As recollection flashed across her, with its
piercing stings, she gave vent to a sharp cry of agony, of unavailing
despair.
CHAPTER XXVI.
ALONE FOR EVERMORE.
A surprise awaited Lady Isabel Vane. It was on a windy day in the
following March that a traveller arrived at Grenoble, and inquired his
way of a porter, to the best hotel in the place, his French being such
as only an Englishman can produce.
"Hotel? Let's see," returned the man, politely, but with native
indifference. "There are two hotels, nearly contiguous to each other,
and monsieur would find himself comfortable at either. There is the
Tross Dauphins, and there is the Ambassadeurs."
"Monsieur" chose haphazard, the Hotel des Ambassadeurs, and was
conducted to it. Shortly after his arrival there, he inquired his road
to the Place Grenette, and was offered to be shown: but he preferred
that it should be described to him, and to go alone. The Place was
found, and he thence turned to the apartments of Lady Isabel Vane.
Lady Isabel was sitting where you saw her the previous December--in
the precise spot--courting the warmth of the fire, and it seemed,
courting the sparks also, for they appeared as fond of her as
formerly. The marvel was, how she had escaped spontaneous combustion;
but there she was yet, and her clothes likewise. You might think that
but a night had passed, when you looked at the room, for it wore
precisely the same aspect now, as then; everything was the same, even
to the child's cradle in the remote corner, partially hidden by the
bed-curtains, and the sleeping child in it. Lady Isabel's progress
toward recovery was remarkably lingering, as is frequently the case
when mind and body are both diseased. She was so sitting when Susanne
entered the room, and said that a "Monsieur Anglais" had arrived in
the town to see her, and was waiting below, in the saloon.
Lady Isabel was startled. An English gentleman--to see /her/!
English for certain, was Susanne's answer, for she had difficulty to
comprehend his French.
Who could be desirous to see her? One out of the world and forgotten!
"Susanne," she cried aloud, a thought striking her, "it is never Sir
Fran--it is not monsieur!"
"Not in the least like monsieur," complacently answered Susanne. "It
is a tall, brave English gentleman, proud and noble looking like a
prince."
Every pulse within Lady Isabel's body throbbed rebelliously: her heart
bounded till it was like to burst her side, and she turned sick with
astonishment.
"Tall, brave, noble?" could that description apply to any but Mr.
Carlyle? Strange that so unnatural an idea should have occurred to
her; it would not have done so in a calmer moment. She rose, tottered
across the chamber, and prepared to descend. Susanne's tongue was let
loose at the proceeding.
"Was miladi out of her senses? To attempt going downstairs would be a
pretty ending, for she'd surely fall by the way. Miladi knew that the
bottom step was of lead, and that no head could pitch down upon that,
without ever never being a head any more, except in the hospitals. Let
miladi sit still in her place and she'd bring the monsieur up. What
did it signify? He was not a young /petit maitre/, to quiz things: he
was fifty, if he was a day: his hair already turned to fine gray."
This set the question touching Mr. Carlyle at rest, and her heart
stilled again. The next moment she was inwardly laughing in her bitter
mockery at her insensate folly. Mr. Carlyle come to see her! /Her/!
Francis Levison might be sending over some man of business, regarding
the money question, was her next thought: if so, she should certainly
refuse to see him.
"Go down to the gentleman and ask him his name Susanne. Ask also from
whence he came."
Susanne disappeared, and returned, and the gentleman behind her.
Whether she had invited him, or whether he had chosen to come
uninvited, there he was. Lady Isabel caught a glimpse, and flung her
hands over her burning cheeks of shame. It was Lord Mount Severn.
"How did you find out where I was?" she gasped, when some painful
words had been uttered on both sides.
"I went to Sir Francis Levison and demanded your address. Certain
recent events implied that he and you must have parted, and I
therefore deemed it time to inquire what he had done with you."
"Since last July," she interrupted. Lifting up her wan face, now
colorless again. "Do not think worse of me than I am. He was here in
December for an hour's recriminating interview, and we parted for
life."
"What have you heard of him lately?"
"Not anything. I never know what is passing in the world at home; I
have no newspaper, no correspondence; and he would scarcely be so bold
as to write to me again."
"I shall not shock you, then by some tidings I bring you regarding
him," returned Lord Mount Severn.
"The greatest shock to me would be to hear that I should ever again be
subjected to the sight of him," she answered.
"He is married."
"Heaven have pity on his poor wife!" was all the comment of Lady
Isabel.
"He has married Alice Challoner."
She lifted her head, then, in simple surprise. "Alice? Not Blanche?"
"The story runs that he has played Blanche very false. That he has
been with her much during the last three or four months, leading on
her expectations; and then suddenly proposed for her younger sister. I
know nothing of the details myself; it is not likely; and I heard
nothing, until one evening at the club I saw the announcement of the
marriage for the following day at St. George's. I was at the church
the next morning before he was."
"Not to stop it; not to intercept the marriage!" breathlessly uttered
the Lady Isabel.
"Certainly not. I had no power to attempt anything of the sort. I went
to demand an answer to my question--what he had done with you, and
where you were. He gave me this address, but said he knew nothing of
your movements since December."
There was a long silence. The earl appeared to be alternately
ruminating and taking a survey of the room. Isabel sat with her head
down.
"Why did you seek me out?" she presently broke forth. "I am not worth
it. I have brought enough disgrace upon your name."
"And upon your husband's and upon your children's," he rejoined, in
the most severe manner, for it was not in the nature of the Earl of
Mount Severn to gloss over guilt. "Nevertheless it is incumbent upon
me, as your nearest blood relative, to see after you, now that you are
alone again, and to take care, as far as I can, that you do not lapse
lower."
He might have spared her that stab. But she scarcely understood him.
She looked at him, wondering whether she did understand.
"You have not a shilling in the world," he resumed. "How do you
propose to live?"
"I have some money yet. When--"
"/His/ money?" sharply and haughtily interposed the earl.
"No," she indignantly replied. "I am selling my trinkets. Before they
are all gone, I shall look out to get a living in some way; by
teaching, probably."
"Trinkets!" repeated Lord Mount Severn. "Mr. Carlyle told me that you
carried nothing away with you from East Lynne."
"Nothing that he had given me. These were mine before I married. You
have seen Mr. Carlyle, then?" she faltered.
"Seen him?" echoed the indignant earl. "When such a blow was dealt him
by a member of my family, could I do less than hasten to East Lynne to
tender my sympathies? I went with another subject too--to discover
what could have been the moving springs of your conduct; for I
protest, when the black tidings reached me, I believed that you must
have gone mad. You were one of the last whom I should have feared to
trust. But I learned nothing, and Carlyle was as ignorant as I. How
could you strike him such a blow?"
Lower and lower drooped her head, brighter shone the shame on her
hectic cheek. An awful blow to Mr. Carlyle it must have been; she was
feeling it in all its bitter intensity. Lord Mount Severn read her
repentant looks.
"Isabel," he said, in a tone which had lost something of its
harshness, and it was the first time he had called her by her
Christian name, "I see that you are reaping the fruits. Tell me how it
happened. What demon prompted you to sell yourself to that bad man?"
"He is a bad man!" she exclaimed. "A base, heartless man!"
"I warned you at the commencement of your married life to avoid him;
to shun all association with him; not to admit him to your house."
"His coming to East Lynne was not my doing," she whispered. "Mr.
Carlyle invited him."
"I know he did. Invited him in his unsuspicious confidence, believing
his wife to /be/ his wife, a trustworthy woman of honor," was the
severe remark.
She did not reply; she could not gainsay it; she only sat with her
meek face of shame and her eyelids drooping.
"If ever a woman had a good husband, in every sense of the word, you
had, in Carlyle; if ever man loved his wife, he loved you. /How/ could
you so requite him?"
She rolled, in a confused manner, the corners of her warm shawl over
her unconscious fingers.
"I read the note you left for your husband. He showed it to me; the
only one, I believe, to whom he did show it. It was to him entirely
inexplicable, it was so to me. A notion had been suggested to him,
after your departure, that his sister had somewhat marred your peace
at East Lynne, and he blamed you much, if it was so, for not giving
him your full confidence on the point, that he might set matters on
the right footing. But it was impossible, and there was the evidence
in the note besides, that the presence of Miss Carlyle at East Lynne
could be any excuse for your disgracing us all and ruining yourself."
"Do not let us speak of these things," said Lady Isabel, faintly. "It
cannot redeem the past."
"But I must speak of them; I came to speak of them," persisted the
earl; "I could not do it as long as that man was here. When these
inexplicable things take place in the career of a woman, it is a
father's duty to look into motives and causes and actions, although
the events in themselves may be, as in this case, irreparable. Your
father is gone, but I stand in his place, there is no one else to
stand in it."
Her tears began to fall. And she let them fall--in silence. The earl
resumed.
"But for that extraordinary letter, I should have supposed you had
been actuated by a mad infatuation for the cur, Levison; its tenor
gave the matter a different aspect. To what did you allude when you
asserted that your husband had driven you to it?"
"He knew," she answered, scarcely above her breath.
"He did not know," sternly replied the earl. "A more truthful,
honorable man than Carlyle does not exist on the face of the earth.
When he told me then, in his agony of grief, that he was unable to
form even a suspicion of your meaning, I could have staked my earldom
on his veracity. I would stake it still."
"I believed," she began, in a low, nervous voice, for she knew that
there was no evading the questions of Lord Mount Severn, when he was
resolute in their being answered, and, indeed she was too weak, both
in body and spirit, to resist--"I believed that his love was no longer
mine; that he had deserted me, for another."
The earl stared at her. "What can you mean by 'deserted!' He was with
you."
"There is a desertion of the heart," was her murmured answer.
"Desertion of a fiddlestick!" retorted his lordship. "The
interpretation we gave to the note, I and Carlyle, was, that you had
been actuated by motives of jealousy; had penned it in a jealous mood.
I put the question to Carlyle--as between man and man--do you listen,
Isabel!--whether he had given you cause; and he answered me, as with
God over us, he had never given you cause; he had been faithful to you
in thought, word and deed; he had never, so far as he could call to
mind, even looked upon another woman with covetous feelings, since the
hour that he made you his wife; his whole thoughts had been of you,
and of you alone. It is more than many a husband can say,"
significantly coughed Lord Mount Severn.
Her pulses were beating wildly. A powerful conviction that the words
were true; that her own blind jealousy had been utterly mistaken and
unfounded, was forcing its way to her brain.
"After that I could only set your letter down as a subterfuge,"
resumed the earl--"a false, barefaced plea, put forth to conceal your
real motives, and I told Carlyle so. I inquired how it was he had
never detected any secret understanding between you and that--that
beast, located, as the fellow was, in the house. He replied that no
such suspicion had ever occurred to him. He placed the most implicit
confidence in you, and would have trusted you with the creature around
the world, aye, with any one else."
She entwined her hands one within the other, pressing them to pain. It
would not deaden the pain at her heart.
"Carlyle told me he had been unusually occupied during the stay of
that man. Besides his customary office work, his time was taken up
with some private business for a family in the neighborhood, and he
had repeatedly to see them, more particularly the daughter, after
office hours. Very old acquaintances of his, he said, relatives of the
Carlyle family; and he was as anxious about the secret--a painful one
--as they were. This, I observed to him, may have rendered him
unobservant to what was passing at home. He told me, I remember, that
on the very evening of the--the catastrophe, he ought to have gone
with you to a dinner party, but most important circumstances arose, in
connection with the affair, which obliged him to meet two gentlemen at
his office, and to receive them in secret, unknown to his clerks."
"Did he mention the name of the family?" inquired Lady Isabel, with
white lips.
"Yes, he did. I forgot it, though. Rabbit! Rabit!--some such name as
that."
"Was it Hare?"
"That was it--Hare. He said you appeared vexed that he did not
accompany you to the dinner; and seeing that he intended to go in
afterward, but was prevented. When the interview was over in his
office, he was again detained at Mrs. Hare's house, and by business as
impossible to avoid as the other."
"Important business!" she echoed, giving way for a moment to the
bitterness of former feelings. "He was promenading in their garden by
moonlight with Barbara--Miss Hare. I saw them as my carriage passed."
"And you were jealous that he should be there!" exclaimed Lord Mount
Severn, with mocking reproach, as he detected her mood. "Listen!" he
whispered, bending his head toward her. "While you may have thought,
as your present tone would seem to intimate, that they were pacing
there to enjoy each other's society, know that they--Carlyle, at any
rate--was pacing the walk to keep guard. One was within that house--
for a short half hour's interview with his poor mother--one who lives
in danger of the scaffold, to which his own father would be the first
to deliver him up. They were keeping the path against that father--
Carlyle and the young lady. Of all the nights in the previous seven
years, that one only saw the unhappy son at home for a half hour's
meeting with his mother and sister. Carlyle, in the grief and
excitement caused by your conduct, confided so much to me, when
mentioning what kept him from the dinner party."
Her face had become crimson--crimson at her past lamentable folly. And
there was no redemption!
"But he was always with Barbara Hare," she murmured, by way of some
faint excuse.
"I have mentioned so. She had to see him upon this affair, her mother
could not, for it was obliged to be kept from the father. And so, you
construed business interviews into assignations!" continued Lord Mount
Severn with cutting derision. "I had given you credit for better
sense. But was /this/ enough to hurl you on the step you took? Surely
not. You must have yielded in the persuasions of that wicked man."
"It is all over now," she wailed.
"Carlyle was true and faithful to you, and to you alone. Few women
have the chance of happiness, in their married life, in the degree
that you had. He is an upright and good man; one of nature's
gentlemen; one that England may be proud of as having grown upon her
soil. The more I see of him, the greater becomes my admiration of him,
and of his thorough honor. Do you know what he did in the matter of
the damages?"
She shook her head.
"He did not wish to proceed for damages, or only for the trifling sum
demanded by law; but the jury, feeling for his wrongs, gave
unprecedently heavy ones. Since the fellow came into his baronetcy
they have been paid. Carlyle immediately handed them over to the
county hospital. He holds the apparently obsolete opinion that money
cannot wipe out a wife's dishonor."
"Let us close those topics" implored the poor invalid. "I acted
wickedly and madly, and have the consequences to bear forever. More I
cannot say."
"Where do you intend to fix your future residence?" inquired the earl.
"I am unable to tell. I shall leave this town as soon as I am well
enough."
"Aye. It cannot be pleasant for you to remain under the eyes of its
inhabitants. You were here with him, were you not?"
"They think I am his wife," she murmured. "The servants think it."
"That's well, so far. How many servants have you?"
"Two. I am not strong enough yet to do much myself, so am obliged to
keep two," she continued, as if in apology for the extravagance, under
her reduced circumstances. "As soon as ever the baby can walk, I shall
manage to do with one."
The earl looked confounded. "The baby!" he uttered, in a tone of
astonishment and grief painful to her to hear. "Isabel, is there a
child?"
Not less painful was her own emotion as she hid her face. Lord Mount
Severn rose and paced the room with striding steps.
"I did not know it! I did not know it! Wicked, heartless villain! He
ought to have married you before its birth. Was the divorce out
previously?" he asked stopping short in his strides to put the
question.
"Yes."
"Coward! Sneak! May good men shun him from henceforth! May his queen
refuse to receive him! You, an earl's daughter! Oh, Isabel, how
utterly you have lost yourself!"
Lady Isabel started from her chair in a burst of hysterical sobs, her
hands extended beseechingly toward the earl. "Spare me! Spare me! You
have been rending my heart ever since you came; indeed I am too weak
to bear it."
The earl, in truth, had been betrayed into showing more of his
sentiments than he intended. He recalled his recollection.
"Well, well, sit down again, Isabel," he said, putting her into her
chair. "We shall go to the point I chiefly came here to settle. What
sum will it take you to live upon? Quietly; as of course you would now
wish to live, but comfortably."
"I will not accept anything," she replied. "I will get my own living."
And the earl's irascibility again arose at the speech. He spoke in a
sharp tone.
"Absurd, Isabel! Do not add romantic folly to your own mistakes. Get
your own living, indeed! As much as is necessary for you to live upon,
I shall supply. No remonstrance; I tell you I am acting as for your
father. Do you suppose he would have abandoned you to starve or to
work?"
The allusion touched every chord within her bosom, and the tears fell
fast. "I thought I could get my living by teaching," she sobbed.
"And how much did you anticipate the teaching would bring you in?"
"Not very much," she listlessly said. "A hundred a year, perhaps; I am
very clever at music and singing. That sum might keep us, I fancy,
even if I only went out by the day."
"And a fine 'keep' it would be! You shall have that sum every
quarter!"
"No, no! no, no! I do not deserve it; I could not accept it; I have
forfeited all claim to assistance."
"Not to mine. Now, it is of no use to excite yourself, my mind is made
up. I never willingly forego a duty, and I look upon this not only as
a duty, but as an imperative one. Upon my return, I shall immediately
settle four hundred upon you, and you can draw it quarterly."
"Then half that sum," she reflected, knowing how useless it was to
contend with Lord Mount Severn when he got upon the stilts of "duty."
"Indeed, two hundred a year will be ample; it will seem like riches to
me."
"I have named the sum, Isabel, and I shall not make it less. A hundred
pounds every three months shall be paid to you, dating from this day.
This does not count," said he, laying down some notes on the table.
He took her hand within his in token of farewell; turned and was gone.
And Lady Isabel remained in her chamber alone.
Alone; alone! /Alone/ for evermore!
CHAPTER XXVII.
BARBARA'S MISDOINGS.
A sunny afternoon in summer. More correctly speaking, it may be said a
summer's evening, for the bright beams were already slanting athwart
the substantial garden of Mr. Justice Hare, and the tea hour, seven,
was passing. Mr. and Mrs. Hare and Barbara were seated at the meal;
somehow, meals always did seem in process at Justice Hare's; if it was
not breakfast, it was luncheon--if it was not luncheon, it was dinner
--if it was not dinner, it was tea. Barbara sat in tears, for the
justice was giving her a "piece of his mind," and poor Mrs. Hare
deferently agreeing with her husband, as she would have done had he
proposed to set the house on fire and burn her up in it, yet
sympathizing with Barbara, moved uneasily in her chair.
"You do it for the purpose; you do it to anger me," thundered the
justice, bringing down his hand on the tea-table and causing the cups
to rattle.
"No I don't, papa," sobbed Barbara.
"Then why /do/ you do it?"
Barbara was silent.
"No; you can't answer; you have nothing to urge. What is the matter,
pray, with Major Thorn? Come, I will be answered."
"I don't like him," faltered Barbara.
"You do like him; you are telling me an untruth. You have liked him
well enough whenever he has been here."
"I like him as an acquaintance, papa; not as a husband."
"Not as a husband!" repeated the exasperated justice. "Why, bless my
heart and body, the girl's going mad! Not as a husband! Who asked you
to like him as a husband before he became such? Did ever you hear that
it was necessary or expedient, or becoming for a young lady to act on
and begin to 'like' a gentleman as 'her husband?' "
Barbara felt a little bewildered.
"Here's the whole parish saying that Barbara Hare can't be married,
that nobody will have her, on account of--of--of that cursed stain
left by----, I won't trust myself to name him, I should go too far.
Now, don't you think that's a pretty disgrace, a fine state of
things?"
"But it is not true," said Barbara; "people do ask me."
"But what's the use of their asking when you say 'No?' " raved the
justice. "Is that the way to let the parish know that they ask? You
are an ungrateful, rebellious, self-willed daughter, and you'll never
be otherwise."
Barbara's tears flowed freely. The justice gave a dash at the bell
handle, to order the tea things carried away, and after their removal
the subject was renewed, together with Barbara's grief. That was the
worst of Justice Hare. Let him seize hold of a grievance, it was not
often he got upon a real one, and he kept on at it, like a blacksmith
hammering at his forge. In the midst of a stormy oration, tongue and
hands going together, Mr. Carlyle came in.
Not much altered; not much. A year and three-quarters had gone by and
they had served to silver his hair upon the temples. His manner, too,
would never again be careless and light as it once had been. He was
the same keen man of business, the same pleasant, intelligent
companion; the generality of people saw no change in him. Barbara rose
to escape.
"No," said Justice Hare, planting himself between her and the door;
"that's the way you like to get out of my reach when I am talking to
you. You won't go; so sit down again. I'll tell you of your ill-
conduct before Mr. Carlyle, and see if that will shame you."
Barbara resumed her seat, a rush of crimson dyeing her cheeks. And Mr.
Carlyle looked inquiringly, seeming to ask an explanation of her
distress. The justice continued after his own fashion.
"You know, Carlyle, that horrible blow that fell upon us, that
shameless disgrace. Well, because the parish can't clack enough about
the fact itself, it must begin about Barbara, saying that the disgrace
and humiliation are reflected upon her, and that nobody will come near
her to ask her to be his wife. One would think, rather than lie under
the stigma and afford the parish room to talk, she'd marry the first
man that came, if it was the parish beadle--anybody else would. But
now, what are the facts? You'll stare when you know them. She has
received a bushel of good offers--a bushel of them," repeated the
justice, dashing his hand down on his knee, "and she says 'No!' to
all. The last was to-day, from Major Thorn, and, my young lady takes
and puts the stopper upon it, as usual, without reference to me or her
mother, without saying with your leave or by your leave. She wants to
be kept in her room for a week upon bread and water, to bring her to
her senses."
Mr. Carlyle glanced at Barbara. She was sitting meekly under the
infliction, her wet eyelashes falling on her flushed cheeks and
shading her eyes. The justice was heated enough, and had pushed his
flaxen wig nearly hind-part before, in the warmth of his argument.
"What did you say to her?" snapped the justice.
"Matrimony may not have charms for Barbara," replied Mr. Carlyle half
jokingly.
"Nothing does have charms for her that ought to have," growled Justice
Hare. "She's one of the contrary ones. By the way, though," hastily
resumed the justice, leaving the objectionable subject, as another
flashed across his memory, "they were coupling your name and matrimony
together, Carlyle, last night, at the Buck's Head."
A very perceptible tinge of red rose to the face of Mr. Carlyle,
telling of inward emotion, but his voice and manner betrayed none.
"Indeed," he carelessly said.
"Ah, you are a sly one; you are, Carlyle. Remember how sly you were
over your first----" marriage, Justice Hare was going to bring out,
but it suddenly occurred to him that all circumstances considered, it
was not precisely the topic to recall to Mr. Carlyle. So he stopped
himself in the utterance, coughed, and went on again. "There you go,
over to see Sir John Dobede, /not/ to see Sir John, but paying court
to Miss Dobede."
"So the Buck's Head was amusing itself with that!" good-naturedly
observed Mr. Carlyle. "Well, Miss Dobede is going to be married, and I
am drawing up the settlements."
"It's not she; she marries young Somerset; everybody knows that. It's
the other one, Louisa. A nice girl, Carlyle."
"Very," responded Mr. Carlyle, and it was all the answer he gave. The
justice, tired of sitting indoors, tired, perhaps, of extracting
nothing satisfactory from Mr. Carlyle, rose, shook himself, set his
wig aright before the chimney-glass, and quitted the house on his
customary evening visit to the Buck's Head. Barbara, who watched him
down the path, saw that he encountered someone who happened to be
passing the gate. She could not at first distinguish who it might be,
nothing but an arm and shoulder cased in velveteen met her view, but
as their positions changed in conversation--his and her father's--she
saw that it was Locksley; he had been the chief witness, not a
vindictive one; he could not help himself, against her brother
Richard, touching the murder of Hallijohn.
Meanwhile Mrs. Hare had drawn Mr. Carlyle into a chair close by her
own.
"Archibald, will you forgive me if I say a word upon the topic
introduced by Mr. Hare?" she said, in a low tone, as she shook his
hand. "You know how fondly I have ever regarded you, second only to my
poor Richard. Your welfare and happiness are precious to me. I wish I
could in any way promote them. It occurs to me, sometimes, that you
are not at present so happy as you might be."
"I have some sources of happiness," said Mr. Carlyle. "My children and
I have plenty of sources of interest. What do you mean, dear Mrs.
Hare?"
"Your home might be made happier."
Mr. Carlyle smiled, nearly laughed. "Cornelia takes care of that, as
she did in the old days, you know."
"Yes, I know. Would it not be as well to consider whether she would
not be better in a home of her own--and for you to give East Lynne
another mistress?"
He shook his head.
"Archibald, it would be happier for you; it would indeed. It is only
in new ties that you can forget the past. You might find recompense
yet for the sorrow you have gone through; and I know none," repeated
Mrs. Hare, emphatically, "more calculated to bring it you than that
sweet girl, Louisa Dobede."
"So long as--" Mr. Carlyle was beginning, and had not got so far in
his sentence, when he was interrupted by an exclamation from Barbara.
"What can be the matter with papa? Locksley must have said something
to anger him. He is coming in the greatest passion, mamma; his face
crimson, and his hands and arms working."
"Oh, dear, Barbara!" was all poor Mrs. Hare's reply. The justice's
great bursts of passion frightened her.
In he came, closed the door, and stood in the middle of the room,
looking alternately at Mrs. Hare and Barbara.
"What is this cursed report, that's being whispered in the place!"
quoth he, in a tone of suppressed rage, but not unmixed with awe.
"What report?" asked Mr. Carlyle, for the justice waited for an
answer, and Mrs. Hare seemed unable to speak. Barbara took care to
keep silence; she had some misgivings that the justice's words might
be referring to herself--to the recent grievance.
"A report that he--/he/--has been here disguised as a laborer, has
dared to show himself in the place where he'll come yet, to the
gibbet."
Mrs. Hare's face turned as white as death; Mr. Carlyle rose and
dexterously contrived to stand before her, so that it should not be
seen. Barbara silently locked her hands, one within the other, and
turned to the window.
"Of whom did you speak?" asked Mr. Carlyle, in a matter-of-fact tone,
as if he were putting the most matter-of-fact question. He knew too
well; but he thought to temporize for the sake of Mrs. Hare.
"Of whom do I speak!" uttered the exasperated justice, nearly beside
himself with passion; "of whom would I speak but the bastard Dick! Who
else in West Lynne is likely to come to a felon's death?"
"Oh, Richard!" sobbed forth Mrs. Hare, as she sank back in her chair,
"be merciful. He is our own true son."
"Never a true son of the Hares," raved the justice. "A true son of
wickedness, and cowardice, and blight, and evil. If he has dared to
show his face at West Lynne, I'll set the whole police of England upon
his track, that he may be brought here as he ought, if he must come.
When Locksley told me of it just now, I raised my hand to knock him
down, so infamously false did I deem the report. Do /you/ know
anything of his having been here?" continued the justice to his wife,
in a pointed, resolute tone.
How Mrs. Hare would have extricated herself, or what she would have
answered, cannot even be imagined, but Mr. Carlyle interposed.
"You are frightening Mrs. Hare, sir. Don't you see that she knows
nothing of it--that the very report of such a thing is alarming her
into illness? But--allow me to inquire what it may be that Locksley
said?"
"I met him at the gate," retorted Justice Hare, turning his attention
upon Mr. Carlyle. "He was going by as I reached it. 'Oh, justice, I am
glad I met you. That's a nasty report in the place that Richard has
been here. I'd see what I could do toward hushing it up, sir, if I
were you, for it may only serve to put the police in mind of by gone
things, which it may be better they should forget.' Carlyle, I went,
as I tell you, to knock him down. I asked him how he could have the
hardihood to repeat such slander to my face. He was on the high horse
directly; said the parish spoke the slander, not he; and I got out of
him what it was he had heard."
"And what was it?" interrupted Mr. Carlyle, more eagerly than he
generally spoke.
"Why, they say the fellow showed himself here some time ago, a year or
so, disguised as a farm laborer--confounded fools! Not but what he'd
have been the fool had he done it."
"To be sure he would," repeated Mr. Carlyle, "and he is not fool
enough for that, sir. Let West Lynne talk, Mr. Hare; but do not put
faith in a word of its gossip. I never do. Poor Richard, wherever he
may be--"
"I won't have him pitied in my presence," burst forth the justice.
"Poor Richard, indeed! Villain Richard, if you please."
"I was about to observe that, wherever he may be--whether in the
backwoods of America, or digging for gold in California, or wandering
about the United Kingdom--there is little fear that he will quit his
place of safety to dare the dangerous ground of West Lynne. Had I been
you, sir, I should have laughed at Locksley and his words."
"Why does West Lynne invent such lies?"
"Ah, there's the rub. I dare say West Lynne could not tell why, if it
were paid for doing it; but it seems to have been a lame story it had
got up this time. If they must have concocted a report that Richard
had been seen at West Lynne, why put it back to a year ago--why not
have fixed it for to-day or yesterday? If I heard anything more, I
would treat it with the silence and contempt it deserves, justice."
Silence and contempt were not greatly in the justice's line; noise and
explosion were more so. But he had a high opinion of the judgment of
Mr. Carlyle; and growling a sort of assent, he once more set forth to
pay his evening visit.
"Oh, Archibald!" uttered Mrs. Hare, when her husband was half-way down
the path, "what a mercy that you were here! I should inevitably have
betrayed myself."
Barbara turned round from the window, "But what could have possessed
Locksley to say what he did?" she exclaimed.
"I have no doubt Locksley spoke with a motive," said Mr. Carlyle. "He
is not unfriendly to Richard, and thought, probably, that by telling
Mr. Hare of the report he might get it stopped. The rumor had been
mentioned to me."
Barbara turned cold all over. "How can it have come to light?" she
breathed.
"I am at a loss to know," said Mr. Carlyle. "The person to mention it
to me was Tom Herbert. 'I say,' said he meeting me yesterday, 'what's
this row about Dick Hare?' 'What now?' I asked him. 'Why, that Dick
was at West Lynne some time back, disguised as a farm laborer.' Just
the same, you see, that Locksley said to Mr. Hare. I laughed at Tom
Herbert," continued Mr. Carlyle; "turned his report into ridicule
also, before I had done with him."
"Will it be the means of causing Richard's detection?" murmured Mrs.
Hare from between her dry lips.
"No, no," warmly responded Mr. Carlyle. "Had the report arisen
immediately after he was really here, it might not have been so
pleasant; but nearly two years have elapsed since the period. Be under
no uneasiness, dear Mrs. Hare, for rely upon it there is no cause."
"But how /could/ it have come out, Archibald?" she urged, "and at this
distant period of time?"
"I assure you I am quite at a loss to imagine. Had anybody at West
Lynne seen and recognized Richard, they would have spoken of it at the
time. Do not let it trouble you; the rumor will die away."
Mrs. Hare sighed deeply, and left the room to proceed to her own
chamber. Barbara and Mr. Carlyle were alone.
"Oh, that the real murderer could be discovered!" she aspirated,
clasping her hands. "To be subjected to these shocks of fear is
dreadful. Mamma will not be herself for days to come."
"I wish the right man could be found; but it seems as far off as
ever," remarked Mr. Carlyle.
Barbara sat ruminating. It seemed that she would say something to Mr.
Carlyle, but a feeling caused her to hesitate. When she did at length
speak, it was in a low, timid voice.
"You remember the description Richard gave, that last night, of the
person he had met--the true Thorn?"
"Yes."
"Did it strike you then--has it ever occurred to you to think--that it
accorded with some one?"
"In what way, Barbara?" he asked, after a pause. "It accorded with the
description Richard always gave of the man Thorn."
"Richard spoke of the peculiar movement of throwing off the hair from
the forehead--in this way. Did that strike you as being familiar, in
connection with the white hand and the diamond ring?"
"Many have a habit of pushing off their hair--I think I do it myself
sometimes. Barbara, what do you mean? Have you a suspicion of any
one?"
"Have you?" she returned, answering the question by asking another.
"I have not. Since Captain Thorn was disposed of, my suspicions have
not pointed anywhere."
This sealed Barbara's lips. She had hers, vague doubts, bringing
wonder more than anything else. At times she had thought the same
doubts might have occurred to Mr. Carlyle; she now found that they had
not. The terrible domestic calamity which had happened to Mr. Carlyle
the same night that Richard protested he had seen Thorn, had prevented
Barbara's discussing the matter with him then, and she had never done
so since. Richard had never been further heard of, and the affair had
remained in abeyance.
"I begin to despair of its ever being discovered," she observed. "What
will become of poor Richard?"
"We can but wait, and hope that time may bring forth its own
elucidation," continued Mr. Carlyle.
"Ah," sighed Barbara, "but it is weary waiting--weary, weary."
"How is it you contrive to get under the paternal displeasure?" he
resumed, in a gayer tone.
She blushed vividly, and it was her only answer.
"The Major Thorn alluded to by your papa is our old friend, I
presume?"
Barbara inclined her head.
"He is a very pleasant man, Barbara. Many a young lady in West Lynne
would be proud to get him."
There was a pause. Barbara broke it, but she did not look at Mr.
Carlyle as she spoke.
"The other rumor--is it a correct one?"
"What other rumor?"
"That you are to marry Louisa Dobede."
"It is not. I have no intention of marrying any one. Nay, I will say
it more strongly; it is my intention not to marry any one--to remain
as I am."
Barbara lifted her eyes to his in the surprise of the moment.
"You look amused, Barbara. Have you been lending your credence to the
gossips, who have so kindly disposed of me to Louisa Dobede?"
"Not so. But Louisa Dobede is a girl to be coveted, and, as mamma
says, it might be happier for you if you married again. I thought you
would be sure to do so."
"No. She--who was my wife--lives."
"What of that?" uttered Barbara, in simplicity.
He did not answer for a moment, and when he did, it was in a low,
almost imperceptible tone, as he stood by the table at which Barbara
sat, and looked down on her.
" 'Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth
adultery.' "
And before Barbara could answer, if, indeed, she had found any answer
to make, or had recovered her surprise, he had taken his hat and was
gone.
To return for a short while to Lady Isabel. As the year advanced she
grew stronger, and in the latter part of the summer she made
preparations for quitting Grenoble. Where she would fix her residence,
or what she would do, she knew not. She was miserable and restless,
and cared little what became of her. The remotest spot on earth, one
unpenetrated by the steps of civilized man, appeared the most
desirable for her. Where was she to find this?"
She set out on her search, she and the child and its nurse. Not
Susanne. Susanne had a sweetheart in Grenoble, and declined to leave
it, so a girl was engaged for the child in her place. Lady Isabel
wound up her housekeeping, had her things packed and forwarded to
Paris, there to wait her orders and finally quitted Grenoble. It was a
fine day when she left it--all too fine for the dark ending it was to
bring.
When a railway accident does take place in France, it /is/ an
accident. None of your milk-and-water affairs, where a few bruises and
a great fright are the extent of the damages but too often a calamity
whose remembrance lasts a lifetime. Lady Isabel had travelled a
considerable distance that first day, and at the dusk of evening, as
they were approaching a place, Cammere, where she purposed to halt for
the night, a dreadful accident occurred. The details need not be
given, and will not be. It is sufficient to say that some of the
passengers were killed, her child and nurse being amongst them, and
she herself was dangerously injured.
The injuries lay chiefly in her left leg and in her face--the lower
part of her face. The surgeons, taking their cursory view of her, as
they did of the rest of the sufferers, were not sparing in their
remarks, for they believed her to be insensible. She had gathered that
the leg was to be amputated, and that she would probably die under the
operation--but her turn to be attended to was not yet. How she
contrived to write she never knew, but she got a pen and ink brought
to her, and did succeed in scrawling a letter to Lord Mount Severn.
She told him that a sad accident had taken place; she could not say
how; all was confusion; and that her child and maid were killed. She
herself was dangerously injured, and was about to undergo an
operation, which the doctors believed she could not survive; only /in
case of her death would the letter be sent to Lord Mount Severn/. She
could not die, she said, without a word of thanks for all his
kindness; and she begged him, when he saw Mr. Carlyle, to say that
with her last breath she humbly implored his forgiveness, and his
children's whom she no longer dared to call hers.
Now this letter, by the officiousness of a servant at the inn to which
the sufferers were carried, was taken at once to the post. And, after
all, things turned out not quite so bad as anticipated; for when the
doctors came to examine the state of Lady Isabel, not cursorily, they
found there would be no absolute necessity for the operation
contemplated. Fond as the French surgeons are of the knife, to resort
to it in this instance would have been cruel, and they proceeded to
other means of cure.
The letter was duly delivered at the town house of Lord Mount Severn,
where it was addressed. The countess was sojourning there for a few
days; she had quitted it after the season, but some business, or
pleasure, had called her again to town. Lord Vane was with her, but
the earl was in Scotland. They were at breakfast, she and her son,
when the letter was brought in: eighteen pence to pay. Its scrawled
address, its foreign aspect, its appearance, altogether, excited her
curiosity; in her own mind, she believed she had dropped upon a nice
little conjugal mare's nest.
"I shall open this," cried she.
"Why, it is addressed to papa!" exclaimed Lord Vane who possessed all
his father's notions of honor.
"But such an odd letter! It may require an immediate answer; or is
some begging petition, perhaps. Get on with your breakfast."
Lady Mount Severn opened the letter, and with some difficulty spelt
through its contents. They shocked even her.
"How dreadful!" she uttered, in the impulse of the moment.
"What is dreadful?" asked Lord Vane, looking up from his breakfast.
"Lady Isabel--Isabel Vane--you have not forgotten her?"
"Forgotten her!" he echoed. "Why, mamma, I must possess a funny memory
to have forgotten her already."
"She is dead. She has been killed in a railway accident in France."
His large blue eyes, honest and true as they had been in childhood,
filled, and his face flushed. He said nothing, for emotion was strong
within him.
"But, shocking as it is, it is better for her," went on the countess;
"for, poor creature what could her future life had been?"
"Oh, don't say it!" impetuously broke out the young viscount. "Killed
in a railway accident, and for you to say that it is better for her!"
"So it is better," said the countess. "Don't go into heroics, William.
You are quite old enough to know that she had brought misery upon
herself, and disgrace upon all connected with her. No one could ever
have taken notice of her again."
"I would," said the boy, stoutly.
Lady Mount Severn smiled derisively.
"I would. I never liked anybody in the world half so much as I liked
Isabel."
"That's past and gone. You would not have continued to like her, after
the disgrace she wrought."
"Somebody else wrought more of the disgrace than she did; and, had I
been a man, I would have shot him dead," flashed the viscount.
"You don't know anything about it."
"Don't I!" returned he, not over dutifully. But Lady Mount Severn had
not brought him up to be dutiful.
"May I read the letter, mamma?" he demanded, after a pause.
"If you can read it," she replied, tossing it to him. "It is written
in the strangest style; syllables divided, and the words running one
into the other. She wrote it herself when she was dying."
Lord Vane took the letter to a window, and stayed looking over it for
some time; the countess ate an egg and a plate of ham meanwhile.
Presently he came back with it folded, and laid in on the table.
"You will forward it to papa to-day," he observed.
"I shall forward it to him. But there's no hurry; and I don't exactly
know where your papa may be. I shall send the notice of her death to
the papers; and I am glad to do it; it is a blight removed from the
family."
"Mamma, I do think you are the unkindest woman that ever breathed!"
"I'll give you something to call me unkind for, if you don't mind,"
retorted the countess, her color rising. "Dock you of your holiday,
and pack you back to school to-day."
A few mornings after this Mr. Carlyle left East Lynne and proceeded to
his office as usual. Scarcely was he seated, when Mr. Dill entered,
and Mr. Carlyle looked at him inquiringly, for it was not Mr.
Carlyle's custom to be intruded upon by any person until he had opened
his letters; then he would ring for Mr. Dill. The letters and the
/Times/ newspaper lay on the table before him. The old gentleman came
up in a covert, timid sort of way, which made Mr. Carlyle look all the
more.
"I beg pardon, sir; will you let me ask if you have heard any
particular news?"
"Yes, I have heard it," replied Mr. Carlyle.
"Then, sir, I beg your pardon a thousand times over. It occurred to me
that you probably had not, Mr. Archibald; and I thought I would have
said a word to prepare you, before you came upon it suddenly in the
paper."
"To prepare me!" echoed Mr. Carlyle, as old Dill was turning away.
"Why, what has come to you, Dill? Are you afraid my nerves are growing
delicate, or that I shall faint over the loss of a hundred pounds? At
the very most, we shall not suffer above that extent."
Old Dill turned back again.
"If I don't believe you are speaking of the failure of Kent & Green!
It's not /that/, Mr. Archibald. They won't affect us much; and
there'll be a dividend, report runs."
"What is it, then?"
"Then you have not heard it, sir! I am glad that I'm in time. It might
not be well for you to have seen it without a word of preparation, Mr.
Archibald."
"If you have not gone demented, you will tell me what you mean, Dill,
and leave me to my letters," cried Mr. Carlyle, wondering excessively
at his sober, matter-of-fact clerk's words and manner.
Old Dill put his hands upon the /Times/ newspaper.
"It's here, Mr. Archibald, in the column of deaths; the first on the
list. Please, prepare yourself a little before you look at it."
He shuffled out quickly, and Mr. Carlyle as quickly unfolded the
paper. It was, as old Dill said, the first on the list of deaths:
"At Cammere, in France, on the 18th inst., Isabel Mary, only child
of William, late Earl of Mount Severn."
Clients called; Mr. Carlyle's bell did not ring; an hour or two
passed, and old Dill protested that Mr. Carlyle was engaged until he
could protest no longer. He went in, deprecatingly. Mr. Carlyle sat
yet with the newspaper before him, and the letters unopened at his
elbow.
"There are one or two who /will/ come in, Mr. Archibald--who /will/
see you; what am I to say?"
Mr. Carlyle stared at him for a moment, as if his wits had been in the
next world. Then he swept the newspaper from before him, and was the
calm, collected man of business again.
As the news of Lady Isabel's marriage had first come in the knowledge
of Lord Mount Severn through the newspapers, so singular to say did
the tidings of her death. The next post brought him the letter, which
his wife had tardily forwarded. But, unlike Lady Mount Severn, he did
not take her death as entirely upon trust; he thought it possible the
letter might have been dispatched without its having taken place; and
he deemed it incumbent on him to make inquiries. He wrote immediately
to the authorities of the town, in the best French he could muster,
asking for particulars, and whether she was really dead.
He received, in due course a satisfactory answer; satisfactory in so
far as that it set his doubts at rest. He had inquired after her by
her proper name, and title, "La Dame Isabelle Vane," and as the
authorities could find none of the survivors owning that name, they
took it for granted she was dead. They wrote him word that the child
and nurse were killed on the spot; two ladies, occupying the same
compartment of the carriage, had since died, one of whom was no doubt
the mother and lady he inquired for. She was dead and buried,
sufficient money having been found upon her person to defray the few
necessary expenses.
Thus, through no premeditated intention of Lady Isabel, news of her
death went forth to Lord Mount Severn and to the world. /Her/ first
intimation that she was regarded as dead, was through a copy of that
very day's /Times/ seen by Mr. Carlyle--seen by Lord Mount Severn. An
English traveller, who had been amongst the sufferers, and who
received the English newspaper daily, sometimes lent them to her to
read. She was not travelling under her own name; she left that behind
her when she left Grenoble; she had rendered her own too notorious to
risk the chance recognition of travellers; and the authorities little
thought that the quiet unobtrusive Madame Vine, slowly recovering at
the inn, was the Dame Isabella Vane, respecting whom the grand English
comte wrote.
Lady Isabel understood it at once; that the dispatching of her letter
had been the foundation of the misapprehension; and she began to ask
herself now, why she should undeceive Lord Mount Severn and the world.
She longed, none knew with what intense longings, to be unknown,
obscure, totally unrecognized by all; none can know it, till they have
put a barrier between themselves and the world, as she had done. The
child was gone--happy being! She thought she could never be
sufficiently thankful that it was released from the uncertain future--
therefore she had not his support to think of. She had only herself;
and surely she could with ease earn enough for that; or she could
starve; it mattered little which. No, there was no necessity for her
continuing to accept the bounty of Lord Mount Severn, and she would
let him and everybody else continue to believe that she was dead, and
be henceforth only Madame Vine. A resolution she adhered to.
Thus the unhappy Isabel's career was looked upon as run. Lord Mount
Severn forwarded her letter to Mr. Carlyle, with the confirmation of
her death, which he had obtained from the French authorities. It was a
nine day's wonder: "That poor, erring Lady Isabel was dead"--people
did not call her names in the very teeth of her fate--and then it was
over.
It was over. Lady Isabel was as one forgotten.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR AT EAST LYNNE.
There went, sailing up the avenue to East Lynne, a lady, one windy
afternoon. If not a lady, she was attired as one; a flounced dress,
and a stylish looking shawl, and a white veil. A very pretty woman,
tall and slender was she, and she minced as she walked, and coquetted
with her head, and, altogether contrived to show that she had quite as
much vanity as brains. She went boldly up to the broad entrance of the
house, and boldly rang at it, drawing her white veil over her face as
she did so.
One of the men-servants answered it, not Peter; and, seeing somebody
very smart before him, bowed deferentially.
"Miss Hallijohn is residing here, I believe. Is she within?"
"Who, ma'am?"
"Miss Hallijohn; Miss Joyce Hallijohn," somewhat sharply repeated the
lady, as if impatient of any delay. "I wish to see her."
The man was rather taken aback. He had deemed it a visitor to the
house, and was prepared to usher her to the drawing-room, at least;
but it seemed it was only a visitor to Joyce. He showed her into a
small parlor, and went upstairs to the nursery, where Joyce was
sitting with Wilson--for there had been no change in the domestic
department of East Lynne. Joyce remained as upper maid, partially
superintending the servants, attending upon Lucy, and making Miss
Carlyle's dresses as usual. Wilson was nurse still.
"Miss Joyce, there's a lady asking for you," said the man. "I have
shown her into the gray parlor."
"A lady for me?" repeated Joyce. "Who is it? Some one to see the
children, perhaps."
"It's for yourself, I think. She asked for Miss Hallijohn."
Joyce looked at the man; but she put down her work and proceeded to
the gray parlor. A pretty woman, vain and dashing, threw up her white
veil at her entrance.
"Well, Joyce, how are you?"
Joyce, always pale, turned paler still, as she gazed in blank
consternation. Was it really /Afy/ who stood before her--Afy, the
erring?
Afy it was. And she stood there, holding out her hand to Joyce, with
what Wilson would have called, all the brass in the world. Joyce could
not reconcile her mind to link her own with it.
"Excuse me, Afy, but I cannot take your hand, I cannot welcome you
here. What could have induced you to come?"
"If you are going to be upon the high ropes, it seems I might as well
have stayed away," was Afy's reply, given in the pert, but good-
humored manner she had ever used to Joyce. "My hand won't damage
yours. I am not poison."
"You are looked upon in the neighborhood as worse than poison, Afy,"
returned Joyce, in a tone, not of anger but of sorrow. "Where's
Richard Hare?"
Afy tossed her head. "Where's who?" asked she.
"Richard Hare. My question was plain enough."
"How should I know where he is? It's like your impudence to mention
him to me. Why don't you ask me where Old Nick is, and how he does?
I'd rather own acquaintance with him than with Richard Hare, if I'd my
choice between the two."
"Then you have left Richard Hare? How long since?"
"I have left--what do you say?" broke off Afy, whose lips were
quivering ominously with suppressed passion. "Perhaps you'll
condescend to explain. I don't understand."
"When you left here, did you not go after Richard Hare--did you not
join him?"
"I'll tell you what it is, Joyce," flashed Afy, her face indignant and
her voice passionate, "I have put up with some things from you in my
time, but human nature has its limits of endurance, and I won't bear
/that/. I have never set eyes on Richard Hare since that night of
horror; I wish I could; I'd help to hang him."
Joyce paused. The belief that Afy was with him had been long and
deeply imbued within her; it was the long-continued and firm
conviction of all West Lynne, and a settled belief, such as that, is
not easily shaken. Was Afy telling the truth? She knew her propensity
for making false assertions, when they served to excuse herself.
"Afy," she said at length, "let me understand you. When you left this
place, was it not to share Richard Hare's flight? Have you not been
living with him?"
"No!" burst forth Afy, with kindling eyes. "Living with /him/--with
our father's murderer! Shame upon you, Joyce Hallijohn! You must be
precious wicked yourself to suppose it."
"If I have judged you wrongly, Afy, I sincerely beg your pardon. Not
only myself, but the whole of West Lynne, believed you were with him;
and the thought has caused me pain night and day."
"What a cannibal minded set you all must be, then!" was Afy's
indignant rejoinder.
"What have you been doing ever since, then? Where have you been?"
"Never mind, I say," repeated Afy. "West Lynne has not been so
complimentary to me, it appears, that I need put myself out of my way
to satisfy its curiosity. I was knocking about a bit at first, but I
soon settled down as steady as Old Time--as steady as you."
"Are you married?" inquired Joyce, noting the word "settled."
"Catch me marrying," retorted Afy; "I like my liberty too well. Not
but what I might be induced to change my condition, if anything out of
the way eligible occurred; it must be very eligible, though, to tempt
me. I am what I suppose you call yourself--a lady's maid."
"Indeed!" said Joyce, much relieved. "And are you comfortable, Afy?
Are you in good service?"
"Middling, for that. The pay's not amiss, but there's a great deal to
do, and Lady Mount Severn's too much of a Tartar for me."
Joyce looked at her in surprise. "What have you to do with Lady Mount
Severn?"
"Well, that's good! It's where I am at service."
"At Lady Mount Severn's?"
"Why not? I have been there two years. It is not a great deal longer I
shall stop, though; she had too much vinegar in her for me. But it
poses me to imagine what on earth could have induced you to fancy I
should go off with that Dick Hare," she added, for she could not
forget the grievance.
"Look at the circumstances," argued Joyce. "You both disappeared."
"But not together."
"Nearly together. There were only a few days intervening. And you had
neither money nor friends."
"You don't know what I had. But I would rather have died of want on
father's grave than have shared his means," continued Afy, growing
passionate again.
"Where is he? Not hung, or I should have heard of it."
"He has never been seen since that night, Afy."
"Nor heard of?"
"Nor heard of. Most people think he is in Australia, or some other
foreign land."
"The best place for him; the more distance he puts between him and
home, the better. If he does come back, I hope he'll get his desserts
--which is a rope's end. I'd go to his hanging."
"You are as bitter against him as Mr. Justice Hare. He would bring his
son back to suffer, if he could."
"A cross-grained old camel!" remarked Afy, in allusion to the
qualities, social and amiable, of the revered justice. "I don't defend
Dick Hare--I hate him too much for that--but if his father had treated
him differently, Dick might have been different. Well, let's talk of
something else; the subject invariably gives me the shivers. Who is
mistress here?"
"Miss Carlyle."
"Oh, I might have guessed that. Is she as fierce as ever?"
"There is little alteration in her."
"And there won't be on this side the grave. I say, Joyce, I don't want
to encounter her; she might set on at me, like she has done many a
time in the old days. Little love was there lost between me and Corny
Carlyle. Is Mr. Carlyle at home?"
"He will be home to dinner. I dare say you would like some tea; you
shall come and take it with me and Wilson, in the nursery."
"I was thinking you might have the grace to offer me something," cried
Afy. "I intend to stop till to-morrow in the neighborhood. My lady
gave me two days' holiday--for she was going to see her dreadful old
grandmother, where she can't take a maid--and I thought I'd use it in
coming to have a look at the old place again. Don't stare at me in
that blank way, as if you feared I should ask the grand loan of
sleeping here. I shall sleep at the Mount Severn Arms."
"I was not glancing at such a thought, Afy. Come and take your bonnet
off."
"Is the nursery full of children?"
"There is only one child in it. Miss Lucy and Master William are with
the governess."
Wilson received Afy with lofty condescension, having Richard Hare in
her thoughts. But Joyce explained that it was all a misapprehension--
that her sister had never been near Richard Hare, but was as indignant
against him as they were. Upon which Wilson grew cordial and chatty,
rejoicing in the delightful recreation her tongue would enjoy that
evening.
Afy's account of herself, as to past proceedings, was certainly not
the most satisfactory in the world; but, altogether, taken in the
present, it was so vast an improvement upon Joyce's conclusions, that
she had not felt so elated for many a day. When Mr. Carlyle returned
home Joyce sought him, and acquainted him with what had happened; that
Afy was come; was maid to Lady Mount Severn; and, above all, that she
had never been with Richard Hare.
"Ah! You remember what I said, Joyce," he remarked. "That I did not
believe Afy was with Richard Hare."
"I have been telling her so, sir, to be sure, when I informed her what
people had believed," continued Joyce. "She nearly went into one of
her old passions."
"Does she seem steady, Joyce?"
"I think so, sir--steady for her. I was thinking, sir, that as she
appears to have turned out so respectable, and is with Lady Mount
Severn, you, perhaps, might see no objection to her sleeping here for
to-night. It would be better than for her to go to the inn, as she
talks of doing."
"None at all," replied Mr. Carlyle. "Let her remain."
Later in the evening, after Mr. Carlyle's dinner, a message came that
Afy was to go to him. Accordingly she proceeded to his presence.
"So, Afy, you have returned to let West Lynne know that you are alive.
Sit down."
"West Lynne may go a-walking for me in future, sir, for all the heed I
shall take of it," retorted Afy. "A set of wicked-minded scandal-
mongers, to take and say I had gone after Richard Hare!"
"You should not have gone off at all, Afy."
"Well, sir, that was my business, and I chose to go. I could not stop
in the cottage after that night's work."
"There is a mystery attached to that night's work, Afy," observed Mr.
Carlyle; "a mystery that I cannot fathom. Perhaps you can help me
out."
"What mystery, sir?" returned Afy.
Mr. Carlyle leaned forward, his arms on the table. Afy had taken a
chair at the other end of it. "Who was it that committed the murder?"
he demanded, in a grave and somewhat imperative tone.
Afy stared some moments before she replied, astonished at the
question. "Who committed the murder, sir?" she uttered at length.
"Richard Hare committed it. Everybody knows that."
"Did you see it done?"
"No," replied Afy. "If I had seen it, the fright and horror would have
killed me. Richard Hare quarreled with my father, and drew the gun
upon him in passion."
"You assume this to have been the case, Afy, as others have assumed
it. I do not think that it was Richard Hare who killed your father."
"Not Richard Hare!" exclaimed Afy, after a pause. "Then who do you
think did it, sir--I?"
"Nonsense, Afy."
"I know he did it," proceeded Afy. "It is true that I did not see it
done, but I know it for all that. I /know/ it, sir."
"You cannot know it, Afy."
"I do know it, sir; I would not assert it to you if I did not. If
Richard Hare was here, present before us, and swore until he was black
in the face that it was not him, I could convict him."
"By what means?"
"I had rather not say, sir. But you may believe me, for I am speaking
truth."
"There was another friend of yours present that evening, Afy.
Lieutenant Thorn."
Afy's face turned crimson; she was evidently surprised. But Mr.
Carlyle's speech and manner were authoritative, and she saw it would
be useless to attempt to trifle with him.
"I know he was, sir. A young chap who used to ride over some evenings
to see me. He had nothing to do with what occurred."
"Where did he ride from?"
"He was stopping with some friends at Swainson. He was nobody, sir."
"What was his name?" questioned Mr. Carlyle.
"Thorn," said Afy.
"I mean his real name. Thorn was an assumed name."
"Oh, dear no," returned Afy. "Thorn was his name."
Mr. Carlyle paused and looked at her.
"Afy, I have reason to believe that Thorn was only an assumed name.
Now, I have a motive for wishing to know his real one, and you would
very much oblige me by confiding it to me. What was it?"
"I don't know that he had any other name, sir; I am sure he had no
other," persisted Afy. "He was Lieutenant Thorn, then and he was
Captain Thorn, afterward."
"You have seen him since?"
"Once in a way we have met."
"Where is he now?"
"Now! Oh, my goodness, I don't know anything about him now," muttered
Afy. "I have not heard of him or seen him for a long while. I think I
heard something about his going to India with his regiment."
"What regiment is he in?"
"I'm sure I don't know about that," said Afy. "Is not one regiment the
same as another; they are all in the army, aren't they, sir?"
"Afy, I must find this Captain Thorn. Do you know anything of his
family?"
Afy shook her head. "I don't think he had any. I never heard him
mention as much as a brother or a sister."
"And you persist in saying his name was Thorn?"
"I persist in saying it because it was his name. I am positive it was
his name."
"Afy, shall I tell you why I want to find him; I believe it was he who
murdered your father, not Richard Hare."
Afy's mouth and eyes gradually opened, and her face turned hot and
cold alternately. Then passion mastered her, and she burst forth.
"It's a lie! I beg your pardon, sir, but whoever told you that, told
you a lie. Thorn had no more to do with it than I had; I'll swear it."
"I tell you, Afy, I believe Thorn to have been the man. You were not
present; you cannot know who actually did it."
"Yes, I can, and do know," said Afy, bursting into sobs of hysterical
passion. "Thorn was with me when it happened, so it could not have
been Thorn. It was that wicked Richard Hare. Sir, have I not said that
I'll swear it?"
"Thorn was with you--at the moment of the murder?" repeated Mr.
Carlyle.
"Yes, he was," shrieked Afy, nearly beside herself with emotion.
"Whoever has been trying to put it off Richard Hare, and on to him, is
a wicked, false-hearted wretch. It was Richard Hare, and nobody else,
and I hope he'll be hung for it yet."
"You are telling me the truth, Afy?" gravely spoke Mr. Carlyle.
"Truth!" echoed Afy, flinging up her hands. "Would I tell a lie over
my father's death? If Thorn had done it, would I screen him, or
shuffle it off to Richard Hare? Not so."
Mr. Carlyle felt uncertain and bewildered. That Afy was sincere in
what she said, was but too apparent. He spoke again but Afy had risen
from her chair to leave.
"Locksley was in the wood that evening. Otway Bethel was in it. Could
either of them have been the culprit?"
"No, sir," firmly retorted Afy; "the culprit was Richard Hare; and I'd
say it with my latest breath--I'd say it because I know it--though I
don't choose to say how I know it; time enough when he gets taken."
She quitted the room, leaving Mr. Carlyle in a state of puzzled
bewilderment. Was he to believe Afy, or was he to believe the bygone
assertion of Richard Hare?
CHAPTER XXIX.
A NIGHT INVASION OF EAST LYNNE.
In one of the comfortable sitting-rooms of East Lynne sat Mr. Carlyle
and his sister, one inclement January night. The contrast within and
without was great. The warm, blazing fire, the handsome carpet on
which it flickered, the exceedingly comfortable arrangement of the
furniture, of the room altogether, and the light of the chandelier,
which fell on all, presented a picture of home peace, though it may
not have deserved the name of luxury. Without, heavy flakes of snow
were falling thickly, flakes as large and nearly as heavy as a crown
piece, rendering the atmosphere so dense and obscure that a man could
not see a yard before him. Mr. Carlyle had driven home in the pony
carriage, and the snow had so settled upon him that Lucy, who happened
to see him as he entered the hall, screamed out laughingly that her
papa had turned into a white man. It was now later in the evening; the
children were in bed; the governess was in her own sitting room--it
was not often that Miss Carlyle invited her to theirs of an evening--
and the house was quite. Mr. Carlyle was deep in the pages of one of
the monthly periodicals, and Miss Carlyle sat on the other side of the
fire, grumbling, and grunting, and sniffling, and choking.
Miss Carlyle was one of your strong-minded ladies, who never
condescended to be ill. Of course, had she been attacked with scarlet
fever, or paralysis, or St. Vitus' dance, she must have given in to
the enemy; but trifling ailments, such as headache, influenza, sore
throat, which other people get, passed her by. Imagine, therefore, her
exasperation at finding her head stuffed up, her chest sore, and her
voice going; in short, at having, for once in her life, caught a cold
like ordinary mortals.
"What's the time, I wonder?" she exclaimed.
Mr. Carlyle looked at his watch. "It is just nine, Cornelia."
"Then I think I shall go to bed. I'll have a basin of arrowroot or
gruel, or some slop of that sort, after I'm in it. I'm sure I have
been free enough all my life from requiring such sick dishes."
"Do so," said Mr. Carlyle. "It may do you good."
"There's one thing excellent for a cold in the head, I know. It's to
doubt your flannel petticoat crossways, or any other large piece of
flannel you may conveniently have at hand, and put it on over your
night-cap. I'll try it."
"I would," said Mr. Carlyle, smothering an irreverent laugh.
She sat on five minutes longer, and then left, wishing Mr. Carlyle
good-night. He resumed his reading; but another page or two concluded
the article, upon which Mr. Carlyle threw the book on the table, rose
and stretched himself, as if tired of sitting.
He stirred the fire into a brighter blaze, and stood on the hearthrug.
"I wonder if it snows still?" he exclaimed to himself.
Proceeding to the window, one of those opening to the ground, he threw
aside the half of the warm crimson curtain. It all looked dull and
dark outside. Mr. Carlyle could see little what the weather was, and
he opened the window and stepped half out.
The snow was falling faster and thicker than ever. Not at that did Mr.
Carlyle start with surprise, if not with a more unpleasant sensation;
but a feeling a man's hand touch his, and at finding a man's face
nearly in contact with his own.
"Let me come in, Mr. Carlyle, for the love of life! I see you are
alone. I'm dead beat, and I don't know but I'm dodged also."
The tones struck familiarly on Mr. Carlyle's ear. He drew back
mechanically, a thousand perplexing sensations overwhelming him, and
the man followed him into the room--a white man, as Lucy called her
father. Aye, for he had been hours and hours on foot in the snow; his
hat, his clothes, his eyebrows, his large whiskers, all were white.
"Lock the door, sir," were his first words. Need you be told that it
was Richard Hare?
Mr. Carlyle fastened the window, drew the heavy curtains across, and
turned rapidly to lock the two doors--for there were two to the room,
one of them leading into the adjoining one. Richard meanwhile took off
his wet smock-frock of former memory--his hat, and his false black
whiskers, wiping the snow from the latter with his hand.
"Richard," uttered Mr. Carlyle, "I am thunderstruck! I fear you have
done wrong to come here."
"I cut off from London at a moment's notice," replied Richard, who was
literally shivering with the cold. "I'm dodged, Mr. Carlyle, I am
indeed. The police are after me, set on by that wretch Thorn."
Mr. Carlyle turned to the sideboard and poured out a wineglass of
brandy. "Drink it, Richard, it will warm you."
"I'd rather have it in some hot water, sir."
"But how am I to get the hot water brought in? Drink this for now.
Why, how you tremble."
"Ah, a few hours outside in the cold snow is enough to make the
strongest man tremble, sir; and it lies so deep in places that you
have to come along at a snail's pace. But I'll tell you about this
business. A fortnight ago I was at a cabstand at the West End, talking
to a cab-driver, when some drops of rain came down. A gentleman and
lady were passing at the time, but I had not paid any attention to
them. "By Jove!" I heard him exclaim to her, 'I think we're going to
have pepper. We had better take a cab, my dear.' With that the man I
was talking to swung open the door of his cab, and she got in--such a
fair young lady, she was! I turned to look at him, and you might just
have knocked me down with astonishment. Mr. Carlyle, it was the man,
Thorn."
"Indeed!"
"You thought I might be mistaken in him that moonlight night, but
there was no mistaking him in broad daylight. I looked him full in the
face, and he looked at me. He turned as white as cloth. Perhaps I did
--I don't know."
"Was he well dressed?"
"Very. Oh, there's no mistaking his position. That he moves in the
higher classes there's no doubt. The cab drove away, and I got up
behind it. The driver thought boys were there, and turned his head and
his whip, but I made him a sign. We didn't go much more than the
length of a street. I was on the pavement before Thorn was, and looked
at him again, and again he went white. I marked the house, thinking it
was where he lived, and--"
"Why did you not give him into custody, Richard?"
Richard Hare shook his head. "And my proofs of his guilt, Mr. Carlyle?
I could bring none against him--no positive ones. No, I must wait till
I can get proofs to do that. He would turn round upon me now and swear
my life away to murder. Well, I thought I'd ascertain for certain what
his name was, and that night I went to the house, and got into
conversation with one of the servants, who was standing at the door.
'Does Captain Thorn live here?' I asked him.
" 'Mr. Westleby lives here,' said he; 'I don't know any Captain
Thorn.'
"Then that's his name, thought I to myself. 'A youngish man, isn't
he?' said I, 'very smart, with a pretty wife?'
" 'I don't know what you call youngish,' he laughed, 'my master's
turned sixty, and his wife's as old.'
"That checked me. 'Perhaps he has sons?' I asked.
" 'Not any,' the man answered; 'there's nobody but their two selves.'
"So, with that, I told him what I wanted--that a lady and gentleman
had alighted there in a cab that day, and I wished to know his name.
Well, Mr. Carlyle, I could get at nothing satisfactory; the fellow
said that a great many had called there that day, for his master was
just up from a long illness, and people came to see him."
"Is that all, Richard?"
"All! I wish it had been all. I kept looking about for him in all the
best streets; I was half mad--"
"Do you not wonder, if he is in this position of life, and resides in
London, that you have never dropped upon him previously?" interrupted
Mr. Carlyle.
"No, sir; and I'll tell you why. I have been afraid to show myself in
those latter parts of the town, fearing I might meet with some one I
used to know at home, who would recognize me, so I have kept mostly in
obscure places--stables and such like. I had gone up to the West End
this day on a matter of business."
"Well, go on with your story."
"In a week's time I came upon him again. It was at night. He was
coming out of one of the theatres, and I went up and stood before
him."
" 'What do you want, fellow?' he asked. 'I have seen you watching me
before this.'
" 'I want to know your name,' I said, 'that's enough for me at
present.'
"He flew into a passion, and swore that if ever he caught sight of me
near him again he would hand me over into custody. 'And remember, men
are not given into custody for /watching/ others,' he significantly
added. 'I know you, and if you have any regard for yourself, you'll
keep out of my way.'
"He had got into a private carriage as he spoke, and it drove away; I
could see that it had a great coat-of-arms upon it."
"When do you say this was?"
"A week ago. Well, I could not rest; I was half mad, I say, and went
about, still trying if I could not discover his name and who he was. I
did come upon him, but he was walking quickly, arm-in-arm with--with
another gentleman. Again I saw him, standing at the entrance to the
betting rooms, talking to the same gentleman, and his face turned
savage--I believe with fear as much as anger--when he discerned me. He
seemed to hesitate, and then--as if he acted in a passion--suddenly
beckoned to a policeman, pointed me out, and said something to him in
a fast tone. That frightened me, and I slipped away. Two hours after,
when I was in quite a different part of the town, in turning my head I
saw the same policeman following me. I bolted under the horses of a
passing vehicle, down some turnings and passages, out into another
street, and up beside a cabman who was on his box, driving a fare
past. I reached my lodgings in safety, as I thought, but happening to
glance into the street, there I saw the man again, standing opposite,
and reconnoitering the house. I had gone home hungry, but this took
all my hunger away from me. I opened the box where I kept my disguise,
put it on, and got out by a back way. I have been pretty nearly ever
since on my feet reaching here; I only got a lift now and then."
"But, Richard, do you know that West Lynne is the very worst place you
could have flown to? It has come to light that you were here before,
disguised as a farm laborer."
"Who the deuce betrayed that?" interrupted Richard.
"I am unable to tell; I cannot even imagine. The rumor was rife in the
place, and it reached your father's ear. The rumor may make people's
wits sharper to know you in your disguise, than they otherwise might
have been."
"But what was I to do? I was forced to come here first and get a
little money. I shall fix myself in some other big town, far away from
London--Liverpool or Manchester, perhaps; and see what employment I
can get into, but I must have something to live upon till I can get
it. I don't possess a penny piece," he added, drawing out his trousers
pockets for the inspection of Mr. Carlyle. "The last coppers, I had,
three pence, I spent in bread and cheese and half a pint of beer at
midday. I have been outside that window for more than an hour, sir."
"Indeed!"
"And as I neared West Lynne I began to think what I should do. It was
no use in me trying to catch Barbara's attention such a night as this;
I had no money to pay for a lodging; so I turned off here, hoping I
might, by good luck, drop upon you. There was a little partition in
the window curtain--it had not been drawn close--and through it I
could see you and Miss Carlyle. I saw her leave the room; I saw you
come to the window and open it, and then I spoke. Mr. Carlyle," he
added, after a pause, "is this life to go on with me forever?"
"I am deeply sorry for you, Richard," was the sympathizing answer. "I
wish I could remedy it."
Before another word was spoken the room door was tried, and then
gently knocked at. Mr. Carlyle placed his hand on Richard, who was
looking scared out of his wits.
"Be still; be at ease, Richard; no one shall come in. It is only
Peter."
Not Peter's voice, however, but Joyce's was heard, in response to Mr.
Carlyle's demand of who was there.
"Miss Carlyle has left her handkerchief downstairs, sir, and has sent
me for it."
"You cannot come in--I am busy," was the answer, delivered in a clear
and most decisive tone.
"Who was it?" quivered Richard, as Joyce was heard going away.
"It was Joyce."
"What! Is she here still? Has anything ever been heard of Afy, sir?"
"Afy was here herself two or three months ago."
"Was she, though?" uttered Richard, beguiled for an instant from the
thought of his own danger. "What is she doing?"
"She is in service as a lady's maid. Richard, I questioned Afy about
Thorn. She protested solemnly to me that it was not Thorn who
committed the deed--that it could not have been he, for Thorn was with
her at the moment of its being done."
"It's not true!" fired Richard. "It was Thorn."
"Richard, you cannot tell; you did not /see/ it done."
"I know that no man could have rushed out in that frantic manner, with
those signs of guilt and fear about him, unless he had been engaged in
a bad deed," was Richard Hare's answer. "It could have been no one
else."
"Afy declared he was with her," repeated Mr. Carlyle.
"Look here, sir, you are a sharp man, and folks say I am not, but I
can see things and draw my reasoning as well as they can, perhaps. If
Thorn were not Hallijohn's murderer, why should he be persecuting me--
what would he care about me? And why should his face turn livid, as it
has done, each time he has seen my eyes upon him? Whether he did
commit the murder, or whether he didn't, he must know that I did not,
because he came upon me, waiting, as he was tearing from the cottage."
Dick's reasoning was not bad.
"Another thing," he resumed. "Afy swore at the inquest that she was
/alone/ when the deed was done; that she was alone at the back of the
cottage, and knew nothing about it till afterwards. How could she have
sworn she was alone, if Thorn was with her?"
The fact has entirely escaped Mr. Carlyle's memory in his conversation
with Afy, or he would not have failed to point out the discrepancy,
and to inquire how she could reconcile it. Yet her assertion to him
had been most positive and solemn. There were difficulties in the
matter which he could not reconcile.
"Now that I have got over my passion for Afy, I can see her faults,
Mr. Carlyle. She'd no more tell an untruth than I should stick--"
A most awful thundering at the room door--loud enough to bring the
very house down. No officers of justice, searching for a fugitive,
ever made a louder. Richard Hare, his face turned to chalk, his eyes
starting, and his own light hair bristling up with horror, struggled
into his wet smock-frock after a fashion, the tails up about his ears
and the sleeves hanging, forced on his hat and his false whiskers,
looked round in a bewildered manner for some cupboard or mouse-hole
into which he might creep, and, seeing none, rushed to the fireplace
and placed his foot on the fender. That he purposed an attempt at
chimney-climbing was evident, though how the fire would have agreed
with his pantaloons, not to speak of what they contained, poor Dick
appeared completely to ignore. Mr. Carlyle drew him back, keeping his
calm, powerful hand upon his shoulder, while certain sounds in an
angry voice were jerked through the keyhole.
"Richard, be a man, put aside this weakness, this fear. Have I not
told you that harm shall not come near you in my house?"
"It may be that officer from London; he may have brought half a dozen
more with him!" gasped the unhappy Richard. "I said they might have
dodged me all the way here."
"Nonsense. Sit you down, and be at rest, it is only Cornelia; and she
will be as anxious to shield you from danger as I can be."
"Is it?" cried the relieved Richard. "Can't you make her keep out?" he
continued, his teeth still chattering.
"No, that I can't, if she has a mind to come in," was the candid
answer. "You remember what she was, Richard; she is not altered."
Knowing that to speak on this side the door to his sister, when she
was in one of her resolute moods, would be of no use, Mr. Carlyle
opened the door, dexterously swung himself through it, and shut it
after him. There she stood; in a towering passion, too.
It had struck Miss Carlyle, while undressing, that certain sounds, as
of talking, proceeded from the room underneath, which she had just
quitted. She possessed a remarkably keen sense of hearing, did Miss
Carlyle; though, indeed, none of her faculties lacked the quality of
keenness. The servants, Joyce and Peter excepted, would not be
convinced but that she must "listen;" but, in that, they did her
injustice. First of all, she believed her brother must be reading
aloud to himself; but she soon decided otherwise. "Who on earth has he
got in there with him?" quoth Miss Carlyle.
She rang her bell; Joyce answered it.
"Who is it that is with your master?"
"Nobody, ma'am."
"But I say there is. I can hear him talking."
"I don't think anybody can be with him," persisted Joyce. "And the
walls of this house are too well built, ma'am, for sounds from the
down stairs rooms to penetrate here."
"That's all you know about it," cried Miss Carlyle. "When talking goes
on in that room, there's a certain sound given out which does
penetrate here, and which my ears have grown accustomed to. Go and see
who it is. I believe I left my handkerchief on the table; you can
bring it up."
Joyce departed, and Miss Carlyle proceeded to take off her things; her
dress first, her silk petticoat next. She had arrived as far as the
flannel petticoat when Joyce returned.
"Yes, ma'am, some one is talking with master. I could not go in, for
the door was bolted, and master called out that he was busy."
Food for Miss Carlyle. She, feeling sure that no visitor had come to
the house, ran her thoughts rapidly over the members of the household,
and came to the conclusion that it must be the governess, Miss
Manning, who had dared to closet herself with Mr. Carlyle. This
unlucky governess was pretty, and Miss Carlyle had been cautious to
keep her and her prettiness very much out of her brother's sight; she
knew the attraction he would present to her visions, or to those of
any other unprovided-for governess. Oh, yes; it was Miss Manning; she
had stolen in; believing she, Miss Carlyle, was safe for the night;
but she'd just unearth my lady. And what in the world could possess
Archibald--to lock the door!
Looking round for something warm to throw over her shoulders, and
catching up an article that looked as much like a green baize table-
cover as anything else, and throwing it on, down stalked Miss Carlyle.
And in this trim Mr. Carlyle beheld her when he came out.
The figure presented by Miss Carlyle to her brother's eyes was
certainly ridiculous enough. She gave him no time to comment upon it,
however, but instantly and curtly asked,--
"Who have you got in that room?"
"It is some one on business," was his prompt reply. "Cornelia, you
cannot go in."
She very nearly laughed. "Not go in?"
"Indeed it is much better that you should not. Pray go back. You will
make your cold worse, standing here.
"Now, I want to know whether you are not ashamed of yourself?" she
deliberately pursued. "You! A married man, with children in your
house! I'd rather have believed anything downright wicked of myself,
than of you, Archibald."
Mr. Carlyle stared considerably.
"Come; I'll have her out. And out of this house she tramps to-morrow
morning. A couple of audacious ones, to be in there with the door
locked, the moment you thought you had got rid of me! Stand aside, I
say, Archibald, I will enter."
Mr. Carlyle never felt more inclined to laugh. And, to Miss Carlyle's
exceeding discomposure she, at this juncture, saw the governess emerge
from the gray parlor, glance at the hall clock, and retire again.
"Why! She's there," she uttered. "I thought she was with you."
"Miss Manning, locked in with me! Is that the mare's nest, Cornelia? I
think your cold must have obscured your reason."
"Well, I shall go in, all the same. I tell you, Archibald, that I will
see who is there."
"If you persist in going in, you must go. But allow me to warn you
that you will find tragedy in that room, not comedy. There is no woman
in it, but there is a man; a man who came in through the window, like
a hunted stag; a man upon whom a ban is set, who fears the police are
upon his track. Can you guess his name?"
It was Miss Carlyle's turn to stare now. She opened her dry lips to
speak, but they closed again.
"It is Richard Hare, your kinsman. There's not a roof in the wide
world open to him this bitter night."
She said nothing. A long pause of dismay, and then she motioned to
have the door opened.
"You will not show yourself--in--in that guise?"
"Not show myself in this guise to Richard Hare--whom I have whipped--
when he was a child--ten times a day! Stand on ceremony with /him/! I
dare say he looks no better than I do. But it's nothing short of
madness, Archibald, for him to come here."
He left her to enter, telling her to lock the door as soon as she was
inside, and went himself into the adjoining room, the one which, by
another door, opened to the one Richard was in. Then he rang the bell.
It was answered by a footman.
"Send Peter to me."
"Lay supper here, Peter, for two," began Mr. Carlyle, when the old
servant appeared. "A person is with me on business. What have you in
the house?"
"There's the spiced beef, sir; and there are some home-made raised
pork pies."
"That will do," said Mr. Carlyle. "Put a quart of ale on the table,
and everything likely to be wanted. And then the household can go to
bed; we may be late, and the things can be removed in the morning. Oh
--and Peter--none of you must come near the room, this or the next,
under any pretence whatever, unless I ring, for I shall be too busy to
be disturbed."
"Very well, sir. Shall I serve the ham also?"
"The ham?"
"I beg pardon, sir; I guessed it might be Mr. Dill, and he is so fond
of our hams."
"Ah, you were always a shrewd guesser, Peter," smiled his master. "He
is fond of ham I know; yes, you may put it on the table. Don't forget
the small kettle."
The consequence of which little finesse on Mr. Carlyle's part was,
that Peter announced in the kitchen that Mr. Dill had arrived, and
supper was to be served for two. "But what a night for the old
gentleman to have trudged through on foot!" exclaimed he.
"And what a trudge he'll have of it back again, for it'll be worse
then!" chimed in one of the maids.
When Mr. Carlyle got back in the other room, his sister and Richard
Hare had scarcely finished staring at each other.
"Please lock the door, Miss Cornelia," began poor shivering Dick.
"The door's locked," snapped she. "But what on earth brought you here,
Richard? You must be worse than mad."
"The Bow-street officers were after me in London," he meekly
responded, unconsciously using a term which had been familiar to his
boyish years. "I had to cut away without a thing belonging to me,
without so much as a clean shirt."
"They must be polite officers, not to have been after you before," was
the consolatory remark of Miss Carlyle. "Are you going to dance a
hornpipe through the streets of West Lynne to-morrow, and show
yourself openly?"
"Not if I can help it," replied Richard.
"You might just as well do that, if you come to West Lynne at all; for
you can't be here now without being found out. There was a bother
about your having been here the last time: I should like to know how
it got abroad."
"The life I lead is dreadful!" cried Richard. "I might make up my mind
to toil, though that's hard, after being reared a gentleman; but to be
an exile, banned, disgraced, afraid to show my face in broad daylight
amidst my fellowmen, in dread every hour that the sword may fall! I
would almost as soon be dead as continue to live it."
"Well, you have got nobody to grumble at; you brought it upon
yourself," philosophically returned Miss Carlyle, as she opened the
door to admit her brother. "You would go hunting after that brazen
hussy, Afy, you know, in defiance of all that could be said to you."
"That would not have brought it upon me," said Richard. "It was
through that fiend's having killed Hallijohn; that was what brought
the ban upon me."
"It's a most extraordinary thing, if anybody else /did/ kill him, that
the facts can't be brought to light," retorted Miss Carlyle. "Here you
tell a cock-and-bull story of some man's having done it, some Thorn;
but nobody ever saw or heard of him, at the time or since. It looks
like a made-up story, Mr. Dick, to whiten yourself."
"Made up!" panted Richard, in agitation, for it seemed cruel to him,
especially in his present frame of mind, to have a doubt cast upon his
tale. "It is Thorn who is setting the officers upon me. I have seen
him three or four times within the last fortnight."
"And why did you not turn the tables, and set the officers upon him?"
demanded Miss Carlyle.
"Because it would lead to no good. Where's the proof, save my bare
word, that he committed the murder?"
Miss Carlyle rubbed her nose. "Dick Hare," said she.
"Well?"
"You know you always were the greatest natural idiot that ever was let
loose out of leading strings."
"I know I always was told so."
"And it's what you always will be. If I were accused of committing a
crime, which I knew another had committed and not myself, should I be
such an idiot as not to give that other into custody if I got the
chance? If you were not in such a cold, shivery, shaky state, I would
treat you to a bit of my mind, you may rely upon that."
"He was in league with Afy, at that period," pursued Richard; "a
deceitful, bad man; and he carries it in his countenance. And he must
be in league with her still, if she asserts that he was in her company
at the moment the murder was committed. Mr. Carlyle says she does;
that she told him so the other day, when she was here. He never was;
and it was he, and no other, who did the murder."
"Yes," burst forth Miss Carlyle, for the topic was sure to agitate
her, "that Jezebel of brass did presume to come here! She chose her
time well, and may thank her lucky stars I was not at home. Archibald,
he's a fool too, quite as bad a you are, Dick Hare, in some things--
actually suffered her to lodge here for two days! A vain, ill-
conducted hussy, given to nothing but finery and folly!"
"Afy said that she knew nothing of Thorn's movements now, Richard, and
had not for some time," interposed Mr. Carlyle, allowing his sister's
compliments to pass in silence. "She heard a rumor, she thought, that
he had gone abroad with his regiment."
"So much the better for her, if she does know nothing of him, sir,"
was Richard's comment. "I can answer for it that he is not abroad, but
in England."
"And where are you going to lodge to-night?" abruptly spoke Miss
Carlyle, confronting Richard.
"I don't know," was the broken-spirited answer, sighed forth. "If I
lay myself down in a snowdrift, and am found frozen in the morning, it
won't be of much moment."
"Was that what you thought of doing?" returned Miss Carlyle.
"No," he mildly said. "What I thought of doing was to ask Mr. Carlyle
for the loan of a few shillings, and then I can get a bed. I know a
place where I shall be in safety, two or three miles from here."
"Richard, I would not turn a dog out to go two or three miles on such
a night as this," impulsively uttered Mr. Carlyle. "You must stop
here."
"Indeed I don't see how he is to get up to a bedroom, or how a room is
to be made ready for him, for the matter of that, without betraying
his presence to the servants," snapped Miss Carlyle. And poor Richard
laid his aching head upon his hands.
But now Miss Carlyle's manner was more in fault than her heart. Will
it be believed that, before speaking the above ungracious words,
before Mr. Carlyle had touched upon the subject, she had been casting
about in her busy mind for the best plan of keeping Richard--how it
could be accomplished.
"One thing is certain," she resumed, "that it will be impossible for
you to sleep here without its being known to Joyce. And I suppose you
and Joyce are upon the friendly terms of drawing daggers, for she
believes you were the murderer of her father."
"Let me disabuse her," interrupted Richard, his pale lips working as
he started up. "Allow me to see her and convince her, Mr. Carlyle. Why
did you not tell Joyce better?"
"There's that small room at the back of mine," said Miss Carlyle,
returning to the practical part of the subject. "He might sleep there.
But Joyce must be taken in confidence."
"Joyce had better come in," said Mr. Carlyle. "I will say a word to
her first."
He unlocked the door and quitted the room. Miss Carlyle as jealously
locked it again; called to Joyce and beckoned her into the adjoining
apartment. He knew that Joyce's belief in the guilt of Richard Hare
was confirmed and strong, but he must uproot that belief if Richard
was to be lodged in his house that night.
"Joyce," he began, "you remember how thoroughly imbued with the
persuasion you were, that Afy went off with Richard Hare, and was
living with him. I several times expressed my doubts upon the point.
The fact was, I had positive information that she was not with him,
and never had been, though I considered it expedient to keep my
information to myself. You are convinced now that she was not with
him?"
"Of course I am, sir."
"Well, you see, Joyce, that my opinion would have been worth listening
to. Now I am going to shake your belief upon another point, and if I
assure you that I have equally good grounds for doing so, you will
believe me?"
"I am quite certain, sir, that you would state nothing but what was
true, and I know that your judgment is sound," was Joyce's answer.
"Then I must tell you that I do not believe it was Richard Hare who
murdered your father."
"/Sir/!" uttered Joyce, amazed out of her senses.
"I believe Richard Hare to be as innocent of the murder as you or I,"
he deliberately repeated. "I have held grounds for this opinion,
Joyce, for many years."
"Then, sir, who did it?"
"Afy's other lover. That dandy fellow, Thorn, as I truly believe."
"And you say you have grounds, sir?" Joyce asked, after a pause.
"Good grounds; and I tell you I have been in possession of them for
years. I should be glad for you to think as I do."
"But, sir, if Richard Hare was innocent, why did he run away?"
"Ah, why, indeed! It is that which has done the mischief. His own weak
cowardice was in fault. He feared to come back, and he felt that he
could not remove the odium of circumstances. Joyce I should like you
to see him and hear his story."
"There is not much chance of that, sir. I dare say he will never
venture here again."
"He is here now."
Joyce looked up, considerably startled.
"Here, in this house," repeated Mr. Carlyle. "He has taken shelter in
it, and for the few hours that he will remain, we must extend our
hospitality and protection to him, concealing him in the best manner
we can. I thought it well that this confidence should be reposed in
you, Joyce. Come now and see him."
Considering that it was a subdued interview--the voices subdued, I
mean--it was a confused one. Richard talking vehemently, Joyce asking
question after question, Miss Carlyle's tongue going as fast as
theirs. The only silent one was Mr. Carlyle. Joyce could not refuse to
believe protestations so solemn, and her suspicions veered round upon
Captain Thorn.
"And now about the bed," interjected Miss Carlyle, impatiently.
"Where's he to sleep, Joyce? The only safe room that I know of will be
the one through mine."
"He can't sleep there, ma'am. Don't you know that the key of the door
was lost last week, and we cannot open it?"
"So much the better. He'll be all the safer."
"But how is he to get in?"
"To get in? Why, through my room, of course. Doesn't mine open to it,
stupid?"
"Oh, well, ma'am, if you would like him to go through yours, that's
different."
"Why shouldn't he go through? Do you suppose I mind young Dick Hare?
Not I, indeed," she irascibly continued. "I only wish he was young
enough for me to flog him as I used to, that's all. He deserves it as
much as anybody ever did, playing the fool, as he has done, in all
ways. I shall be in bed, with the curtains drawn, and his passing
through won't harm me, and my lying there won't harm him. Stand on
ceremony with Dick Hare! What next, I wonder?"
Joyce made no reply to this energetic speech, but at once retired to
prepare the room for Richard. Miss Carlyle soon followed. Having made
everything ready, Joyce returned.
"The room is ready, sir," she whispered, "and all the household are in
bed."
"Then now's your time, Richard. Good-night."
He stole upstairs after Joyce, who piloted him through the room of
Miss Carlyle. Nothing could be seen of that lady, though something
might be heard, one given to truth more than politeness might have
called it snoring. Joyce showed Richard his chamber, gave him the
candle, and closed the door upon him.
Poor hunted Richard, good-night to you.
CHAPTER XXX.
BARBARA'S HEART AT REST.
Morning dawned. The same dull weather, the same heavy fall of snow.
Miss Carlyle took her breakfast in bed, an indulgence she had not
favored for ever so many years. Richard Hare rose, but remained in his
chamber, and Joyce carried his breakfast in to him.
Mr. Carlyle entered whilst he was taking it. "How did you sleep,
Richard?"
"I slept well. I was so dead tired. What am I to do next, Mr.
Carlyle? The sooner I get away from here the better. I can't feel
safe."
"You must not think of it before evening. I am aware that you cannot
remain here, save for a few temporary hours, as it would inevitably
become known to the servants. You say you think of going to Liverpool
or Manchester?"
"To any large town; they are all alike to me; but one pursued as I am
is safer in a large place than a small one."
"I am inclined to think that this man, Thorn, only made a show of
threatening you, Richard. If he be really the guilty party, his policy
must be to keep all in quietness. The very worst thing that could
happen for him, would be your arrest."
"Then why molest me? Why send an officer to dodge me?"
"He did not like your molesting him, and he thought he would probably
frighten you. After that day you would probably have seen no more of
the officer. You may depend upon one thing, Richard, had the
policeman's object been to take you, he would have done so, not have
contented himself with following you about from place to place.
Besides when a detective officer is employed to watch a party, he
takes care not to allow himself to be seen; now this man showed
himself to you more than once."
"Yes, there's a good deal in all that," observed Richard. "For, to one
in his class of life, the bare suspicion of such a crime, brought
against him, would crush him forever in the eyes of his compeers."
"It is difficult to me Richard, to believe that he is in the class of
life you speak of," observed Mr. Carlyle.
"There's no doubt about it; there's none indeed. But that I did not
much like to mention the name, for it can't be a pleasant name to you,
I should have said last night who I have seen him walking with,"
continued simple-hearted Richard.
Mr. Carlyle looked inquiringly. "Richard say on."
"I have seen him, sir, with Sir Francis Levison, twice. Once he was
talking to him at the door of the betting-rooms, and once they were
walking arm-in-arm. They are apparently upon intimate terms."
At this moment a loud, flustering, angry voice was heard calling from
the stairs, and Richard leaped up as if he had been shot. His door--
not the one leading to the room of Miss Carlyle--opened upon the
corridor, and the voice sounded close, just as if its owner were
coming in with a hound. It was the voice of Mr. Justice Hare.
"Carlyle, where are you? Here's a pretty thing happened! Come down!"
Mr. Carlyle for once in his life lost his calm equanimity, and sprang
to the door, to keep it against invasion, as eagerly as Richard could
have done. He forgot that Joyce had said the door was safely locked,
and the key mislaid. As to Richard, he rushed on his hat and his black
whiskers, and hesitated between under the bed and inside the wardrobe.
"Don't agitate yourself, Richard," whispered Mr. Carlyle, "there is no
real danger. I will go and keep him safely."
But when Mr. Carlyle got through his sister's bedroom, he found that
lady had taken the initiative, and was leaning over the balustrades,
having been arrested in the process of dressing. Her clothes were on,
but her nightcap was not off; little cared she, however, who saw her
nightcap.
"What on earth brings you up in this weather?" began she, in a tone of
exasperation.
"I want to see Carlyle. Nice news I have had!"
"What about? Anything concerning Anne, or her family?"
"Anne be bothered," replied the justice, who was from some cause, in a
furious temper. "It concerns that precious rascal, who I am forced to
call son. I am told he is here."
Down the stairs leaped Mr. Carlyle, four at a time, wound his arm
within Mr. Hare's, and led him to a sitting-room.
"Good-morning, justice. You had courage to venture up through the
snow! What is the matter, you seem excited."
"Excited?" raved the justice, dancing about the room, first on one
leg, then on the other, like a cat upon hot bricks, "so you would be
excited, if your life were worried out, as mine is, over a wicked
scamp of a son. Why can't folks trouble their heads about their own
business, and let my affairs alone? A pity but what he was hung, and
the thing done with!"
"But what has happened?" questioned Mr. Carlyle.
"Why this has happened," retorted the justice, throwing a letter on
the table. "The post brought me this, just now--and pleasant
information it gives."
Mr. Carlyle took up the note and read it. It purported to be from "a
friend" to Justice Hare, informing that gentleman that his "criminal
son" was likely to have arrived at West Lynne, or would arrive in the
course of a day or so; and it recommended Mr. Hare to speed his
departure from it, lest he should be pounced upon.
"This letter is anonymous!" exclaimed Mr. Carlyle.
"Of course it is," stamped the justice.
"The only notice /I/ should ever take of an anonymous letter would be
to put it in the fire," cried Mr. Carlyle, his lip curling with scorn.
"But who has written it?" danced Justice Hare. "And /is/ Dick at West
Lynne--that's the question."
"Now, is it likely that he should come to West Lynne?" remonstrated
Mr. Carlyle. "Justice, will you pardon me, if I venture to give you my
candid opinion."
"The fool at West Lynne, running into the very jaws of death! By
Jupiter! If I can drop upon him, I'll retain him in custody, and make
out a warrant for his committal! I'll have this everlasting bother
over."
"I was going to give you my opinion," quietly put in Mr. Carlyle. "I
fear, Justice, you bring these annoyances upon yourself."
"Bring them upon myself!" ranted the indignant justice. "I? Did I
murder Hallijohn? Did I fly away from the law? Am I hiding, Beelzebub
knows where? Do I take starts, right into my native parish, disguised
as a laborer, on purpose to worry my own father? Do I write anonymous
letters? Bring them upon myself, do I? That cobs all, Carlyle."
"You will not hear me out. It is known that you are much exasperated
against Richard--"
"And if your son serves you the same when he is grown up, shan't you
be exasperated, pray?" fired Justice Hare.
"Do hear me. It is known that you are much exasperated, and that any
allusion to him excites and annoys you. Now, my opinion is, justice,
that some busybody is raising these reports and writing these letters
on purpose to annoy you. It may be somebody at West Lynne, very near
to us, for all we know."
"That's all rubbish!" peevishly responded the justice, after a pause.
"It's not likely. Who'd do it?"
"It is very likely; but you may be sure they will not give us a clue
as to the 'who.' I should put that letter in the fire, and think no
more about it. That's the only way to serve them. A pretty laugh they
have had in their sleeve, if it is anybody near, at seeing you wade up
here through the snow this morning! They would know you were bringing
the letter, to consult me."
The justice--in spite of his obstinacy he was somewhat easily
persuaded to different views of things, especially by Mr. Carlyle--let
fall his coat tails, which had been gathered in his arms, as he stood
with his back to the fire, and brought down both his hands upon the
table with force enough to break it.
"If I thought that," he spluttered, "if I could think it, I'd have the
whole parish of West Lynne before me to-day, and commit them for
trial."
"It's a pity but what you could," said Mr. Carlyle.
"Well, it may be, or it may not be, that that villain is coming here,"
he resumed. "I shall call in at the police station, and tell them to
keep a sharp lookout."
"You will do nothing of the sort justice," exclaimed Mr. Carlyle,
almost in agitation. "Richard is not likely to make his appearance at
West Lynne; but if he did, would you, his own father, turn the flood
upon him? Not a man living but would cry shame upon you."
"I took an oath I'd do it," said the justice.
"You did not take an oath to go open-mouthed to the police station,
upon the receipt of any despicable anonymous letter or any foolish
report, to say, 'I have news that my son will be here to-day; look
after him.' Nonsense, justice! Let the police look out for themselves,
but don't /you/ set them on."
The justice growled, whether in assent or dissent did not appear, and
Mr. Carlyle resumed,--
"Have you shown this letter to Mrs. Hare, or mentioned it to her?"
"Not I. I didn't give myself time. I had gone down to the front gate,
to see how deep the snow lay in the road, when the postman came up; so
I read it as I stood there. I went in for my coat and umbrella, to
come off to you, and Mrs. Hare wanted to know where I was going in
such a hurry, but I did not satisfy her."
"I am truly glad to hear it," said Mr. Carlyle. "Such information as
this could not fail to have a dangerous effect upon Mrs. Hare. Do not
suffer a hint of it to escape you justice; consider how much anxiety
she has already suffered."
"It's partly her own fault. Why can't she drive the ill-doing boy from
her mind?"
"If she could," said Mr. Carlyle, "she would be acting against human
nature. There is one phase of the question which you may possibly not
have glanced at, justice. You speak of delivering your son up to the
law; has it ever struck you that you would be delivering up at the
same time your wife's life?"
"Stuff!" said the justice.
"You would find it no 'stuff.' So sure as Richard gets brought to
trial, whether through your means, or through any other, so sure will
it kill your wife."
Mr. Hare took up the letter, which had lain open on the table, folded
it, and put it in its envelope.
"I suppose you don't know the writing?" he asked of Mr. Carlyle.
"I never saw it before, that I remember. Are you returning home?"
"No. I shall go on to Beauchamp's and show him this, and hear what he
says. It's not much farther."
"Tell him not to speak of it then. Beauchamp's safe, for his
sympathies are with Richard--oh, yes, they are, justice, ask him the
question plainly if you like, and he will confess to it. I can tell
you more sympathy goes with Richard than is acknowledged to you. But I
would not show that letter to anyone else than Beauchamp," added Mr.
Carlyle, "neither would I speak of it."
"Who can have written it?" repeated the justice. "It bears, you see
the London Post-mark."
"It is too wide a speculation to enter upon. And no satisfactory
conclusion could come of it."
Justice Hare departed. Mr. Carlyle watched him down the avenue,
striding under his umbrella, and then went up to Richard. Miss Carlyle
was sitting with the latter then.
"I thought I should have died," spoke poor Dick. "I declare, Mr.
Carlyle, my very blood seemed turned to water, and I thought I should
have died with fright. Is he gone away--is all safe?"
"He is gone, and it's all safe."
"And what did he want? What was it he had heard about me?"
Mr. Carlyle gave a brief explanation, and Richard immediately set down
the letter as the work of Thorn.
"Will it be possible for me to see my mother this time?" he demanded
of Mr. Carlyle.
"I think it would be highly injudicious to let your mother know you
are here, or have been here," was the answer of Mr. Carlyle. "She
would naturally be inquiring into particulars, and when she came to
hear that you were pursued, she would never have another minute's
peace. You must forego the pleasure of seeing her this time, Richard."
"And Barbara?"
"Barbara might come and stay the day with you. Only----"
"Only what, sir?" cried Richard, for Mr. Carlyle had hesitated.
"I was thinking what a wretched morning it is for her to come out in."
"She would go through an avalanche--she'd wade through mountains of
snow, to see me," cried Richard eagerly, "and be delighted to do it."
"She always was a little fool," put in Miss Carlyle, jerking some
stitches out of her knitting.
"I know she would," observed Mr. Carlyle, in answer to Richard. "We
will try and get her here."
"She can arrange about the money I am to have, just as well as my
mother could you know, sir."
"Yes; for Barbara is in receipt of money of her own now, and I know
she would not wish better than to apply some of it to you. Cornelia,
as an excuse for getting her here, I must say to Mrs. Hare that you
are ill, and wish Barbara to come for the day and bear your company.
Shall I?"
"Say I am dead, if you like," responded Miss Corny, who was in one of
her cross moods.
Mr. Carlyle ordered the pony carriage, and drove forth with John. He
drew in at the grove. Barbara and Mrs. Hare were seated together, and
looked surprised at the early visit.
"Do you want Mr. Hare, Archibald? He is out. He went while the
breakfast was on the table, apparently in a desperate hurry."
"I don't want Mr. Hare; I want Barbara. I have come to carry her off."
"To carry off Barbara!" echoed Mrs. Hare.
"Cornelia is not well; she had caught a violent cold, and wishes
Barbara to spend the day with her."
"Oh, Mr. Carlyle, I cannot leave mamma to-day. She is not well
herself, and she would be dull without me."
"Neither can I spare her, Archibald. It is not a day for Barbara to go
out."
How could he get to say a word to Barbara alone? Whilst he
deliberated, talking on, though, all the while to Mrs. Hare, a servant
appeared at the sitting-room door.
"The fishmonger's boy is come up, ma'am. His master has sent him to
say that he fears there'll be no fish in to-day, in anything like
time. The trains won't get up, with this weather."
Mrs. Hare rose from her seat to hold a confab at the door with the
maid; and Mr. Carlyle seized his opportunity.
"Barbara," he whispered, "make no opposition. You /must/ come. What I
really want you for is connected with Richard."
She looked up at him, a startled glance, and the crimson flew to her
face. Mrs. Hare returned to her seat. "Oh, such a day!" she shivered.
"I am sure Cornelia cannot expect Barbara."
"But Cornelia does. And there is my pony carriage waiting to take her
before I go to the office. Not a flake of snow can come near her, Mrs.
Hare. The large warm apron will be up, and an umbrella shield her
bonnet and face. Get your things on, Barbara."
"Mamma if you would not very much mind being left, I should like to
go," said Barbara, with almost trembling eagerness.
"But you would be sure to take cold, child."
"Oh, dear no. I can wrap up well."
"And I will see that she comes home all right this evening," added Mr.
Carlyle.
In a few minutes they were seated in the pony carriage. Barbara's
tongue was burning to ask questions, but John sat behind them, and
would have overheard. When they arrived at East Lynne, Mr. Carlyle
gave her his arm up the steps, and took her into the breakfast-room.
"Will you prepare yourself for a surprise, Barbara?"
Suspense--fear--had turned her very pale. "Something that has happened
to Richard!" she uttered.
"Nothing that need agitate you. He is here."
"Here? Where?
"Here. Under this roof. He slept here last night."
"Oh, Archibald!"
"Only fancy, Barbara, I opened the window at nine last night to look
at the weather, and in burst Richard. We could not let him go out
again in the snow, so he slept here, in that room next Cornelia's."
"Does she know of it?"
"Of course. And Joyce also; we were obliged to tell Joyce. It is he
you have come to spend the day with. But just imagine Richard's fear.
Your father came this morning, calling up the stairs after me, saying
he heard Richard was here. I thought Richard would have gone out of
his mind with fright."
A few more explanations, and Mr. Carlyle took Barbara into the room,
Miss Carlyle and her knitting still keeping Richard company. In fact,
that was to be the general sitting room of the day, and a hot lunch,
Richard's dinner, would be served to Miss Carlyle's chamber at one
o'clock. Joyce only admitted to wait on her.
"And now I must go," said Mr. Carlyle, after chatting a few minutes.
"The office is waiting for me, and my poor ponies are in the snow."
"But you'll be sure to be home early, Mr. Carlyle," said Richard. "I
dare not stop here; I must be off not a moment later than six or seven
o'clock."
"I will be home, Richard."
Anxiously did Richard and Barbara consult that day, Miss Carlyle of
course putting in her word. Over and over again did Barbara ask the
particulars of the slight interviews Richard had had with Thorn; over
and over again did she openly speculate upon what his name really was.
"If you could but discover some one whom he knows, and inquire it,"
she exclaimed.
"I have seen him with one person, but I can't inquire of him. They are
too thick together, he and Thorn, and are birds of a feather also, I
suspect. Great swells both."
"Oh, Richard don't use those expressions. They are unsuited to a
gentleman."
Richard laughed bitterly. "A gentleman?"
"Who is it you have seen Thorn with?" inquired Barbara.
"Sir Francis Levison," replied Richard, glancing at Miss Carlyle, who
drew in her lips ominously.
"With whom?" uttered Barbara, betraying complete astonishment. "Do you
know Sir Francis Levison?"
"Oh, yes, I know /him/. Nearly the only man about town that I do
know."
Barbara seemed lost in a puzzled reverie, and it was some time before
she aroused herself from it.
"Are they at all alike?" she asked.
"Very much so, I suspect. Both bad men."
"But I meant in person."
"Not in the least. Except that they are both tall."
Again Barbara sank into thought. Richard's words had surprised her.
She was aroused by it from hearing a child's voice in the next room.
She ran into it, and Miss Carlyle immediately fastened the intervening
door.
It was little Archibald Carlyle. Joyce had come in with the tray to
lay the luncheon, and before she could lock the door, Archibald ran in
after her. Barbara lifted him in her arms to carry him back to the
nursery.
"Oh, you heavy boy!" she exclaimed.
Archie laughed. "Wilson says that," he lisped, "if ever she has to
carry me."
"I have brought you a truant, Wilson," cried Barbara.
"Oh, is it you, Miss Barbara? How are you, miss? Naughty boy!--yes, he
ran away without my noticing him--he is got now so that he can open
the door."
"You must be so kind as to keep him strictly in for to-day," concluded
Miss Barbara, authoritatively. "Miss Carlyle is not well, and cannot
be subjected to the annoyance of his running into the room."
Evening came, and the time of Richard's departure. It was again
snowing heavily, though it had ceased in the middle of the day. Money
for the present had been given to him; arrangements had been
discussed. Mr. Carlyle insisted upon Richard's sending him his
address, as soon as he should own one to send, and Richard faithfully
promised. He was in very low spirits, almost as low as Barbara, who
could not conceal her tears; they dropped in silence on her pretty
silk dress. He was smuggled down the stairs, a large cloak of Miss
Carlyle's enveloping him, into the room he had entered by storm the
previous night. Mr. Carlyle held the window open.
"Good-bye, Barbara dear. If ever you should be able to tell my mother
of this day, say that my chief sorrow was not to see her."
"Oh, Richard!" she sobbed forth, broken-hearted, "good-bye. May God be
with you and bless you!"
"Farewell, Richard," said Miss Carlyle; "don't you be fool enough to
get into any more scrapes."
Last of all he rung the hand of Mr. Carlyle. The latter went outside
with him for an instant, and their leave-taking was alone.
Barbara returned to the chamber he had quitted. She felt that she must
indulge in a few moments sobbing; Joyce was there, but Barbara was
sobbing when she entered it.
"It /is/ hard for him, Miss Barbara, if he is really innocent."
Barbara turned her streaming eyes upon her. "/If!/ Joyce do you doubt
that he is innocent?"
"I quite believe him to be so now, miss. Nobody could so solemnly
assert what was not true. The thing at present will be to find that
Captain Thorn."
"Joyce!" exclaimed Barbara, in excitement, seizing hold of Joyce's
hands, "I thought I had found him; I believed in my own mind that I
knew who he was. I don't mind telling you, though I have never before
spoken of it; and with one thing or other, this night I feel just as
if I should die--as if I must speak. I thought it was Sir Francis
Levison."
Joyce stared with all her eyes. "Miss Barbara!"
"I did. I have thought it ever since the night that Lady Isabel went
away. My poor brother was at West Lynne then--he had come for a few
hours, and he met the man Thorn walking in Bean lane. He was in
evening dress, and Richard described a peculiar motion of his--the
throwing off of his hair from his brow. He said his white hand and his
diamond ring glittered in the moonlight. The white hand, the ring, the
motion--for he was always doing it--all reminded me of Captain
Levison; and from that hour until to-day I believed him to be the man
Richard saw. To-day Richard tells me that he knows Sir Francis
Levison, and that he and Thorn are intimate. What I think now is, that
this Thorn must have paid a flying visit to the neighborhood that
night to assist Captain Levison in the wicked work that he had on
hand."
"How strange it all sounds!" uttered Joyce.
"And I never could tell my suspicions to Mr. Carlyle! I did not like
to mention Francis Levison's name to him."
Barbara soon returned down stairs. "I must be going home," she said to
Mr. Carlyle. "It is turned half-past seven, and mamma will be uneasy."
"Whenever you like, Barbara."
"But can I not walk? I am sorry to take out your ponies again, and in
this storm."
Mr. Carlyle laughed. "Which would feel the storm the worst, you or the
ponies?"
But when Barbara got outside, she saw that it was not the pony
carriage, but the chariot that was in waiting for her. She turned
inquiringly to Mr. Carlyle.
"Did you think I should allow you to go home in an open carriage
to-night, Barbara?"
"Are you coming also?"
"I suppose I had better," he smiled. "To see that you and the carriage
do not get fixed in a rut."
Barbara withdrew to her corner of the chariot, and cried silently.
Very, very deeply did she mourn the unhappy situation--the privations
of her brother; and she knew that he was one to feel them deeply. He
could not battle with the world's hardships so bravely as many could.
Mr. Carlyle only detected her emotion as they were nearing the Grove.
He leaned forward, took her hand, and held it between his.
"Don't grieve, Barbara. Bright days may be in store for us yet."
The carriage stopped.
"You may go back," he said to the servants, when he alighted. "I shall
walk home."
"Oh," exclaimed Barbara, "I do think you intend to spend the evening
with us? Mamma will be so pleased."
Her voice sounded as if she was also. Mr. Carlyle drew her hand within
his arm as they walked up the path.
But Barbara had reckoned without her host. Mrs. Hare was in bed,
consequently could not be pleased at the visit of Mr. Carlyle. The
justice had gone out, and she, feeling tired and not well, thought she
would retire to rest. Barbara stole into her room, but found her
asleep, so that it fell to Barbara to entertain Mr. Carlyle.
They stood together before the large pierglass, in front of the
blazing fire. Barbara was thinking over the events of the day. What
Mr. Carlyle was thinking of was best known to himself; his eyes,
covered with their drooping eyelids, were cast upon Barbara. There was
a long silence, at length Barbara seemed to feel that his gaze was
upon her, and she looked up at him.
"Will you marry me, Barbara?"
The words were spoken in the quietest, most matter-of-fact tone, just
as if he had said, "Shall I give you a chair, Barbara?" But, oh! The
change that passed over her countenance! The sudden light of joy! The
scarlet flush of emotion and happiness. Then it all faded down to
paleness and sadness.
She shook her head in the negative. "But you are very kind to ask me,"
she added in words.
"What is the impediment, Barbara?"
Another rush of color as before and a deep silence. Mr. Carlyle stole
his arm around her and bent his face on a level with hers.
"Whisper it to me, Barbara."
She burst into a flood of tears.
"Is it because I once married another?"
"No, no. It is the remembrance of that night--you cannot have
forgotten it, and it is stamped on my brain in letters of fire. I
never thought so to betray myself. But for what passed that night you
would not have asked me now."
"Barbara!"
She glanced up at him; the tone was so painful.
"Do you know that I /love/ you? That there is none other in the whole
world whom I would care to marry but you? Nay, Barbara, when happiness
is within our reach, let us not throw it away upon a chimera."
She cried more softly, leaning upon his arm. "Happiness? Would it be
happiness for you?"
"Great and deep happiness," he whispered.
She read truth in his countenance, and a sweet smile illumined her
sunny features. Mr. Carlyle read its signs.
"You love me as much as ever, Barbara!"
"Far more, far more," was the murmured answer, and Mr. Carlyle held
her closer, and drew her face fondly to his. Barbara's heart was at
length at rest, and she had been content to remain where she was
forever.
And Richard? Had he got clear off? Richard was stealing along the
road, plunging into the snow by the hedge because it was more
sheltered there than in the beaten path, when his umbrella came in
contact with another umbrella. Miss Carlyle had furnished it to him;
not to protect his battered hat but to protect his face from being
seen by the passers by. The umbrella he encountered was an
aristocratic silk one, with an ivory handle; Dick's was of democratic
cotton, with hardly any handle at all; and the respective owners had
been bearing on, heads down and umbrellas out, till they, the
umbrellas, met smash, right under a gas lamp. Aside went the
umbrellas, and the antagonists stared at each other.
"How dare you, fellow? Can't you see where you are going on?"
Dick thought he should have dropped. He would have given all the money
his pockets held if the friendly earth had but opened and swallowed
him in; for he was now peering into the face of his own father.
Uttering an exclamation of dismay, which broke from him involuntarily,
Richard sped away with the swiftness of an arrow. Did Justice Hare
recognize the tones? It cannot be said. He saw a rough, strange
looking man, with bushy, black whiskers, who was evidently scared at
the sight of him. That was nothing; for the justice, being a justice,
and a strict one, was regarded with considerable awe in the parish by
those of Dick's apparent caliber. Nevertheless, he stood still and
gazed in the direction until all sound of Richard's footsteps had died
away in the distance.
Tears were streaming down the face of Mrs. Hare. It was a bright
morning after the snowstorm, so bright that the sky was blue, and the
sun was shining, but the snow lay deeply upon ground. Mrs. Hare sat in
her chair, enjoying the brightness, and Mr. Carlyle stood near her.
The tears were of joy and of grief mingled--of grief at hearing that
she should at last have to part with Barbara, of joy that she was
going to one so entirely worthy of her as Mr. Carlyle.
"Archibald, she has had a happy home here; you will render yours as
much so?"
"To the very utmost of my power."
"You will be ever kind to her, and cherish her?"
"With my whole strength and heart. Dear Mrs. Hare; I thought you knew
me too well to doubt me."
"Doubt you! I do not doubt you, I trust you implicitly, Archibald. Had
the whole world laid themselves at Barbara's feet, I should have
prayed that she might choose you."
A small smile flitted over Mr. Carlyle's lips. /He/ knew it was what
Barbara would have done.
"But, Archibald, what about Cornelia?" returned Mrs. Hare. "I would
not for a moment interfere in your affairs, or in the arrangements you
and Barbara may agree upon, but I cannot help thinking that married
people are better alone."
"Cornelia will quit East Lynne," said Mr. Carlyle. "I have not spoken
to her yet, but I shall do so now. I have long made my mind up that if
ever I did marry again, I and my wife would live alone. It is said she
interfered too much with my former wife. Had I suspected it, Cornelia
should not have remained in the house a day. Rest assured that Barbara
shall not be an object to the chance."
"How did /you/ come over her?" demanded the justice, who had already
given his gratified consent, and who now entered in his dressing gown
and morning wig. "Others have tried it on, and Barbara would not
listen to them."
"I suppose I must have cast a spell upon her," answered Mr. Carlyle,
breaking into a smile.
"Here she is. Barbara," carried on the unceremonious justice, "what is
it that you see in Carlyle more than anybody else?"
Barbara's scarlet cheeks answered for her. "Papa," she said, "Otway
Bethel is at the door asking to speak to you. Jasper says he won't
come in."
"Then I'm sure I'm not going out to him in the cold. Here, Mr. Otway,
what are you afraid of?" he called out. "Come in."
Otway Bethel made his appearance in his usual sporting costume. But he
did not seem altogether at his ease in the presence of Mrs. Hare and
Barbara.
"The colonel wished to see you, justice, and ask you if you had any
objection to the meeting's being put off from one o'clock till two,"
cried he, after nodding to Mr. Carlyle. "He has got a friend coming to
see him unexpectedly who will leave again by the two o'clock train."
"I don't care which it is," answered Mr. Hare. "Two o'clock will do as
well as one, for me."
"That's all right, then; and I'll drop in upon Herbert and Pinner and
acquaint them."
Miss Carlyle's cold was better that evening, in fact she seemed quite
herself again, and Mr. Carlyle introduced the subject of his marriage.
It was after dinner that he began upon it.
"Cornelia, when I married Lady Isabel Vane, you reproached me severely
with having kept you in the dark--"
"If you had not kept me in the dark, but consulted me, as any other
Christian would, the course of events would have been wholly changed,
and the wretchedness and disgrace that fell on this house been spared
to it," fiercely interrupted Miss Carlyle.
"We will leave the past," he said, "and consider the future. I was
about to remark, that I do not intend to fall under your displeasure
again for the like offense. I believe you have never wholly forgiven
it."
"And never shall," cried she, impetuously. "I did not deserve the
slight."
"Therefore, almost as soon as I know it myself, I acquaint you. I am
about to marry a second time, Cornelia."
Miss Carlyle started up. Her spectacles dropped off her nose, and a
knitting-box which she happened to have on her knees, clattered to the
floor.
"What did you say?" she uttered, aghast.
"I'm about to marry."
"You!"
"I. Is there anything so very astonishing in it?"
"For the love of common sense, don't go and make such a fool of
yourself. You have done it once; was not that enough for you, but you
must run your head into the noose again?"
"Now, Cornelia, can you wonder that I do not speak of things when you
meet them in this way? You treat me just as you did when I was a
child. It is very foolish."
"When folk act childishly, they must be treated as children. I always
thought you were mad when you married before, but I shall think you
doubly mad now."
"Because you have preferred to remain single and solitary yourself, is
it any reason why you should condemn me to do the same? You are happy
alone; I should be happier with a wife.
"That she may go and disgrace you, as the last one did!" intemperately
spoke Miss Carlyle, caring not a rush what she said in her storm of
anger.
Mr. Carlyle's brow flushed, but he controlled his temper.
"No," he calmly replied. "I am not afraid of that in the one I have
now chosen."
Miss Corny gathered her knitting together, he had picked up her box.
Her hands trembled, and the lines of her face were working. It was a
blow to her as keen as the other had been.
"Pray who is it that you have chosen?" she jerked forth. "The whole
neighborhood has been after you."
"Let it be who it will, Cornelia, you will be sure to grumble. Were I
to say that it was a royal princess, or a peasant's daughter, you
would equally see grounds for finding fault."
"Of course I should. I know who it is--that stuck-up Louisa Dobede."
"No, it is not. I never had the slightest intention of choosing Louisa
Dobede, nor she of choosing me. I am marrying to please myself, and,
for a wife, Louisa Dobede would not please me."
"As you did before," sarcastically put in Miss Corny.
"Yes; as I did before."
"Well, can't you open your mouth and say who it is?" was the
exasperated rejoinder.
"It is Barbara Hare."
"Who?" shrieked Miss Carlyle.
"You are not deaf, Cornelia."
"Well, you /are/ an idiot!" she exclaimed, lifting up her hands and
eyes.
"Thank you," he said, but without any signs of irritation.
"And so you are; /you are/, Archibald. To suffer that girl, who has
been angling after you so long, to catch you at last."
"She has not angled after me; had she done so, she would probably
never have been Mrs. Carlyle. Whatever passing fancy she may have
entertained for me in earlier days, she has shown no symptoms of it of
late years; and I am quite certain that she had no more thought or
idea that I should choose her for my second wife, than you had I
should choose you. Others have angled after me too palpably, but
Barbara has not."
"She is a conceited minx, as vain as she is high."
"What else have you to urge against her?"
"I would have married a girl without a slur, if I must have married,"
aggravatingly returned Miss Corny.
"Slur?"
"Slur, yes. Dear me, is it an honor--the possessing a brother such as
Richard?"
Miss Corny sniffed. "Pigs may fly; but I never saw them try at it."
"The next consideration, Cornelia, is about your residence. You will
go back, I presume, to your own home."
Miss Corny did not believe her own ears. "Go back to my own home!" she
exclaimed. "I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall stop at East
Lynne. What's to hinder me?"
Mr. Carlyle shook his head. "It cannot be," he said, in a low,
decisive tone.
"Who says so?" she sharply asked.
"I do. Have you forgotten that night--when she went away--the words
spoken by Joyce? Cornelia, whether they were true or false, I will not
subject another to the chance."
She did not answer. Her lips parted and closed again. Somehow, Miss
Carlyle could not bear to be reminded of that revelation of Joyce's;
it subdued even her.
"I cast no reflection upon you," hastily continued Mr. Carlyle. "You
have been a mistress of a house for many years, and you naturally look
to be so; it is right you should. But two mistresses in a house do not
answer, Cornelia; they never did, and they never will."
"Why did you not give me so much of your sentiments when I first came
to East Lynne?" she burst forth. "I hate hypocrisy."
"They were not my sentiments then; I possessed none. I was ignorant
upon the subject as I was upon many others. Experience has come to me
since."
"You will not find a better mistress of a house than I have made you,"
she resentfully spoke.
"I do not look for it. The tenants leave your house in March, do they
not?"
"Yes, they do," snapped Miss Corny. "But as we are on the subject of
details of ways and means, allow me to tell you that if you did what
is right, /you/ would move into that house of mine, and I will go to a
smaller--as you seem to think I shall poison Barbara if I remain with
her. East Lynne is a vast deal too fine and too grand for you."
"I do not consider it so. I shall not quit East Lynne."
"Are you aware that, in leaving your house, I take my income with me,
Archibald?"
"Most certainly. Your income is yours, and you will require it for
your own purposes. I have neither a right to, nor wish for it."
"It will make a pretty good hole in your income, the withdrawing of
it, I can tell you that. Take care that you and East Lynne don't go
bankrupt together."
At this moment the summons of a visitor was heard. Even that excited
the ire of Miss Carlyle. "I wonder who's come bothering to-night?" she
uttered.
Peter entered. "It is Major Thorn, sir. I have shown him into the
drawing-room."
Mr. Carlyle was surprised. He had not thought Major Thorn within many
a mile of West Lynne. He proceeded to the drawing-room.
"Such a journey!" said Major Thorn to Mr. Carlyle. "It is my general
luck to get ill-weather when I travel. Rain and hail, thunder and
heat; nothing bad comes amiss when I am out. The snow lay on the
rails, I don't know how thick; at one station we were detained two
hours."
"Are you proposing to make any stay at West Lynne?"
"Off again to-morrow. My leave, this time, is to be spent at my
mother's. I may bestow a week of it or so on West Lynne, but am not
sure. I must be back in Ireland in a month. Such a horrid boghole we
are quartered in just now!"
"To go from one subject to another," observed Mr. Carlyle; "there is a
question I have long thought to put to you, Thorn, did we ever meet
again. Which year was it that you were staying at Swainson?"
Major Thorn mentioned it. It was the year of Hallijohn's murder.
"As I thought--in fact, know," said Mr. Carlyle. "Did you, while you
were stopping there, ever come across a namesake of yours--one Thorn?"
"I believe I did. But I don't know the man, of my knowledge, and I saw
him but once only. I don't think he was living at Swainson. I never
observed him in the town."
"Where did you meet with him?"
"At a roadside beer-shop, about two miles from Swainson. I was riding
one day, when a fearful storm came on, and I took shelter there.
Scarcely had I entered, when another horsemen rode up, and he likewise
took shelter--a tall, dandified man, aristocratic and exclusive. When
he departed--for he quitted first, the storm being over--I asked the
people who he was. They said they did not know, though they had often
seen him ride by; but a man who was there, drinking, said he was a
Captain Thorn. The same man, by the way, volunteered the information
that he came from a distance; somewhere near West Lynne; I remember
that."
"That Captain Thorn did?"
"No--that he, himself did. He appeared to know nothing of Captain
Thorn, beyond the name.
It seemed to be ever so! Scraps of information, but nothing tangible.
Nothing to lay hold of, or to know the man by. Would it be thus
always?
"Should you recognize him again were you to see him?" resumed Mr.
Carlyle awakening from his reverie.
"I think I should. There was something peculiar in his countenance,
and I remember it well yet."
"Were you by chance to meet him, and discover his real name--for I
have reason to believe that Thorn, the one he went by then, was an
assumed one--will you oblige me by letting me know it?"
"With all the pleasure in life," replied the major. "The chances are
against it though, confined as I am to that confounded sister country.
Other regiments get the luck of being quartered in the metropolis, or
near it; ours doesn't."
When Major Thorn departed, and Mr. Carlyle was about to return to the
room where he left his sister, he was interrupted by Joyce.
"Sir," she began. "Miss Carlyle tells me that there is going to be a
change at East Lynne."
The words took Mr. Carlyle by surprise.
"Miss Carlyle has been in a hurry to tell you," he remarked--a certain
haughty displeasure in his tone.
"She did not speak for the sake of telling me, sir, it is not likely;
but I fancy she was thinking about her own plans. She inquired whether
I would go with her when she left, or whether I meant to remain at
East Lynne. I would not answer her, sir, until I had spoken to you."
"Well?" said Mr. Carlyle.
"I gave a promise sir, to--to--my late lady--that I would remain with
her children as long as I was permitted. She asked it of me when she
was ill--when she thought she was going to die. What I would inquire
of you, sir, is, whether the change will make any difference to my
staying?"
"No," he decisively replied. "I also, Joyce, wish you to remain with
the children."
"It is well, sir," Joyce answered, and her face looked bright as she
quitted the room.
CHAPTER XXXI.
MR. DILL IN AN EMBROIDERED SHIRT-FRONT.
It was a lovely morning in June, and all West Lynne was astir. West
Lynne generally was astir in the morning, but not in the bustling
manner that might be observed now. People were abroad in numbers,
passing down to St. Jude's Church, for it was the day of Mr. Carlyle's
marriage to Barbara Hare.
Miss Carlyle made herself into a sort of martyr. She would not go near
it; fine weddings in fine churches did not suit her, she proclaimed;
they could tie themselves up together fast enough without her
presence. She had invited the little Carlyles and their governess and
Joyce to spend the day with her; and she persisted in regarding the
children as martyrs too, in being obliged to submit to the advent of a
second mother. She was back in her old house again, next door to the
office, settled there for life now with her servants. Peter had
mortally offended her in electing to remain at East Lynne.
Mr. Dill committed himself terribly on the wedding morning. About ten
o'clock he made his appearance at Miss Carlyle's; he was a man of the
old stage, possessing old-fashioned notions, and he had deemed that to
step in to congratulate her on the auspicious day would be only good
manners.
Miss Carlyle was seated in her dining-room, her hands folded before
her. It was rare indeed that /she/ was caught doing nothing. She
turned her eyes on Mr. Dill as he entered.
"Why, what on earth has taken you?" began she, before he could speak.
"You are decked out like a young duck!"
"I am going to the wedding, Miss Cornelia. Did you know it? Mrs. Hare
was so kind as to invite me to the breakfast, and Mr. Archibald
insists upon my going to church. I am not too fine, am I?"
Poor old Dill's "finery" consisted of a white waistcoat with gold
buttons, and an embroidered shirt-front. Miss Corny was pleased to
regard it with sarcastic wrath.
"Fine!" echoed she. "I don't know what /you/ call it. I would not make
myself such a spectacle for untold gold. You'll have all the
ragamuffins in the street forming a tail after you, thinking you are
the bridegroom. A man of your years to deck yourself out in a worked
shirt! I would have had some rosettes on my coat-tails, while I was
about it."
"My coat's quite plain, Miss Cornelia," he meekly remonstrated.
"Plain! What would you have it?" snapped Miss Cornelia. "Perhaps you
covet a wreath of embroidery round it, gold leaves and scarlet
flowers, with a swansdown collar? It would only be in keeping with
that shirt and waistcoat. I might as well have gone and ordered a
white tarletan dress, looped up with peas, and streamed through the
town in that guise. It would be just as consistent."
"People like to dress a little out of common at a wedding, Miss
Cornelia; it's only respectful, when they are invited guests."
"I don't say people should go to a wedding in a hop sack. But there's
a medium. Pray, do you know your age?"
"I am turned sixty, Miss Corny."
"You just are. And do you consider it decent for an old man, going on
for seventy, to be decorated off as you are now? I don't; and so I
tell you my mind. Why, you'll be the laughing-stock of the parish!
Take care the boys don't tie a tin kettle to you!"
Mr. Dill thought he would leave the subject. His own impression was,
that he was /not/ too fine, and that the parish would not regard him
as being so; still, he had a great reverence for Miss Corny's
judgment, and was not altogether easy. He had had his white gloves in
his hand when he entered, but he surreptitiously smuggled them into
his pocket, lest they might offend. He passed to the subject which had
brought him thither.
"What I came in for, was to offer you my congratulations on this
auspicious day, Miss Cornelia. I hope Mr. Archibald and his wife, and
you, ma'am--"
"There! You need not trouble yourself to go on," interrupted Miss
Corny, hotly arresting him. "We want condolence here to-day, rather
than the other thing. I'm sure I'd nearly as soon see Archibald go to
his hanging."
"Oh, Miss Corny!"
"I would; and you need not stare at me as if you were throttled. What
business has he to go and fetter himself with a wife again. One would
have thought he had had enough with the other. It is as I have always
said, there's a soft place in Archibald's brain."
Old Dill knew there was no "soft place" in the brain of Mr. Carlyle,
but he deemed it might be as well not to say so, in Miss Corny's
present humor. "Marriage is a happy state, as I have heard, ma'am, and
honorable; and I am sure Mr. Archibald--"
"Very happy! Very honorable!" fiercely cried Miss Carlyle, sarcasm in
her tone. "His last marriage brought him all that, did it not?"
"That's past and done with, Miss Corny, and none of us need recall it.
I hope he will find in his present wife a recompense for what's gone;
he could not have chosen a prettier or nicer young lady than Miss
Barbara; and I am glad to my very heart that he has got her."
"Couldn't he?" jerked Miss Carlyle.
"No, ma'am, he could not. Were I young, and wanted a wife, there's no
one in all West Lynne I would so soon look out for as Miss Barbara.
Not that she'd have me; and I was not speaking in that sense, Miss
Corny."
"It's to be hoped you were not," retorted Miss Corny. "She is an idle,
insolent, vain fagot, caring for nothing but her own doll's face and
for Archibald."
"Ah, well, ma'am never mind that; pretty young girls know they are
pretty, and you can't take their vanity from them. She'll be a good
and loving wife to him; I know she will; it is in her nature; she
won't serve him as--as--that other poor unfortunate did."
"If I feared she was one to bring shame to him, as the other did, I'd
go into the church this hour and forbid the marriage; and if that
didn't do, I'd--smother her!" shrieked Miss Carlyle. "Look at that
piece of impudence!"
That last sentence was uttered in a different tone, and concerned
somebody in the street. Miss Carlyle hopped off her chair and strode
to the window. Mr. Dill's eyes turned in the like direction.
In a gay and summer's dress, fine and sparkling, with a coquettish
little bonnet, trimmed with pink, shaded by one of those nondescript
articles at present called veils, which article was made of white
spotted net with a pink ruche round it, sailed Afy Hallijohn,
conceited and foolish and good-looking as ever. Catching sight of Mr.
Dill, she made him a flourishing and gracious bow. The courteous old
gentleman returned it, and was pounced upon by Miss Corny's tongue for
his pains.
"Whatever possessed you to do that?"
"Well, Miss Corny, she spoke to me. You saw her."
"I saw her? Yes, I did see her, the brazen bellwether! And she saw me,
and spoke to you in her insolence. And you must answer her, in spite
of my presence, instead of shaking your fist and giving her a
reproving frown. You want a little sharp talking to, yourself."
"But, Miss Corny, it's always best to let bygones be bygones," he
pleaded. "She was flighty and foolish, and all that, was Afy; but now
that it's proved she did not go with Richard Hare, as was suspected,
and is at present living creditably, why should she not be noticed?"
"If the very deuce himself stood there with his horns and tail, you
would find excuses to make for him," fired Miss Corny. "You are as bad
as Archibald! Notice Afy Hallijohn, when she dresses and flirts and
minces as you saw her but now! What creditable servant would flaunt
abroad in such a dress and bonnet as that, with that flimsy gauze
thing over her face. It's as disreputable as your shirt-front."
Mr. Dill coughed humbly, not wishing to renew the point of the shirt-
front. "She is not exactly a servant, Miss Corny, she's a lady's maid;
and ladies' maids do dress outrageously fine. I had great respect for
her father, ma'am; never a better clerk came into our office."
"Perhaps you'll tell me you have a respect for her! The world's being
turned upside down, I think. Formerly, mistresses kept their servants
to work; now it seems they keep them for play! She's going to St.
Jude's, you may be sure of it, to stare at this fine wedding, instead
of being at home, in a cotton gown and white apron, making beds. Mrs.
Latimer must be a droll mistress, to give her liberty in this way.
What's that fly for?" sharply added Miss Corny, as one drew up to the
office door.
"Fly," said Mr. Dill, stretching forward his bald head. "It must be
the one I ordered. Then I'll wish you good-day, Miss Corny."
"Fly for you?" cried Miss corny. "Have you got the gout, that you
could not walk to St. Jude's on foot?"
"I am not going to the church yet; I am going on to the Grove, Miss
Corny. I thought it would look more proper to have a fly ma'am; more
respectful."
"Not a doubt but you need it in that trim," retorted she. "Why didn't
you put on pumps and silk stockings with pink clocks?"
He was glad to bow himself out, she kept on so. But he thought he
would do it with a pleasant remark, to show her he bore no ill-will.
"Just look at the crowds pouring down, Miss Corny; the church will be
as full as it can cram."
"I dare say it will," retorted she. "One fool makes many."
"I fear Miss Cornelia does not like this marriage, any more than she
did the last," quoth Mr. Dill to himself as he stepped into his fly.
"Such a sensible woman as she is in other things, to be so bitter
against Mr. Archibald because he marries! It's not like her. I
wonder," he added, his thoughts changing, "whether I do look foolish
in this shirt? I'm sure I never thought of decking myself out to
appear young--as Miss Corny said--I only wished to testify respect to
Mr. Archibald and Miss Barbara; nothing else would have made me give
five-and-twenty shillings for it. Perhaps it's not etiquette--or
whatever they call it--to wear them in the morning, Miss Corny ought
to know; and there certainly must be something wrong about it, by the
way it put her up. Well, it can't be helped now; it must go; there's
no time to return home now to change it."
St. Jude's Church was in a cram; all the world and his wife had
flocked into it. Those who could not get in, took up their station in
the churchyard and in the road.
Well, it was a goodly show. Ladies and gentlemen as smart as fine
feathers could make them. Mr. Carlyle was one of the first to enter
the church, self-possessed and calm, the very sense of a gentleman.
Oh, but he was noble to look upon; though when was he otherwise? Mr.
and Mrs. Clithero were there, Anne Hare, that was; a surprise for some
of the gazers, who had not known they were expected at the wedding.
Gentle, delicate Mrs. Hare walked up the church leaning on the arm of
Sir John Dobede, a paler shade than usual on her sweet, sad face.
"She's thinking of her wretched, ill-doing son," quoth the gossips,
one to another. But who comes in now, with an air as if the whole
church belonged to him? An imposing, pompous man, stern and grim, in a
new flaxen wig, and a white rose in his buttonhole. It is Mr. Justice
Hare, and he leads in one, whom folks jump upon seats to get a look
at.
Very lovely was Barbara, in her soft white silk robes and her floating
veil. Her cheeks, now blushing rosy red, now pale as the veil that
shaded them, betrayed how intense was her emotion. The bridesmaids
came after her with jaunty steps, vain in their important office--
Louisa Dobede, Augusta and Kate Herbert, and Mary Pinner.
Mr. Carlyle was already in his place at the altar, and as Barbara
neared him, he advanced, took her hand, and placed her on his left. I
don't think that it was quite usual; but he had been married before,
and ought to know. The clerk directed the rest where to stand, and,
after some little delay, the service proceeded.
In spite of her emotion--and that it was great, scarcely to be
suppressed, none could doubt--Barbara made the responses bravely. Be
you very sure that a woman who /loves/ him she is being united to,
must experience this emotion.
"Wilt though have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together
after God's ordinance, in the holy estate of matrimony?" spoke the
Rev. Mr. Little. "Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and
keep him in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep
thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?"
"I will."
Clearly, firmly, impressively was the answer given. It was as if
Barbara had in her thoughts one who had not "kept holy unto him," and
would proclaim her own resolution never so to betray him, God helping
her.
The ceremony was very soon over, and Barbara, the magic ring upon her
finger and her arm within Mr. Carlyle's was led out to his chariot,
now hers--had he not just endowed her with his worldly goods?
The crowd shouted and hurrahed as they caught sight of her blushing
face, but the carriage was soon clear of the crowd, who concentrated
their curiosity upon the other carriages that were to follow it. The
company were speeding back to the Grove to breakfast. Mr. Carlyle,
breaking the silence, suddenly turned to his bride and spoke, his tone
impassioned, almost unto pain.
"Barbara, /you/ will keep your vows to me?"
She raised her shy blue eyes, so full of love to his; earnest feeling
had brought the tears to them.
"Always, in the spirit and in the letter, until death shall claim me.
So help me Heaven!"
The German watering-places were crowded that early autumn. They
generally are crowded at that season, now that the English flock
abroad in shoals, like the swallows quitting our cold country, to
return again some time. France has been pretty well used up, so now we
fall upon Germany. Stalkenberg was that year particularly full, for
its size--you might have put it in a nutshell; and it derived its
importance, name, and most else belonging to it, from its lord of the
soil, the Baron von Stalkenberg. A stalwart old man was the baron,
with grizzly hair, a grizzled beard, and manners as loutish as those
of the boars he hunted. He had four sons as stalwart as himself, and
who promised to be in time as grizzled. They were all styled the
Counts von Stalkenberg, being distinguished by their Christian names--
all save the eldest son, and he was generally called the young baron.
Two of them were away--soldiers; and two, the eldest and the youngest,
lived with their father in the tumble-down castle of Stalkenberg,
situated about a mile from the village to which it gave its name. The
young Baron von Stalkenberg was at liberty to marry; the three Counts
von Stalkenberg were not--unless they could pick up a wife with enough
money to keep herself and her husband. In this creed they had been
brought up. It was a perfectly understood creed, and not rebelled
against.
The young Baron von Stalkenberg, who was only styled young in
contradistinction to his father, being in his forty-first year, was
famous for a handsome person, and for his passionate love of the
chase: of wild boars and wolves he was the deadly enemy. The Count
Otto von Stalkenberg, eleven years his brother's junior, was famous
for nothing but his fiercely-ringed moustache, a habit of eating, and
an undue addiction to draughts of Marcobrunen. Somewhat meager fare,
so report ran, was the fashion in the Castle of Stalkenberg--neither
the old baron nor his heir cared for luxury; therefore Count von Otto
was sure to be seen at the /table d' hote/ as often as anybody would
invite him, and that was nearly every day, for the Count von
Stalkenberg was a high-sounding title, and his baronial father,
proprietor of all Stalkenberg, lorded it in the baronial castle close
by, all of which appeared very grand and great, and that the English
bow down to with an idol's worship.
Stopping at the Ludwig Bad, the chief hotel in the place, was a family
of the name of Crosby. It consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Crosby, an only
daughter, her governess, and two or three servants. What Mr. Crosby
had done to England, or England to him, I can't say, but he never went
near his native country. For years and years he had lived abroad--not
in any settled place of residence: they would travel about, and remain
a year or two in one place, a year or two in another, as the whim
suited them. A respectable, portly man, of quiet and gentlemanly
manners, looking as little like one who need be afraid of the laws of
his own land as can be. Neither is it said or insinuated that he was
afraid of them. A gentleman who knew him had told, many years before,
in answer to a doubt, that Crosby was as free to go home and establish
himself in a mansion in Piccadilly as the best of them. But he had
lost fearfully by some roguish scheme, like the South Sea Bubble, and
could not live in the style he once had done, therefore preferred
remaining abroad. Mrs. Crosby was a pleasant, chatty woman given to
take as much gayety as she could get, and Helena Crosby was a
remarkably fine grown girl of seventeen. You might have given her some
years on it had you been guessing her age, for she was no child,
either in appearance or manners, and never had been. She was an
heiress, too. An uncle had left her twenty thousand pounds, and at her
mother's death she would have ten thousand more. The Count Otto von
Stalkenberg heard of the thirty thousand pounds, and turned his fierce
moustache and his eyes on Miss Helena.
"Thirty thousand pounds and von handsome girls!" cogitated he, for he
prided himself upon his English. "It is just what I have been seeking
after."
He found the rumor touching her fortune to be correct, and from that
time was seldom apart from the Crosbys. They were as pleased to have
his society as he was to be in theirs, for was he not the Count von
Stalkenberg? And the other visitors at Stalkenberg looking on with
envy, would have given their ears to be honored with a like intimacy.
One day there thundered down in a vehicle the old Baron von
Stalkenberg. The old chief had come to pay a visit of ceremony to the
Crosbys. And the host of the Ludwig Bad, as he appeared himself to
marshal this chieftain to their saloon, bowed his body low with every
step.
"Room there, room there, for the mighty Baron von Stalkenberg."
The mighty baron had come to invite them to a feast at his castle,
where no feast had ever been made so grand before as this would be;
and Otto had /carte blanche/ to engage other distinguished sojourners
at Stalkenberg, English, French, and natives, who had been civil to
him. Mrs. Crosby's head was turned.
And now, I ask you, knowing as you do our national notions, was it not
enough to turn it? You will not, then, be surprised to hear that when,
some days subsequent to the feast, the Count Otto von Stalkenberg laid
his proposals at Helena's feet, they were not rejected.
Helena Crosby rushed into her governess's room.
"Madam! Madam! Only think. I am going to be married!"
Madam lifted her pale, sad face--a very sad and pale face was hers.
"Indeed!" she gently uttered.
"And my studies are to be over from to-day, Mamma says so."
"You are over young to marry, Helena."
"Now don't you bring up that, madam. It is just what papa is harping
upon," returned Miss Helena.
"It is to Count Otto?" And it may be remarked that the governess's
English was perfect, although the young lady addressed her as "Madam."
"Count Otto, of course. As if I would marry anybody else!"
Look at the governess, reader, and see whether you know her. You will
say "No." But you do, for it is Lady Isabel Vane. But how strangely
she is altered! Yes, the railway accident did that for her, and what
the accident left undone, grief and remorse accomplished. She limps as
she walks, and slightly stoops, taken from her former height. A scar
extends from her chin above her mouth, completely changing the
character of the lower part of her face; some of her teeth are
missing, so that she speaks with a lisp, and the sober bands of her
gray hair--it is nearly silver--are confined under a large and close
cap. She herself tries to make the change greater, so that all chance
of being recognized may be at an end, and for that reason she wears
disfiguring spectacles, and a broad band of gray velvet, coming down
low upon her forehead. Her dress, too, is equally disfiguring. Never
is she seen in one that fits her person, but in those frightful "loose
jackets," which must surely have been invented by somebody envious of
a pretty shape. As to her bonnet, it would put to shame those
masquerade things tilted on to the back of the head, for it actually
shaded her face; and she was never seen out without a thick veil. She
was pretty easy upon the score of being recognized now; for Mrs. Ducie
and her daughters had been sojourning at Stalkenberg, and they did not
know her in the least. Who could know her? What resemblance was there
between that gray, broken-down woman, with her disfiguring marks, and
the once loved Lady Isabel, with her bright color, her beauty, her
dark flowing curls, and her agile figure? Mr. Carlyle himself could
not have told her. But she was good-looking still, in spite of it all,
gentle and interesting; and people wondered to see that gray hair in
one yet young.
She had been with the Crosbys going on for two years. After her
recovery from the railway accident, she removed to a quiet town in the
vicinity; they were living there, and she became daily governess to
Helena. The Crosbys were given to understand that she was English, but
the widow of a Frenchman--she was obliged to offer some plausible
account. There were no references; but she so won upon their esteem as
the daily governess, that they soon took her into the house. Had Lady
Isabel surmised that they would be travelling to so conspicuous a spot
as an English-frequented German watering-place, she might have
hesitated to accept the engagement. However, it had been of service to
her, the meeting with Mrs. Ducie proving that she was altered beyond
chance of recognition. She could go anywhere now.
But now, about her state of mind? I don't know how to describe it; the
vain yearning, the inward fever, the restless longing for what might
not be. Longing for what? For her children. Let the mother, be she a
duchess, or be she an apple-woman at a stand, be separated for awhile
from her little children; let /her/ answer how she yearns for them.
She may be away on a tour of pleasure for a few weeks; the longing to
see their little faces again, to hear their prattling tongues, to feel
their soft kisses, is kept under; and there may be frequent messages,
"The children's dear love to mamma;" but as the weeks lengthen out,
the desire to see them again becomes almost irrepressible. What must
it have been then, for Lady Isabel, who had endured this longing for
years? Talk of the /mal du pays/, which is said to attack the Swiss
when exiled from their country--that is as nothing compared to the
heartsickness which clung to Lady Isabel. She had passionately loved
her children; she had been anxious for their welfare in all ways; and
not the least she had to endure now was the thought that she had
abandoned them to be trained by strangers. Would they be trained to
goodness, to morality, to religion? Careless as she herself had once
been upon these points, she had learnt better now. Would Isabel grow
up to indifference, to--perhaps do as she had done? Lady Isabel flung
her hands before her eyes and groaned in anguish.
It happened that Mrs. Latimer, a lady living at West Lynne, betook
herself about that time to Stalkenberg, and with her, three parts maid
and one part companion, went Afy Hallijohn. Not that Afy was admitted
to the society of Mrs. Latimer, to sit with her or dine with her,
nothing of that; but she did enjoy more privileges than most ladies'
maids do, and Afy, who was never backward at setting off her own
consequence, gave out that she was "companion." Mrs. Latimer was an
easy woman, fond of Afy, and Afy had made her own tale good to her
respecting the ill-natured reports at the time of the murder, so that
Mrs. Latimer looked upon her as one to be compassionated.
Mrs. Latimer and Mrs. Crosby, whose apartments in the hotel joined,
struck up a violent friendship, the one for the other. Ere the former
had been a week at the Ludwig, they had sworn something like eternal
sisterhood--as both had probably done for others fifty times before.
CHAPTER XXXII.
MEETING OF LADY ISABEL AND AFY.
On the evening of the day when Helena Crosby communicated her future
prospects to Lady Isabel, the latter strolled out in the twilight and
took her seat on a bench in an unfrequented part of the gardens, where
she was fond of sitting. Now it occurred that Afy, some minutes
afterwards, found herself in the same walk--and a very dull one, too,
she was thinking.
"Who's that?" quoth Afy to herself, her eyes falling upon Lady Isabel.
"Oh, it's that governess of the Crosby's. She may be known, a half a
mile off, by her grandmother's bonnet. I'll go and have a chat with
her."
Accordingly Afy, who was never troubled with bashfulness, went up and
seated herself beside Lady Isabel. "Good evening, Madame Vine," cried
she.
"Good evening," replied Lady Isabel, courteously, not having the least
idea who Afy might be.
"You don't know me, I fancy," pursued Afy, so gathering from Lady
Isabel's looks. "I am companion to Mrs. Latimer; and she is spending
the evening with Mrs. Crosby. Precious dull, this Stalkenberg."
"Do you think so?"
"It is for me. I can't speak German or French, and the upper
attendants of families here can't; most of them speak English. I'm
sure I go about like an owl, able to do nothing but stare. I was sick
enough to come here, but I'd rather be back at West Lynne, quiet as it
is."
Lady Isabel had not been encouraging her companion, either by words or
manner, but the last sentence caused her heart to bound within her.
Control herself as she would, she could not quite hide her feverish
interest.
"Do you come from West Lynne?"
"Yes. Horrid place. Mrs. Latimer took a house there soon after I went
to live with her. I'd rather she'd taken it at Botany Bay."
"Why do you not like it?"
"Because I don't," was Afy's satisfactory answer.
"Do you know East Lynne?" resumed Lady Isabel, her heart beating and
her brain whirling, as she deliberated how she could put all the
questions she wished to ask.
"I ought to know it," returned Afy. "My own sister, Miss Hallijohn, is
head maid there. Why, do you know it, Madame Vine?"
Lady Isabel hesitated; she was deliberating upon her answer.
"Some years ago I was staying in the neighborhood for a little time,"
she said. "I should like to hear of the Carlyles again; they were a
nice family."
Afy tossed her head.
"Ah! But there have been changes since that. I dare say you knew them
in the time of Lady Isabel?"
Another pause.
"Lady Isabel? Yes she was Mr. Carlyle's wife."
"And a nice wife she made him!" ironically rejoined Afy. "You must
have heard of it, Madame Vine, unless you lived in the wood. She
elope-- abandoned him and her children."
"Are the children living?"
"Yes, poor things. But the one's on the road to the churchyard--if
ever I saw threatened consumption yet. Joyce, that's my sister, is in
a flaring temper when I say it. She thinks it will get strong again."
Lady Isabel passed her handkerchief across her moist brow.
"Which of the children is it?" she faintly asked. "Isabel?"
"Isabel!" retorted Afy. "Who's Isabel?"
"The eldest child, I mean; Miss Isabel Carlyle."
"There's no Isabel. There's Lucy. She's the only daughter."
"When--when--I knew them, there was only one daughter; the other two
were boys; I remember quite well that she was called Isabel."
"Stay," said Afy; "now you speak of it, what was it that I heard? It
was Wilson told me, I recollect--she's the nurse. Why, the very night
that his wife went away Mr. Carlyle gave orders that the child in
future should be called Lucy, her second name. No wonder," added Afy,
violently indignant, "that he could no lager endure the sound of her
mother's or suffer the child to bear it."
"No wonder," murmured Lady Isabel. "Which child is it that's ill?"
"It's William, the eldest boy. He is not to say ill, but he is as thin
as a herring, with an unnaturally bright look on his cheek, and a
glaze upon his eye. Joyce says that his cheeks are no brighter than
his mother's were, but I know better. Folks in health don't have those
brilliant colors."
"Did you ever see Lady Isabel?" she asked, in a low tone.
"Not I," returned Afy; "I should have thought it demeaning. One does
not care to be brought into contact with that sort of misdoing lot,
you know, Madame Vine."
"There as another one, a little boy--Archibald, I think, his name was.
Is he well?"
"Oh, the troublesome youngster! He is as sturdy as a Turk. No fear of
his going into consumption. He is the very image of Mr. Carlyle, is
that child. I say though, madame," continued Afy, changing the subject
unceremoniously, "if you were stopping at West Lynne, perhaps you
heard some wicked mischief-making stories concerning me?"
"I believe I did hear your name mentioned. I cannot charge my memory
now with the particulars."
"My father was murdered--you must have heard of that?"
"Yes, I recollect so far."
"He was murdered by a chap called Richard Hare, who decamped
instanter. Perhaps you know the Hares also? Well, directly after the
funeral I left West Lynne; I could not bear the place, and I stopped
away. And what do you suppose they said of me? That I had gone after
Richard Hare. Not that I knew they were saying it, or I should pretty
soon have been back and given them the length of my tongue. But now I
just ask you, as a lady, Madame Vine, whether a more infamous
accusation was ever pitched upon?"
"And you had not gone after him?"
"No; that I swear," passionately returned Afy. "Make myself a
companion of my father's murderer! If Mr. Calcraft, the hangman,
finished off a few of those West Lynne scandalmongers, it might be a
warning to the others. I said so to Mr. Carlyle.
"To Mr. Carlyle?" repeated Lady Isabel, hardly conscious that she did
repeat it.
"He laughed, I remember, and said that would not stop the scandal. The
only one who did not misjudge me was himself; he did not believe that
I was with Richard Hare, but he was ever noble-judging was Mr.
Carlyle."
"I suppose you were in a situation?"
Afy coughed.
"To be sure. More than one. I lived as companion with an old lady, who
so valued me that she left me a handsome legacy in her will. I lived
two years with the Countess of Mount Severn."
"With the Countess of Mount Severn!" echoed Lady Isabel, surprised
into the remark. "Why, she--she--was related to Mr. Carlyle's wife. At
least Lord Mount Severn was."
"Of course; everybody knows that. I was living there at the time the
business happened. Didn't the countess pull Lady Isabel to pieces! She
and Miss Levison used to sit, cant, cant all day over it. Oh, I assure
you I know all about it, just as much as Joyce did. Have you got that
headache, that you are leaning on your hand?"
"Headache and heartache both," she might have answered.
Miss Afy resumed.
"So, after the flattering compliment West Lynne had paid to me, you
may judge I was in no hurry to go back to it, Madame Vine. And if I
had not found that Mrs. Latimer's promised to be an excellent place, I
should have left it, rather than be marshaled there. But I have lived
it down; I should like to hear any of them fibbing against me now. Do
you know that blessed Miss Corny?"
"I have seen her."
"She shakes her head and makes eyes at me still. But so she would at
an angel; a cross-grained old cockatoo!"
"Is she still at East Lynne?"
"Not she, indeed. There would be drawn battles between her and Mrs.
Carlyle, if she were."
A dart, as of an ice-bolt, seemed to arrest the blood in Lady Isabel's
veins.
"Mrs. Carlyle," she faltered. "Who is Mrs. Carlyle?"
"Mr. Carlyle's wife--who should she be?"
The rushing blood leaped on now fast and fiery.
"I did not know he had married again."
"He has been married now--oh, getting on for fifteen months; a
twelvemonth last June. I went to the church to see them married.
Wasn't there a cram! She looked beautiful that day."
Lady Isabel laid her hand upon her breast. But for that delectable
"loose jacket," Afy might have detected her bosom rise and fall. She
steadied her voice sufficiently to speak.
"Did he marry Barbara Hare?"
"You may take your oath of that," said Afy. "If folks tell true, there
was love scenes between them before he ever thought of Lady Isabel. I
had that from Wilson, and she ought to know, for she lived at the
Hares'. Another thing is said--only you must just believe one word of
West Lynne talk, and disbelieve ten--that if Lady Isabel had not died,
Mr. Carlyle never would have married again; he had scruples. Half a
dozen were given him by report; Louisa Dobede for one, and Mary Pinner
for another. Such nonsense! Folks might have made sure it would be
Barbara Hare. There's a baby now."
"Is there?" was the faint answer.
"A beautiful boy three or four months old. Mrs. Carlyle is not a
little proud of him. She worships her husband."
"Is she kind to the first children?"
"For all I know. I don't think she has much to do with them. Archibald
is in the nursery, and the other two are mostly with the governess."
"I wonder," cried the governess, "how the tidings of Lady Isabel's
death were received at East Lynne?"
"I don't know anything about that. They held it as a jubilee, I should
say, and set all the bells in town to ring, and feasted the men upon
legs of mutton and onion sauce afterward. I should, I know. A brute
animal, deaf and dumb, such as a cow or a goose, clings to its
offspring, but /she/ abandoned hers. Are you going in Madame Vine?"
"I must go in now. Good evening to you."
She had sat till she could sit no longer; her very heartstrings were
wrung, and she might not rise up in defence of herself. Defence? Did
she not deserve more, ten thousand times more reproach than had met
her ears now? This girl did not say of her half what the world must
say.
"There is a governess?"
"Nearly the first thing that Mr. Carlyle did, after his wife's
moonlight flitting, was to seek a governess, and she has been there
ever since. She is going to leave now; to be married, Joyce told me."
"Are you much at East Lynne?"
Afy shook her head. "I am not going much, I can tell you, where I am
looked down upon. Mrs. Carlyle does not favor me. She knew that her
brother Richard would have given his hand to marry me, and she resents
it. Not such a great catch, I'm sure, that Dick Hare, even if he had
gone on right," continued Afy, somewhat after the example of the fox,
looking at the unattainable grapes. "He had no brains to speak of; and
what he had were the color of a peacock's tail--green."
To bed at the usual time, but not to sleep. What she had heard only
increased her vain, insensate longing. A stepmother at East Lynne, and
one of her children gliding on to death! Oh! To be with them! To see
them once again! To purchase that boon, she would willingly forfeit
all the rest of her existence.
Her frame was fevered; the bed was fevered; and she arose and paced
the room. This state of mind would inevitably bring on bodily illness,
possibly an attack of the brain. She dreaded that; for there was no
telling what she might reveal in her delirium. Her temples were
throbbing, her heart was beating, and she once more threw herself upon
the bed, and pressed the pillow down upon her forehead. There is no
doubt that the news of Mr. Carlyle's marriage helped greatly the
excitement. She did not pray to die, but she did wish that death might
come to her.
What would have been the ending, it is impossible to say, but a
strange turn in affairs came; one of those wonderful coincidences
sometimes, but not often to be met with. Mrs. Crosby appeared in
Madame Vine's room after breakfast, and gave her an account of
Helena's projected marriage. She then apologized, the real object of
her visit, for dispensing so summarily with madame's services, but had
reason to hope that she could introduce her to another situation.
Would madame have any objection to take one in England? Madame was
upon the point of replying that she should not choose to enter one in
England, when Mrs. Crosby stopped her, saying that she would call in
Mrs. Latimer, who could tell her about it better than she could.
Mrs. Latimer came in, all eagerness and volubility. "Ah, my dear
madame," she exclaimed, "you would be fortunate indeed if you were to
get into this family. The nicest people they are; he so liked and
respected; she so pretty and engaging. A most desirable situation,
too, treated as a lady, and all things comfortable. There's only one
pupil, a girl; one of the little boys, I believe, goes in for an hour
or two, but that's not much; and the salary's seventy guineas. They
are friends of mine; the Carlyles; such a beautiful place they live
at--East Lynne."
The Carlyles! East Lynne! Go governess there? Lady Isabel's breath was
taken away.
"They are parting with their governess," continued Mrs. Latimer, "and
when I was there, a day or two before I started on my tour to Germany,
Mrs. Carlyle said to me, 'I suppose you could not pick us up a
desirable governess for Lucy; one who is mistress of French and
German.' She spoke in a half joking tone, but I feel sure that were I
to write word I /had/ found one desirable, it would give her pleasure.
Now, Mrs. Crosby tells me your French is quite that of a native,
Madame Vine, that you read and speak German well, and that your
musical abilities are excellent. I think you would be just the one to
suit; and I have no doubt I could get you the situation. What do you
say?"
What could she say? Her brain was in a whirl.
"I am anxious to find you one if I can," put in Mrs. Crosby. "We have
been much pleased with you, and I should like you to be desirably
placed. As Mrs. Latimer is so kind as to interest herself, it appears
to me an opportunity that should not be missed."
"Shall I write to Mrs. Carlyle?" rejoined Mrs. Latimer.
Lady Isabel roused herself, and so far cleared her intellect as to
understand and answer the question. "Perhaps you would kindly give me
until to-morrow morning to consider on it? I had not intended to take
a situation in England."
A battle she had with herself that day. At one moment it seemed to her
that Providence must have placed this opportunity in her way that she
might see her children, in her desperate longing; at another, a voice
appeared to whisper that it was a wily, dangerous temptation flung
across her path, one which it was her duty to resist and flee from.
Then came another phase of the picture--how should she bear to see Mr.
Carlyle the husband of another--to live in the same house with them,
to witness his attentions, possibly his caresses? It might be
difficult; but she could force and school her heart to endurance. Had
she not resolved, in her first bitter repentance, /to take up her
cross/ daily, and bear it? No, her own feelings, let them be wrung as
they would, should not prove the obstacle.
Evening came, and she had not decided. She passed another night of
pain, of restlessness, of longing for her children; this intense
longing appeared to be overmastering all her powers of mind and body.
The temptation at length proved too strong; the project having been
placed before her covetous eyes could not be relinquished, and she
finally consented to go. "What is it that would keep me away?" she
argued. "The dread of discovery? Well if that comes it must; they
could not hang me or kill me. Deeper humiliation than ever would be my
portion when they drive me from East Lynne with abhorrence and
ignominy, as a soldier is drummed out of his regiment; but I could
bear that as I must bear the rest and I can shrink under the hedge and
lay myself down to die. Humiliation for me? No; I will not put that in
comparison with seeing and being with my children."
Mrs. Latimer wrote to Mrs. Carlyle. She had met with a governess; one
desirable in every way who could not fail to suit her views precisely.
She was a Madame Vine, English by birth, but the widow of a Frenchman;
a Protestant, a thorough gentlewoman, an efficient linguist and
musician, and competent to her duties in all ways. Mrs. Crosby, with
whom she had lived two years regarded her as a treasure, and would not
have parted with her but for Helena's marriage with a German nobleman.
"You must not mind her appearance," went on the letter. "She is the
oddest-looking person; wears spectacles, caps, enormous bonnets, and
has a great scar on her mouth and chin; and though she can't be more
than thirty, her hair is gray; she is also slightly lame. But,
understand you, she is a /lady/, with it all, and looks one."
When this description reached East Lynne, Barbara laughed at it as she
read it aloud to Mr. Carlyle. He laughed also.
"It is well governesses are not chosen according to their looks," he
said, "or I fear Madame Vine would stand but a poor chance."
They resolved to engage her, and word went back to that effect.
A strangely wild tumult filled Lady Isabel's bosom. She first of all
hunted her luggage over, her desk, everything belonging to her lest
any mark on the linen might be there, which could give a clue to her
former self. The bulk of her luggage remained in Paris, warehoused,
where it had been sent ere she quitted Grenoble. She next saw to her
wardrobe, making it still more unlike anything she had used to wear;
her caps, save that they were simple, and fitted closely to the face,
nearly rivaled those of Miss Carlyle. Her handwriting she had been
striving for years to change the character of, and had so far
succeeded that none would now take it for Lady Isabel Vane's. But her
hand shook as she wrote to Mrs. Carlyle--who had written to her. She--
/she/ writing to Mr. Carlyle's wife! And in the capacity of a
subordinate! How would she like to live with her as a subordinate, as
servant--it may be said--where she had once reigned, the idolized
lady? She must bear that, as she must bear all else. Hot tears came
into her eyes, with a gush, as they fell on the signature, "Barbara
Carlyle."
All ready, she sat down and waited the signal of departure; but that
was not to be yet. It was finally arranged that she should travel to
England and to West Lynne with Mrs. Latimer, and that lady would not
return until October. Lady Isabel could only fold her hands and strive
for patience.
But the day did come--it actually did; and Mrs. Latimer, Lady Isabel,
and Afy quitted Stalkenberg. Mrs. Latimer would only travel slowly,
and the impatient, fevered woman thought the journey would never end.
"You have been informed, I think, of the position of these unhappy
children that you are going to," Mrs. Latimer observed to her one day.
"You must not speak to them of their mother. She left them."
"Yes."
"It is never well to speak to children of a mother who has disgraced
them. Mr. Carlyle would not like it; and I dare say they are taught to
forget her, and to regard Mrs. Carlyle as their only mother."
Her aching heart had to assent to all.
It was a foggy afternoon, gray with the coming twilight, when they
arrived at West Lynne.
Mrs. Latimer believing the governess was a novice in England, kindly
put her into a fly, and told the driver his destination. "/Au revoir/,
madame," she said, "and good luck to you."
Once more she was whirling along the familiar road. She saw Justice
Hare's house, she saw other marks which she knew well; and once more
she saw /East Lynne/, the dear old house, for the fly had turned into
the avenue. Lights were moving in the windows; it looked gay and
cheerful, a contrast to her. Her heart was sick with expectation, her
throat was beating; and as the man thundered up with all the force of
his one horse, and halted at the steps, her sight momentarily left
her. Would Mr. Carlyle come to the fly to hand her out? She wished she
had never undertaken the project, now, in the depth of her fear and
agitation. The hall door was flung open, and there gushed forth a
blaze of light.
Two men-servants stood there. The one remained in the hall, the other
advanced to the chaise. He assisted Lady Isabel to alight, and then
busied himself with the luggage. As she ascended to the hall she
recognized old Peter. Strange, indeed, did it seem not to say, "How
are you, Peter?" but to meet him as a stranger. For a moment, she was
at a loss for words; what should she say, or ask, coming to her own
home? Her manner was embarrassed, her voice low.
"Is Mrs. Carlyle within?"
"Yes, ma'am."
At that moment Joyce came forward to receive her. "It is Madame Vine,
I believe," she respectfully said. "Please to step this way, madame."
But Lady Isabel lingered in the hall, ostensibly to see that her boxes
came in right--Stephen was bringing them up--in reality to gather a
short respite, for Joyce might be about to usher her into the presence
of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle.
Joyce, however, did nothing of the sort. She merely conducted her to
the gray parlor. A fire was burning in the grate, looking cheerful on
the autumn night.
"This is your sitting-room, madame. What will you please to take? I
will order it brought in while I show you your bed-chamber."
"A cup of tea," answered Lady Isabel.
"Tea and some cold meat?" suggested Joyce. But Lady Isabel interrupted
her.
"Nothing but tea and a little cold toast."
Joyce rang the bell, ordered the refreshment to be made ready, and
then preceded Lady Isabel upstairs. On she followed her heart
palpitating; past the rooms that used to be hers, along the corridor,
toward the second staircase. The door of her old dressing-room stood
open, and she glanced in with a yearning look. No, never more, never
more could it be hers; she had put it from her by her own free act and
deed. Not less comfortable did it look now than in former days, but it
had passed into another's occupancy. The fire threw its blaze on the
furniture. There were the little ornaments on the large dressing-
table, as they used to be in /her/ time; and the cut glass of crystal
essence-bottles was glittering in the firelight. On the sofa lay a
shawl and a book, and on the bed a silk dress, as thrown there after
being taken off. No, those rooms were not for her now, and she
followed Joyce up the other staircase. The bedroom she was shown to
was commodious and well furnished. It was the one Miss Carlyle had
occupied when she, Isabella, had been taken a bride to East Lynne,
though that lady had subsequently quitted it for one on the lower
floor. Joyce put down the waxlight she carried and looked round.
"Would you like a fire lighted here, madame, for to-night? Perhaps it
will feel welcome after travelling."
"Oh, no, thank you," was the answer.
Stephen, with somebody to help him, was bringing up the luggage. Joyce
directed him where to place it, telling him to uncord the boxes. That
done, the man left the room, and Joyce turned to Lady Isabel, who had
stood like a statue, never so much as attempting to remove her bonnet.
"Can I do anything for you, madame?" she asked.
Lady Isabel declined. In the first moments of her arrival she was
dreading detection--how was it possible that she should not--and she
feared Joyce's keen eyes more, perhaps than she feared any others. She
was only wishing that the girl would go down.
"Should you want anything, please to ring, and Hannah will come up,"
said Joyce, preparing to retire. "She is the maid who waits upon the
gray parlor, and will do anything you like up here."
Joyce had quitted the room, and Lady Isabel had got her bonnet off,
when the door opened again. She hastily thrust it on, somewhat after
the fashion of Richard Hare's rushing on his hat and false whiskers.
It was Joyce.
"Do you think you shall find your way down alone, madame?"
"Yes, I can do that," she answered. Find her way in that house!
Lady Isabel slowly took her things off. What was the use of lingering
--she /must/ meet their eyes, sooner or later. Though, in truth, there
was little, if any, fear of her detection, so effectually was she
disguised by nature's altering hand, or by art's. It was with the
utmost difficulty she kept tranquil. Had the tears once burst forth,
they would have gone on to hysterics, without the possibility of
control. The coming home again to East Lynne! Oh, it was indeed a time
of agitation, terrible, painful agitation, and none can wonder at it.
Shall I tell you what she did? Yes, I will at the expense of ridicule.
She knelt down by the bed and prayed for courage to go through the
task she had undertaken; prayed for self-control--even she, the
sinful, who had quitted that house under circumstances notorious. But
I am not sure that this mode of return to it was an expedition
precisely calculated to call down a blessing.
There was no excuse for lingering longer, and she descended, the
waxlight in her hand. Everything was ready in the gray parlor--the
tea-tray on the table, the small urn hissing away, the tea-caddy in
proximity to it. A silver rack of dry toast, butter, and a hot muffin
covered with a small silver cover. The things were to her sight as old
faces--the rack, the small cover, the butter-dish, the tea-service--
she remembered them all; not the urn--a copper one--she had no
recollection of that. It had possibly been bought for the use of the
governess, when a governess came into use at East Lynne. Could she
have given herself leisure to reflect on the matter, she might have
told, by the signs observable in the short period she had been in the
house, that governesses of East Lynne were regarded as gentlewomen--
treated well and liberally. Yes; for East Lynne owned Mr. Carlyle for
its master.
She made the tea, and sat down with what appetite she might, her
brain, her thoughts, all in a chaos together. She wondered whether Mr.
and Mrs. Carlyle were at dinner--she wondered in what part of the
house were the children. She heard bells ring now and then; she heard
servants cross and recross the hall. Her meal over, she rang her own.
A neat-looking, good-tempered maid answered it, Hannah, who, as Joyce
had informed her, waited upon the gray parlor, and was at her, the
governess's, especial command. She took away the things, and then Lady
Isabel sat on alone. For how long, she scarcely knew, when a sound
caused her heart to beat as if it would burst its bounds, and she
started from her chair like one who has received an electric shock.
It was nothing to be startled at either--for ordinary people--for it
was but the sound of children's voices. /Her/ children! Were they
being brought in to her? She pressed her hand upon her heaving bosom.
No; they were but traversing the hall, and the voices faded away up
the wide staircase. Perhaps they had been in to desert, as in the old
times, and were now going up to bed. She looked at her new watch--half
past seven.
Her /new/ watch. The old one had been changed away for it. All her
trinkets had been likewise parted with, sold or exchanged away, lest
they should be recognized at East Lynne. Nothing whatever had she kept
except her mother's miniature and a small golden cross, set with its
seven emeralds. Have you forgotten that cross? Francis Levison
accidentally broke it for her, the first time they ever met. If she
had looked upon the breaking of that cross which her mother had
enjoined her to set such store by, as an evil omen, at the time of the
accident, how awfully had the subsequent events seemed to bear her
fancy out! These two articles--the miniature and the cross--she could
not bring her mind to part with. She had sealed them up, and placed
them in the remotest spot of her dressing-case, away from all chance
of public view. Peter entered.
"My mistress says, ma'am, she would be glad to see you, if you are not
too tired. Will you please to walk into the drawing-room?"
A mist swam before her eyes. Was she about to enter the presence of
Mrs. Carlyle? Had the moment really come? She moved to the door, which
Peter held open. She turned her head from the man, for she could feel
how ashy white were her face and lips.
"Is Mrs. Carlyle alone?" she asked, in a subdued voice. The most
indirect way she could put the question, as to whether Mr. Carlyle was
there.
"Quite alone, ma'am. My master is dining out to-day. Madame Vine, I
think?" he added, waiting to announce her, as, the hall traversed, he
laid his hand on the drawing-room door.
"Madame Vine," she said, correcting him. For Peter had spoken the
name, Vine, broadly, according to our English habitude; she set him
right, and pronounced it /a la mode Francaise/.
"Madame Vine, ma'am," quoth Peter to his mistress, as he ushered in
Lady Isabel.
The old familiar drawing-room; its large handsome proportions, the
well arranged furniture, its bright chandelier! It all came back to
her with a heart-sickness. No longer /her/ drawing-room, that she
should take pride in it; she had flung it away from her when she flung
away the rest.
Seated under the blaze of the chandelier was Barbara. Not a day older
did she look than when Lady Isabel had first seen her at the
churchyard gates, when she had inquired of her husband who was that
pretty girl. "Barbara Hare," he answered. Ay. She was Barbara Hare
then, but now she was Barbara Carlyle; and she, she, who had been
Isabel Carlyle, was Isabel Vane again! Oh, woe! Woe!
Inexpressibly more beautiful, looked Barbara than Lady Isabel had ever
seen her--or else she fancied it. Her evening dress was of pale sky-
blue--no other color suited Barbara so well, and there was no other
she was so fond of--and on her fair neck there was a gold chain, and
on her arms were gold bracelets. Her pretty features were attractive
as ever; her cheeks were flushed; her blue eyes sparkled, and her
light hair was rich and abundant. A contrast, her hair, to that of the
worn woman opposite to her.
Barbara came forward, her hand stretched out with a kindly greeting.
"I hope you are not very much tired after your journey?"
Lady Isabel murmured something--she did not know what--and pushed the
chair set for her as much as possible into the shade.
"You are not ill, are you?" uttered Barbara, noting the intensely pale
face--as much as could be seen of it for the cap and the spectacles.
"Not ill," was the low answer; "only a little fatigued."
"Would you prefer that I spoke with you in the morning? You would
like, possibly, to retire to bed at once."
But Lady Isabel declined. Better get the interview over by candlelight
than by daylight.
"You look so very pale, I feared you might be ill."
"I am generally pale; sometimes remarkably so; but my health is good."
"Mrs. Latimer wrote us word that you would be quite sure to suit us,"
freely spoke Barbara. "I hope you will; and that you may find your
residence here agreeable. Have you lived much in England?"
"In the early portion of my life."
"And you have lost your husband and your children? Stay. I beg your
pardon if I am making a mistake; I think Mrs. Latimer did mention
children."
"I have lost them," was the faint, quiet response.
"Oh, but it must be terrible grief when children die!" exclaimed
Barbara, clasping her hands in emotion. "I would not lose my babe for
the world! I /could/ not part with him."
"Terrible grief, and hard to bear," outwardly assented Lady Isabel.
But in her heart she was thinking that death was not the worst kind of
parting. There was another far more dreadful. Mrs. Carlyle began to
speak of the children she was to take charge of.
"You are no doubt aware that they are not mine; Mrs. Latimer would
tell you. They are the children of Mr. Carlyle's first wife."
"And Mr. Carlyle's," interrupted Lady Isabel. What in the world made
her put in that? She wondered herself the moment the words were out of
her mouth. A scarlet streak flushed her cheeks, and she remembered
that there must be no speaking upon impulse at East Lynne.
"Mr. Carlyle's, of course," said Barbara, believing Madame Vine had
asked the question. "Their position--the girl's in particular--is a
sad one, for their mother left them. Oh, it was a shocking business!"
"She is dead, I hear," said Lady Isabel hoping to turn the immediate
point of conversation. Mrs. Carlyle, however, continued as though she
had not heard her.
"Mr. Carlyle married Lady Isabel Vane, the late Lord Mount Severn's
daughter. She was attractive and beautiful, but I do not fancy she
cared very much for her husband. However that may have been, she ran
away from him."
"It was very sad," observed Lady Isabel, feeling that she was expected
to say something. Besides, she had her /role/ to play.
"Sad? It was wicked--it was infamous!" returned Mrs. Carlyle, giving
way to some excitement. "Of all men living, of all husbands, Mr.
Carlyle least deserved such a requital. You will say so when you come
to know. And the affair altogether was a mystery; for it never was
observed or suspected by any one that Lady Isabel entertained a liking
for another. It was Francis Levison she eloped with--Sir Francis he is
now. He had been staying at East Lynne, but no one detected any undue
intimacy between them, not even Mr. Carlyle. To him, as others, her
conduct must always remain a mystery."
Madame appeared to be occupied with her spectacles, setting them
straight. Barbara continued,--
"Of course the disgrace is reflected on the children, and always will
be; the shame of having a divorced mother--"
"Is she not dead?" interrupted Lady Isabel.
"She is dead--oh, yes. But they will not be the less pointed at, the
girl especially, as I say. They allude to their mother now and then in
conversation, Wilson tells me; but I would recommend you, Madame Vine,
not to encourage them in that. They had better forget her."
"Mr. Carlyle would naturally wish them to do so."
"Most certainly. There is little doubt that Mr. Carlyle would blot out
the recollection of her, were it possible. But unfortunately she was
the children's mother, and, for that, there's no help. I trust you
will be able to instill principles into the little girl which will
keep her from a like fate."
"I will try," answered Lady Isabel, with more fervor than she had yet
spoken. "Do you have the children much with you, may I inquire?"
"No. I never was fond of being troubled with children. When my own
grow up into childhood I shall deem the nursery and the schoolroom the
fitter place for them. What I trust I shall never give up to another,
will be the /training/ of my children," pursued Barbara. "Let the
offices properly pertaining to a nurse be performed by the nurse--of
course, taking care that she is thoroughly to be depended on. Let her
have the /trouble/ of the children, their noise, their romping; in
short, let the nursery be her place, and the children's. But I hope
that I shall never fail to gather my children round me daily, at
stated and convenient periods, for higher purposes; to instill into
them Christian and moral duties; to strive to teach them how best to
fulfil the obligations of life. /This/ is a mother's task--as I
understand the question--let her do this work well, and the nurse can
attend to the rest. A child should never hear aught from his mother's
lips but persuasive gentleness; and this becomes impossible if she is
very much with her children."
Lady Isabel silently assented. Mrs. Carlyle's views were correct ones.
"When I first came to East Lynne I found Miss Manning, the governess,
was doing everything necessary for Mr. Carlyle's children in the way
of the training that I speak of," resumed Barbara. "She had them with
her for a short period every morning, even the little one; I saw that
it was all right, therefore did not interfere. Since she left--it is
nearly a month now--I have taken them myself. We were sorry to part
with Miss Manning; she suited very well. But she has been long
engaged, it turns out, to an officer in the navy, and now they are to
be married. You will have the entire charge of the little girl; she
will be your companion out of school hours; did you understand that?"
"I am quite ready and willing to undertake it," said Lady Isabel, her
heart fluttering. "Are the children well? Do they enjoy good health?"
"Quite so. They had the measles in the spring, and the illness left a
cough upon William, the eldest boy. Mr. Wainwright says he will
outgrow it."
"He has it still, then?"
"At night and morning. They went last week to spend the day with Miss
Carlyle, and were a little late in returning home. It was foggy, and
the boy coughed dreadfully after he came in. Mr. Carlyle was so
concerned that he left the dinner table and went up to the nursery; he
gave Joyce strict orders that the child should never again be out in
the evening so long as the cough was upon him. We had never heard him
cough like that."
"Do you fear consumption?" asked Lady Isabel, in a low tone.
"I do not fear that, or any other incurable disease for them,"
answered Barbara. "I think, with Mr. Wainwright, that time will remove
the cough. The children come of a healthy stock on the father's side;
and I have no reason to think they do not on their mother's. She died
young you will say. Ay, but she did not die of disease; her death was
the result of accident. Mrs. Latimer wrote us word you were of gentle
birth and breeding," she continued, changing the subject of
conversation. "I am sure you will excuse my speaking of these
particulars," Barbara added, in a tone of apology, "but this is our
first interview--our preliminary interview, it may in a measure be
called, for we could not say much by letter."
"I was born and reared a gentlewoman," answered Lady Isabel.
"Yes, I am sure of it; there is no mistaking the tone of a
gentlewoman," said Barbara. "How sad it is when pecuniary reverses
fall upon us! I dare say you never thought to go out as a governess."
A half smile positively crossed her lips. She think to go out as a
governess!--the Earl of Mount Severn's only child! "Oh, no, never,"
she said, in reply.
"Your husband, I fear, could not leave you well off. Mrs. Latimer said
something to that effect."
"When I lost him, I lost all," was the answer. And Mrs. Carlyle was
struck with the wailing pain betrayed in the tone. At that moment a
maid entered.
"Nurse says the baby is undressed, and quite ready for you ma'am," she
said, addressing her mistress.
Mrs. Carlyle rose, but hesitated as she was moving away.
"I will have the baby here to-night," she said to the girl. "Tell
nurse to put a shawl round him and bring him down. It is the hour for
my baby's supper," she smiled, turning to Lady Isabel. "I may as well
have him here for once, as Mr. Carlyle is out. Sometimes I am out
myself, and then he has to be fed."
"You do not stay indoors for the baby, then?"
"Certainly not. If I and Mr. Carlyle have to be out in the evening,
baby gives way. I should never give up my husband for my baby; never,
never, dearly as I love him."
The nurse came in--Wilson. She unfolded a shawl, and placed the baby
on Mrs. Carlyle's lap. A proud, fine, fair young baby, who reared his
head and opened wide his great blue eyes, and beat his arms at the
lights of the chandelier, as no baby of nearly six months ever did
yet. So thought Barbara. He was in his clean white nightgown and
nightcap, with their pretty crimped frills and border; altogether a
pleasant sight to look upon. /She/ had once sat in that very chair,
with a baby as fair upon her own knee; but all that was past and gone.
She leaned her hot head upon her hand, and a rebellious sigh of envy
went forth from her aching heart.
Wilson, the curious, was devouring her with her eyes. Wilson was
thinking she never saw such a mortal fright as the new governess. Them
blue spectacles capped everything, she decided; and what on earth made
her tie up her throat in that fashion? As well wear a man's color and
stock at once! If her teaching was no better than her looks, Miss Lucy
might as well go to the parish charity school!
"Shall I wait, ma'am?" demurely asked Wilson, her investigation being
concluded.
"No," said Mrs. Carlyle. "I will ring."
Baby was exceedingly busy taking his supper. And of course, according
to all baby precedent, he ought to have gone off into a sound sleep
over it. But the supper concluded, and the gentleman seemed to have no
more sleep in his eyes than he had before he began. He sat up, crowed
at the lights, stretched out his hands for them, and set his mother at
defiance, absolutely refusing to be hushed up.
"Do you wish to keep awake all night, you rebel?" cried Barbara,
fondly looking on him.
A loud crow, by way of answer. Perhaps it was intended to intimate he
did. She clasped him to her with a sudden gesture of rapture, a sound
of love, and devoured his pretty face with kisses. Then she took him
in her arms, putting him to sit upright, and approached Madame Vine.
"Did you ever see a more lovely child?"
"A fine baby, indeed," she constrained herself to answer; and she
could have fancied it her own little Archibald over again when he was
a baby. "But he is not much like you."
"He is the very image of my darling husband. When you see Mr. Carlyle
--" Barbara stopped, and bent her ear, as listening.
"Mr. Carlyle is probably a handsome man!" said poor Lady Isabel,
believing that the pause was made to give her an opportunity of
putting in an observation.
"He is handsome: but that is the least good about him. He is the most
noble man! Revered, respected by everyone; I may say loved! The only
one who could not appreciate him was his wife; and we must assume that
she did not, by the ending that came. However she could leave him--how
she could even look at another, after calling Mr. Carlyle husband--
will always be a marvel to those who know him."
A bitter groan--and it nearly escaped her lips.
"That certainly is the pony carriage," cried Barbara, bending her ear
again. "If so, how very early Mr. Carlyle is home! Yes, I am sure it
is the sound of the wheels."
How Lady Isabel sat she scarcely knew; how she concealed her
trepidation she never would know. A pause: an entrance to the hall;
Barbara, baby in arms, advanced to the drawing-room door, and a tall
form entered. Once more Lady Isabel was in the presence of her
sometime husband.
He did not perceive that any one was present, and he bent his head and
fondly kissed his wife. Isabel's jealous eyes were turned upon them.
She saw Barbara's passionate, lingering kiss in return, she heard her
fervent, whispered greeting, "My darling!" and she watched him turn to
press the same fond kisses on the rosy open lips of his child. Isabel
flung her hand over her face. Had she bargained for this? It was part
of the cross she had undertaken to carry, and she /must/ bear it.
Mr. Carlyle came forward and saw her. He looked somewhat surprised.
"Madame Vine," said Barbara; and he held out his hand and welcomed her
in the same cordial, pleasant manner that his wife had done. She put
her shaking hand into his; there was no help for it. Little thought
Mr. Carlyle that that hand had been tenderly clasped in his a thousand
times--that it was the one pledged to him at the altar of Castle
Marling.
She sat down on her chair again, unable to stand, feeling as though
every drop of blood within her had left her body. It had certainly
left her face. Mr. Carlyle made a few civil inquiries as to her
journey, but she did not dare to raise her eyes to his, as she
breathed forth the answers.
"You are at home soon, Archibald," said Barbara, addressing him. "I
did not expect you so early. I did not think you could get away. Do
you know what I was wishing to-day?" she continued. "Papa is going to
London with Squire Pinner to see those new agricultural implements--or
whatever it is. They are sure to be away as much as three days. I was
thinking if we could but persuade mamma to come to us for the time
papa is to be away, it would be a delightful little change for her--a
break in her monotonous life."
"I wish you could," warmly spoke Mr. Carlyle. "Her life, since you
left, is a monotonous one; though, in her gentle patience, she will
not say so. It is a happy thought, Barbara, and I only hope it may be
carried out. Mrs. Carlyle's mother is an invalid, and lonely, for she
has no child at home with her now," he added, in a spirit of
politeness, addressing himself to Madame Vine.
She simply bowed her head; trust herself to speak she did not. Mr.
Carlyle scanned her face attentively, as she sat, her spectacles bent
downward. She did not appear inclined to be sociable, and he turned to
the baby, who was wider awake than ever.
"Young sir, I should like to know what brings you up, and here, at
this hour."
"You may well ask," said Barbara. "I just had him brought down, as you
were not here, thinking he would be asleep directly. And only look at
him!--no more sleep in his eyes than there is in mine."
She would have hushed him to her as she spoke, but the young gentleman
stoutly repudiated it. He set up a half cry, and struggled his arms,
and head free again, crowing the next moment most impudently. Mr.
Carlyle took him.
"It is no use, Barbara; he is beyond your coaxing this evening." And
he tossed the child in his strong arms, held him up to the chandelier,
made him bob at the baby in the pier-glass, until the rebel was in an
ecstacy of delight. Finally he smothered his face with kisses, as
Barbara had done. Barbara rang the bell.
Oh! Can you imagine what it was for Lady Isabel? So had he tossed, so
had he kissed her children, she standing by, the fond, proud, happy
mother, as Barbara was standing now. Mr. Carlyle came up to her.
"Are you fond of these little troubles, Madame Vine? This one is a
fine fellow, they say."
"Very fine. What is his name?" she replied, by way of saying
something.
"Arthur."
"Arthur Archibald," put in Barbara to Madame Vine. "I was vexed that
his name could not be entirely Archibald, but that was already
monopolized. Is that you, Wilson? I don't know what you'll do with
him, but he looks as if he would not be asleep by twelve o'clock."
Wilson, with a fresh satisfying of her curiosity, by taking another
prolonged stare from the corner of her eyes at Madame Vine, received
the baby from Mr. Carlyle, and departed with him.
Madame Vine rose. "Would they excuse her?" she asked, in a low tone;
"she was tired and would be glad to retire to rest."
"Of course. And anything she might wish in the way of refreshment,
would she ring for?" Barbara shook hands with her, in her friendly
way; and Mr. Carlyle crossed the room to open the door for her, and
bowed her out with a courtly smile.
She went up to her chamber at once. To rest? Well, what think you? She
strove to say to her lacerated and remorseful heart that the cross--
far heavier though it was proving than anything she had imagined or
pictured--was only what she had brought upon herself, and /must/ bear.
Very true; but none of us would like such a cross to be upon our
shoulders.
"Is she not droll looking?" cried Barbara, when she was alone with Mr.
Carlyle. "I can't think why she wears those blue spectacles; it cannot
be for her sight, and they are very disfiguring."
"She puts me in mind of--of----" began Mr. Carlyle, in a dreamy tone.
"Of whom?"
"Her face, I mean," he said, still dreaming.
"So little can be seen of it," resumed Mrs. Carlyle. "Of whom does she
put you in mind?"
"I don't know. Nobody in particular," returned he, rousing himself.
"Let us have tea in, Barbara."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE YEARNING OF A BREAKING HEART.
At her bedroom door, the next morning, stood Lady Isabel, listening
whether the coast was clear ere she descended to the gray parlor, for
she had a shrinking dread of encountering Mr. Carlyle. When he was
glancing narrowly at her face the previous evening she had felt the
gaze, and it impressed upon her the dread of his recognition. Not only
that; he was the husband of another; therefore it was not expedient
that she should see too much of him, for he was far dearer to her than
he had ever been.
Almost at the same moment there burst out of a remote room--the
nursery--an upright, fair, noble boy, of some five years old, who
began careering along on the corridor, astride upon a hearth-broom.
She did not need to be told it was her boy, Archibald; his likeness to
Mr. Carlyle would have proclaimed it, even if her heart had not. In an
impulse of unrestrainable tenderness, she seized the child, as he was
galloping past her, and carried him into her room, broom and all.
"You must let me make acquaintance with you," she said to him by way
of excuse. "I love little boys."
Love! Down she sat upon a low chair, the child held upon her lap,
kissing him passionately, and the tears raining from her eyes. She
could not have helped the tears had it been to save her life; she
could as little have helped the kisses. Lifting her eyes, there stood
Wilson, who had entered without ceremony. A sick feeling came over
Lady Isabel: she felt as if she had betrayed herself. All that could
be done now, was to make the best of it; to offer some lame excuse.
What possessed her thus to forget herself?
"He did so put me in remembrance of my own children," she said to
Wilson, gulping down her emotion, and hiding her tears in the best
manner she could; whilst the astonished Archibald, released now, stood
with his finger in his mouth and stared at her spectacles, his great
blue eyes opened to their utmost width. "When we have lost children of
our own, we are apt to love fondly all we come near."
Wilson, who stared only in a less degree than Archie, for she deemed
the new governess had gone suddenly mad, gave some voluble assent, and
turned her attention upon Archie.
"You naughty young monkey! How dare you rush out in that way with
Sarah's heart-broom? I'll tell you what it is, sir, you are getting a
might deal too owdacious and rumbustical for the nursery. I shall
speak to your mamma about it."
She seized hold of the child and shook him. Lady Isabel started
forward, her hands up, her voice one of painful entreaty.
"Oh, don't, don't beat him! I cannot see him beaten."
"Beaten!" echoed Wilson; "if he got a good beating it would be all the
better for him; but it's what he never does get. A little shake, or a
tap, is all I must give; and it's not half enough. You wouldn't
believe the sturdy impudence of that boy, madame; he runs riot, he
does. The other two never gave a quarter of the trouble. Come along,
you figure! I'll have a bolt put at the top of the nursery door; and
if I did, he'd be for climbing up the door-post to get at it."
The last sentence Wilson delivered to the governess, as she jerked
Archie out of the room, along the passage, and into the nursery. Lady
Isabel sat down with a wrung heart, a chafed spirit. Her own child!
And she might not say to the servant, you shall not beat him.
She descended to the gray parlor. The two older children and breakfast
were waiting; Joyce quitted the room when she entered it.
A graceful girl of eight years old, a fragile boy a year younger, both
bearing her once lovely features--her once bright and delicate
complexion--her large, soft brown eyes. How utterly her heart yearned
to them; but there must be no scene like there had just been above.
Nevertheless she stooped and kissed them both--one kiss each of
impassioned fervor. Lucy was naturally silent, William somewhat
talkative.
"You are our new governess," said he.
"Yes. We must be good friends."
"Why not!" said the boy. "We were good friends with Miss Manning. I am
to go into Latin soon--as soon as my cough's gone. Do you know Latin?"
"No--not to teach it," she said, studiously avoiding all endearing
epithets.
"Papa said you would be almost sure not to know Latin, for that ladies
rarely did. He said he should send up Mr. Kane to teach me."
"Mr. Kane?" repeated Lady Isabel, the name striking upon her memory.
"Mr. Kane, the music-master?"
"How did you know he was a music-master?" cried shrewd William. And
Lady Isabel felt the red blood flush to her face at the unlucky
admission she had made. It flushed deeper at her own falsehood, as she
muttered some evasive words about hearing of him from Mrs. Latimer.
"Yes, he is a music-master; but he does not get much money at it, and
he teaches the classics as well. He has come up to teach us music
since Miss Manning left; mamma said that we ought not to lose our
lessons."
Mamma! How the word, applied to Barbara, grated on her ear.
"Whom does he teach?" she asked.
"Us two," replied William, pointing to his sister and himself.
"Do you always take bread and milk?" she inquired, perceiving that to
be what they were eating.
"We get tired of it sometimes and then we have milk and water, and
bread and butter, or honey; and then we take to bread and milk again.
It's Aunt Cornelia who thinks we should eat bread and milk for
breakfast. She says papa never had anything else when he was a boy."
Lucy looked up.
"Papa would give me an egg when I breakfasted with him," cried she,
"and Aunt Cornelia said it was not good for me, but papa gave it to me
all the same. I always had breakfast with him then."
"And why do you not now?" asked Lady Isabel.
"I don't know. I have not since mamma came."
The word "stepmother" rose up rebelliously in the heart of Lady
Isabel. Was Mrs. Carlyle putting away the children from their father?
Breakfast over, she gathered them to her, asking them various
questions about their studies, their hours of recreation, the daily
routine of their lives.
"This is not the schoolroom, you know," cried William, when she made
some inquiry as to their books.
"No?"
"The schoolroom is upstairs. This is for our meals, and for you in an
evening."
The voice of Mr. Carlyle was heard at this juncture in the hall, and
Lucy was springing toward the sound. Lady Isabel, fearful lest he
might enter if the child showed herself, stopped her with a hurried
hand.
"Stay here, Isabel."
"Her name's Lucy," said William, looking quickly up. "Why do you call
her Isabel?"
"I thought--thought I had heard her called Isabel," stammered the
unfortunate lady, feeling quite confused with the errors she was
committing.
"My name is Isabel Lucy," said the child; "but I don't know who could
have told you, for I am never called Isabel. I have not been since--
since--shall I tell you?--since mamma went away," she concluded,
dropping her voice. "Mamma that was, you know."
"Did she go?" cried Lady Isabel, full of emotion, and possessing a
very faint idea of what she was saying.
"She was kidnapped," whispered Lucy.
"Kidnapped!" was the surprised answer.
"Yes, or she would not have gone. There was a wicked man on a visit to
papa, and he stole her. Wilson said she knew he was a kidnapper before
he took mamma. Papa said I was never to be called Isabel again, but
Lucy. Isabel was mamma's name."
"How do you know papa said it?" dreamily returned Lady Isabel.
"I heard him. He said it to Joyce, and Joyce told the servants. I put
only Lucy to my copies. I did put Isabel Lucy, but papa saw it one
day, and he drew his pencil through Isabel, and told me to show it to
Miss Manning. After that, Miss Manning let me put nothing but Lucy. I
asked her why, and she told me papa preferred the name, and that I was
not to ask questions."
She could not well stop the child, but every word was rending her
heart.
"Lady Isabel was our very, very own mamma," pursued Lucy. "This mamma
is not."
"Do you love this one as you did the other?" breathed Lady Isabel.
"Oh, I loved mamma--I loved mamma!" uttered Lucy, clasping her hands.
"But its all over. Wilson said we must not love her any longer, and
Aunt Cornelia said it. Wilson said, if she loved us she would not have
gone away from us."
"Wilson said so?" resentfully spoke Lady Isabel.
"She said she need not let that man kidnap her. I am afraid he beat
her, for she died. I lie in my bed at night, and wonder whether he did
beat her, and what made her die. It was after she died that our new
mamma came home. Papa said that she was to be our mamma in place of
Lady Isabel and we were to love her dearly."
"/Do/ you love her?" almost passionately asked Lady Isabel.
Lucy shook her head.
"Not as I loved mamma."
Joyce entered to show the way to the schoolroom, and they followed her
upstairs. As Lady Isabel stood at the window, she saw Mr. Carlyle
depart on foot on his way to the office. Barbara was with him, hanging
fondly on his arm, about to accompany him to the park gates. So had
/she/ fondly hung, so had /she/ accompanied him, in the days gone
forever.
Barbara came into the schoolroom in the course of the morning, and
entered upon the subject of their studies, the different allotted
hours, some to play, some to work. She spoke in a courteous but
decided tone, showing that she was the unmistakable mistress of the
house and children, and meant to be. Never had Lady Isabel felt her
position so keenly--never did it so gall and fret her spirit; but she
bowed to meek obedience. A hundred times that day did she yearn to
hold the children to her heart, and a hundred times she had to repress
the longing.
In a soft, damask dress, not unlike the color of the walls from which
the room took its name, a cap of Honiton lace shading her delicate
features, sat Mrs. Hare. The justice was in London with Squire Pinner,
and Barbara had gone to the Grove and brought her mamma away in
triumph. It was evening now, and Mrs. Hare was paying a visit to the
gray parlor. Miss Carlyle had been dining there, and Lady Isabel,
under plea of a violent headache, had begged to decline the invitation
to take tea in the drawing-room, for she feared the sharp eyes of Miss
Carlyle. Barbara, upon leaving the dessert-table, went to the nursery,
as usual, to her baby, and Mrs. Hare took the opportunity to go and
sit a few minutes with the governess--she feared the governess must be
very lonely. Miss Carlyle, scorning usage and ceremony, had remained
in the dining-room with Mr. Carlyle, a lecture for him, upon some
defalcation or other most probably in store. Lady Isabel was alone.
Lucy had gone to keep a birthday in the neighborhood, and William was
in the nursery. Mrs. Hare found her in a sad attitude, her hands
pressed upon her temples. She had not yet made acquaintance with her
beyond a minute's formal introduction.
"I am sorry to hear you are not well, this evening," she gently said.
"Thank you. My head aches much"--which was no false plea.
"I fear you must feel your solitude irksome. It is dull for you to be
here all alone."
"I am so used to solitude."
Mrs. Hare sat down, and gazed with sympathy at the young, though
somewhat strange-looking woman before her. She detected the signs of
mental suffering on her face.
"You have seen sorrow," she uttered, bending forward, and speaking
with the utmost sweetness.
"Oh, great sorrow!" burst from Lady Isabel, for her wretched fate was
very palpable to her mind that evening, and the tone of sympathy
rendered it nearly irrepressible.
"My daughter tells me that you have lost your children, and you have
lost your fortune and position. Indeed I feel for you. I wish I could
comfort you!"
This did not decrease her anguish. She completely lost all self
control, and a gush of tears fell from her eyes.
"Don't pity me! Don't pity me dear Mrs. Hare! Indeed, it only makes
endurance harder. Some of us," she added, looking up, with a sickly
smile, "are born to sorrow."
"We are all born to it," cried Mrs. Hare. "I, in truth, have cause to
say so. Oh, you know not what my position has been--the terrible
weight of grief that I have to bear. For many years, I can truly say
that I have not known one completely happy moment."
"All do not have to bear this killing sorrow," said Lady Isabel.
"Rely upon it, sorrow of some nature does sooner or later come to all.
In the brightest apparent lot on earth, dark days must mix. Not that
there is a doubt but that it falls unequally. Some, as you observe,
seem born to it, for it clings to them all their days; others are more
favored--as we reckon favor. Perhaps this great amount of trouble is
no more than is necessary to take us to Heaven. You know the saying,
'Adversity hardens the heart, or it opens it to Paradise.' It may be
that our hearts continue so hard, that the long-continued life's
trouble is requisite to soften them. My dear," Mrs. Hare added, in a
lower tone, while the tears glistened on her pale cheeks, "there will
be a blessed rest for the weary, when this toilsome life is ended; let
us find comfort in that thought."
"Ay! Ay!" murmured Lady Isabel. "It is all that is left to me."
"You are young to have acquired so much experience of sorrow."
"We cannot estimate sorrow by years. We may live a whole lifetime of
it in a single hour. But we generally bring ill fate upon ourselves,"
she continued, in a desperation of remorse; "as our conduct is, so
will our happiness or misery be."
"Not always," sighed Mrs. Hare. "Sorrow, I grant you, does come all
too frequently, from ill-doing; but the worst is, the consequences of
this ill-doing fall upon the innocent as well as upon the guilty. A
husband's errors will involve his innocent wife; parent's sins fall
upon their children; children will break the hearts of their parents.
I can truly say, speaking in all humble submission, that I am
unconscious of having deserved the great sorrow which came upon me;
that no act of mine invited it on; but though it has nearly killed me,
I entertain no doubt that it is lined with mercy, if I could only
bring my weak rebellious heart to look for it. You, I feel sure, have
been equally undeserving."
/She?/ Mrs. Hare marked not the flush of shame, the drooping of the
eyelids.
"You have lost your little ones," Mrs. Hare resumed. "That is grief--
great grief; I would not underrate it; but, believe me, it is as
/nothing/ compared to the awful fate, should it ever fall upon you, of
finding your children grow up and become that which makes you wish
they had died in their infancy. There are times when I am tempted to
regret that /all/ my treasures are not in that other world; that they
had not gone before me. Yes; sorrow is the lot of all."
"Surely, not of all," dissented Lady Isabel. "There are some bright
lots on earth."
"There is not a lot but must bear its appointed share," returned Mrs.
Hare. "Bright as it may appear, ay, and as it may continue to be for
years, depend upon it, some darkness must overshadow it, earlier or
later."
"Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle--what sorrow can there be in store for them?"
asked Lady Isabel, her voice ringing with a strange sound, which Mrs.
Hare noted, though she understood it not.
"Mrs. Carlyle's lot is bright," she said, a sweet smile illumining her
features. "She loves her husband with an impassioned love; and he is
worthy of it. A happy fate, indeed, is hers; but she must not expect
to be exempted from sorrow. Mr. Carlyle has had his share of it,"
continued Mrs. Hare.
"Ah!"
"You have doubtless been made acquainted with his history. His first
wife left him--left home and her children. He bore it bravely before
the world, but I know that it wrung his very heart-strings. She was
his heart's sole idol."
"She? Not Barbara?"
The moment the word "Barbara" had escaped her lips, Lady Isabel,
recollected herself. She was only Madame Vine, the governess; what
would Mrs. Hare think of her familiarity?
Mrs. Hare did not appear to have noticed it; she was absorbed in the
subject.
"Barbara?" she uttered; "certainly not. Had his first love been given
to Barbara, he would have chosen her then. It was given to Lady
Isabel."
"It is given his wife now?"
Mrs. Hare nearly laughed.
"Of course it is; would you wish it to be buried in the grave with the
dead, and with one who was false to him? But, my dear, she was the
sweetest woman, that unfortunate Lady Isabel. I loved her then, and I
cannot help loving her still. Others blamed her, but I pitied. They
were well matched; he so good and noble; she, so lovely and
endearing."
"And she left him--threw him to the winds with all his nobility and
love!" exclaimed the poor governess, with a gesture of the hands that
looked very much like despair.
"Yes. It will not do to talk of--it is a miserable subject. How she
could abandon such a husband, such children, was a marvel to many; but
to none more than it was to me and my daughter. The false step--though
I feel almost ashamed to speak out the thought, lest it may appear to
savor of triumph--while it must have secured her own wretchedness, led
to the happiness of my child; for it is certain Barbara would never
love one as she loves Mr. Carlyle."
"It did secure wretchedness to her, you think?" cried Lady Isabel, her
tone one of bitter mockery more than anything else.
Mrs. Hare was surprised at the question.
"No woman ever took that fatal step yet, without its entailing on her
the most dire wretchedness," she replied. "It cannot be otherwise. And
Lady Isabel was of a nature to feel remorse beyond common--to meet it
half-way. Refined, modest, with every feeling of an English
gentlewoman, she was the very last, one would have thought, to act so.
It was as if she had gone away in a dream, not knowing what she was
doing; I have thought so many a time. That terrible mental
wretchedness and remorse did overtake her, I know."
"How did you know it? Did you hear it?" exclaimed Lady Isabel, her
tone all too eager, had Mrs. Hare been suspicious. "Did he proclaim
that--Francis Levison? Did you hear it from him?"
Mrs. Hare, gentle Mrs. Hare, drew herself up, for the words grated on
her feelings and on her pride. Another moment, and she was mild and
kind again, for she reflected that the poor, sorrowful governess must
have spoken without thought.
"I know not what Sir Francis Levison may have chose to proclaim," she
said, "but you may be sure he would not be allowed opportunity to
proclaim anything to me, or to any other friend of Mr. Carlyle's; nay,
I should say, nor to any of the good and honorable. I heard it from
Lord Mount Severn."
"From Lord Mount Severn?" repeated Lady Isabel. And she opened her
lips to say something more, but closed them again.
"He was here on a visit in the summer; he stayed a fortnight. Lady
Isabel was the daughter of the late earl--perhaps you may not have
known that. He--Lord Mount Severn--told me, in confidence, that he had
sought out Lady Isabel when the man, Levison, left her; he found her
sick, poor, broken-hearted, in some remote French town, utterly borne
down with remorse and repentance."
"Could it be otherwise?" sharply asked Lady Isabel.
"My dear, I have said it could not. The very thought of her deserted
children would entail it, if nothing she did. There was a baby born
abroad," added Mrs. Hare, dropping her voice, "an infant in its
cradle, Lord Mount Severn said; but that child, we knew, could only
bring pain and shame."
"True," issued from her trembling lips.
"Next came her death; and I cannot but think it was sent to her in
mercy. I trust she was prepared for it, and had made her peace with
God. When all else is taken from us, we turn to him; I hope she had
learned to find the Refuge."
"How did Mr. Carlyle receive the news of her death?" murmured Lady
Isabel, a question which had been often in her thoughts.
"I cannot tell; he made no outward sign either of satisfaction or
grief. It was too delicate a subject for any one to enter upon with
him, and most assuredly he did not enter upon it himself. After he was
engaged to my child, he told me he should never have married during
Lady Isabel's life."
"From--from--the remains of affection?"
"I should think not. I inferred it to be from conscientious scruples.
All his affection is given to his present wife. There is no doubt that
he loves her with a true, a fervent, a lasting love: though there may
have been more romantic sentiment in the early passion felt for Lady
Isabel. Poor thing! She gave up a sincere heart, a happy home."
Ay, poor thing! She had very nearly wailed forth her vain despair.
"I wonder whether the drawing-room is tenanted yet," smiled Mrs. Hare,
breaking a pause which had ensued. "If so I suppose they will be
expecting me there."
"I will ascertain for you," said Lady Isabel, speaking in the impulse
of the moment; for she was craving an instant to herself, even though
it were but in the next hall.
She quitted the gray parlor and approached the drawing-room. Not a
sound came from it; and, believing it was empty, she opened the door
and looked cautiously in.
Quite empty. The fire blazed, the chandelier was lighted, but nobody
was enjoying the warmth or the light. From the inner room, however,
came the sound of the piano, and the tones of Mr. Carlyle's voice. She
recognized the chords of the music--they were those of the
accompaniment to the song he had so loved when she sang it him. Who
was about to sing it to him now?
Lady Isabel stole across the drawing-room to the other door, which was
ajar. Barbara was seated at the piano, and Mr. Carlyle stood by her,
his arm on her chair, and bending his face on a level with hers,
possibly to look at the music. So once had stolen, so once had peeped
the unhappy Barbara, to hear this selfsame song. /She/ had been his
wife then; she had craved, and received his kisses when it was over.
Their positions were reversed.
Barbara began. Her voice had not the brilliant power of Lady Isabel's,
but it was a sweet and pleasant voice to listen to.
"When other lips and other hearts
Their tales of love shall tell,
In language whose excess imparts
The power they feel so well,
There may, perhaps, in such a scene,
Some recollection be,
Of days that have as happy been--
And you'll remember me."
Days that had as happy been! Ay! /did/ he remember her? Did a thought
of her, his first and best love, flit across him, as the words fell on
his ear? Did a past vision of the time when she had sat there and sung
it to him arouse his heart to even momentary recollection?
Terribly, indeed, were their positions reversed; most terribly was she
feeling it. And by whose act and will had the change been wrought?
Barbara was now the cherished wife, East Lynne's mistress. And what
was she? Not even the courted, welcomed guest of an hour, as Barbara
had been; but an interloper; a criminal woman who had thrust herself
into the house; her act, in doing so, not justifiable, her position a
most false one. Was it right, even if she did succeed in remaining
undiscovered, that she and Barbara should dwell in the same
habitation, Mr. Carlyle being in it? Did she deem it to be right? No,
she did not; but one act of ill-doing entails more. These thoughts
were passing through her mind as she stood there, listening to the
song; stood there as one turned to stone, her throbbing temples
pressed against the door's pillar.
The song was over, and Barbara turned to her husband, a whole world of
love in her bright blue eyes. He laid his hand upon her head; Lady
Isabel saw that, but she would not wait to see the caress that most
probably followed it. She turned and crossed the room again, her hands
clasped tightly on her bosom, her breath catching itself in hysterical
sobs. Miss Carlyle was entering the hall. They had not yet met, and
Lady Isabel swept meekly past her with a hurried courtesy. Miss
Carlyle spoke, but she dared not answer, to wait would have been to
betray herself.
Sunday came, and that was the worst of all. In the old East Lynne pew
at St. Jude's, so conspicuous to the congregation, sat she, as in
former times; no excuse, dared she, the governess make, to remain
away. It was the first time she had entered an English Protestant
church since she had last sat in it, there, with Mr. Carlyle. Can you
wonder that the fact alone, with all the terrible remembrances it
brought in its train, was sufficient to overwhelm her with emotion?
She sat at the upper end now, with Lucy; Barbara occupied the place
that had been hers, by the side of Mr. Carlyle. Barbara there, in her
own right his wife; she severed from him forever and forever!
She scarcely raised her head; she tightened her thick veil over her
face; she kept her spectacles bent toward the ground. Lucy thought she
must be crying; she never had seen anyone so still at church before.
Lucy was mistaken; tears came not to solace the bitter anguish of
hopeless, self-condemning remorse. How she sat out the service she
could not tell; she could not tell how she could sit out other
services, as the Sundays came round! The congregation did not forget
to stare at her. What an extraordinary looking governess Mrs. Carlyle
had picked up!
They went out when it was over. Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle in advance; she,
humbly following them with Lucy. She glanced aside at the tomb in the
churchyard's corner, where moldered the remains of her father; and a
yearning cry went forth from the very depth of her soul. "Oh, that I
were laid there with him! Why did I come back again to East Lynne?"
Why, truly? But she had never thought that her cross would be so sharp
as this.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
AN M. P. FOR WEST LYNNE.
As this is not a history of the British constitution, it does not
concern it to relate how or why West Lynne got into hot water with the
House of Commons. The House threatened to disfranchise it, and West
Lynne under the fear, went into mourning for its sins. The threat was
not carried out; but one of the sitting members was unseated with
ignominy, and sent to the right about. Being considerably humiliated
thereby, and in disgust with West Lynne, he retired accordingly, and a
fresh writ was issued. West Lynne then returned the Hon. Mr. Attley, a
county nobleman's son; but he died in the very midst of his first
session, and another writ had to be issued.
Of course the consideration now was, who should be the next lucky man
fixed upon. All the notables within ten miles were discussed, not
excepting the bench justices. Mr. Justice Hare? No! he was too
uncompromising, he would study his own will, but not that of West
Lynne. Squire Pinner? He never made a speech in his life, and had not
an idea beyond turnips and farming stock. Colonel Bethel? He had no
money to spend upon an election. Sir John Dobede? He was too old. "By
a good twenty years," laughed Sir John, to himself. "But here we
stand, like a pack of noodles, conning over the incapables, and
passing by the right one," continued Sir John. "There's only one man
amongst us fit to be our member."
"Who's that?" cried the meeting.
"Archibald Carlyle."
A pause of consternation--consternation at their collective
forgetfulness--and then a loud murmur of approaching to a shout,
filled the room. Archibald Carlyle. It should be no other.
"If we can get him," cried Sir John. "He may decline, you know."
The best thing, all agreed, was to act promptly. A deputation, half
the length of the street--its whole length, if you include the tagrag
and bobtail that attended behind--set off on the spur of the moment to
the office of Mr. Carlyle. They found that gentleman about to leave it
for the evening, to return home to dinner; for, in the discussion of
the all-important topic, the meeting had suffered time to run on to a
late hour; those gentlemen who dined at a somewhat earlier one had,
for once in their lives, patiently allowed their dinners and their
stomachs to wait--which is saying a great deal for the patience of a
justice.
Mr. Carlyle was taken by surprise. "Make me your member?" cried he,
merrily. "How do you know I should not sell you all?"
"We'll trust you, Carlyle. Too happy to do it."
"I am not sure that I could spare the time," deliberated Mr. Carlyle.
"Now, Carlyle, you must remember that you avowed to me, no longer than
last Christmas, your intention of going into parliament some time,"
struck in Mr. Justice Herbert. "You can't deny it."
"Some time!--yes," replied Mr. Carlyle; "but I did not say when. I
have no thoughts of it yet awhile."
"You must allow us to put you in nomination--you must, indeed, Mr.
Carlyle. There's nobody else fit for it. As good send a pig to the
House as some of us."
"An extremely flattering reason for proposing to shift the honor upon
me," laughed Mr. Carlyle.
"Well, you know what we mean, Carlyle; there's not a man in the whole
county so suitable as you, search it to the extremity of its
boundaries--you must know there is not."
"I don't know anything of the sort," returned Mr. Carlyle.
"At any rate, we shall do it, for we have determined upon having you.
When you walk into West Lynne to-morrow, you'll see the walks alive
with placards, 'Carlyle forever!' "
"Suppose you allow me until to-morrow to consider of it, and defer the
garnishing of the walls a day later," said Mr. Carlyle, a serious tone
peeping out in the midst of his jocularity.
"You do not fear the expenses?"
It was but a glance he returned in answer. As soon as the question had
been put--it was stupid old Pinner who propounded it--they had felt
how foolish it was. And indeed the cost would be a mere nothing, were
there no opposition.
"Come, decide now, Carlyle. Give us your promise."
"If I decide now, it will be in the negative," replied Mr. Carlyle.
"It is a question that demands consideration. Give me till to-morrow
for that, and it is possible that I may accede to your request."
This was the best that could be made of him, and the deputation backed
out, and as nothing more could be done, departed to their several
dinner-tables. Mr. Dill, who had been present, remained rubbing his
hands with satisfaction, and casting admiring glances at Mr. Carlyle.
"What's the matter, Dill?" asked the latter; "you look as though you
were pleased at this movement, and assumed that I should accept it."
"And so you will, Mr. Archibald. And as to the looking pleased,
there's not a man, woman or child in West Lynne who won't do that."
"Don't make too sure, Dill."
"Of which, sir--of your becoming our member, or of the people looking
pleased?"
"Of either," laughed Mr. Carlyle.
He quitted the office to walk home, revolving the proposition as he
did so. That he had long thought of some time entering parliament was
certain, though no definite period of the "when" had fixed itself in
his mind. He saw not why he should confine his days entirely to toil,
to the work of his calling. Pecuniary considerations did not require
it, for his realized property, combined with the fortune brought by
Barbara, was quite sufficient to meet expenses, according to their
present style of living. Not that he had the least intention of giving
up his business; it was honorable, as he conducted it, and lucrative,
and he really liked it. He would not have been condemned to lead an
idle life for the world; but there was no necessity for his being
always at it. Mr. Dill made as good a principal as he did, and--if
length of service and experience might be counted--a better one. He
could safely be left to manage during the time it would be necessary
for him, Mr. Carlyle, to be in London. He would rather represent West
Lynne than any other spot on the face of the earth, no matter what
might be the other's importance; and, as West Lynne was now in want of
a member, perhaps his opportunity had come. That he would make a good
and efficient public servant, he believed; his talents were superior,
his oratory persuasive, and he had the gift of a true and honest
spirit. That he would have the interest of West Lynne, at heart was
certain, and he knew that he should serve his constituents to the very
best of his power and ability. They knew it also.
Before Mr. Carlyle had reached East Lynne, he had decided that it
should be.
It was a fine spring evening. The lilac was in bloom, the hedges and
trees were clothed in their early green, and all things seemed full of
promise. Even Mr. Carlyle's heart was rejoicing in the prospect opened
to it; he was sure he should like a public life; but in the sanguine
moments of realization or of hope, some dark shade will step in to mar
the brightness.
Barbara stood at the drawing-room window watching for him. Not in her
was the dark shade; her dress was a marvel of vanity and prettiness,
and she had chosen to place on her fair hair a dainty headdress of
lace--as if her hair required any such ornament! She waltzed up to Mr.
Carlyle when he entered, and saucily held up her face, the light of
love dancing in her bright blue eyes.
"What do you want?" he provokingly asked, putting his hands behind
him, and letting her stand there.
"Oh, well--if you won't say good-evening to me, I have a great mind to
say you should not kiss me for a week, Archibald."
He laughed. "Who would be punished by that?" whispered he.
Barbara pouted her pretty lips, and the tears positively came into her
eyes. "Which is as much as to say it would be no punishment to you.
Archibald, /don't/ you care for me?"
He threw his arms around her and clasped her to his heart, taking
plenty of kisses then. "You know whether I care not," he fondly
whispered.
But now, will you believe that that unfortunate Lady Isabel had been a
witness to this? Well, it was only what his greeting to her had once
been. Her pale face flushed scarlet, and she glided out of the room
again as softly as she had entered it. They had not seen her. Mr.
Carlyle drew his wife to the window, and stood there, his arms round
her waist.
"Barbara, what should you say to living in London for a few months out
of the twelve?"
"London? I am very happy where I am. Why should you ask me that? You
are not going to live in London?"
"I am not sure of that. I think I am for a portion of the year. I have
had an offer made me this afternoon, Barbara."
She looked at him, wondering what he meant--wondering whether he was
serious. An offer? What sort of an offer? Of what nature could it be?
He smiled at her perplexity. "Should you like to see M. P. attached to
my name? West Lynne wants me to become its member."
A pause to take in the news; a sudden rush of color, and then she
gleefully clasped her hands round his arm, her eyes sparkling with
pleasure.
"Oh, Archibald, how glad I am! I knew how you were appreciated, and
you will be appreciated more and more. This is right; it was not well
for you to remain what you are for life--a private individual, a
country lawyer."
"I am perfectly contented with my lot, Barbara," he seriously said. "I
am too busy to be otherwise."
"I know that; were you but a laboring man, toiling daily for the bread
you eat, you would be contented, feeling that you were fulfilling your
appointed duty to the utmost," she impulsively said; "but, Archibald,
can you not still be a busy man at West Lynne, although you do become
its representative?"
"If I could not, I should never accept the honor, Barbara. For some
few months of the year I must of necessity be in town; but Dill is an
efficient substitute, and I can run down for a week or so between
times. Part of Saturday, Sunday, and part of Monday, I can always pass
here, if I please. Of course these changes have their drawbacks, as
well as their advantages."
"Where would be the drawbacks in this?" she interrupted.
"Well," smiled Mr. Carlyle, "in the first place, I suppose you could
not always be with me."
Her hands fell--her color faded. "Oh, Archibald!"
"If I do become their member, I must go up to town as soon as elected,
and I don't think it will do for my little wife to be quitting her
home to travel about just now."
Barbara's face wore a very blank look. She could not dissent from Mr.
Carlyle's reasoning.
"And you must remain in London to the end of the session, while I am
here! Separated! Archibald," she passionately added, while the tears
gushed into her eyes. "I could not /live/ without you."
"Then what is to be done? Must I decline it?"
"Decline it! Oh, of course not! I know we are looking on the dark side
of things. I can go very well with you for a month--perhaps two."
"You think so?"
"I am sure so. And, mind you must not encourage mamma to talk me out
of it. Archibald," she continued, resting her head upon his breast,
her sweet face turned up beseechingly to his, "you would rather have
me with you, would you not?"
He bent his own down upon it. "What do you think about it, my
darling?"
Once more--an opportune moment for her to enter--Lady Isabel. Barbara
heard her this time, and sprang away from her husband. Mr. Carlyle
turned round at the movement, and saw Madame Vine. She came forward,
her lips ashy, her voice subdued.
Six months now had she been at East Lynne, and had hitherto escaped
detection. Time and familiarity render us accustomed to most things--
to danger among the rest; and she had almost ceased to fear
recognition, living--so far as that point went--far more peaceably
than she had done at first. She and the children were upon the best of
terms. She had greatly endeared herself to them; she loved them, and
they loved her--perhaps nature was asserting her own hidden claims.
She felt very anxious about William. He seemed to grow weaker, and she
determined to make her fears known to Mr. Carlyle.
She quitted the parlor. She had heard Mr. Carlyle come in. Crossing
the hall, she tapped softly at the drawing-room door, and then as
softly entered. It was the moment of Mr. Carlyle's loud greeting to
his wife. They stood together heedless of her.
Gliding out again, she paced the hall, her hands pressed upon her
beating heart. How /dared/ that heart rise up in sharp rebellion at
these witnessed tokens of love? Was Barbara not his wife? Had she not
a legal claim to all his tenderness? Who was she that she should
resent them in her jealousy? What, though they had once been hers,
hers only, had she not signed and sealed her own forfeit of them, and
so made room for Barbara?
Back to the gray parlor, there she stood, her elbow on the
mantelpiece, her eyes hidden by her hand. Thus she remained for some
minutes, and Lucy thought how sad she looked.
But Lucy felt hungry, and was casting longing glances to the tea-
table. She wondered how long her governess meant to keep it waiting.
"Madame Vine," cried she presently, "don't you know that tea is
ready?"
This caused Madame Vine to raise her eyes. They fell on the pale boy
at her feet. She made no immediate answer, only placed her hand on
Lucy's shoulder.
"Oh, Lucy dear, I--I have many sorrows to bear."
"The tea will warm you, and there is some nice jam," was Miss Lucy's
offered consolation.
"Their greeting, tender as it may be, is surely over by this time,"
thought Lady Isabel, an expression something like mockery curving her
lips. "I will venture again."
Only to see him with his wife's face on his breast, and his lips bent
upon it. But they had heard her this time, and she had to advance, in
spite of her spirit of misery and her whitened features.
"Would you be so good sir, as to come and look at William?" she asked
in a low tone, of Mr. Carlyle.
"Certainly."
"What for?" interjected Barbara.
"He looks very ill. I do not like his looks. I am fearing whether he
can be worse than we have thought."
They went to the gray parlor, all three of them. Mr. Carlyle was in
first, and had taken a long, silent look at William before the others
entered.
"What is he doing on the floor?" exclaimed Barbara, in her
astonishment. "He should not lie on the floor, Madame Vine."
"He lays himself down there at the dusk hour, and I cannot get him up
again. I try to persuade him to use the sofa, but it is of no use."
"The floor will not hurt him," said Mr. Carlyle. /This/ was the dark
shade: his boy's failing health.
William opened his eyes. "Who's that--papa?"
"Don't you feel well, William?"
"Oh, yes, I'm very well; but I am tired."
"Why do you lie down here?"
"I like lying here. Papa, that pretty white rabbit of mine is dead."
"Indeed. Suppose you get up and tell me all about it."
"I don't know about it myself yet," said William, softly rising. "The
gardener told Lucy when she was out just now: I did not go; I was
tired. He said--"
"What has tired you?" interrupted Mr. Carlyle, taking hold of the
boy's hand.
"Oh, nothing. I am always tired."
"Do you tell Mr. Wainwright that you are tired?"
"No. Why should I tell him? I wish he would not order me to take that
nasty medicine, that cod liver oil."
"But it is to make you strong, my boy."
"It makes me sick. I always feel sick after it, papa. Madame Vine says
I ought to have cream. That would be nice."
"Cream?" repeated Mr. Carlyle, turning his eyes on Madame Vine.
"I have known cream to do a great deal of good in a case like
William's," she observed. "I believe that no better medicine can be
given; that it has in fact no substitute."
"It can be tried," said Mr. Carlyle.
"Pray give your orders, Madame Vine, for anything you think may be
beneficial to him," Mrs. Carlyle added. "You have had more experience
with children than I. Joyce--"
"What does Wainwright say?" interrupted Mr. Carlyle, speaking to his
wife, in his low tone.
"I do not always see him when he comes, Archibald. Madame Vine does, I
believe."
"Oh, dear!" cried Lucy, "can't we have tea? I want some bread and
jam."
Mr. Carlyle turned round, smiled and nodded at her. "Patience is good
for little girls, Miss Lucy. Would you like some bread and jam, my
boy?"
William shook his head. "I can't eat jam. I am only thirsty."
Mr. Carlyle cast a long and intent look at him, and then left the
room. Lady Isabel followed him, her thoughts full of her ailing child.
"Do you think him very ill, sir?" she whispered.
"I think he looks so. What does Mr. Wainwright say?"
"He says nothing to me. I have not inquired his true condition. Until
to-night it did not come to me that there was any apprehension."
"Does he look so much worse to-night?"
"Not any worse than customary. Latterly he had looked just like this
in the evening. It was a remark of Hannah's that roused my alarm: she
thinks he is on the road to death. What can we do to save him?"
She clasped her hands as she spoke, in the intensity of her emotion.
She almost forgot, as they stood there together talking of the welfare
of the child, their child, that he was no longer her husband. Almost,
not quite, utterly impossible would it be for her wholly to forget the
dreadful present. Neither he nor the child could again belong to her
in this world.
A strange rising of the throat in her wild despair, a meek courtesy,
as she turned from him, his last words ringing in her ears: "I shall
call in further advice for him, Madame Vine."
William was clinging round Mrs. Carlyle, in a coaxing attitude, when
she re-entered the gray parlor. "I know what I could eat, mamma, if
you'd let me have it," cried he, in answer to her remonstrance that he
must eat something.
"What could you eat?"
"Some cheese."
"Cheese! Cheese with tea!" laughed Mrs. Carlyle.
"For the last week or two he has fancied strange things, the effect of
a diseased appetite," exclaimed Madame Vine; "but if I allow them to
be brought in he barely tastes them."
"I am sure, mamma, I could eat some cheese now," said William.
"You may have it," answered Mrs. Carlyle.
As she turned to leave the room, the impatient knock and ring of a
visitor was heard. Barbara wondered who could be arriving at that,
their dinner hour. Sailing majestically into the hall, her lips
compressed, her aspect threatening, came Miss Carlyle.
Now it turned out that Miss Corny had been standing at her own window,
grimly eyeing the ill doings of the street, from the fine housemaid
opposite, who was enjoying a flirting interview with the baker, to the
ragged urchins, pitch-polling in the gutter and the dust. And there
she caught sight of the string, justices and others, who came flowing
out of the office of Mr. Carlyle. So many of them were they that Miss
Corny involuntarily thought of a conjuror flinging flowers out of a
hat--the faster they come, the more it seems there are to come. "What
on earth is up?" cried Miss Corny, pressing her nose flat against the
pane, that she might see better.
They filed off, some one way, some another. Miss Carlyle's curiosity
was keener than her appetite, for she stayed on the watch, although
just informed that her dinner was served. Presently Mr. Carlyle
appeared and she knocked at the window with her knuckles. He did not
hear it; he had turned off at a quick pace toward home. Miss Corny's
temper rose.
The clerks came out next, one after another; and the last was Mr.
Dill. He was less hurried than Mr. Carlyle had been, and heard Miss
Corny's signal.
"What in the name of wonder, did all that stream of people want at the
office?" began she, when Mr. Dill had entered in obedience to it.
"That was the deputation, Miss Cornelia."
"What deputation?"
"The deputation to Mr. Archibald. They want him to become their new
member."
"Member of what?" cried she, not guessing at the actual meaning.
"Of parliament, Miss Corny; to replace Mr. Attley. The gentlemen came
to solicit him to be put in nomination."
"Solicit a donkey!" irascibly uttered Miss Corny, for the tidings did
not meet her approbation. "Did Archibald turn them out again?"
"He gave them no direct answer, ma'am. He will consider of it between
now and to-morrow morning."
"/Consider/ of it!" shrieked she. "Why, he'd never, never be such a
flat as to comply. He go into parliament! What next?"
"Why should he not, Miss Corny? I'm sure I should be proud to see him
there."
Miss Corny gave a sniff. "You are proud of things more odd than even
John Dill. Remember that fine shirt front! What has become of it? Is
it laid up in lavender?"
"Not exactly in lavender, Miss Corny. It lies in the drawer; for I
have never liked to put it on since, after what you said."
"Why don't you sell it at half-price, and buy a couple of good useful
ones with the money?" returned she, tartly. "Better that than keep the
foppish thing as a witness of your folly. Perhaps he'll be buying
embroidered fronts next, if he goes into that idle, do-nothing House
of Commons. I'd rather enter myself for six months at the treadmill."
"Oh, Miss Corny! I don't think you have well considered it. It's a
great honor, and worthy of him. He will be elevated above us all, as
it were, and he deserves to be."
"Elevate him on a weathercock!" raged Miss Corny. "There, you may go.
I've heard quite enough."
Brushing past the old gentleman, leaving him to depart or not, as he
might please, Miss Carlyle strode upstairs, flung on her shawl and
bonnet, and strode down again. Her servant looked considerably
surprised, and addressed her as she crossed the hall.
"Your dinner, ma'am?" he ventured to say.
"What's my dinner to you?" returned Miss Corny, in her wrath. "You
have had yours."
Away she strode. And thus it happened that she was at East Lynne
almost as soon as Mr. Carlyle.
"Where's Archibald?" began she, without ceremony, the moment she saw
Barbara.
"He is here. Is anything the matter?"
Mr. Carlyle, hearing the voice, came out and she pounced upon him with
her tongue.
"What's this about your becoming the new member for West Lynne?"
"West Lynne wishes it," said Mr. Carlyle. "Sit down, Cornelia."
"Sit down yourself," retorted she, keeping on her feet. "I want my
question answered. /Of course/ you will decline?"
"On the contrary, I have made up my mind to accept."
Miss Corny untied the strings of her bonnet, and flung them behind
her.
"Have you counted the cost?" she asked, and there was something quite
sepulchral in her solemn tone.
"I have given it consideration, Cornelia; both as regards money and
time. The expenses are not worth naming, should there be no
opposition. And if there is any--"
"Ay!" groaned Miss Corny. "If there is?"
"Well? I am not without a few hundred to spare for the playing," he
said, turning upon her the good-humored light of his fine countenance.
Miss Carlyle emitted some dismal groans.
"That ever I should have lived to see this day! To hear money talked
of as though it were dirt. And what's to become of your business?" she
sharply added. "Is that to be let run to rack and ruin, while you are
kicking up your heels in that wicked London, under plea of being at
the House night after night?"
"Cornelia," he gravely said, "were I dead, Dill could carry on the
business just as well as it is being carried on now. I might go into a
foreign country for seven years and come back to find the business as
flourishing as ever, for Dill could keep it together. And even were
the business to drop off--though I tell you it will not do so--I am
independent of it."
Miss Carlyle faced tartly round upon Barbara.
"Have you been setting him on to this?"
"I think he had made up his mind before he spoke to me. But," added
Barbara, in her truth, "I urged him to accept it."
"Oh, you did! Nicely moped and miserable you'll be here, if he goes to
London for months on the stretch. You did not think of that, perhaps."
"But he would not have me here," said Barbara, her eyelashes becoming
wet at the thought, as she unconsciously moved to her husband's side.
"He would take me with him."
Miss Carlyle made a pause, and looked at them alternately.
"Is that decided?" she asked.
"Of course it is," laughed Mr. Carlyle, willing to joke the subject
and his sister into good-humor. "Would you wish to separate man and
wife, Cornelia?"
She made no reply. She rapidly tied her bonnet-strings, the ribbons
trembling ominously in her fingers.
"You are not going, Cornelia? You must stay to dinner, now that you
are here--it is ready--and we will talk this further over afterward."
"This has been dinner enough for me for one day," spoke she, putting
on her gloves. "That I should have lived to see my father's son throw
up his business, and change himself into a lazy, stuck-up parliament
man!"
"Do stay and dine with us, Cornelia; I think I can subdue your
prejudices, if you will let me talk to you."
"If you wanted to talk to me about it, why did you not come in when
you left the office?" cried Miss Corny, in a greater amount of wrath
than she had shown yet. And there's no doubt that, in his not having
done so, lay one of the sore points.
"I did not think of it," said Mr. Carlyle. "I should have come in and
told you of it to-morrow morning."
"I dare say you would," she ironically answered. "Good evening to you
both."
And, in spite of their persuasions, she quitted the house and went
stalking down the avenue.
Two or three days more, and the address of Mr. Carlyle to the
inhabitants of West Lynne appeared in the local papers, while the
walls and posts convenient were embellished with various colored
placards, "Vote for Carlyle." "Carlyle forever!"
Wonders never cease. Surprises are the lot of man; but perhaps a
greater surprise had never been experienced by those who knew what was
what, than when it went forth to the world that Sir Francis Levison
had converted himself from--from what he was--into a red-hot
politician.
Had he been offered the post of prime minister? Or did his conscience
smite him, as was the case with a certain gallant captain renowned in
song? Neither the one nor the other. The simple fact was, that Sir
Francis Levison was in a state of pecuniary embarrassment, and
required something to prop him up--some snug sinecure--plenty to get
and nothing to do.
Patch himself up he must. But how? He had tried the tables, but luck
was against him; he made a desperate venture upon the turf, a grand
/coup/ that would have set him on his legs for some time, but the
venture turned out the wrong way, and Sir Francis was a defaulter. He
began then to think there was nothing for it but to drop into some
nice government nest, where, as I have told you, there would be plenty
to get and nothing to do. Any place with much to do would not suit
him, or he it; he was too empty-headed for work requiring talent; you
may have remarked that a man given to Sir Francis Levison's pursuits
generally is.
He dropped into something good, or that promised good--nothing less
than the secretaryship to Lord Headthelot, who swayed the ministers in
the upper House. But that he was a connection of Lord Headthelot's he
never would have obtained it, and very dubiously the minister
consented to try him. Of course a condition was, that he should enter
parliament the first opportunity, his vote to be at the disposal of
the ministry--rather a shaky ministry--and supposed, by some, to be on
its last legs. And this brings us to the present time.
In a handsome drawing-room in Eaton Square, one sunny afternoon, sat a
lady, young and handsome. Her eyes were of violet blue, her hair was
auburn, her complexion delicate; but there was a stern look of anger,
amounting to sullenness, on her well-formed features, and her pretty
foot was beating the carpet in passionate impatience. It was Lady
Levison.
The doings of the past had been coming home to her for some time now--
past doings, be they good or be they ill, are sure to come home, one
day or another, and bring their fruits with them.
In the years past--many years past now--Francis Levison had lost his
heart--or whatever the thing might be that, with him, did duty for one
--to Blanche Challoner. He had despised her once to Lady Isabel--as
Lord Thomas says in the old ballad; but that was done to suit his own
purpose, for he had never, at any period, cared for Lady Isabel as he
had cared for Blanche. He gained her affection in secret--they engaged
themselves to each other. Blanche's sister, Lydia Challoner, two years
older than herself suspected it, and taxed Blanche with it. Blanche,
true to her compact of keeping it a secret, denied it with many
protestations. "/She/ did not care for Captain Levison; rather
disliked him, in fact." "So much the better," was Miss Challoner's
reply; for she had no respect for Captain Levison, and deemed him an
unlikely man to marry.
Years went on, and poor, unhappy Blanche Challoner remained faithful
to her love.
He played fast and loose with her--professing attachment for her in
secret, and visiting at the house; perhaps he feared an outbreak from
her, an exposure that might be anything but pleasant, did he throw off
all relations between them. Blanche summoned up her courage and spoke
to him, urging the marriage; she had not yet glanced at the fear that
his intention of marrying her, had he ever possessed such, was over.
Bad men are always cowards. Sir Francis shrank from an explanation,
and so far forgot honor as to murmur some indistinct promise that the
wedding should be speedy.
Lydia Challoner had married, and been left a widow, well off. She was
Mrs. Waring; and at her house resided Blanche. For the girls were
orphans. Blanche was beginning to show symptoms of her nearly thirty
years; not the years, but the long-continued disappointment, the
heart-burnings, were telling upon her. Her hair was thin, her face was
pinched, her form had lost its roundness. "Marry /her/, indeed!"
scoffed to himself Sir Francis Levison.
There came to Mrs. Waring's upon a Christmas visit a younger sister,
Alice Challoner, a fair girl of twenty years. She resided generally
with an aunt in the country. Far more beautiful was she than Blanche
had ever been, and Francis Levison, who had not seen her since she was
a child, fell--as he would have called it--in love with her. Love! He
became her shadow; he whispered sweet words in her ear; he turned her
head giddy with its own vanity, and he offered her marriage. She
accepted him, and preparations for the ceremony immediately began. Sir
Francis urged speed, and Alice was nothing loth.
And what of Blanche? Blanche was stunned. A despairing stupor took
possession of her; and, when she woke from it, desperation set in. She
insisted upon an interview with Sir Francis, and evade it he could
not, though he tried hard. Will it be believed that he denied the past
--that he met with mocking suavity her indignant reminders of what had
been between them? "Love! Marriage? Nonsense! Her fancy had been too
much at work." Finally, he defied her to prove that he had regarded
her with more than ordinary friendship, or had ever hinted at such a
thing as a union.
She could not prove it. She had not so much as a scrap of paper
written on by him; she had not a single friend or enemy to come
forward and testify that they heard him breathe to her a word of love.
He had been too wary for that. Moreover there was her own solemn
protestations to her sister Lydia that there /was not/ anything
between her and Francis Levison; who would believe her if she veered
round now, and avowed these protestations were false? No; she found
that she was in a sinking ship; one there was no chance of saving.
But one chance did she determine to try--an appeal to Alice. Blanche
Challoner's eyes were suddenly and rudely opened to the badness of the
man, and she was aware now how thoroughly unfit he was to become the
husband of her sister. It struck her that only misery could result
from the union, and that, if possible, Alice should be saved from
entering upon it. Would she have married him herself, then? Yes. But
it was a different thing for that fair, fresh young Alice; /she/ had
not wasted her life's best years in waiting for him.
When the family had gone to rest, and the house was quiet, Blanche
Challoner proceeded to her sister's bedroom. Alice had not begun to
undress; she was sitting in a comfortable chair before the fire, her
feet on the fender, reading a love letter from Sir Francis.
"Alice, I am come to tell you a story," she said quietly. "Will you
hear it?"
"In a minute. Stop a bit," replied Alice. She finished the perusal of
the letter, put it aside, and then spoke again. "What did you say,
Blanche? A story?"
Blanche nodded. "Several years ago there was a fair young girl, none
too rich, in our station of life. A gentleman, who was none too rich
either, sought and gained her love. He could not marry; he was not
rich, I say. They loved on in secret, hoping for better times, she
wearing out her years and her heart. Oh, Alice! I cannot describe to
you how she loved him--how she has continued to love him up to this
moment. Through evil report she clung to him tenaciously and tenderly
as the vine clings to its trellis, for the world spoke ill of him."
"Who was the young lady?" interrupted Alice. "Is this a fable of
romance, Blanche, or a real history?"
"A real history. I knew her. All those years--years and years, I say--
he kept leading her on to love, letting her think that his love was
hers. In the course of time he succeeded to a fortune, and the bar to
their marriage was over. He was abroad when he came into it, but
returned home at once; their intercourse was renewed, and her fading
heart woke up once more to life. Still, the marriage did not come on;
he said nothing of it, and she spoke to him. Very soon now, should it
be, was his answer, and she continued to live on--in hope."
"Go on, Blanche," cried Alice, who had grown interested in the tale,
never suspecting that it could bear a personal interest.
"Yes, I will go on. Would you believe, Alice, that almost immediately
after this last promise, he saw one whom he fancied he should like
better, and asked her to be his wife, forsaking the one to whom he was
bound by every tie of honor--repudiating all that had been between
them, even his own words and promises?"
"How disgraceful! Were they married?"
"They are to be. Would you have such a man?"
"I!" returned Alice, quite indignant at the question. "It is not
likely that I would."
"That man, Alice is Sir Francis Levison."
Alice Challoner gave a start, and her face became scarlet. "How dare
you say so, Blanche? It is not true. Who was the girl, pray? She must
have traduced him."
"She has not traduced him," was the subdued answer. "The girl was
myself."
An awkward pause. "I know!" cried Alice, throwing back her head
resentfully. "He told me I might expect something of this--that you
had fancied him in love with you, and were angry because he had chosen
me."
Blanche turned upon her with streaming eyes; she could no longer
control her emotion. "Alice, my sister, all the pride is gone out of
me; all the reticence that woman loves to observe as to her wrongs and
her inward feelings I have broken through for you this night. As sure
as there is a heaven above us, I have told you the truth. Until you
came I was engaged to Francis Levison."
An unnatural scene ensued. Blanche, provoked at Alice's rejection of
her words, told all the ill she knew or heard of the man; she dwelt
upon his conduct with regard to Lady Isabel Carlyle, his heartless
after-treatment of that unhappy lady. Alice was passionate and fiery.
She professed not to believe a word of her sister's wrongs, and as to
the other stories, they were no affairs of hers, she said: "what had
she to do with his past life?"
But Alice Challoner did believe; her sister's earnestness and
distress, as she told the tale, carried conviction with them. She did
not very much care for Sir Francis; he was not entwined round her
heart, as he was round Blanche's; but she was dazzled with the
prospect of so good a settlement in life, and she would not give him
up. If Blanche broke her heart--why, she must break it. But she need
not have mixed taunts and jeers with her refusal to believe; she need
not have /triumphed/ openly over Blanche. Was it well done? Was it the
work of an affectionate sister! As we sow, so shall we reap. She
married Sir Francis Levison, leaving Blanche to her broken heart, or
to any other calamity that might grow out of the injustice. And there
sat Lady Levison now, her three years of marriage having served to
turn her love for Sir Francis into contempt and hate.
A little boy, two years old, the only child of the marriage, was
playing about the room. His mother took no notice of him; she was
buried in all-absorbing thought--thought which caused her lips to
contract, and her brow to scowl. Sir Francis entered, his attitude
lounging, his air listless. Lady Levison roused herself, but no
pleasant manner of tone was hers, as she set herself to address him.
"I want some money," she said.
"So do I," he answered.
An impatient stamp of the foot and a haughty toss. "And I must have
it. I /must/. I told you yesterday that I must. Do you suppose I can
go on, without a sixpence of ready money day after day?"
"Do you suppose it is of any use to put yourself in this fury?"
retorted Sir Francis. "A dozen times a week do you bother me for money
and a dozen times do I tell you I have got none. I have got none for
myself. You may as well ask that baby for money as ask me."
"I wish he had never been born!" passionately uttered Lady Levison;
"unless he had had a different father."
That the last sentence, and the bitter scorn of its tone, would have
provoked a reprisal from Sir Francis, his flashing countenance
betrayed. But at that moment a servant entered the room.
"I beg your pardon, sir. That man, Brown, forced his way into the
hall, and--"
"I can't see him--I won't see him!" interrupted Sir Francis backing to
the furthest corner of the room, in what looked very like abject
terror, as if he had completely lost his presence of mind. Lady
Levison's lips curled.
"We got rid of him, sir, after a dreadful deal of trouble, I was about
to say, but while the door was open in the dispute, Mr. Meredith
entered. He has gone into the library, sir, and vows he won't stir
till he sees you, whether you are sick or well."
A moment's pause, a half-muttered oath, and the Sir Francis quitted
the room. The servant retired, and Lady Levison caught up her child.
"Oh, Franky dear," she wailed forth, burying her face in his warm
neck. "I'd leave him for good and all, if I dared; but I fear he might
keep you."
Now, the secret was, that for the last three days Sir Francis had been
desperately ill, obliged to keep his bed, and could see nobody, his
life depending upon quiet. Such was the report, or something
equivalent to it, which had gone in to Lord Headthelot, or rather, to
the official office, for that renowned chief was himself out of town;
it had also been delivered to all callers at Sir Francis Levison's
house; the royal truth being that Sir Francis was as well as you or I,
but, from something that had transpired touching one of his numerous
debts, did not dare to show himself. That morning the matter had been
arranged--patched up for a time.
"My stars, Levison!" began Mr. Meredith, who was a whipper-in of the
ministry, "what a row there is about you! Why, you look as well as
ever you were."
"A great deal better to-day," coughed Sir Francis.
"To think that you should have chosen the present moment for skulking!
Here have I been dancing attendance at your door, day after day, in a
state of incipient fever, enough to put me into a real one, and could
neither get admitted nor a letter taken up. I should have blown the
house up to-day and got in amidst the flying debris. By the way, are
you and my lady /two/ just now?"
"Two?" growled Sir Francis.
"She was stepping into her carriage yesterday when they turned me from
the door, and I made inquiry of her. Her ladyship's answer was, that
she knew nothing either of Francis or his illness."
"Her ladyship is subject to flights of distemper," chafed Sir Francis.
"What desperate need have you of me, just now? Headthelot's away and
there's nothing doing."
"Nothing doing up here; a deal too much doing somewhere else. Attley's
seat's in the market."
"Well?"
"And you ought to have been down there about it three or four days
ago. Of course you must step into it."
"Of course I shan't," returned Sir Francis. "To represent West Lynne
will not suit me."
"Not suit you? West Lynne! Why, of all places, it is most suitable.
It's close to your own property."
"If you call ten miles close. I shall not put up for West Lynne,
Meredith."
"Headthelot came up this morning," said Mr. Meredith.
The information somewhat aroused Sir Francis. "Headthelot? What brings
him back?"
"You. I tell you, Levison, there's a hot row. Headthelot expected you
would be at West Lynne days past, and he has come up in an awful rage.
Every additional vote we can count in the House is worth its weight in
gold; and you, he says are allowing West Lynne to slip through your
fingers! You must start for it at once Levison."
Sir Francis mused. Had the alternative been given him, he would have
preferred to represent a certain warm place underground, rather than
West Lynne. But, to quit Headthelot, and the snug post he anticipated,
would be ruin irretrievable; nothing short of outlawry, or the queen's
prison. It was awfully necessary to get his threatened person into
parliament, and he began to turn over in his mind whether he /could/
bring himself to make further acquaintance with West Lynne. "The thing
must have blown over for good by this time," was the result of his
cogitations, unconsciously speaking aloud.
"I can understand your reluctance to appear at West Lynne," cried Mr.
Meredith; "the scene, unless I mistake, of that notorious affair of
yours. But private feelings must give way to public interests, and the
best thing you can do is to /start/. Headthelot is angry enough as it
is. He says, had you been down at first, as you ought to have been,
you would have slipped in without opposition, but now there will be a
contest."
Sir Francis looked up sharply. "A contest? Who is going to stand the
funds?"
"Pshaw! As if we should let funds be any barrier! Have you heard who
is in the field?"
"No," was the apathetic answer.
"Carlyle."
"Carlyle!" uttered Sir Francis, startled. "Oh, by George, though! I
can't stand against him."
"Well, there's the alternative. If you can't, Thornton will."
"I should run no chance. West Lynne would not elect me in preference
to him. I'm not sure, indeed, that West Lynne would have me in any
case."
"Nonsense! You know our interest there. Government put in Attley, and
it can put you in. Yes, or no, Levison?"
"Yes," answered Sir Francis.
An hour's time, and Sir Francis Levison went forth. On his way to be
conveyed to West Lynne? Not yet. He turned his steps to Scotland Yard.
In considerably less than an hour the following telegram, marked
"Secret," went down from the head office to the superintendent of
police at West Lynne.
"Is Otway Bethel at West Lynne? If not; where is he? And when will he
be returning to it?"
It elicited a prompt answer.
"Otway Bethel is not at West Lynne. Supposed to be in Norway.
Movements uncertain."
CHAPTER XXXV.
A MISHAP TO THE BLUE SPECTACLES.
Mr. Carlyle and Barbara were seated at breakfast, when, somewhat to
their surprise, Mr. Dill was shown in. Following close upon his heels
came Justice Hare; and close upon his heels came Squire Pinner; while
bringing up the rear was Colonel Bethel. All the four had come up
separately, not together, and all four were out of breath, as if it
had been a race which should arrive soonest.
Quite impossible was it for Mr. Carlyle, at first, to understand the
news they brought. All were talking at once, in the utmost excitement;
and the fury of Justice Hare alone was sufficient to produce temporary
deafness. Mr. Carlyle caught a word of the case presently.
"A second man? Opposition? Well, let him come on," he good-humoredly
cried. "We shall have the satisfaction of ascertaining who wins in the
end."
"But you have not heard who it is, Mr. Archibald," cried Old Dill,
"It--"
"Stand a contest with /him/?" raved Justice Hare. "He--"
"The fellow wants hanging," interjected Colonel Bethel.
"Couldn't he be ducked?" suggested Squire Pinner.
Now all these sentences were ranted out together, and their respective
utterers were fain to stop till the noise subsided a little. Barbara
could only look from one to the other in astonishment.
"Who is this formidable opponent?" asked Mr. Carlyle.
There was a pause. Not one of them but had the delicacy to shrink from
naming that man to Mr. Carlyle. The information came at last from Old
Dill, who dropped his voice while he spoke it.
"Mr. Archibald, the candidate who has come forward, is that man
Levison."
"Of course, Carlyle, you'll go into it now, neck and crop," cried
Justice Hare.
Mr. Carlyle was silent.
"You won't let the beast frighten you from the contest!" uttered
Colonel Bethel in a loud tone.
"There's a meeting at the Buck's Head at ten," said Mr. Carlyle, not
replying to the immediate question. "I will be with you there."
"Did you not say, Mr. Dill, that was where the scoundrel Levison is--
at the Buck's Head?"
"He was there," answered Mr. Dill. "I expect he is ousted by this
time. I asked the landlord what he thought of himself, for taking in
such a character, and what he supposed the justice would say to him.
He vowed with tears in his eyes that the fellow should not be there
another hour, and that he should never have entered it, had he known
who he was."
A little more conversation, and the visitors filed off. Mr. Carlyle
sat down calmly to finish his breakfast. Barbara approached him.
"Archibald, you will not suffer this man's insolent doings to deter
you from your plans--you will not withdraw?" she whispered.
"I think not, Barbara. He has thrust himself offensively upon me in
this measure; I believe my better plan will be to take no more heed of
him than I should of the dirt under my feet."
"Right--right," she answered, a proud flush deepening the rose on her
cheeks.
Mr. Carlyle was walking into West Lynne. There were the placards, sure
enough, side by side with his own, bearing the name of that wicked
coward who had done him the greatest injury one man can do to another.
Verily, he must possess a face of brass to venture there.
"Archibald, have you heard the disgraceful news?"
The speaker was Miss Carlyle, who had come down upon her brother like
a ship with all sails set. Her cheeks wore a flush; her eyes
glistened; her tall form was drawn up to its most haughty height.
"I have heard it, Cornelia, and, had I not, the walls would have
enlightened me."
"Is he out of his mind?"
"Out of his reckoning, I fancy," replied Mr. Carlyle.
"You will carry on the contest now," she continued, her countenance
flashing. "I was averse to it before, but I now withdraw all my
objection. You will be no brother of mine if you yield the field to
him."
"I do not intend to yield it."
"Good. You bear on upon your course, and let him crawl on upon his.
Take no more heed of him than if he were a viper. Archibald, you must
canvass now."
"No," said Mr. Carlyle, "I shall be elected without canvass. You'll
see, Cornelia."
"There will be plenty canvassing for you, if you don't condescend to
take the trouble, my indifferent brother. I'll give a thousand pounds
myself, for ale, to the electors."
"Take care," laughed Mr. Carlyle. "Keep your thousand pounds in your
pocket, Cornelia. I have no mind to be unseated, on the plea of
'bribery and corruption.' Here's Sir John Dobede galloping in, with a
face as red as the sun in a fog."
"Well, it may be he has heard the news. I can tell you, Archibald,
West Lynne is in a state of excitement that has not been its lot for
many a day."
Miss Carlyle was right. Excitement and indignation had taken
possession of West Lynne. How the people rallied around Mr. Carlyle!
Town and country were alike up in arms. But government interest was
rife at West Lynne, and, whatever the private and public feeling might
be, collectively or individually, many votes should be recorded for
Sir Francis Levison.
One of the first to become cognizant of the affair was Lord Mount
Severn. He was at his club one evening in London, poring over an
evening paper, when the names "Carlyle," "West Lynne," caught his
view. Knowing that Mr. Carlyle had been named as the probable member,
and heartily wishing that he might become such, the earl naturally
read the paragraph.
He read it, and read it again; he rubbed his eyes, he rubbed his
glasses, he pinched himself, to see whether he was awake or dreaming.
For believe what that paper asserted--that Sir Francis Levison had
entered the lists in opposition to Mr. Carlyle, and was at West Lynne,
busily canvassing--he could not.
"Do you know anything of this infamous assertion?" he inquired of an
intimate friend--"infamous, whether true or false."
"It's true, I heard of it an hour ago. Plenty of cheek that Levison
must have."
"/Cheek!/" repeated the dismayed earl, feeling as if every part of
him, body and mind, were outraged by the news, "don't speak of it in
that way. The hound deserves to be gibbeted."
He threw aside the paper, quitted the club, returned home for a carpet
bag, and went shrieking and whistling down to West Lynne, taking his
son with him. Or, if he did not whistle and shriek the engine did.
Fully determined was the earl of Mount Severn to show /his/ opinion of
the affair.
On these fine spring mornings, their breakfast over, Lady Isabel was
in the habit of going into the grounds with the children. They were on
the lawn before the house, when two gentlemen came walking up the
avenue; or, rather, one gentleman, and a handsome young stripling
growing into another. Lady Isabel thought she should have dropped, for
she stood face to face with Lord Mount Severn. The earl stopped to
salute the children, and raised his hat to the strange lady.
"It is my governess, Madame Vine," said Lucy.
A silent courtesy from Madame Vine. She turned away her head and
gasped for breath.
"Is your papa at home, Lucy?" cried the earl.
"Yes; I think he is at breakfast. I'm so glad you are come!"
Lord Mount Severn walked on, holding William by the hand, who had
eagerly offered to "take him" to papa. Lord Vane bent over Lucy to
kiss her. A little while, a very few more years, and my young lady
would not hold up her rosy lips so boldly.
"You have grown a dearer girl than ever, Lucy. Have you forgotten our
compact?"
"No," laughed she.
"And you will not forget it?"
"Never," said the child, shaking her head. "You shall see if I do."
"Lucy is to be my wife," cried he, turning to Madame Vine. "It is a
bargain, and we have both promised. I mean to wait for her till she is
old enough. I like her better than anybody else in the world."
"And I like him," spoke up Miss Lucy. "And it's all true."
Lucy was a child--it may almost be said an infant--and the viscount
was not of an age to render important such avowed passions.
Nevertheless, the words did thrill through the veins of the hearer.
She spoke, she thought, not as Madame Vine would have spoken and
thought, but as the unhappy mother, the ill-fated Lady Isabel.
"You must not say these things to Lucy. It could never be."
Lord Vane laughed.
"Why?" asked he.
"Your father and mother would not approve."
"My father would--I know he would. He likes Lucy. As to my mother--oh,
well, she can't expect to be master and mistress too. You be off for a
minute, Lucy; I want to say some thing to Madame Vine. Has Carlyle
shot that fellow?" he continued, as Lucy sprung away. "My father is so
stiff, especially when he's put up, that he would not sully his lips
with the name, or make a single inquiry when we arrived; neither would
he let me, and I walked up here with my tongue burning."
She would have responded, what fellow? But she suspected too well, and
the words died away on her unwilling lips.
"That brute, Levison. If Carlyle riddled his body with shots for this
move, and then kicked him till he died, he'd only get his deserts, and
the world would applaud. /He/ oppose Carlyle! I wish I had been a man
a few years ago, he'd have got a shot through his heart then. I say,"
dropping his voice, "did you know Lady Isabel?"
"Yes--no--yes."
She was at a loss what to say--almost as unconscious what she did say.
"She was Lucy's mother, you know, and I loved her. I think that's why
I love Lucy, for she is the very image of her. Where did you know her?
Here?"
"I knew her by hearsay," murmured Lady Isabel, arousing to
recollection.
"Oh, hearsay! /Has/ Carlyle shot the beast, or is he on his legs yet?
By Jove! To think that he should sneak himself up, in this way, at
West Lynne!"
"You must apply elsewhere for information," she gasped. "I know
nothing of these things."
She turned away with a beating heart, and took Lucy's hand, and
departed. Lord Vane set off on a run toward the house, his heels
flying behind him.
And now the contest began in earnest--that is, the canvass. Sir
Francis Levison, his agent, and a friend from town, who, as it turned
out, instead of being some great gun of the government, was a private
chum of the baronet's by name Drake, sneaked about the town like dogs
with their tails burnt, for they were entirely alive to the color in
which they were held, their only attendants being a few young
gentlemen and ladies in rags, who commonly brought up the rear. The
other party presented a stately crowd--county gentry, magistrates,
Lord Mount Severn. Sometimes Mr. Carlyle would be with them, arm-and-
arm with the latter. If the contesting groups came within view of each
other, and were likely to meet, the brave Sir Francis would disappear
down an entry, behind a hedge, any place convenient; with all his
"face of brass," he could not meet Mr. Carlyle and that condemning
jury around him.
One afternoon it pleased Mrs. Carlyle to summon Lucy and the governess
to accompany her into West Lynne. She was going shopping. Lady Isabel
had a dread and horror of appearing in there while that man was in
town, but she could not help herself. There was no pleading illness,
for she was quite well; there must be no saying, "I will not go," for
she was only a dependant. They started, and had walked as far as Mrs.
Hare's gate, when Miss Carlyle turned out of it.
"Your mamma's not well, Barbara."
"Is she not?" cried Barbara, with quick concern. "I must go and see
her."
"She has had one of those ridiculous dreams again," pursued Miss
Carlyle, ignoring the presence of the governess and Lucy. "I was sure
of it by her very look when I got in, shivering and shaking, and
glancing fearfully around, as if she feared a dozen spectres were
about to burst out of the walls. So I taxed her with it, and she could
make no denial. Richard is in some jeopardy, she protests, or will be.
And there she is, shaking still, although I told her that people who
put faith in dreams were only fit for a lunatic asylum."
Barbara looked distressed. She did not believe in dreams any more than
Miss Carlyle, but she could not forget how strangely peril to Richard
/had/ supervened upon some of these dreams.
"I will go in now and see mamma," she said. "If you are returning
home, Cornelia, Madame Vine can walk with you, and wait for me there."
"Let me go in with you, mamma!" pleaded Lucy.
Barbara mechanically took the child's hand. The gates closed on them,
and Miss Carlyle and Lady Isabel proceeded in the direction of the
town. But not far had they gone when, in turning a corner, the wind,
which was high, blew away with the veil of Lady Isabel, and, in
raising her hand in trepidation to save it before it was finally gone,
she contrived to knock off her blue spectacles. They fell to the
ground, and were broken.
"How did you manage that?" uttered Miss Carlyle.
How, indeed? She bent her face on the ground, looking at the damage.
What should she do? The veil was over the hedge, the spectacles were
broken--how could she dare show her naked face? That face was rosy
just then, as in former days, the eyes were bright, and Miss Carlyle
caught their expression, and stared in very amazement.
"Good heavens above," she uttered, "what an extraordinary likeness!"
And Lady Isabel's heart turned faint and sick within her.
Well it might. And, to make matters worse, bearing down right upon
them, but a few paces distant, came Sir Francis Levison.
Would /he/ recognize her?
Standing blowing in the wind at the turning of the road were Miss
Carlyle and Lady Isabel Vane. The latter, confused and perplexed, was
picking up the remnant of her damaged spectacles; the former, little
less perplexed, gazed at the face which struck upon her memory as
being so familiar. Her attention, however, was called off the face to
the apparition of Sir Francis Levison.
He was close upon them, Mr. Drake and the other comrade being with
him, and some tagrag in attendance, as usual. It was the first time he
and Miss Carlyle had met face to face. She bent her condemning brow,
haughty in its bitter scorn, full upon him, for it was not in the
nature of Miss Carlyle to conceal her sentiments, especially when they
were rather of the strongest. Sir Francis, when he arrived opposite,
raised his hat to her. Whether it was done in courtesy, in confused
unconsciousness, or in mockery, cannot be told. Miss Carlyle assumed
it to have been the latter, and her lips, in their anger grew almost
as pale as those of the unhappy woman who was cowering behind her.
"Did you intend that insult for me, Francis Levison?"
"As you please to take it," returned he, calling up insolence to his
aid.
"/You/ dare to lift off your hat to me! Have you forgotten that I am
Miss Carlyle?"
"It would be difficult for /you/ to be forgotten, once seen."
Now this answer /was/ given in mockery; his tone and manner were
redolent of it, insolently so. The two gentlemen looked on in
discomfort, wondering what it meant; Lady Isabel hid her face as best
she could, terrified to death lest his eyes should fall on it: while
the spectators, several of whom had collected now, listened with
interest, especially some farm laborers of Squire Pinner's who had
happened to be passing.
"You contemptible worm!" cried Miss Carlyle, "do you think you can
outrage me with impunity as you, by your presence in it, are outraging
West Lynne? Out upon you for a bold, bad man!"
Now Miss Corny, in so speaking, had certainly no thought of present
and immediate punishment for the gentleman; but it appeared that the
mob around had. The motion was commented by those stout-shouldered
laborers. Whether excited thereto by the words of Miss Carlyle--who,
whatever may have been her faults of manner, held the respect of the
neighborhood, and was looked up to only in a less degree than her
brother; whether Squire Pinner, their master, had let drop, in their
hearing, a word of the ducking he had hinted at, when at East Lynne,
or whether their own feelings alone spurred them on, was best known to
the men themselves. Certain it is, that the ominous sound of "Duck
him," was breathed forth by a voice, and it was caught up and echoed
around.
"Duck him! Duck him! The pond be close at hand. Let's give him a taste
of his deservings! What do he the scum, turn himself up at West Lynne
for, bearding Mr. Carlyle? What have he done with Lady Isabel? /Him/
put up for others at West Lynne! West Lynne's respectable, it don't
want him; it have got a better man; it won't have a villain. Now,
lads!"
His face turned white, and he trembled in his shoes--worthless men are
frequently cowards. Lady Isabel trembled in hers; and well she might,
hearing that one allusion. They set upon him, twenty pairs of hands at
least, strong, rough, determined hands; not to speak of the tagrag's
help, who went in with cuffs, and kicks, and pokes, and taunts, and
cheers, and a demoniac dance.
They dragged him through a gap in the hedge, a gap that no baby could
have got through in a cool moment; but most of us know the difference
between coolness and excitement. The hedge was extensively damaged,
but Justice Hare, to whom it belonged, would forgive that. Mr. Drake
and the lawyer--for the other was a lawyer--were utterly powerless to
stop the catastrophe. "If they didn't mind their own business, and
keep themselves clear, they'd get served the same," was the promise
held out in reply to their remonstrances; and the lawyer, who was
short and fat, and could not have knocked a man down, had it been to
save his life, backed out of the /melee/, and contented himself with
issuing forth confused threatenings of the terrors of the law. Miss
Carlyle stood her ground majestically, and looked on with a grim
countenance. Had she interfered for his protection, she could not have
been heard; and if she could have been, there's no knowing whether she
would have done it.
On, to the brink of the pond--a green, dank, dark, slimy sour,
stinking pond. His coat-tails were gone by this time, and sundry rents
and damages appeared in--in another useful garment. One pulled him,
another pushed him, a third shook him by the collar, half a dozen
buffeted him, and all abused him.
"In with him, boys!"
"Mercy! Mercy!" shrieked the victim, his knees bending and his teeth
chattering--"a little mercy for the love of Heaven!"
"Heaven! Much he knows of Heaven!"
A souse, a splash, a wild cry, a gurgle, and Sir Francis Levison was
floundering in the water, its green poison, not to mention its adders
and thads and frogs, going down his throat by bucketfuls. A hoarse,
derisive laugh, and a hip, hip, hurrah! broke from the actors; while
the juvenile ragtag, in wild delight, joined their hands round the
pool, and danced the demon's dance, like so many red Indians. They had
never had such a play acted for them before.
Out of the pea-soup before he was quite dead, quite senseless. Of all
drowned rats, he looked the worst, as he stood there with his white,
rueful face, his shivery limbs, and his dilapidated garments, shaking
the wet off him. The laborers, their duty done, walked coolly away;
the tagrag withdrew to a safe distance, waiting for what might come
next; and Miss Carlyle moved away also. Not more shivery was that
wretched man than Lady Isabel, as she walked by her side. A sorry
figure to cut, that, for her once chosen cavalier. What did she think
of his beauty now? I know what she thought of her past folly.
Miss Carlyle never spoke a word. She sailed on, with her head up,
though it was turned occasionally to look at the face of Madame Vine,
at the deep distressing blush which this gaze called into her cheeks.
"It's very odd," thought Miss Corny. "The likeness, especially in the
eyes, is-- Where are you going, madame?"
They were passing a spectacle shop, and Madame Vine had halted at the
door, one foot on its step. "I must have my glasses to be mended, if
you please."
Miss Carlyle followed her in. She pointed out what she wanted done to
the old glasses, and said she would buy a pair of new ones to wear
while the job was about. The man had no blue ones, no green; plenty of
white. One ugly, old pair of green things he had, with tortoise-shell
rims, left by some stranger, ages and ages ago, to be mended, and
never called for again. This very pair of ugly old green things was
chosen by Lady Isabel. She put them on, there and then, Miss Carlyle's
eyes searching her face inquisitively all the time.
"Why do you wear glasses?" began Miss Corny, abruptly as soon as they
were indoors.
Another deep flush, and an imperceptible hesitation.
"My eyes are not strong."
"They look as strong as eyes can look. But why wear colored glasses?
White ones would answer every purpose, I should suppose."
"I am accustomed to colored ones. I should not like white ones now."
Miss Corny paused.
"What is your Christian name, madame?" began she, again.
"Jane," replied madame, popping out an unflinching story in her alarm.
"Here! Here! What's up? What's this?"
It was a crowd in the street, and rather a noisy one. Miss Corny flew
to the window, Lady Isabel in her wake. Two crowds, it may almost be
said; for, from the opposite way, the scarlet-and-purple party--as Mr.
Carlyle's was called, in allusion to his colors--came in view. Quite a
collection of gentlemen--Mr. Carlyle and Lord Mount Severn heading
them.
What could it mean, the mob they were encountering? The yellow party,
doubtless, but in a disreputable condition. Who or what /was/ that
object in advance of it, supported between Drake and the lawyer, and
looking like a drowned rat, hair hanging, legs tottering, cheeks
shaking, and clothes in tatters, while the mob, behind, had swollen to
the length of the street, and was keeping up a perpetual fire of
derisive shouts, groans, and hisses. The scarlet-and-purple halted in
consternation, and Lord Mount Severn, whose sight was not as good as
it had been twenty years back, stuck his pendent eye glasses astride
on the bridge of his nose.
/Sir Francis Levison?/ Could it be? Yes, it actually was! What on
earth had put him into that state? Mr. Carlyle's lip curled; he
continued his way and drew the peer with him.
"What the deuce is a-gate now?" called out the followers of Mr.
Carlyle. "That's Levison! Has he been in a railway smash, and got
drenched by the engine?"
"He has been /ducked/!" grinned the yellows, in answer. "They have
been and ducked him in the rush pool on Mr. Justice Hare's land."
The soaked and miserable man increased his speed as much as his cold
and trembling legs would allow him; he would have borne on without
legs at all, rather than remain under the enemy's gaze. The enemy
loftily continued their way, their heads in the air, and scorning
further notice, all, save young Lord Vane. He hovered round the ranks
of the unwashed, and looked vastly inclined to enter upon an Indian
jig, on his own account.
"What a thundering ass I was to try it on at West Lynne!" was the
enraged comment of the sufferer.
Miss Carlyle laid her hand upon the shrinking arm of her pale
companion.
"You see him--my brother Archibald?"
"I see him," faltered Lady Isabel.
"And you see /him/, that pitiful outcast, who is too contemptible to
live? Look at the two, and contrast them. Look well."
"Yes!" was the gaping answer.
"The woman who called him, that noble man, husband, quitted him for
the other! Did she come to repentance, think you?"
You may wonder that the submerged gentleman should be /walking/
through the streets, on his way to his quarters, the Raven Inn--for he
had been ejected from the Buck's Head--but he could not help himself.
As he was dripping and swearing on the brink of the pond, wondering
how he should get to the Raven, an empty fly drove past, and Mr. Drake
immediately stopped it; but when the driver saw that he was expected
to convey not only a passenger, but a tolerable quantity of water as
well, and that the passenger, moreover, was Sir Francis Levison, he
refused the job. His fly was fresh lined with red velvet, and he
"weren't a going to have it spoilt," he called out, as he whipped his
horse and drove away, leaving the three in wrathful despair. Sir
Francis wanted another conveyance procured; his friends urged that if
he waited for that he might catch his death, and that the shortest way
would be to hasten to the inn on foot. He objected. But his jaws were
chattering, his limbs were quaking, so they seized him between them,
and made off, but never bargained for the meeting of Mr. Carlyle and
his party. Francis Levison would have stopped in the pond, of his own
accord, head downward, rather than faced /them/.
Miss Carlyle went that day to dine at East Lynne, walking back with
Mrs. Carlyle, Madame Vine and Lucy. Lord Vane found them out, and
returned at the same time; of course East Lynne was the headquarters
of himself and his father. He was in the seventh heaven, and had been
ever since the encounter with the yellows.
"You'd have gone into laughing convulsions, Lucy had you seen the
drowned cur. I'd give all my tin for six months to come to have a
photograph of him as he looked then!"
Lucy laughed in glee; she was unconscious, poor child, how deeply the
"drowned cur" had injured her.
When Miss Carlyle was in her dressing-room taking her things off--the
room where once had slept Richard Hare--she rang for Joyce. These two
rooms were still kept for Miss Carlyle--for she did sometimes visit
them for a few days--and were distinguished by her name--"Miss
Carlyle's rooms."
"A fine row we have had in the town, Joyce, this afternoon."
"I have heard of it, ma'am. Served him right, if they had let him
drown! Bill White, Squire Pinner's plowman, called in here and told us
the news. He'd have burst with it, if he hadn't, I expect; I never saw
a chap so excited. Peter cried."
"Cried?" echoed Miss Carlyle.
"Well, ma'am, you know he was very fond of Lady Isabel, was Peter, and
somehow his feelings overcame him. He said he had not heard anything
to please him so much for many a day; and with that he burst out
crying, and gave Bill White half a crown out of his pocket. Bill White
said it was he who held one leg when they soused him in. Afy saw it--
if you'll excuse me mentioning her name to you, ma'am, for I know you
don't think well of her--and when she got in here, she fell into
hysterics."
"How did she see it?" snapped Miss Carlyle, her equanimity upset by
the sound of the name. "I didn't see her, and I was present."
"She was coming here with a message from Mrs. Latimer to the
governess."
"What did she go into hysterics for?" again snapped Miss Carlyle.
"It upset her so, she said," returned Joyce.
"It wouldn't have done her harm had they ducked her too," was the
angry response.
Joyce was silent. To contradict Miss Corny brought triumph to nobody.
And she was conscious, in her innermost heart, that Afy merited a
little wholesome correction, not perhaps to the extent of a ducking.
"Joyce," resumed Miss Carlyle, abruptly changing the subject, "who
does the governess put you in mind of?"
"Ma'am?" repeated Joyce, in some surprise, as it appeared. "The
governess? Do you mean Madame Vine?"
"Do I mean you, or do I mean me? Are we governesses?" irascibly cried
Miss Corny. "Who should I mean, but Madame Vine?"
She turned herself round from the looking-glass, and gazed full in
Joyce's face, waiting for the answer. Joyce lowered her voice as she
gave it.
"There are times when she puts me in mind of my late lady both in her
face and manner. But I have never said so, ma'am; for you know Lady
Isabel's name must be an interdicted one in this house."
"Have you seen her without her glasses?"
"No; never," said Joyce.
"I did to-day," returned Miss Carlyle. "And I can tell you, Joyce,
that I was confounded at the likeness. It is an extraordinary
likeness. One would think it was a ghost of Lady Isabel Vane come into
the world again."
That evening after dinner, Miss Carlyle and Lord Mount Severn sat side
by side on the same sofa, coffee cups in hand. Miss Carlyle turned to
the earl.
"Was it a positively ascertained fact that Lady Isabel died?"
The earl stared with all his might; he thought it the strangest
question that ever was asked him. "I scarcely understand you, Miss
Carlyle. Died? Certainly she died."
"When the result of the accident was communicated to you, you made
inquiry yourself into its truth, its details, I believe?"
"It was my duty to do so. There was no one else to undertake it."
"Did you ascertain positively, beyond all doubt, that she did die?"
"Of a surety I did. She died in the course of the same night. Terribly
injured she was."
A pause. Miss Carlyle was ruminating. But she returned to the charge,
as if difficult to be convinced.
"You deem that there could be no possibility of an error? You are sure
that she is dead?"
"I am as sure that she is dead as that we are living," decisively
replied the earl: and he spoke but according to his belief. "Wherefore
should you be inquiring this?"
"A thought came over me--only to-day--to wonder whether she was really
dead."
"Had any error occurred at that time, any false report of her death, I
should soon have found it out by her drawing the annuity I settled
upon her. It has never been drawn since. Besides, she would have
written to me, as agreed upon. No, poor thing, she is gone beyond all
doubt, and has taken her sins with her."
Convincing proofs; and Miss Carlyle lent her ear to them.
The following morning while Madame Vine was at breakfast, Mr. Carlyle
entered.
"Do you admit intruders here Madame Vine?" cried he, with his sweet
smile, and attractive manner.
She arose; her face burning, her heart throbbing.
"Keep your seat, pray; I have but a moment to stay," said Mr. Carlyle.
"I have come to ask you how William seems?"
"There was no difference," she murmured, and then she took courage and
spoke more openly. "I understood you to say the other night, sir, that
he should have further advice."
"Ay; I wish him to go over to Lynneborough, to Dr. Martin; the drive,
I think, will do him good," replied Mr. Carlyle. "And I would like you
to accompany him, if you do not mind the trouble. You can have the
pony carriage, it will be better to go in that than boxed up in the
railway carriage. You can remind Dr. Martin that the child's
constitution is precisely what his mother's was," continued Mr.
Carlyle, a tinge lightening his face. "It may be a guide to his
treatment; he said himself it was, when he attended him for an illness
a year or two ago."
"Yes, sir."
He crossed the hall on his entrance to the breakfast-room. She tore
upstairs to her chamber, and sank down in an agony of tears and
despair. Oh, to love him as she did now! To yearn after his affection
with this passionate, jealous longing, and to know that they were
separated for ever and ever; that she was worse to him than nothing!
Softly, my lady. This is not bearing your cross.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
APPEARANCE OF A RUSSIAN BEAR AT WEST LYNNE.
Mr. Carlyle harangued the populace from the balcony of the Buck's
Head, a substantial old House, renowned in the days of posting, now
past and gone. Its balcony was an old-fashioned, roomy balcony,
painted green, where there was plenty of space for his friends to
congregate. He was a persuasive orator, winning his way to ears and
hearts; but had he spoken with plums in his mouth, and a stammer on
his tongue, and a break-down at every sentence, the uproarious
applause and shouts would be equally rife. Mr. Carlyle was intensely
popular in West Lynne, setting aside his candidateship and his
oratory; and West Lynne made common cause against Sir Francis Levison.
Sir Francis Levison harangued the mob from the Raven, but in a more
ignoble manner. For the Raven possessed no balcony, and he was fain to
let himself down with a stride and a jump from the first floor window
on the top of the bow-window of the parlor, and stand there. The
Raven, though a comfortable, old established, and respectable inn,
could boast only of casements for its upper windows, and they are not
convenient to deliver speeches from. He was wont, therefore to take
his seat on the bow-window, and, that was not altogether convenient
either, for it was but narrow, and he hardly dared move an arm or a
leg for fear of pitching over on the upturned faces. Mr. Drake let
himself down also, to support him on one side, and the first day, the
lawyer supported him on the other. For the first day only; for that
worthy, being not as high as Sir Francis Levison's or Mr. Drake's
shoulder, and about five times their breadth, had those two been
rolled into one, experienced a slight difficulty in getting back
again. It was accomplished at last, Sir Francis pulling him up, and
Mr. Drake hoisting him from behind, just as a ladder was being brought
out to the rescue amidst shouts of laughter. The stout man wiped the
perspiration from his face when he was landed in safety, and recorded
a mental vow never to descend from a window again. After that the
candidate and his friend shared the shelf between them. The lawyer's
name was Rubiny, ill-naturedly supposed to be a corruption of Reuben.
They stood there one afternoon, Sir Francis' eloquence in full play,
but he was a shocking speaker, and the crowd, laughing, hissing,
groaning and applauding, blocking up the road. Sir Francis could not
complain of one thing--that he got no audience; for it was the
pleasure of West Lynne extensively to support him in that respect--a
few to cheer, a great many to jeer and hiss. Remarkably dense was the
mob on this afternoon, for Mr. Carlyle had just concluded his address
from the Buck's Head, and the crowd who had been listening to him came
rushing up to swell the ranks of the other crowd. They were elbowing,
and pushing, and treading on each other's heels, when an open barouche
drove suddenly up to scatter them. Its horses wore scarlet and purple
rosettes; and one lady, a very pretty one, sat inside of it--Mrs.
Carlyle.
But the crowd could not be so easily scattered; it was too thick; the
carriage could advance but at a snail's pace, and now and then came to
a standstill also, till the confusion should be subsided; for where
was the use of wasting words? He did not bow to Barbara; he remembered
the result of his having done so to Miss Carlyle, and the little
interlude of the pond had washed most of his impudence out of him. He
remained at his post, not looking at Barbara, not looking at anything
in particular, waiting till the interruption should have passed.
Barbara, under cover of her dainty lace parasol, turned her eyes upon
him. At that very moment he raised his right hand, slightly shook his
head back, and tossed his hair off his brow. His hand, ungloved, was
white and delicate as a lady's, and his rich diamond ring gleamed in
the sun. The pink flush on Barbara's cheek deepened to a crimson
damask, and her brow contracted with a remembrance of pain.
"The very action Richard described! The action he was always using at
East Lynne! I believe from my heart that the man is Thorn; that
Richard was laboring under some mistake when he said he knew Sir
Francis Levison."
She let her hands fall upon her knee as she spoke, heedless of the
candidate, heedless of the crowd, heedless of all save her own
troubled thoughts. A hundred respected salutations were offered her;
she answered them mechanically; a shout was raised, "Long live
Carlyle! Carlyle forever!" Barbara bowed her pretty head on either
side, and the carriage at length got on.
The parting of the crowd brought Mr. Dill, who had come to listen for
once to the speech of the second man, and Mr. Ebenezer James close to
each other. Mr. Ebenezer James was one who, for the last twelve or
fifteen years, had been trying his hand at many trades. And had not
come out particularly well at any. A rolling stone gathers no moss.
First, he had been clerk to Mr. Carlyle; next, he had been seduced
into joining the corps of the Theatre Royal at Lynneborough; then he
turned auctioneer; then travelling in the oil and color line; then a
parson, the urgent pastor of some new sect; then omnibus driver; then
collector of the water rate; and now he was clerk again, not in Mr.
Carlyle's office, but in that of Ball & Treadman, other solicitors of
West Lynne. A good-humored, good-natured, free-of-mannered, idle chap
was Mr. Ebenezer James, and that was the worst that could be urged
against him, save that he was sometimes out at pocket and out at
elbows. His father was a respectable man, and had made money in trade,
but he had married a second wife, had a second family, and his eldest
son did not come in for much of the paternal money, though he did for
a large share of the paternal anger.
"Well, Ebenezer, and how goes the world with you?" cried Mr. Dill by
way of salutation.
"Jogging on. It never gets to a trot."
"Didn't I see you turning into your father's house yesterday?"
"I pretty soon turned out of it again. I'm like the monkey when I
venture there--get more kicks than halfpence. Hush, old gentleman! We
interrupt the eloquence."
Of course "the eloquence" applied to Sir Francis Levison, and they set
themselves to listen--Mr. Dill with a serious face, Mr. Ebenezer with
a grinning one. But soon a jostle and movement carried them to the
outside of the crowd, out of sight of the speaker, though not entirely
out of hearing. By these means they had a view of the street, and
discerned something advancing to them, which they took for a Russian
bear on its hind legs.
"I'll--be--blest," uttered Mr. Ebenezer James, after a prolonged pause
of staring consternation, "if I don't believe its Bethel!"
"Bethel!" repeated Mr. Dill, gazing at the approaching figure. "What
has he been doing to himself?"
Mr. Otway Bethel it was, just arrived from foreign parts in his
travelling costume--something shaggy, terminating all over with tails.
A wild object he looked; and Mr. Dill rather backed as he drew near,
as if fearing he was a real animal which might bite him.
"What's your name?" cried he.
"It used to be Bethel," replied the wild man, holding out his hand to
Mr. Dill. "So you are in the world, James, and kicking yet?"
"And hope to kick in it for some time to come," replied Mr. James.
"Where did you hail from last? A settlement at the North Pole?"
"Didn't get quite as far. What's the row here?"
"When did you arrive, Mr. Otway?" inquired old Dill.
"Now. Four o'clock train. I say, what's up?"
"An election; that's all," said Mr. Ebenezer. "Attley went and kicked
the bucket."
"I don't ask about the election; I heard all that at the railway
station," returned Otway Bethel, impatiently. "What's /this/?" waving
his hand at the crowd.
"One of the candidates wasting breath and words--Levison."
"I say," repeated Otway Bethel, looking at Mr. Dill, "wasn't it rather
--rather of the ratherest, for /him/ to oppose Carlyle?"
"Infamous! Contemptible!" was the old gentleman's excited answer. "But
he'll get his deserts yet, Mr. Otway; they have already begun. He was
treated to a ducking yesterday in Justice Hare's green pond."
"And he did look a miserable devil when he came out, trailing through
the streets," added Mr. Ebenezer, while Otway Bethel burst into a
laugh. "He was smothered into some hot blankets at the Raven, and a
pint of burnt brandy put into him. He seems all right to-day."
"Will he go in and win?"
"Chut! Win against Carlyle! He has not the ghost of a chance; and
government--if it is the government who put him on--must be a pack of
fools; they can't know the influence of Carlyle. Bethel, is that style
of costume the fashion where you come from?"
"For slender pockets. I'll sell 'em to you now, James, at half price.
Let's get a look at this Levison, though. I have never seen the
fellow."
Another interruption of the crowd, even as he spoke, caused by the
railway van bringing up some luggage. They contrived, in the
confusion, to push themselves to the front, not far from Sir Francis.
Otway Bethel stared at him in unqualified amazement.
"Why, what brings /him/ here? What is he doing?"
"Who?"
He pointed his finger. "The one with the white handkerchief in his
hand."
"That is Sir Francis."
"No!" uttered Bethel, a whole world of astounded meaning in his tone.
"By Jove! /He/ Sir Francis Levison?"
At that moment their eyes met, Francis Levison's and Otway Bethel's.
Otway Bethel raised his shaggy hat in salutation, and Sir Francis
appeared completely scared. Only for an instant did he lose his
presence of mind. The next, his eyeglass was stuck in his eye and
turned on Mr. Bethel, with a hard, haughty stare; as much as to say,
who are you, fellow, that you should take such a liberty? But his
cheeks and lips were growing as white as marble.
"Do you know Levison, Mr. Otway?" inquired old Dill.
"A little. Once."
"When he was not Levison, but somebody else," laughed Mr. Ebenezer
James. "Eh, Bethel?"
Bethel turned as reproving a stare on Mr. Ebenezer as the baronet had
just turned on him. "What do you mean, pray? Mind your own business."
A nod to old Dill, and he turned off and disappeared, taking no further
notice of James. The old gentleman questioned the latter.
"What was that little bit of by-play, Mr. Ebenezer?"
"Nothing much," laughed Mr. Ebenezer. "Only he," nodding towards Sir
Francis, "was not always the great man he is now."
"Ah!"
"I have held my tongue about it, for it's no affair of mine, but I
don't mind letting you into the secret. Would you believe that that
grand baronet there, would-be member for West Lynne, used, years ago,
to dodge about Abbey Wood, mad after Afy Hallijohn? He didn't call
himself Levison then."
Mr. Dill felt as if a hundred pins and needles were pricking at his
memory, for there rose up in it certain doubts and troubles touching
Richard Hare and one Thorn. He laid his eager hand upon the other's
arm. "Ebenezer James, what did he call himself?"
"Thorn. A dandy, then, as he is now. He used to come galloping down
the Swainson road at dusk, tie his horse in the woods, and monopolize
Miss Afy."
"How do you know this?"
"Because I've seen it a dozen times. I was spooney after Afy myself in
those days, and went down there a good deal in an evening. If it
hadn't been for him, and--perhaps that murdering villain, Dick Hare,
Afy would have listened to me. Not that she cared for Dick; but, you
see, they were gentlemen. I am thankful to the stars, now, for my luck
in escaping her. With her for a wife, I should have been in a pickle
always; as it is, I do get out of it once in a while."
"Did you know then that he was Francis Levison?"
"Not I. He called himself Thorn, I tell you. When he came down to
offer himself for member, and oppose Carlyle, I was thunderstruck--
like Bethel was a minute ago. Ho ho, said I, so Thorn's defunct, and
Levison has risen."
"What had Otway Bethel to do with him?"
"Nothing--that I know of. Only Bethel was fond of the woods also--
after other game than Afy, though--and may have seen Thorn often. You
saw that he recognized him."
"Thorn--Levison, I mean--did not appear to like the recognition," said
Mr. Dill.
"Who would, in his position?" laughed Ebenezer James. "I don't like to
be reminded of many a wild scrape of my past life, in my poor station;
and what would it be for Levison, were it to come out that he once
called himself Thorn, and came running after Miss Afy Hallijohn?"
"Why did he call himself Thorn? Why disguise his own name?"
"Not knowing, can't say. /Is/ his name Levison, or is it Thorn?"
"Nonsense, Mr. Ebenezer!"
Mr. Dill, bursting with the strange news he had heard, endeavored to
force his way through the crowd, that he might communicate it to Mr.
Carlyle. The crowd was, however, too dense for him, and he had to wait
the opportunity of escaping with what patience he might. When it came
he made his way to the office, and entered Mr. Carlyle's private room.
That gentleman was seated at his desk, signing letters.
"Why, Dill, you are out of breath!"
"Well I may be! Mr. Archibald, I have been listening to the most
extraordinary statement. I have found out about Thorn. Who do you
think he is?"
Mr. Carlyle put down his pen and looked full in the old man's face; he
had never seen him so excited.
"It's that man, Levison."
"I do not understand you," said Mr. Carlyle. He did not. It was as
good as Hebrew to him. "The Levison of to-day, your opponent, is the
Thorn who went after Afy Hallijohn. It is so, Mr. Archibald."
"It cannot be!" slowly uttered Mr. Carlyle, thought upon thought
working havoc with his brain. "Where did you hear this?"
Mr. Dill told his tale. Otway Bethel's recognition of him; Sir Francis
Levison's scared paleness, for he had noticed that; Mr. Ebenezer's
revelation. The point in it all, that finally settled most upon Mr.
Carlyle, was the thought that if Levison were indeed the man, /he/
could not be instrumental in bringing him to justice.
"Bethel has denied to me more than once that he knew Thorn, or was
aware of such a man being in existence," observed Mr. Carlyle.
"He must have had a purpose in it, then," returned Mr. Dill. "They
knew each other to-day. Levison recognized him for certain, although
he carried it off with a high hand, pretending not."
"And it was not as Levison, but as Thorn, that Bethel recognized him?"
"There's little doubt of that. He did not mention the name, Thorn; but
he was evidently struck with astonishment at hearing that it was
Levison. If they have not some secret between them, Mr. Archibald,
I'll never believe my own eyes again."
"Mrs. Hare's opinion is that Bethel had to do with the murder," said
Mr. Carlyle, in a low tone.
"If that is their secret, Bethel knows the murderer, rely upon it,"
was the answer. "Mr. Archibald, it seems to me that now or never is
the time to clear up Richard."
"Aye; but how set about it?" responded Mr. Carlyle.
Meanwhile Barbara had proceeded home in her carriage, her brain as
busy as Mr. Carlyle's, perhaps more troubled. Her springing lightly
and hastily out the moment it stopped, disdaining the footman's arm,
her compressed lips and absent countenance, proved that her resolution
was set upon some plan of action. William and Madame Vine met her in
the hall.
"We have seen Dr. Martin, Mrs. Carlyle."
"And he says--"
"I cannot stay to hear now, William. I will see you later, madame."
She ran upstairs to her dressing-room, Madame Vine following her with
her reproachful eyes. "Why should she care?" thought madame. "It is
not her child."
Throwing her parasol on one chair, her gloves on another, down sat
Barbara to her writing-table. "I will write to him; I will have him
here, if it be but for an hour!" she passionately exclaimed. "This
shall be, so far, cleared up. I am as sure as sure can be that it is
that man. The very action Richard described! And there was the diamond
ring! For better, for worse, I will send for him; but it will not be
for worse if God is with us."
She dashed off a letter, getting up ere she had well begun it, to
order her carriage round again. She would trust none but herself to
put it in the post.
"MY DEAR MR. SMITH--We want you here. Something has arisen that it
is necessary to see you upon. You can get here by Saturday. Be in
/these/ grounds, near the covered walk, that evening at dusk. Ever
yours,
"B."
And the letter was addressed to Mr. Smith, of some street in
Liverpool, the address furnished by Richard. Very cautions to see, was
Barbara. She even put "Mr. Smith," inside the letter.
"Now stop," cried Barbara to herself, as she was folding it. "I ought
to send him a five pound note, for he may not have the means to come;
and I don't think I have one of that amount in the house."
She looked in her secretaire. Not a single five-pound note. Out of the
room she ran, meeting Joyce, who was coming along the corridor.
"Do you happen to have a five-pound note, Joyce?"
"No, ma'am, not by me."
"I dare say Madame Vine has. I paid her last week, and there were two
five-pound notes amongst it." And away went Barbara to the gray
parlor.
"Could you lend me a five-pound note, Madame Vine? I have occasion to
enclose one in a letter, and find I do not possess one."
Madame Vine went to her room to get it. Barbara waited. She asked
William what Dr. Martin said.
"He tried my chest with--oh, I forget what they call it--and he said I
must be a brave boy and take my cod-liver oil well, and port wine, and
everything I liked that was good. And he said he should be at West
Lynne next Wednesday afternoon; and I am to go there, and he would
call in and see me."
"Where are you to meet him?"
"He said, either at papa's office or at Aunt Cornelia's, as we might
decide. Madame fixed it for papa's office, for she thought he might
like to see Dr. Martin. I say, mamma."
"What?" asked Barbara.
"Madame Vine has been crying ever since. Why should she?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Crying!"
"Yes but she wipes her eyes under her spectacles, and thinks I don't
see her. I know I am very ill, but why should she cry for that?"
"Nonsense, William. Who told you you were very ill?"
"Nobody. I suppose I am," he thoughtfully added. "If Joyce or Lucy
cried, now, there'd be some sense in it, for they have known me all my
life."
"You are so apt to fancy things! You are always doing it. It is not
likely that madame would be crying because you are ill."
Madame came in with the bank-note. Barbara thanked her, ran upstairs,
and in another minute or two was in her carriage.
She was back again, and dressing when the gentlemen returned to
dinner. Mr. Carlyle came upstairs. Barbara, like most persons who do
things without reflection, having had time to cool down from her
ardor, was doubting whether she had acted wisely in sending so
precipitately for Richard. She carried her doubt and care to her
husband, her sure refuge in perplexity.
"Archibald, I fear I have done a foolish thing."
He laughed. "I fear we all do that at times, Barbara. What is it?"
He had seated himself in one of Barbara's favorite low chairs, and she
stood before him, leaning on his shoulder, her face a little behind,
so that he could not see it. In her delicacy she would not look at him
while she spoke what she was going to speak.
"It is something that I have had upon my mind for years, and I did not
like to tell it to you."
"For years?"
"You remember that night, years ago, when Richard was at the Grove in
disguise--"
"Which night, Barbara? He came more than once."
"The night--the night that Lady Isabel quitted East Lynne," she
answered, not knowing how better to bring it to his recollection and
she stole her hand lovingly into his, as she said it. "Richard came
back after his departure, saying he had met Thorn in Bean lane. He
described the peculiar motion of the hand as he threw back his hair
from his brow; he spoke of the white hand and the diamond ring--how it
glittered in the moonlight. Do you remember?"
"I do."
"The motion appeared perfectly familiar to me, for I had seen it
repeatedly used by one then staying at East Lynne. I wondered you did
not recognize it. From that night I had little doubt as to the
identity of Thorn. I believed that he and Captain Levison were one."
A pause. "Why did you not tell me so, Barbara?"
"How could I speak of that man to you, at that time? Afterwards, when
Richard was here, that snowy winter's day, he asserted that he knew
Sir Frances Levison; that he had seen him and Thorn together; and that
put me off the scent. But to-day, as I was passing the Raven, in the
carriage--going very slow, on account of the crowd--he was perched out
there, addressing the people, and I saw the very same action--the old
action that I had used to see."
Barbara paused. Mr. Carlyle did not interrupt her.
"I feel a conviction that they are the same--that Richard must have
been under some unaccountable mistake in saying that he knew Francis
Levison. Besides, who but he, in evening dress, would have been likely
to go through Bean lane that night? It leads to no houses, but one
wishing to avoid the high road could get into it from these grounds,
and so on to West Lynne. He must have gone back directly on foot to
West Lynne, to get the post carriage, as was proved, and he would
naturally go through Bean lane. Forgive me, Archibald, for recalling
these things to you, but I feel so sure that Levison and Thorn are
one."
"I know they are," he quietly said.
Barbara, in her astonishment drew back and stared him in the face--a
face of severe dignity it was just then.
"Oh, Archibald! Did you know it at that time?"
"I did not know it until this afternoon. I never suspected it."
"I wonder you did not. I have wondered often."
"So do I now. Dill, Ebenezer James, and Otway Bethel--who came home
to-day--were standing before the Raven, listening to his speech, when
Bethel recognized him; not as Levison--he was infinitely astonished to
find he was Levison. Levison, they say, was scared at the recognition,
and changed color. Bethel would give no explanation, and moved away;
but James told Dill that Levison was the man Thorn who used to be
after Afy Hallijohn."
"How did you know?" breathlessly asked Barbara.
"Because Mr. Ebenezer was after Afy himself, and repeatedly saw Thorn
in the wood. Barbara, I believe now that it was Levison who killed
Hallijohn, but I should like to know what Bethel had to do with it."
Barbara clasped her hands. "How strange it is!" she exclaimed, in some
excitement. "Mamma told me, yesterday, that she was convinced
something or other was going to turn up relative to the murder. She
had had the most distressing dream, she said, connected with Richard
and Bethel, and somebody else, whom she appeared to know in the dream,
but could not recognize or remember when she was awake. She was as ill
as could be--she does put such faith in these wretched dreams."
"One would think you did also, Barbara, by your vehemence."
"No, no; you know better. But it is strange--you must acknowledge that
it is--that, so sure as anything fresh happens touching the subject of
the murder, so sure is a troubled dream the forerunner of it. Mamma
does not have them at other times. Bethel denied to you that he knew
Thorn."
"I know he did."
"And now it turns out that he does know him, and he is always in
mamma's dreams--none more prominent in them than Bethel. But,
Archibald, I am not telling you--I have sent for Richard."
"You have?"
"I felt sure that Levison was Thorn. I did not expect that others
would recognize him, and I acted on the impulse of the moment and
wrote to Richard, telling him to be here on Saturday evening. The
letter is gone."
"Well, we must shelter him as best we can."
"Archibald--dear Archibald, what can be done to clear him?" she asked,
the tears rising to her eyes.
"Being Levison, I cannot act."
"What!" she uttered. "Not act--not act for Richard!"
He bent his clear, truthful eyes upon her.
"My dearest, how can I?"
She looked a little rebellious, and the tears fell.
"You have not considered, Barbara. Any one in the world but Levison;
it would look like my own revenge."
"Forgive me!" she softly whispered. "You are always right. I did not
think of it in that light. But, what steps do you imagine can be
taken?"
"It is a case encompassed with difficulties," mused Mr. Carlyle. "Let
us wait until Richard comes."
"Do you happen to have a five-pound note in your pocket, Archibald? I
had not one to send to him, and borrowed it from Madame Vine."
He took out his pocket book and gave it to her.
In the gray parlor, in the dark twilight of the April evening--or it
was getting far into the night--were William Carlyle and Lady Isabel.
It had been a warm day, but the spring evenings were still chilly, and
a fire burned in the grate. There was no blaze, the red embers were
smoldering and half dead, but Madame Vine did not bestir herself to
heed the fire. William lay on the sofa, and she sat by, looking at
him. Her glasses were off, for the tears wetted them continually; and
it was not the recognition of the children she feared. He was tired
with the drive to Lynneborough and back, and lay with eyes shut; she
thought asleep. Presently he opened them.
"How long will it be before I die?"
The words took her utterly by surprise, and her heart went round in a
whirl. "What do you mean, William? Who said anything about dying?"
"Oh, I know. I know by the fuss there is over me. You heard what
Hannah said the other night."
"What? When?"
"When she brought in the tea, and I was lying on the rug. I was not
asleep, though you thought I was. You told her she ought to be more
cautious, for that I might not have been asleep."
"I don't remember much about it," said Lady Isabel, at her wits' ends
how to remove the impression Hannah's words must have created, had he
indeed heard them. "Hannah talks great nonsense sometimes."
"She said I was going on fast to the grave."
"Did she? Nobody attends to Hannah. She is only a foolish girl. We
shall soon have you well, when the warm weather comes."
"Madame Vine."
"Well, my darling?"
"Where's the use of your trying to deceive me? Do you think I don't
see that you are doing it? I'm not a baby; you might if it were
Archibald. What is it that's the matter with me?"
"Nothing. Only you are not strong. When you get strong again, you will
be as well as ever."
William shook his head in disbelief. He was precisely that sort of
child from whom it is next to impossible to disguise facts; quick,
thoughtful, observant, and advanced beyond his years. Had no words
been dropped in his hearing, he would have suspected the evil, by the
care evinced for him, but plenty of words had been dropped; hints, by
which he had gathered suspicion; broad assertions, like Hannah's,
which had too fully supplied it; and the boy in his inmost heart, knew
as well that death was coming for him as that death itself did.
"Then, if there's nothing the matter with me, why could not Dr. Martin
speak to you before me to-day? Why did he send me into the other room
while he told you what he thought? Ah, Madame Vine, I am as wise as
you."
"A wise little boy, but mistaken sometimes," she said from her aching
heart.
"It's nothing to die, when God loves us. Lord Vane says so. He had a
little brother who died."
"A sickly child, who was never likely to live, he had been pale and
ailing from a baby," spoke Lady Isabel.
"Why! Did you know him?"
"I--I heard so," she replied, turning off her thoughtless avowal in
the best manner she could.
"Don't /you/ know that I am going to die?"
"No."
"Then why have you been grieving since we left Dr. Martin's? And why
do you grieve at all for me? I am not your child."
The words, the scene altogether, overcame her. She knelt down by the
sofa, and her tears burst forth freely. "There! You see!" cried
William.
"Oh, William, I--I had a little boy of my own, and when I look at you,
I think of him, and that is why I cry."
"I know. You have told us of him before. His name was William, too."
She leaned over him, her breath mingling with his; she took his little
hand in hers; "William, do you know that those whom God loves best He
takes first? Were you to die, you would go to Heaven, leaving all the
cares and sorrows of the world behind you. It would have been happier
for many of us had we died in infancy."
"Would it have been happier for you?"
"Yes," she faintly said. "I have had more than my share of sorrow.
Sometimes I think that I cannot support it."
"Is it not past, then? Do you have sorrow now?"
"I have it always. I shall have it till I die. Had I died a child,
William, I should have escaped it. Oh! The world is full of it! full
and full."
"What sort of sorrow?"
"All sorts. Pain, sickness, care, trouble, sin, remorse, weariness,"
she wailed out. "I cannot enumerate the half that the world brings
upon us. When you are very, very tired, William, does it not seem a
luxury, a sweet happiness, to lie down at night in your little bed,
waiting for the bliss of sleep?"
"Yes. And I am often tired; so tired as that."
"Then just so do we, who are tired of the world's cares, long for the
grave in which we shall lie down to rest. We /covet/ it, William; long
for it; but you cannot understand that."
"/We/ don't lie in the grave, Madame Vine."
"No, no, child. Our bodies lie there, to be raised again in beauty at
the last day. We go into a blessed place of rest, where sorrow and
pain cannot come. I wish--I wish," she uttered, with a bursting heart,
"that you and I were both there!"
"Who says the world's so sorrowful, Madame Vine? I think it is lovely,
especially when the sun's shining on a hot day, and the butterflies
come out. You should see East Lynne on a summer's morning, when you
are running up and down the slopes, and the trees are waving overhead,
and the sky's blue, and the roses and flowers are all out. You would
not call it a sad world."
"A pleasant world one might regret to leave if we were not wearied by
pain and care. But, what is this world, take it at its best, in
comparison with that other world, Heaven? I have heard of some people
who are afraid of death; they fear they shall not go to it; but when
God takes a little child there it is because He loves him. It is a
land, as Mrs. Barbauld says, where the roses are without thorns, where
the flowers are not mixed with brambles--"
"I have seen the flowers," interrupted William, rising in his
earnestness. "They are ten times brighter than our flowers here."
"Seen the flowers! The flowers we shall see in Heaven?" she echoed.
"I have seen a picture of them. We went to Lynneborough to see
Martin's picture of the Last Judgment--I don't mean Dr. Martin," said
William interrupting himself.
"I know."
"There were three pictures. One was called the 'Plains of Heaven,' and
I liked that best; and so we all did. Oh, you should have seen it! Did
you ever see them, Madame Vine?"
"No. I have heard of them."
"There was a river, you know, and boats, beautiful gondolas they
looked, taking the redeemed to the shores of Heaven. They were shadowy
figures in white robes, myriads of them, for they reached all up in
the air to the holy city; it seemed to be in the clouds coming down
from God. The flowers grew on the banks of the river, pink, and blue,
and violet, all colors they were, but so bright and beautiful;
brighter than our flowers are."
"Who took you to see the pictures?"
"Papa. He took me and Lucy; and Mrs. Hare went with us, and Barbara--
she was not our mamma then. But, madame"--dropping his voice--"what
stupid thing do you think Lucy asked papa?"
"What did she ask him?"
"She asked whether mamma was amongst that crowd in the white robes;
whether she was gone up to Heaven? Our mamma that was, you know, and
lots of people could hear what she said."
Lady Isabel dropped her face upon her hands.
"What did your papa answer?" she breathed.
"I don't know. Nothing, I think; he was talking to Barbara. But it was
very stupid of Lucy, because Wilson has told her over and over again
that she must never talk of Lady Isabel to papa. Miss Manning told her
so too. When we got home, and Wilson heard of it, she said Lucy
deserved a good shaking."
"Why must not Lady Isabel be talked of to him?"
A moment after the question had left her lips, she wondered what
possessed her to give utterance to it.
"I'll tell you," said William in a whisper. "She ran away from papa.
Lucy talks nonsense about her having been kidnapped, but she knows
nothing. I do, though they don't think it, perhaps."
"She may be among the redeemed, some time, William, and you with her."
He fell back on the sofa-pillow with a weary sigh, and lay in silence.
Lady Isabel shaded her face, and remained in silence also. Soon she
was aroused from it; William was in a fit of loud, sobbing tears.
"Oh, I don't want to die! I don't want to die! Why should I go and
leave papa and Lucy?"
She hung over him; she clasped her arms around him; her tears, her
sobs, mingling with his. She whispered to him sweet and soothing
words; she placed him so that he might sob out his grief upon her
bosom; and in a little while the paroxysm had passed.
"Hark!" exclaimed William. "What's that?"
A sound of talking and laughter in the hall. Mr. Carlyle, Lord Mount
Severn, and his son were leaving the dining-room. They had some
committee appointed that evening at West Lynne and were departing to
keep it. As the hall-door closed upon them, Barbara came into the gray
parlor. Up rose Madame Vine, scuffled on her spectacles, and took her
seat soberly upon a chair.
"All in the dark, and your fire going out!" exclaimed Barbara, as she
hastened to stir the latter and send it into a blaze. "Who's on the
sofa? William, you ought to be to bed!"
"Not yet, mamma. I don't want to go yet."
"But it is quite time that you should," she returned, ringing the
bell. "To sit up at night is not the way to make you strong."
William was dismissed. And then she returned to Madame Vine, and
inquired what Dr. Martin had said.
"He said the lungs were undoubtedly affected; but, like all doctors,
he would give no decisive opinion. I could see that he had formed
one."
Mrs. Carlyle looked at her. The firelight played especially upon the
spectacles, and she moved her chair into the shade.
"Dr. Martin will see him again next week; he is coming to West Lynne.
I am sure, by the tone of his voice, by his evasive manner, that he
anticipates the worst, although he would not say so in words."
"I will take William into West Lynne myself," observed Barbara. "The
doctor will, of course, tell me. I came in to pay my debts," she
added, dismissing the subject of the child, and holding out a five-
pound note.
Lady Isabel mechanically stretched out her hand for it.
"Whilst we are, as may be said, upon the money topic," resumed
Barbara, in a gay tone, "will you allow me to intimate that both
myself and Mr. Carlyle very much disapprove of your making presents to
the children. I was calculating, at a rough guess the cost of the toys
and things you have bought for them, and I think it must amount to a
very large portion of the salary you have received. Pray do not
continue this, Madame Vine."
"I have no one else to spend my money on; I love the children," was
madame's answer, somewhat sharply given, as if she were jealous of the
interference between her and the children, and would resent it.
"Nay, you have yourself. And if you do not require much outlay, you
have, I should suppose, a reserve fund to which to put your money. Be
so kind as to take the hint, madame, otherwise I shall be compelled
more peremptorily to forbid your generosity. It is very good of you,
very kind; but if you do not think yourself, we must for you."
"I will buy them less," was the murmured answer. "I must give them a
little token of love now and then."
"That you are welcome to do--a 'little token,' once in a way, but not
the costly toys you have been purchasing. Have you ever had an
acquaintance with Sir Francis Levison?" continued Mrs. Carlyle,
passing with abruptness from one point to another.
An inward shiver, a burning cheek, a heartpang of wild remorse, and a
faint answer. "No."
"I fancied from your manner when I was speaking of him the other day,
that you knew him or had known him. No compliment, you will say, to
assume an acquaintance with such a man. He is a stranger to you,
then?"
Another faint reply. "Yes."
Barbara paused.
"Do you believe in fatality, Madame Vine?"
"Yes, I do," was the steady answer.
"I don't," and yet the very question proved that she did not wholly
disbelieve it. "No, I don't," added Barbara, stoutly, as she
approached the sofa vacated by William, and sat down upon it, thus
bringing herself opposite and near to Madame Vine. "Are you aware that
it was Francis Levison who brought the evil to this house?"
"The evil----" stammered Madame Vine.
"Yes, it was he," she resumed, taking the hesitating answer for an
admission that the governess knew nothing, or but little, of past
events. "It was he who took Lady Isabel from her home--though perhaps
she was as willing to go as he was to take her; I do know--"
"Oh, no, no!" broke from the unguarded lips of Madame Vine. "At least
--I mean--I should think not," she added, in confusion.
"We shall never know; and of what consequence is it? One thing is
certain, /she went/; another thing, almost equally certain, is, she
did not go against her will. Did you ever hear the details?"
"N--o." Her answer would have been "Yes," but possibly the next
question might have been, "From whom did you hear them?"
"He was staying at East Lynne. The man had been abroad; outlawed;
dared not show his face in England; and Mr. Carlyle, in his
generosity, invited him to East Lynne as a place of shelter, where he
would be safe from his creditors while something was arranged. He was
a connection in some way of Lady Isabel's, and they repaid Mr.
Carlyle, he and she, by quitting East Lynne together."
"Why did Mr. Carlyle give that invitation?" The words were uttered in
a spirit of remorseful wailing. Mrs. Carlyle believed they were a
question put, and she rose up haughtily against it.
"Why did he give the invitation? Did I hear you aright, Madame Vine?
Did Mr. Carlyle know he was a reprobate? And, if he had known it, was
not Isabel his wife? Could he dream of danger for her? If it pleased
Mr. Carlyle to fill East Lynne with bad men to-morrow, what would that
be to me--to my safety, to my well-being, to my love and allegiance to
my husband? What were you thinking of, madame?"
"Thinking of?" She leaned her troubled head upon her hand. Mrs.
Carlyle resumed,--
"Sitting alone in the drawing-room just now, and thinking matters
over, it did seem to me very like what people call a fatality. That
man, I say, was the one who wrought the disgrace, the trouble to Mr.
Carlyle's family; and it is he, I have every reason now to believe,
who brought a nearly equal disgrace and trouble upon mine. Did you
know--" Mrs. Carlyle lowered her voice--"that I have a brother in evil
--in shame?"
Lady Isabel did not dare to answer that she did know it. Who had there
been likely to inform her, the strange governess of the tale of
Richard Hare!
"So the world calls it--shame," pursued Barbara, growing excited. "And
it is shame, but not as the world thinks it. The shame lies with
another, who had thrust the suffering and shame upon Richard; and that
other is Francis Levison. I will tell you the tale. It is worth the
telling."
She could only dispose herself to listen; but she wondered what
Francis Levison had to do with Richard Hare.
"In the days long gone by, when I was little more than a child,
Richard took to going after Afy Hallijohn. You have seen the cottage
in the wood; she lived there with her father and Joyce. It was very
foolish for him; but young men will be foolish. As many more went
after her, or wanted to go after her, as she could count upon her ten
fingers. Among them, chief of them, more favored even than Richard,
was one called Thorn, by social position a gentleman. He was a
stranger, and used to ride over in secret. The night of the murder
came--the dreadful murder, when Hallijohn was shot down dead. Richard
ran away; testimony was strong against him, and the coroner's jury
brought in a verdict of 'Wilful Murder against Richard Hare the
younger.' We never supposed but what he was guilty--of the act, mind
you, not of the intention; even mamma, who so loved him, believed he
had done it; but she believed it was the result of accident, not
design. Oh, the trouble that has been the lot of my poor mamma!" cried
Barbara, clasping her hands. "And she had no one to sympathize with
her--no one, no one! I, as I tell you, was little more than a child;
and papa, who might have done it, took part against Richard. It went
on for three or four years, the sorrow, and there was no mitigation.
At the end of that period Richard came for a few hours to West Lynne--
came in secret--and we learnt for the first time that he was /not/
guilty. The man who did the deed was Thorn; Richard was not even
present. The next question was, how to find Thorn. Nobody knew
anything about him--who he was, what he was, where he came from, where
he went to; and thus more years passed on. Another Thorn came to West
Lynne--an officer in her majesty's service; and his appearance tallied
with the description Richard had given. I assumed it to be the one;
Mr. Carlyle assumed it; but, before anything could be done or even
thought of Captain Thorn was gone again."
Barbara paused to take breath, Madame Vine sat listless enough. What
was this tale to her?
"Again years went on. The period came of Francis Levison's sojourn at
East Lynne. Whilst I was there, Captain Thorn arrived once more, on a
visit to the Herberts. We then strove to find out points of his
antecedents, Mr. Carlyle and I, and we became nearly convinced that he
was the man. I had to come here often to see Mr. Carlyle, for mamma
did not dare to stir in the affair, papa was so violent against
Richard. Thus I often saw Francis Levison; but he was visible to
scarcely any other visitor, being at East Lynne /en cachette/. He
intimated that he was afraid of encountering creditors. I now begin to
doubt whether that was not a false plea; and I remember Mr. Carlyle
said, at the time, that he had no creditors in or near West Lynne."
"Then what was his motive for shunning society--for never going out?"
interrupted Lady Isabel. Too well she remembered that bygone time;
Francis Levison had told that the fear of his creditors kept him up so
closely; though he had once said to her they were not in the immediate
neighborhood of East Lynne.
"He had a worse fear upon him than that of creditors," returned Mrs.
Carlyle. "Singular to say, during this visit of Captain Thorn to the
Herberts, we received an intimation from my brother that he was once
more about to venture for a few hours to West Lynne. I brought the
news to Mr. Carlyle. I had to see him and consult with him more
frequently than ever; mamma was painfully restless and anxious, and
Mr. Carlyle as eager as we were for the establishment of Richard's
innocence; for Miss Carlyle and papa are related, consequently the
disgrace may be said to reflect on the Carlyle name."
Back went Lady Isabel's memory and her bitter repentance. She
remembered how jealously she had attributed these meetings between Mr.
Carlyle and Barbara to another source. Oh! Why had she suffered her
mind to be so falsely and fatally perverted?
"Richard came. It was hastily arranged that he should go privately to
Mr. Carlyle's office, after the clerks had left for the night, be
concealed there, and have an opportunity given him of seeing Captain
Thorn. There was no difficulty, for Mr. Carlyle was transacting some
matter of business for the captain, and appointed him to be at the
office at eight o'clock. A memorable night, that, to Mr. Carlyle, for
it was the one of his wife's elopement."
Lady Isabel looked up with a start.
"It was, indeed. She--Lady Isabel--and Mr. Carlyle were engaged to a
dinner party; and Mr. Carlyle had to give it up, otherwise he could
not have served Richard. He is always considerate and kind, thinking
of others' welfare--never of his own gratification. Oh, it was an
anxious night. Papa was out. I waited at home with mamma, doing what I
could to sooth her restless suspense, for there was hazard to Richard
in his night walk through West Lynne to keep the appointment; and,
when it was over, he was to come home for a short interview with
mamma, who had not seen him for several years."
Barbara stopped, lost in thought. Not a word spoke Madame Vine. She
still wondered what this affair touching Richard Hare and Thorn could
have to do with Francis Levison.
"I watched from the window and saw them come in at the garden gate--
Mr. Carlyle and Richard--between nine and ten o'clock, I think it must
have been then. The first words they said to me were that it was not
the Captain Thorn spoken of by Richard. I felt a shock of
disappointment, which was wicked enough of me, but I had been so sure
he was the man; and to hear that he was not, seemed to throw us
further back than ever. Mr. Carlyle, on the contrary, was glad for he
had taken a liking to Captain Thorn. Well, Richard went in to mamma,
and Mr. Carlyle was so kind as to accede to her request that he would
remain and pace the garden with me. We were so afraid of papa's coming
home; he was bitter against Richard, and would inevitably have
delivered him up at once to justice. Had he come in, Mr. Carlyle was
to keep him in the garden by the gate whilst I ran in to give notice
and conceal Richard in the hall. Richard lingered; papa did not come;
and I cannot tell how long we paced there; but I had my shawl on, and
it was a lovely moonlight night."
That unhappy listener clasped her hands to pain. The matter-of-fact
tone, the unconscious mention of commonplace trifles, proved that they
had not been pacing about in disloyalty to her, or for their own
gratification. /Why/ had she not trusted her noble husband? Why had
she listened to that false man, as he pointed them out to her walking
there in the moonlight? Why had she given vent, in the chariot, to
that burst of passionate tears, of angry reproach? Why, oh! why had
she hastened to be revenged? But for seeing them together, she might
not have done as she did.
"Richard came forth at last, and departed, to be again an exile. Mr.
Carlyle also departed; and I remained at the gate, watching for papa.
By and by Mr. Carlyle came back again; he had got nearly home when he
remembered that he had left a parchment at our house. It seemed to be
nothing but coming back; for just after he had gone a second time,
Richard returned in a state of excitement, stating that he had seen
Thorn--Thorn the murderer, I mean--in Bean lane. For a moment I
doubted him, but not for long, and we ran after Mr. Carlyle. Richard
described Thorn's appearance; his evening dress, his white hands and
diamond ring; more particularly he described a peculiar motion of his
hand as he threw back his hair. In that moment it flashed across me
that Thorn must be Captain Levison; the description was exact. Many
and many a time since have I wondered that the thought did not strike
Mr. Carlyle."
Lady Isabel sat with her mouth open, as if she could not take in the
sense of the words; and when it did become clear to her, she utterly
rejected it.
"Francis Levison a murderer! Oh, no! bad man as he is, he is not
that."
"Wait," said Mrs. Carlyle. "I did not speak of this doubt--nay, this
conviction--which had come; how could I mention to Mr. Carlyle the
name of the man who did him that foul wrong? And Richard has remained
so long in exile, with the ban of guilt upon him. To-day as my
carriage passed through West Lynne, Francis Levison was haranguing the
people. I saw that very same action--the throwing back of the hair
with his white hand. I saw the selfsame diamond ring; and my
conviction that he was the same man became more firmly seated than
ever."
"It is impossible!" murmured Lady Isabel.
"Wait, I say," said Barbara. "When Mr. Carlyle came home to dinner, I,
for the first time, mentioned this to him. It was no news--the fact
was not. This afternoon during that same harangue, Francis Levison was
recognized by two witnesses to be the man Thorn--the man who went
after Afy Hallijohn. It is horrible."
Lady Isabel sat and looked at Mrs. Carlyle. Not yet did she believe
it.
"Yes, it does appear to me as being perfectly horrible," continued
Mrs. Carlyle. "He murdered Hallijohn--he, that bad man; and my poor
brother has suffered the odium. When Richard met him that night in
Bean lane, he was sneaking to West Lynne in search of the chaise that
afterward bore away him and his companion. Papa saw them drive away.
Papa stayed out late; and, in returning home, a chaise and four tore
past, just as he was turning in at the gate. If that miserable Lady
Isabel had but known with whom she was flying! A murderer! In addition
to his other achievements. It is a mercy for her that she is no longer
alive. What would her feelings be?"
What were they, then, as she sat there? A /murderer/? And she had----
In spite of her caution, of her strife for self-command, she turned of
a deadly whiteness, and a low, sharp cry of horror and despair burst
from her lips.
Mrs. Carlyle was astonished. Why should her communication have
produced this effect upon Madame Vine? A renewed suspicion that she
knew more of Francis Levison than she would acknowledge, stole over
her.
"Madame Vine, what is he to you?" she asked, bending forward.
Madame Vine, doing fierce battle with herself, recovered her outward
equanimity. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Carlyle," she said, shivering; "I
am apt to picture things too vividly. It is, as you say, so very
horrible."
"Is he nothing to you? Don't you know him?"
"He is nothing to me--less than nothing. As to knowing him--I saw him
yesterday, when they put him into the pond. A man like that! I should
shudder to meet him!"
"Ay, indeed!" said Barbara, reassured. "You will understand, Madame
Vine, that this history has been given to you in confidence. I look
upon you as one of ourselves."
There was no answer. Madame Vine sat on, with her white face. She and
it wore altogether a ghastly look.
"It tells like a fable out of a romance," resumed Mrs. Carlyle. "Well
for him if the romance be not ended in the gibbet. Fancy what it would
be for him--Sir Francis Levison--to be hung for murder!"
"Barbara, my dearest!"
The voice was Mr. Carlyle's, and she flew off on the wings of love. It
appeared that the gentlemen had not yet departed, and now thought they
would take coffee first.
She flew off to her idolized husband, leaving her who had once been
idolized to her loneliness. She sank down on the sofa; she threw her
arms up in her heart-sickness; she thought she would faint; she prayed
to die. It /was/ horrible, as Barbara had called it. For that man with
the red stain upon his hand and soul she had flung away Archibald
Carlyle.
If ever retribution came home to woman, it came home in that hour to
Lady Isabel.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
MR. CARLYLE INVITED TO SOME PATE DE FOIE GRAS.
A sighing morning wind swept round the domains of East Lynne, bending
the tall poplar trees in the distance, swaying the oak and elms
nearer, rustling the fine old chestnuts in the park, a melancholy,
sweeping, fitful wind. The weather had changed from brightness and
warmth, and heavy, gathering clouds seemed to be threatening rain; so,
at least, deemed one wayfarer, who was journeying on a solitary road
that Saturday night.
He was on foot. A man attired in the garb of a sailor, with black,
curling ringlets of hair, and black, curling whiskers; a prodigious
pair of whiskers, hiding his neck above his blue, turned collar,
hiding partially his face. The glazed hat, brought low upon his brows,
concealed it still more; and he wore a loose, rough pea-jacket and
wide rough trousers hitched up with a belt. Bearing steadily on, he
struck into Bean lane, a by-way already mentioned in this history, and
from thence, passing through a small, unfrequented gate, he found
himself in the grounds of East Lynne.
"Let me see," mused he as he closed the gate behind him, and slipped
the bolt. "The covered walk? That must be near the acacia trees. Then
I must wind round to the right. I wonder if either of them will be
there, waiting for me?"
Yes. Pacing the covered walk in her bonnet and mantle, as if taking an
evening stroll--had any one encountered her, which was very unlikely,
seeing that it was the most retired spot in the grounds--was Mrs.
Carlyle.
"Oh, Richard! My poor brother!"
Locked in a yearning embrace, emotion overpowered both. Barbara sobbed
like a child. A little while, and then he put her from him, to look at
her.
"So Barbara, you are a wife now?"
"Oh, the happiest wife! Richard, sometimes I ask myself what I have
done that God should have showered down blessings so great upon me.
But for the sad trouble when I think of you, my life would be as one
long summer's day. I have the sweetest baby--nearly a year old he is
now; I shall have another soon, God willing. And Archibald--oh, I am
so happy!"
She broke suddenly off with the name "Archibald;" not even to Richard
could she speak of her intense love for, and happiness in her husband.
"How is it at the Grove?" he asked.
"Quite well; quite as usual. Mamma has been in better health lately.
She does not know of this visit, but--"
"I must see her," interrupted Richard. "I did not see her the last
time, you remember."
"All in good time to talk of that. How are you getting on in
Liverpool? What are you doing?"
"Don't inquire too closely, Barbara. I have no regular work, but I get
a job at the docks, now and then, and rub on. It is seasonable help,
that, which comes to me occasionally from you. Is it from you or
Carlyle?"
Barbara laughed. "How are we to distinguish? His money is mine now,
and mine is his. We don't have separate purses, Richard; we send it to
you jointly."
"Sometimes I have fancied it came from my mother."
Barbara shook her head. "We have never allowed mamma to know that you
left London, or that we hold an address where we can write to you. It
would not have done."
"Why have you summoned me here, Barbara? What has turned up?"
"Thorn has--I think. You would know him again Richard?"
"Know him!" passionately echoed Richard Hare.
"Were you aware that a contest for the membership is going on at West
Lynne?"
"I saw it in the newspapers. Carlyle against Sir Francis Levison. I
say, Barbara, how could he think of coming here to oppose Carlyle
after his doing with Lady Isabel?"
"I don't know," said Barbara. "I wonder that he should come here for
other reasons also. First of all, Richard, tell me how you came to
know Sir Francis Levison. You say you did know him, and that you had
seen him with Thorn."
"So I do know him," answered Richard. "And I saw him with Thorn
twice."
"Know him by sight only, I presume. Let me hear how you came to know
him."
"He was pointed out to me. I saw him walk arm-in-arm with a gentleman,
and I showed them to the waterman at the cab-stand hard by. 'Do you
know that fellow?' I asked him, indicating Thorn, for I wanted to come
at who he really is--which I didn't do. 'I don't know that one,' the
old chap answered, 'but the one with him is Levison the baronet. They
are often together--a couple of swells they looked.' "
"And that's how you got to know Levison?"
"That was it," said Richard Hare.
"Then, Richard, you and the waterman made a mess of it between you. He
pointed out the wrong one, or you did not look at the right. Thorn is
Sir Francis Levison."
Richard stared at her with all his eyes.
"Nonsense, Barbara!"
"He is, I have never doubted it since the night you saw him in Bean
lane. The action you described, of his pushing back his hair, his
white hands, his sparkling diamond ring, could only apply in my mind
to one person--Francis Levison. On Thursday I drove by the Raven, when
he was speechifying to the people, and I noticed the selfsame action.
In the impulse of the moment I wrote off for you, that you might come
and set the doubt at rest. I need not have done it, it seems, for when
Mr. Carlyle returned home that evening, and I acquainted him with what
I had done, he told me that Thorn and Francis Levison are one and the
same. Otway Bethel recognized him that same afternoon, and so did
Ebenezer James."
"They'd both know him," eagerly cried Richard. "James I am positive
would, for he was skulking down to Hallijohn's often then, and saw
Thorn a dozen times. Otway Bethel must have seen him also, though he
protested he had not. Barbara!"
The name was uttered in affright, and Richard plunged amidst the
trees, for somebody was in sight--a tall, dark form advancing from the
end of the walk. Barbara smiled. It was only Mr. Carlyle, and Richard
emerged again.
"Fears still, Richard," Mr. Carlyle exclaimed, as he shook Richard
cordially by the hand. "So you have changed your travelling toggery."
"I couldn't venture here again in the old suit; it had been seen, you
said," returned Richard. "I bought this rig-out yesterday, second-
hand. Two pounds for the lot--I think they shaved me."
"Ringlets and all?" laughed Mr. Carlyle.
"It's the old hair oiled and curled," cried Dick. "The barber charged
a shilling for doing it, and cut my hair into the bargain. I told him
not to spare grease, for I liked the curls to shine--sailors always
do. Mr. Carlyle, Barbara says that Levison and that brute Thorn--the
one's as much of a brute as the other, though--have turned out to be
the same."
"They have, Richard, as it appears. Nevertheless, it may be as well
for you to take a private view of Levison before anything is done--as
you once did by the other Thorn. It would not do to make a stir, and
then discover that there was a mistake--that he was not Thorn."
"When can I see him?" asked Richard, eagerly.
"It must be contrived somehow. Were you to hang about the doors of the
Raven--this evening, even--you'd be sure to get the opportunity, for
he is always passing in and out. No one will know you, or think of
you, either: their heads are turned with the election."
"I shall look odd to people's eyes. You don't get many sailors in West
Lynne."
"Not odd at all. We have a Russian bear here at present, and you'll be
nobody beside him."
"A Russian bear!" repeated Richard, while Barbara laughed.
"Mr. Otway Bethel has returned in what is popularly supposed to be a
bear's hide; hence the new name he is greeted with. Will it turn out,
Richard that he had anything to do with the murder?"
Richard shook his head.
"He couldn't have, Mr. Carlyle; I have said so all along. But about
Levison. If I find him to be the man Thorn, what steps can then be
taken?"
"That's the difficulty," said Mr. Carlyle.
"Who will set it agoing. Who will move in it?"
"You must, Richard."
"I!" uttered Richard Hare, in consternation. "I move in it!"
"You, yourself. Who else is there? I have been thinking it well over,
and can hit upon no one."
"Why, won't you take it upon yourself, Mr. Carlyle?"
"No. Being Levison," was the answer.
"Curse him!" impetuously retorted Richard. "Curse him doubly if he be
the double villain. But why should you scruple Mr. Carlyle? Most men,
wronged as you have been, would leap at the opportunity for revenge."
"For the crime perpetrated upon Hallijohn I would pursue him to the
scaffold. For my own wrong, no. But the remaining negative has cost me
something. Many a time, since this appearance of his at West Lynne,
have I been obliged to lay violent control upon myself, or I should
have horsewhipped him within an ace of his life."
"If you horsewhipped him to death he would only meet his deserts."
"I leave him to a higher retribution--to One who says, 'Vengeance is
mine.' I believe him to be guilty of the murder but if the uplifting
of my finger would send him to his disgraceful death, I would tie down
my hand rather than lift it, for I could not, in my own mind, separate
the man from the injury. Though I might ostensibly pursue him as the
destroyer of Hallijohn, to me he would appear ever as the destroyer of
another, and the world, always charitable, would congratulate Mr.
Carlyle upon gratifying his revenge. I stir in it not, Richard."
"Couldn't Barbara?" pleaded Richard.
Barbara was standing with her arm entwined within her husband's, and
Mr. Carlyle looked down as he answered,--
"Barbara is my wife."
It was a sufficient answer.
"Then the thing's again at an end," said Richard, gloomily, "and I
must give up hope of ever being cleared."
"By no means," said Mr. Carlyle. "The one who ought to act in this is
your father, Richard; but we know he will not. Your mother cannot. She
has neither health nor energy for it; and if she had a full supply of
both, she would not dare to brave her husband and use them in the
cause. My hands are tied; Barbara's equally so, as part of me. There
only remains yourself."
"And what can I do?" wailed poor Dick. "If your hands are tied, I'm
sure my whole body is, speaking in comparison; hands, and legs, and
/neck/. It's in jeopardy, that is, every hour."
"Your acting in this affair need not put it any the more in jeopardy.
You must stay in the neighborhood for a few days--"
"I dare not," interposed Richard, in a fright. "Stay in the
neighborhood for a few days! No; that I never may."
"Listen, Richard. You must put away these timorous fears, or else you
must make up your mind to remain under the ban for good; and,
remember, your mother's happiness is at stake equally with yours--I
could almost say her life. Do you suppose I would advise you for
danger? You used to say there was some place, a mile or two from this,
where you could sojourn in safety."
"So there is. But I always feel safer when I get away from it."
"There your quarters must be, for two or three days at any rate. I
have turned matters over in my own mind, and will tell you what I
think should be done, so far as the preliminary step goes, though I do
not interfere myself."
"Only the preliminary step! There must be a pretty many to follow it,
sir, if it's to come to anything. Well, what is it?"
"Apply to Ball & Treadman, and get them to take it."
They were now slowly pacing the covered walk, Barbara on her husband's
arm, Richard by the side of Mr. Carlyle. Dick stopped when he heard
the last words.
"I don't understand you, Mr. Carlyle. You might as well advise me to
go before the bench of magistrates at once. Ball & Treadman would walk
me off there as soon as I showed myself."
"Nothing of the sort, Richard. I do not tell you to go openly to their
office, as another client would. What I would advise is this--make a
friend of Mr. Ball; he can be a good man and true, if he chooses; tell
the whole story to him in a private place and interview, and ask him
whether he will carry it through. If he is fully impressed with the
conviction that you are innocent, as the facts appear to warrant, he
will undertake it. Treadman need know nothing of the affair at first;
and when Ball puts things in motion, he need not know that you are
here, or where you are to be found."
"I don't dislike Ball," mused Richard, "and if he would only give his
word to be true, I know he would be. The difficulty will be, who is to
get the promise from him?"
"I will," said Mr. Carlyle. "I will so far pave the way for you. That
done, my interference is over."
"How will he go about it, think you, if he does take it up?"
"That is his affair. I know how I should."
"How, sir?"
"You cannot expect me to say, Richard. I might as well act for you."
"I know. You'd go at it slap-dash, and arrest Levison offhand on the
charge."
A smile parted Mr. Carlyle's lips, for Dick had just guessed it. But
his countenance gave no clue by which anything could be gathered.
A thought flashed across Richard's mind; a thought which rose up on
end even his false hair. "Mr. Carlyle," he uttered, in an accent of
horror, "if Ball should take it up in that way against Levison, he
must apply to the bench for a warrant."
"Well?" quietly returned Mr. Carlyle.
"And they'd send and clap me into prison. You know the warrant is
always out against me."
"You'd never make a conjurer, Richard. I don't pretend to say, or
guess at, what Ball's proceedings may be. But, in applying to the
bench for a warrant against Levison--should that form part of them--is
there any necessity for him to bring you in--to say: 'Gentlemen,
Richard Hare is within reach, ready to be taken?' Your fears run away
with your common sense, Richard."
"Ah, well, if you had lived with the cord around your neck this many a
year, not knowing any one hour but it might get tied the next, you'd
lose your common sense, too, at times," humbly sighed poor Richard.
"What's to be my first move, sir?"
"Your first move, Richard, must be to go to this place of concealment,
which you know of, and remain quiet there until Monday. On Monday, at
dusk, be here again. Meanwhile, I will see Ball. By the way, though,
before speaking to Ball, I must hear from yourself that Thorn and
Levison are one."
"I will go down to the Raven at once," eagerly cried Richard. "I'll
come back here, to this walk, as soon as I have obtained sight of
him." With the last words he turned, and was speeding off, when
Barbara caught him.
"You will be so tired, Richard."
"Tired!" echoed Richard Hare. "A hundred miles on foot would not tire
me if Thorn was at the end of them, waiting to be identified. I may
not be back for two or three hours, but I will come, and wait here
till you come out to me."
"You must be hungry and thirsty," returned Barbara, the tears in her
eyes. "How I wish we dare have you in, and shelter you. But I can
manage to bring some refreshments out here."
"I don't require it, Barbara. I left the train at the station next
before West Lynne, and dropped into a roadside public house as I
walked, and got a good supper. Let me go, dear, I am all in a fever."
Richard departed, reached the part of West Lynne where the Raven was
situated, and was so far favored by fortune that he had not long to
wait. Scarcely had he taken up his lounge outside, when two gentlemen
came forth from it, arm-in-arm. Being the headquarters of one of the
candidates, the idlers of the place thought they could not do better
than make it their headquarters also, and the road and pavement were
never free from loitering starers and gossipers. Richard Hare, his hat
well over his eyes, and his black ringlets made the most of, only
added one to the rest.
Two gentlemen came forth, arm-in-arm. The loiterers raised a feeble
shout of "Levison forever!" Richard did not join in the shout, but his
pulses were beating, and his heart leaped up within him. The one was
Thorn; the other the gentleman he had seen with Thorn in London,
pointed out to him--as he had believed--as Sir Francis Levison.
"Which of those two is Levison?" he inquired of a man near whom he
stood.
"Don't you know him? Him with the hat off, bowing his thanks to us, is
Levison."
No need to inquire further. It was the Thorn of Richard's memory. His
ungloved hand, raised to his hat, was as white as ever; more sparkling
than ever, as it flashed in the street gaslight, was the diamond ring.
By the hand and ring alone Richard would have sworn to the man, had it
been needful.
"Who is the other one?" he continued.
"Some gent as came down from London with him. His name's Drake. Be you
yellow, sailor, or be you scarlet-and-purple?"
"I am neither. I am only a stranger, passing through the town."
"On the tramp?"
"Tramp? No." And Richard moved away, to make the best of his progress
to East Lynne and report to Mr. Carlyle.
Now it happened, on that windy night, that Lady Isabel, her mind
disordered, her brow fevered with its weight of care, stole out into
the grounds, after the children had left her for the night, courting
any discomfort she might meet. As if they could, even for a moment,
cool the fire within! To the solitude of this very covered walk bent
she her steps; and, not long had she paced it, when she descried some
man advancing, in the garb of a sailor. Not caring to be seen, she
turned short off amidst the trees, intending to emerge again when he
had passed. She wondered who he was, and what brought him there.
But he did not pass. He lingered in the walk, keeping her a prisoner.
A minute more and she saw him joined by Mrs. Carlyle. They met with a
loving embrace.
Embrace a strange man? Mrs. Carlyle? All the blood in Lady Isabel's
body rushed to her brain. Was she, his second wife, false to him--more
shamelessly false than even herself had been, inasmuch as she had had
the grace to quit him and East Lynne before--as the servant girls say,
when they change their sweethearts--"taking up" with another? The
positive conviction that such was the case seized firm hold upon her
fancy; her thoughts were in a tumult, her mind was a chaos. Was there
any small corner of rejoicing in her heart that it was so? And yet,
what was it to her? It could not alter by one iota her own position--
it could not restore to her the love she had forfeited.
Coupled lovingly together, they were now sauntering up the walk, the
sailor's arm thrown round the waist of Mrs. Carlyle. "Oh! The
shameless woman!" Ay; she could be bitter enough upon graceless doings
when enacted by another.
But, what was her astonishment when she saw Mr. Carlyle advance, and
that his appearance caused not the slightest change in their
gracelessness, for the sailor's arm was not withdrawn. Two or three
minutes they stood--the three--talking together in a group. Then the
good-nights were exchanged, the sailor left them, and Mr. Carlyle, his
own arm lovingly pressed where the other's had been, withdrew with his
wife. The truth--that it was Barbara's brother--dashed to the mind of
Lady Isabel.
"Was I mad?" she cried, with a hollow laugh. "/She/ false to him? No,
no; that fate was reserved for me alone!"
She followed them to the house--she glanced in at the windows of the
drawing-room. Lights and fire were in the room, but the curtains and
windows were not closed for the night, for it was through those
windows that Mr. Carlyle and his wife had passed in and out on their
visits to the covered walk. There they were, alone in their happiness,
and she stopped to glance in upon it. Lord Mount Severn had departed
for London, to be down again early in the week. The tea was on the
table, but Barbara had not begun to make it. She sat on the sofa, by
the fire, her face, with its ever loving gaze upon it, turned up to
her husband's. He stood near, was talking with apparent earnestness,
and looking down at Barbara. Another moment, and a smile crossed his
lips, the same sweet smile so often bent upon her in the bygone days.
Yes, they were together in their unclouded happiness, and she--she
turned away toward her own lonely sitting-room, sick and faint at
heart.
Ball & Treadman, as the brass plate on their office door intimated,
were conveyancers and attorneys at law. Mr. Treadman, who attended
chiefly to the conveyancing, lived at the office, with his family. Mr.
Ball, a bachelor, lived away; Lawyer Ball, West Lynne styled him. Not
a young bachelor; midway, he may have been between forty and fifty. A
short stout man, with a keen face and green eyes. He took up any
practice that was brought to him--dirty odds and ends that Mr. Carlyle
would not have touched with his toe--but, as that gentleman had
remarked, he could be honest and true upon occasion, and there was no
doubt that he would be so to Richard Hare. To his house, on Monday
morning, early, so as to catch him before he went out, proceeded Mr.
Carlyle. A high respect for Mr. Carlyle had Lawyer Ball, as he had had
for his father before him. Many a good turn had the Carlyles done him,
if only helping him and his partner to clients whom they were too
fastidious to take up. But the two, Mr. Carlyle and Lawyer Ball did
not rank alike, though their profession was the same; Lawyer Ball knew
that they did not, and was content to feel humble. The one was a
received gentleman; the other was a country attorney.
Lawyer Ball was at breakfast when Mr. Carlyle was shown in.
"Halloo, Carlyle! You are here betimes."
"Sit still; don't disturb yourself. Don't ring; I have breakfasted."
"The most delicious /pate de foie/," urged Lawyer Ball, who was a
regular gourmand. "I get 'em direct from Strasbourg."
Mr. Carlyle resisted the offered dainty with a smile. "I have come on
business," said he, "not to feast. Before I enter upon it, you will
give me your word, Ball, that my communication shall be held sacred,
in the event of your not consenting to pursue it further."
"Certainly I will. What business is it? Some that offends the delicacy
of the Carlyle office?" he added, with a laugh. "A would-be client
whom you turn over to me in your exclusiveness?"
"It is a client for whom I cannot act. But not from the motives you
assume. It concerns that affair of Hallijohn's," Mr. Carlyle
continued, bending forward, and somewhat dropping his voice. "The
murder."
Lawyer Ball, who had just taken in a delicious /bonne bouche/ of the
/foie gras/, bolted it whole in his surprise. "Why, that was enacted
ages and ages ago; it is past and done with," he exclaimed.
"Not done with," said Mr. Carlyle. "Circumstances have come to light
which tend to indicate that Richard Hare was innocent--that it was
another who committed the murder."
"In conjunction with him?" interrupted the attorney.
"No: alone. Richard Hare had nothing whatever to do with it. He was
not even present at the time."
"Do you believe that?" asked Lawyer Ball.
"I have believed it for years."
"Then who did do it?"
"Richard accuses one of the name of Thorn. Many years back--ten at
least--I had a meeting with Richard Hare, and he disclosed certain
facts to me, which if correct, could not fail to prove that he was not
guilty. Since that period this impression has been gradually confirmed
by little and by little, trifle upon trifle and I would now stake my
life upon his innocence. I should long ago have moved in this matter,
hit or miss, could I have lighted upon Thorn, but he was not to be
found, neither any clue to him, and we now know that this name, Thorn,
was an assumed one."
"Is he to be found?"
"He is found. He is at West Lynne. Mark you, I don't accuse him--I do
not offer an opinion upon his guilt--I only state my belief in
Richard's innocence; it may have been another who did it, neither
Richard nor Thorn. It was my firm intention to take Richard's case up,
the instant I saw my way clearly in it, and now that that time has
come I am debarred from doing so."
"What debars you?"
"Hence I come to you," continued Mr. Carlyle, disregarding the
question. "I come on the part of Richard Hare. I have seen him lately,
and conversed with him. I gave him my reasons for not personally
acting, advised him to apply to you, and promised to come here and
open the matter. Will you see Richard in good faith, and hear his
story, giving the understanding that he shall depart unmolested, as he
came, although you do not decide to entertain the business?"
"I'll give it with all the pleasure in life," freely returned the
attorney. "I'm sure I don't want to harm poor Dick Hare, and if he can
convince me of his innocence, I'll do my best to establish it."
"Of his own tale you must be the judge. I do not wish to bias you. I
have stated my belief in his innocence, but I repeat that I give no
opinion myself as to who else may be guilty. Hear his account, and
then take up the affair or not, as you may think fit. He would not
come to you without your previous promise to hold him harmless; to be
his friend, in short, for the time being. When I bear this promise to
him for you, my part is done."
"I give it to you in all honor, Carlyle. Tell Dick he has nothing to
fear from me. Quite the contrary; for if I can befriend him, I shall
be glad to do it, and I won't spare trouble. What can possibly be your
objection to act for him?"
"My objection applies not to Richard. I would willingly appear for
him, but I will not take proceedings against the man he accuses. If
that man is to be denounced and brought before justice, I will hold
neither act nor part in it."
The words aroused the curiosity of Lawyer Ball, and he began to turn
over all persons, likely and unlikely, in his mind, never, according
to usage, giving a suspicion to the right one. "I cannot fathom you,
Carlyle."
"You will do that better, possibly, when Richard shall have made his
disclosure."
"It's--it's--never his own father that he accuses? Justice Hare?"
"Your wits must be wool-gathering, Ball."
"Well, so they must, to give utterance to so preposterous a notion,"
acquiesced the attorney, pushing back his chair and throwing his
breakfast napkin on the carpet. "But I don't know a soul you could
object to go against except the justice. What's anybody else in West
Lynne to you, in comparison to restoring Dick Hare to his fair fame? I
give it up."
"So do I, for the present," said Mr. Carlyle, as he rose. "And now,
about the ways and means for your meeting this poor fellow. Where can
you see him?"
"Is he at West Lynne?"
"No. But I can get a message conveyed to him, and he could come."
"When?"
"To-night, if you like."
"Then let him come here to this house. He will be perfectly safe."
"So be it. My part is now over," concluded Mr. Carlyle. And with a few
more preliminary words, he departed. Lawyer Ball looked after him.
"It's a queer business. One would think Dick accuses some old flame of
Carlyle's--some demoiselle or dame he daren't go against."
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.
On Monday evening the interview between Lawyer Ball and Richard Hare
took place. With some difficulty would the lawyer believe his tale--
not as to its broad details; he saw that he might give credit to them
but as to the accusation against Sir Francis Levison. Richard
persisted, mentioned every minute particular he could think of--his
meeting him the night of the elopement in Bean lane, his meetings with
him again in London, and Sir Francis's evident fear of him, and thence
pursuit, and the previous Saturday night's recognition at the door of
the Raven, not forgetting to tell of the anonymous letter received by
Justice Hare the morning that Richard was in hiding at Mr. Carlyle's.
There was no doubt in the world it had been sent by Francis Levison to
frighten Mr. Hare into dispatching him out of West Lynne, had Richard
taken refuge in his father's home. None had more cause to keep Dick
from falling into the hands of justice than Francis Levison.
"I believe what you say--I believe all you say, Mr. Richard, touching
Thorn," debated the attorney; "but it's next to impossible to take in
so astounding a fact as that he is Sir Francis Levison."
"You can satisfy yourself of the fact from other lips than mine," said
Richard. "Otway Bethel could testify to it if he would, though I doubt
his willingness. But there's Ebenezer James."
"What does he know about it?" asked the attorney, in surprise.
"Ebenezer James is in our office at present."
"He saw Thorn often enough in those days, and has, I hear, recognized
him as Levison. You had better inquire of him. Should you object to
take cause against Levison?"
"Not a bit of it. Let me be assured that I am upon safe grounds as to
the identity of the man, and I'll proceed in it forthwith. Levison is
an out-and-out scoundrel, /as/ Levison, and deserves hanging. I will
send for James at once, and hear what he says," he concluded, after a
pause of consideration.
Richard Hare started wildly up. "Not while I am here; he must not see
me. For Heaven's sake, consider the peril to me, Mr. Ball!"
"Pooh, pooh!" laughed the attorney. "Do you suppose I have but this
one reception-room? We don't let cats into cages where canary birds
are kept."
Ebenezer James returned with the messenger dispatched after him.
"You'll be sure to find him at the singing saloon," Mr. Ball had said;
and there the gentleman was found.
"Is it any copying, sir, wanted to be done in a hurry?" cried James,
when he came in.
"No," replied the attorney. "I wish a question or two answered, that's
all. Did you ever know Sir Francis Levison to go by any name but his
own?"
"Yes, sir. He has gone by the name of Thorn."
A pause. "When was this?"
"It was the autumn when Hallijohn was killed. Thorn used to be
prowling about there in an evening--in the wood and at the cottage, I
mean."
"What did he prowl for?"
Ebenezer James laughed. "For the same reason that several more did--I,
for one. He was sweet upon Afy Hallijohn."
"Where was he living at the time? I never remember him in West Lynne."
"He was not at West Lynne, sir. On the contrary, he seemed to take
precious good care that West Lynne and he kept separate. A splendid
horse he rode, a thoroughbred; and he used to come galloping into the
wood at dusk, get over his chat with Miss Afy, mount, and gallop away
again."
"Where to? Where did he come from?"
"From somewhere toward Swainson; a ten mile's ride, Afy used to say he
had. Now that he has appeared here in his own plumage, of course I can
put two and two together, and not be at much fault for the exact
spot."
"And where's that?" asked the lawyer.
"Levison Park," said Mr. Ebenezer. "There's little doubt he was
stopping at his uncle's, and you know that is close to Swainson."
Lawyer Ball thought things were becoming clearer--or darker, whatever
you may please to call it. He paused again, and then put a question
impressively.
"James, have you any doubt whatever, or shadow of doubt, that Sir
Francis Levison is the same man you know as Thorn?"
"Sir, have I any doubt that you are Mr. Ball, or that I am Eb. James?"
retorted Mr. Ebenezer. "I am as certain of that man's identity as I am
of yours."
"Are you ready to swear to that fact in a court of justice?"
"Ready and willing, in any court in the world. To-morrow, if I am
called upon."
"Very well. You may go back to your singing club now. Keep a silent
tongue in your head."
"All close, sir," answered Mr. Ebenezer James.
Far into the middle of the night sat Lawyer Ball and Richard Hare, the
former chiefly occupied in taking notes of Richard's statement.
"It's half a crochet, this objection of Carlyle's to interfere with
Levison," suddenly uttered Richard, in the midst of some desultory
conversation. "Don't you think so, Mr. Ball?"
The lawyer pursed up his lips. "Um! A delicate point. Carlyle was
always fastidiously honorable. /I/ should go at him, thunder and fury,
in his place; but I and Carlyle are different."
The following day, Tuesday, Mr. Ball was much occupied, putting, to
use nearly Ebenezer James' words, that and that together. Later in the
day he took a journey to Levison Park, ferreted out some information,
and came home again. On that same day, at evening, Richard departed
for Liverpool--he was done with for the present--Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle
being, as before, alone cognizant of his address.
Wednesday morning witnessed the arrival again of the Earl of Mount
Severn. Lord Vane, too. The latter ought to have gone back to Eton,
but he had teased and prayed to be allowed to "see the fun out,"
meaning the election. "And that devil's discomfiture when he finds
himself beaten," he surreptitiously added, behind his father's back,
who was a great stickler for the boy's always being "gentlemanly." So
the earl had yielded. They arrived, as before, about breakfast-time,
having traveled all night. Subsequently, they and Mr. Carlyle walked
into West Lynne together.
West Lynne was alive and astir. The election was to come off that
week, and people made it their business to be in a bustle over it,
collectively and individually. Mr. Carlyle's committee sat at the
Buck's Head, and the traffic in and out was enough to wear the stones
away. The bench of justices were remarkably warm over it, neglecting
the judicial business, and showing themselves at the Buck's Head
windows in purple and scarlet streamers.
"I will be with you in ten minutes," said Mr. Carlyle, withdrawing his
arm from Lord Mount Severn's, as they approached his office, "but I
must go in and read my letters."
So the earl went on to the Buck's Head, and Lord Vane took a foot
canter down to the Raven, to reconnoiter it outside. He was uncommonly
fond of planting himself where Sir Francis Levison's eyes were sure to
fall upon him--which eyes were immediately dropped, while the young
gentleman's would be fixed in an audacious stare. Being Lord Vane--or
it may be more correct to say, being the Earl of Mount Severn's son,
and under control, he was debarred from dancing and jeering after the
yellow candidate, as the unwashed gentry of his own age indulged in,
but his tongue and his feet itched to do it.
Mr. Carlyle took his seat in his private room, opened his letters,
assorted them, marked on the back of some what was to be the purport
of their answer, and then called in Mr. Dill. Mr. Carlyle put the
letters in his hand, gave some rapid instructions, and rose.
"You are in a hurry, Mr. Archibald?"
"They want me at the Buck's Head. Why?"
"A curious incident occurred to me last evening, sir. I was an ear-
witness to a dispute between Levison and Otway Bethel."
"Indeed!" carelessly replied Mr. Carlyle, who was busy at the time
looking for something in the deep drawer of the desk.
"And what I heard would go far to hang Levison, if not Bethel. As sure
as we are here, Mr. Archibald, they hold the secret of Hallijohn's
murder. It appears that Levison--"
"Stop!" interposed Mr. Carlyle. "I would prefer not to hear this.
Levison may have murdered him, but it is no affair of mine, neither
shall I make it such."
Old Dill felt checkmated. "Meanwhile Richard Hare suffers, Mr.
Archibald," he observed, in a remonstrating tone.
"I am aware he does."
"Is it right that the innocent should suffer for the guilty?"
"No; very wrong. But the case is all too common."
"If some one would take up Richard Hare's cause now, he might be
proved innocent," added the old man, with a wistful look at Mr.
Carlyle.
"It is being taken up, Dill."
A pause and a glad look. "That's the best news I have had for many a
day, sir. But my evidence will be necessary to your case. Levison--"
"I'm not taking up the case. You must carry your news elsewhere. It is
no affair of mine, I say."
"Then who is taking it up?" echoed Mr. Dill, in astonishment.
"Ball. He has had a meeting with Richard, and is now acting for him
under the rose."
Mr. Dill's eyes sparkled. "Is he going to prosecute, Mr. Archibald?"
"I tell you I know nothing--I will know nothing. When the affair comes
out to the public--if it ever does come out--I shall share in the
information, Dill, and that is all."
"Ah, well, I can understand. But I shall go on to their office at
once, Mr. Archibald, and inform them of what I overheard," spoke old
Dill, in vehement decision.
"That is not my affair either," laughed Mr. Carlyle, "it is yours. But
remember, if you do go, it is Ball, not Treadman."
Waiting only to give certain orders to the head clerk, Mr. Dill
proceeded to the office of Ball & Treadman. A full hour was he
closeted there with the senior partner.
Not until three o'clock that afternoon did the justices take their
seats on the bench. Scarcely were they seated when Lawyer Ball bustled
in and craved a secret hearing. His application was of the last
importance, he promised, but, that the ends of justice might not be
defeated it was necessary their worships should entertain it in
private; he therefore craved the bench to accord it to him.
The bench consulted, looked wise, and, possibly possessing some latent
curiosity themselves upon the point, graciously acceded. They
adjourned to a private room, and it was full half-past four before
they came out of it. Very long faces, scared and grim, were their
worships', as if Lawyer Ball's communication had both perplexed and
confounded them.
"This is the afternoon we are to meet Dr. Martin at papa's office,"
William Carlyle had suddenly exclaimed that day at dinner. "Do we walk
in, Madame Vine?"
"I do not know, William. Mrs. Carlyle is going to take you."
"No, she is not; you are going to take me."
A flush passed over Lady Isabel's face at the bare thought, though she
did not believe it. /She/ go to Mr. Carlyle's office! "Mrs. Carlyle
told me herself that she should take you," was the reply.
"All I know is, mamma told me this morning you would take me to West
Lynne to-day," persisted William.
The discussion was interrupted by the appearance of Mrs. Carlyle--
interrupted and decided also.
"Madame Vine," she said, "you will be ready at three o'clock to go in
with William?"
Lady Isabel's heart beat. "I understood you to say that you should go
with him yourself, madame."
"I know I did. I intended to do so, but I heard this morning that some
friends from a distance are coming this afternoon to call upon me,
therefore I shall not go out."
How she, Lady Isabel, wished that she dare say, also, "I shall not go
out either." But that might not be. Well, she must go through with it
as she had to go through with the rest.
William rode his pony into West Lynne, the groom attending to take it
back again. He was to walk home with Madame Vine, who walked both
ways.
Mr. Carlyle was not in when they arrived at the office. The boy went
boldly on to the private room, leaving Madame Vine to follow him.
Presently Mr. Carlyle appeared. He was talking to Mr. Dill, who
followed him.
"Oh, you are here, Madame Vine! I left word that you were to go into
Miss Carlyle's. Did I not leave word, Dill?"
"Not with me, sir."
"I forgot it, then; I meant to do so. What is the time?" He looked at
his watch: ten minutes to four. "Did the doctor say at what hour he
should call?" Mr. Carlyle added to Madame Vine.
"Not precisely. I gathered that it would be very early in the
afternoon."
"Here he is!" exclaimed Mr. Carlyle with alacrity, as he went into the
hall. She supposed he alluded to the physician--supposed he had seen
him pass the window. Their entrance together woke up William.
"Well," said the doctor, who was a little man with a bald head, "and
how fares it with my young patient? /Bon jour/ madame."
"/Bon jour/, monsieur," responded she. She wished everybody would
address her in French, and take her for French; there seemed less
chance of recognition. She would have to speak in good plain English,
however, if she must carry on conversation with the doctor. Beyond a
familiar phrase or two, he was something like Justice Hare--/Nong
parley Fronsay/ me!
"And how does the cod-liver oil get on?" asked the doctor of William,
as he drew him to the light. "It is nicer now than it used to be, eh?"
"No," said William; "it is nastier than ever."
Dr. Martin looked at the boy; felt his pulse, his skin, listened to
his breathing. "There," said he, presently, "you may sit down and have
your nap out."
"I wish I might have something to drink; I am very thirsty. May I ring
for some water, papa?"
"Go and find your aunt's maid, and ask her for some," said Mr.
Carlyle.
"Ask her for milk," called out Dr. Martin. "Not water."
Away went William. Mr. Carlyle was leaning against the side of the
window; Dr. Martin folded his arms before it: Lady Isabel stood near
the latter. The broad, full light was cast upon all, but the thick
veil hid Lady Isabel's face. It was not often she could be caught
without that veil, for she seemed to wear her bonnet at all sorts of
seasonable and unseasonable times.
"What is your opinion, doctor?" asked Mr. Carlyle.
"Well," began the doctor, in a /very/ professional tone, "the boy is
certainly delicate. But--"
"Stay, Dr. Martin," was the interruption, spoken in a low, impressive
voice, "you will deal candidly with me. I must know the truth, without
disguise. Tell it me freely."
Dr. Martin paused. "The truth is not always palatable, Mr. Carlyle."
"True. But for that very reason, all the more necessary. Let me hear
the worst. And the child has no mother, you know, to be shocked with
it."
"I fear that it will be the worst."
"Death?"
"Ay. The seeds of consumption must have been inherent in him. They are
showing out too palpably."
"Is there /no/ hope for the child?"
Dr. Martin looked at him. "You bade me give you the truth."
"Nothing else; nothing but the truth," returned Mr. Carlyle, his tone
one of mingled pain and command.
"Then, there is none; no hope whatever. The lungs are extensively
diseased."
"And how long--"
"That I cannot say," interrupted the doctor, divining what the next
question was to be. "He may linger on for months; for a year, it may
even be; or a very short period may see the termination. Don't worry
him with any more lessons and stuff of learning; he'll never want it."
The doctor cast his eyes on the governess as he spoke; the injunction
concerned her as much as it did Mr. Carlyle. And the doctor started,
for he thought she was fainting; her face had become so ghastly white;
he could see it through her veil.
"You are ill, madame! You are ill? /Trouve malade/, don't you?"
She opened her lips to speak; her trembling lips, that would not obey
her. Dr. Martin, in his concern, pulled off the blue spectacles. She
caught them from him with one hand, sat down on the nearest chair, and
hid her face with the other.
Mr. Carlyle, scarcely understanding the scuffle, came forward. "Are
you ill, Madame Vine?"
She was putting her spectacles under her veil, her face whiter than
ever. "Pray do not interrupt your conversation to pay attention to me!
I thank you; I thank you both. I am subject to--slight spasms, and
they do make me look ill for the moment. It has passed now."
The doctor turned from her; Mr. Carlyle resumed his place by the
window. "What should be the treatment?" asked the latter.
"Almost anything you please--that the boy himself likes. Let him play
or rest, ride or walk, eat and drink, or let it alone; it cannot make
much difference."
"Doctor! You yield it, as a last hope, very lightly."
Dr. Martin shook his head. "I speak as I /know/. You insisted on
having my true opinion."
"A warmer climate?" suggested Mr. Carlyle eagerly, the idea crossing
his mind.
"It might prolong the end for a little while--a few weeks, perhaps--
avert it it could not. And who could take him? You could not go; and
he has no mother. No! I should not advise it."
"I wish you would see Wainwright--with reference to William."
"I have seen him. I met him this afternoon, by chance, and told him my
opinion. How is Mrs. Carlyle?"
"Pretty well. She is not in robust health, you are aware, just now."
Dr. Martin smiled. "These things will happen. Mrs. Carlyle has a
thoroughly good constitution; a far stronger one than--than----"
"Than what?" said Mr. Carlyle, wondering why he hesitated.
"You must grant me pardon. I may as well finish, now I have begun; but
I was not thinking when I spoke. She is stronger than was Lady Isabel.
I must be off to catch the six train."
"You will come over from time to time to East Lynne to see William?"
"If you wish it. It may be a satisfaction, perhaps. /Bon jour/,
madame."
Lady Isabel bowed to him as he left the room with Mr. Carlyle. "How
fond that French governess of yours is of the boy!" the doctor
whispered, as they crossed the hall. "I detected it when she brought
him to Lynneborough. And you saw her just now! That emotion was all
because he could not live. Good-bye."
Mr. Carlyle grasped his hand. "Doctor, I /wish/ you could save him!"
he passionately uttered.
"Ah, Carlyle! If we humble mites of human doctors could but keep those
whom it is the Great Physician's pleasure to take, how we should be
run after! There's hidden mercy, remember, in the darkest cloud.
Farewell my friend."
Mr. Carlyle returned to the room. He approached Lady Isabel, looking
down upon her as she sat; not that he could see much of her face.
"These are grievous tidings. But you were more prepared for them, I
fancy, than I was."
She started suddenly up, approached the window, and looked out, as if
she saw somebody passing whom she would gaze at. All of emotion was
stirred up within her--her temples throbbed, her throat beat, her
breath became hysterical. Could she bear thus to hold confidential
converse with him over the state of their child? She pulled off her
gloves for coolness to her burning hands, she wiped the moisture from
her pale forehead, she struggled manfully for calmness. What excuse
could she offer to Mr. Carlyle?
"I had begun to like the boy so very much, sir," she said, half
turning round. "And the doctor's fiat, too plainly pronounced has
given me pain; pain to agitation."
Again Mr. Carlyle approached her, following close up to where she
stood. "You are very kind, thus to feel an interest in my child."
She did not answer.
"Here, papa, papa! I want you," cried William, breaking into the room.
"Let me walk home with you? Are you going to walk?"
How could he find it in his heart to deny anything to the child then?
"Very well," he said. "Stay here till I come for you."
"We are going home with papa," proclaimed William to Madame Vine.
Madame Vine did not relish the news. But there was no help for it. In
a very short time Mr. Carlyle appeared, and they set off; he holding
William's hand; madame walking on the other side of the child.
"Where's William Vane, papa?" asked the boy.
"He has gone on with Lord Mount Severn."
Scarcely had the words been spoken, when some one came bolting out of
the post-office, and met them face to face; almost ran against them in
fact, creating some hindrance. The man looked confused, and slunk off
into the gutter. And you will not wonder that he did, when you hear
that it was Francis Levison. William, child like, turned his head to
gaze at the intruder.
"I would not be an ugly bad man like him for the world," quoth he, as
he turned his back again. "Would you, papa?"
Mr. Carlyle did not answer, and Isabel cast an involuntary glance upon
him from her white face. His was impassive, save that a cast of
ineffable scorn marred the delicate beauty of his lips. If humiliation
for the past had never wrung Lady Isabel's heart before, it would have
wrung it then.
At Mr. Justice Hare's gate they encountered that gentleman, who
appeared to be standing there to give himself an airing. William
caught sight of Mrs. Hare seated on the garden bench, outside the
window, and ran to kiss her. All the children loved Mrs. Hare. The
justice was looking--not pale; that would not be a term half strong
enough: but yellow. The curls of his best wig were limp, and all his
pomposity appeared to have gone out of him.
"I say, Carlyle, what on earth's this?" cried he, in a tone that, for
him, was wonderfully subdued and meek. "I was not on the bench this
afternoon, but Pinner has been telling me--of an application that was
made to them in private. It's not true, you know; it can't be; it's
too far-fetched a tale. What do you know about it?"
"Nothing," said Mr. Carlyle. "I do not know what you are talking of. I
have been privy to no application."
"It seems they want to make out now that Dick never murdered
Hallijohn," proceeded the justice, in a half whisper, glancing round
as if to be sure that there were no eaves-droppers amidst the trees.
"Oh," said Mr. Carlyle.
"But that Levison did. /Levison/!"
Mr. Carlyle made no reply, save by a gesture; his face more impassive
than before. Not so another face beside him, a fair face; that turned
white again with emotion as she listened.
"But it can't be, you know. It can't, I say."
"So far as Richard's innocence goes, of that I have long been
convinced," spoke Mr. Carlyle.
"And that Levison's guilty?" returned the justice, opening his eyes in
puzzled wonderment.
"I have no opinion upon that point," was the cold rejoinder.
"It's impossible, I say. Dick can't be innocent. You may as well tell
me that the world's turned upside down."
"It is, sometimes, I think. That Richard was not the guilty man will
be proved yet, justice, in the broad face of day."
"If--if--that other did do it, I should think you'd take the warrant
out of the hands of the police and capture him yourself."
"I would not touch him with a pair of tongs," spoke Mr. Carlyle, his
lips curling again. "If the man goes to his punishment, he goes; but I
do not help him on his road thither."
"/Can/ Dick be innocent?" mused the justice, returning to the thought
which so troubled his mind. "Then why has he kept away? Why did he not
come back and say so?"
"That you might deliver him up, justice. You know you took an oath to
do it."
The justice looked green, and remarkably humble.
"Oh, but Carlyle," impulsively spoke he, the thought occurring to him,
"what an awful revenge this would have been for you on--somebody--had
she lived. How her false step would have come home to her now!"
"False steps come home to most people," responded Mr. Carlyle, as he
took William by the hand, who then ran up. And, lifting his hat to
Mrs. Hare in the distance, he walked on.
She, Lady Isabel, walked on, too, by the side of the child, as before,
walked on with a shivering frame, and a heart sick unto death. The
justice looked after her, his mind unoccupied. He was in a maze of
bewilderment. Richard innocent! Richard, whom he had striven to pursue
to a shameful end! And that other the guilty one! The world /was/
turning upside down.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
MRS. CARLYLE IN FULL DRESS, AFY ALSO.
Merrily rose West Lynne on Thursday morning; merrily rang out the
bells, clashing and chiming. The street was alive with people; the
windows were crowded with heads; something unusual was astir. It was
the day of the nomination of the two candidates, and everybody took
the opportunity to make a holiday.
Ten o'clock was the hour named; but, before that hour struck, West
Lynne was crammed. The country people had come in, thick and
threefold; rich and poor; people of note, and people of none; voters
and non-voters, all eager to mix themselves up with the day's
proceedings. You see the notorious fact of Sir Francis Levison's
having come forward to oppose Mr. Carlyle, caused greater interest in
this election than is usual, even in small country places--and that
need not be. Barbara drove in her carriage, the two children with her,
and the governess. The governess said she preferred to remain at home.
Barbara would not hear of it; almost felt inclined to resent it as a
slight; besides, if she took no interest in Mr. Carlyle, she must go
to take care of Lucy; she, Barbara, would be too much occupied to look
after children. So Madame Vine, perforce, stepped into the barouche
and sat opposite to Mrs. Carlyle, her thick veil shading her features,
and their pallor contrasting with the blue spectacles.
They alighted at the residence of Miss Carlyle. Quite a gathering was
already there. Lady and Miss Dobede, the Herberts, Mrs. Hare, and many
others; for the house was in a good spot for seeing the fun; and all
the people were eager to testify their respect to Mr. Carlyle, in
contradiction to that other one. Miss Carlyle was in full rig; a
brocaded dress, and a scarlet-and-purple bow in front of it, the size
of a pumpkin. It was about the only occasion, in all Miss Carlyle's
life, that she deemed it necessary to attire herself beyond common.
Barbara wore no bow, but she exhibited a splendid bouquet of scarlet-
and-purple flowers. Mr. Carlyle had himself given it to her that
morning.
Mr. Carlyle saw them all at the windows of the large upper drawing-
room, and came in; he was then on his way to the town-hall. Shaking
hands, laughter, hearty and hasty good wishes; and he quitted the room
again. Barbara stole after him for a sweeter farewell.
"God bless you and prosper you, Archibald, my dearest!"
The business of the day began. Mr. Carlyle was proposed by Sir John
Dobede, and seconded by Mr. Herbert. Lord Mount Severn, than whom not
a busier man was there, would willingly have been proposer and
seconder too, but he had no local influence in the place. Sir Francis
Levison was proposed also by two gentlemen of standing. The show of
hands was declared to be in favor of Mr. Carlyle. It just was in favor
of him; about twenty to one. Upon which the baronet's friends demanded
a poll.
Then all was bustle, and scuffle, and confusion, every one tearing
away to the hustings, which had been fixed in a convenient spot, the
town-hall, not affording the accommodation necessary for a poll.
Candidates, and proposers and seconders, and gentlemen, and officers,
and mob, hustling and jostling each other. Mr. Carlyle was linked arm-
in-arm with Sir John Dobede; Sir John's arm was within Lord Mount
Severn's--but, as to order, it was impossible to observe any. To gain
the place they had to pass the house of Miss Carlyle. Young Vane, who
was in the thick of the crowd, of course, cast his eyes up to its
lined windows, took off his hat and waved it. "Carlyle and honor
forever!" shouted he.
The ladies laughed and nodded, and shook their handkerchiefs, and
displayed their scarlet and purple colors. The crowd took up the
shout, till the very air echoed with it. "Carlyle and honor forever!"
Barbara's tears were falling; but she smiled through them at one pair
of loving eyes, which sought out hers.
"A galaxy of beauty!" whispered Mr. Drake in the ear of Sir Francis.
"How the women rally round him! I tell you what, Levison, you and the
government were stupid to go on with the contest, and I said so days
ago. You have no more chance against Carlyle than that bit of straw
has against the wind. You ought to have withdrawn in time."
"Like a coward?" angrily returned Sir Francis. "No, I'll go on with it
to the last, though I do get beaten."
"How lovely his wife is," observed Mr. Drake, his admiring eyes cast
up at Barbara. "I say, Levison, was the first one as charming?"
Sir Francis looked perfectly savage; the allusion did not please him.
But, ere another word could be spoken, some one in the garb of a
policeman, who had wound his way through the crowd, laid his hand upon
the baronet.
"Sir Francis Levison, you are my prisoner."
Nothing worse than /debt/ occurred at that moment to the mind of Sir
Francis. But that was quite enough, and he turned purple with rage.
"Your hands off, vermin! How dare you?"
A quick movement, a slight click, a hustle from the wondering crowd
more immediately around, and the handcuffs were on. Utter amazement
alone prevented Mr. Drake from knocking down the policeman. A dozen
vituperating tongues assailed him.
"I'm sorry to do it in this public place and manner," spoke the
officer, partly to Sir Francis, partly to the gentlemen around, "but I
couldn't come across you last night, do as I would. And the warrant
has been in my hands since five o'clock yesterday afternoon. Sir
Francis Levison, I arrest you for the wilful murder of George
Hallijohn."
The crowd fell back; the crowd was paralyzed with consternation; the
word was passed from one extreme to the other, and back and across
again, and the excitement grew high. The ladies looking from Miss
Carlyle's windows saw what had happened, though they could not divine
the cause. Some of them turned pale at sight of the handcuffs, and
Mary Pinner, an excitable girl, fell into a screaming fit.
Pale! What was their gentle paleness compared with the frightfully
livid one of Francis Levison? His agitation was pitiable to witness,
his face a terror to look upon; once or twice he gasped, as if in an
agony; and then his eyes happened to fall on Otway Bethel, who stood
near. Shorn of his adornments--which might not be thought adornments
upon paper--the following was the sentence that burst involuntarily
from his lips,--
"You hound! It is you who have done this!"
"No! by--" Whether Mr. Otway Bethel was about to swear by Jupiter or
Juno never was decided, the sentence being cut ignominiously short at
the above two words. Another policeman, in the summary manner
exercised towards Sir Francis, had clapped a pair of handcuffs upon
/him/.
"Mr. Otway Bethel, I arrest you as an accomplice in the murder of
George Hallijohn."
You may be sure that the whole assembly was arrested, too--
figuratively--and stood with eager gaze and open ears. Colonel Bethel,
quitting the scarlet-and-purple, flashed into those of the yellows. He
knew his nephew was graceless enough; but--to see him with a pair of
handcuffs on!
"What does all this mean?" he authoritatively demanded of the
officers.
"It's no fault of ours, colonel, we have but executed the warrant,"
answered one of them. "The magistrate, issued it yesterday against
these two gentlemen, on suspicion of their being concerned in the
murder of Hallijohn."
"In conjunction with Richard Hare?" cried the astounded colonel,
gazing from one to the other, prisoners and officers, in scared
bewilderment.
"It's alleged now that Richard Hare didn't have nothing to do with
it," returned the man. "It's said he is innocent. I'm sure I don't
know."
"I swear that I am innocent," passionately uttered Otway Bethel.
"Well, sir, you have only got to prove it," civilly rejoined the
policeman.
Miss Carlyle and Lady Isabel leaned from the window, their curiosity
too much excited to remain silent longer. Mrs. Hare was standing by
their side.
"What is the matter?" both asked of the upturned faces immediately
beneath.
"Them two--the fine member as wanted to be, and young Bethel--be
arrested for murder," spoke a man's clear voice in answer. "The tale
runs as they murdered Hallijohn, and then laid it on the shoulders of
young Dick Hare, who didn't do it after all."
A faint wailing cry of startled pain, and Barbara flew to Mrs. Hare,
from whom it proceeded.
"Oh, mamma, my dear mamma, take comfort! Do not suffer this to agitate
you to illness. Richard /is/ innocent, and it will surely be so
proved. Archibald," she added, beckoning to her husband in her alarm,
"come, if you can, and say a word of assurance to mamma!"
It was impossible that Mr. Carlyle could hear the words, but he could
see that his wife was greatly agitated, and wanted him.
"I will be back with you in a few moments," he said to his friends, as
he began to elbow his way through the crowd, which made way when they
saw who the elbower was.
Into another room, away from the gay visitors, they got Mrs. Hare, and
Mr. Carlyle locked the door to keep them out, unconsciously taking out
the key. Only himself and his wife were with her, except Madame Vine,
in her bonnet, who had been dispatched by somebody with a bottle of
smelling salts. Barbara knelt at her mamma's feet; Mr. Carlyle leaned
over her, her hands held sympathizingly in his. Madame Vine would have
escaped, but the key was gone.
"Oh, Archibald, tell me the truth. /You/ will not, deceive me?" she
gasped, in earnest entreaty, the cold dew gathering on her pale,
gentle face. "Is the time come to prove my boy's innocence?"
"It is."
"Is it possible that it can be that false, bad man who is guilty?"
"From my soul I believe him to be," replied Mr. Carlyle, glancing
round to make sure that none could hear the assertion save those
present. "But what I say to you and Barbara, I would not say to the
world. Whatever be the man's guilt, I am not his Nemesis. Dear Mrs.
Hare, take courage, take comfort--happier days are coming round."
Mrs. Hare was weeping silently. Barbara rose and laid her mamma's head
lovingly upon her bosom.
"Take care of her, my darling," Mr. Carlyle whispered to his wife.
"Don't leave her for a moment, and don't let that chattering crew in
from the next room. I beg your pardon, madame."
His hand had touched Madame Vine's neck in turning round--that is, had
touched the jacket that encased it. He unlocked the door and regained
the street, while Madame Vine sat down with her beating and rebellious
heart.
Amidst the shouts, the jeers, and the escort of the mob, Sir Francis
Levison and Otway Bethel were lodged in the station-house, preparatory
to their examination before the magistrates. Never, sure, was so
mortifying an interruption known. So thought Sir Francis's party. And
they deemed it well, after some consultation amongst themselves, to
withdraw his name as a candidate for the membership. That he never had
a shadow of chance from the first, most of them knew.
But there's an incident yet to tell of the election day. You have seen
Miss Carlyle in her glory, her brocaded silk standing on end with
richness, her displayed colors, her pride in her noble brother. But
now could you--or she, which it is more to the purpose--have divined
who and what was right above her head at an upper window, I know not
what the consequence would have been.
No less an eyesore to Miss Carlyle than that "brazen hussy," Afy
Hallijohn! Smuggled in by Miss Carlyle's servants, there she was--in
full dress, too. A green-and-white checked sarcenet, flounced up to
the waist, over a crinoline extending from here to yonder; a fancy
bonnet, worn on the plait of hair behind, with a wreath and a veil;
delicate white gloves, and a swinging handkerchief of lace, redolent
of musk. It was well for Miss Corny's peace of mind ever after that
she remained in ignorance of that daring act. There stood Afy, bold as
a sunflower, exhibiting herself and her splendor to the admiring eyes
of the mob below, gentle and simple.
"He is a handsome man, after all," quoth she to Miss Carlyle's maids,
when Sir Francis Levison arrived opposite the house.
"But such a horrid creature!" was the response. "And to think that he
should come here to oppose Mr. Archibald!"
"What's that?" cried Afy. "What are they stopping for? There are two
policemen there! Oh!" shrieked Afy, "if they haven't put handcuffs on
him! Whatever has he done? What can he have been up to?"
"Where? Who? What?" cried the servants, bewildered with the crowd.
"Put handcuffs on which?"
"Sir Francis Levison. Hush! What is that they say?"
Listening, looking, turning from white to red, from red to white, Afy
stood. But she could make nothing of it; she could not divine the
cause of the commotion. The man's answer to Miss Carlyle and Lady
Dobede, clear though it was, did not quite reach her ears.
"What did he say?" she cried.
"Good Heavens!" cried one of the maids, whose hearing had been quicker
than Afy's. "He says they are arrested for the wilful murder of Hal---
of your father, Miss Afy! Sir Francis Levison and Otway Bethel."
"/What!/" shrieked Afy, her eyes starting.
"Levison was the man who did it, he says," continued the servant,
bending her ear to listen. "And young Richard Hare, he says, has been
innocent all along."
Afy slowly gathered in the sense of the words. She gasped twice, as if
her breath had gone, and then, with a stagger and a shiver, fell
heavily to the ground.
Afy Hallijohn, recovered from her fainting fit, had to be smuggled out
of Miss Carlyle's, as she had been smuggled in. She was of an elastic
nature, and the shock, or the surprise, or the heat, whatever it may
have been, being over, Afy was herself again.
Not very far removed from the residence of Miss Carlyle was a shop in
the cheese and ham and butter and bacon line. A very respectable shop,
too, and kept by a very respectable man--a young man of mild
countenance, who had purchased the good-will of the business through
an advertisement, and come down from London to take possession. His
predecessor had amassed enough to retire, and people foretold that Mr.
Jiffin would do the same. To say that Miss Carlyle dealt at the shop
will be sufficient to proclaim the good quality of the articles kept
in it.
When Afy arrived opposite the shop, Mr. Jiffin was sunning himself at
the door; his shopman inside being at some urgent employment over the
contents of a butter-cask. Afy stopped. Mr. Jiffin admired her
uncommonly, and she, always ready for anything in that way, had
already enjoyed several passing flirtations with him.
"Good day, Miss Hallijohn," cried he, warmly, tucking up his white
apron and pushing it round to the back of his waist, in the best
manner he could, as he held out his hand to her. For Afy had once
hinted in terms of disparagement at that very apron.
"Oh--how are you Jiffin?" cried Afy, loftily, pretending not to have
seen him standing there. And she condescended to put the tips of her
white gloves into the offered hand, as she coquetted with her
handkerchief, her veil, and her ringlets. "I thought you would have
shut up your shop to-day, Mr. Jiffin, and taken a holiday."
"Business must be attended to," responded Mr. Jiffin, quite lost in
the contemplation of Afy's numerous attractions, unusually conspicuous
as they were. "Had I known that you were abroad, Miss Hallijohn, and
enjoying a holiday, perhaps I might have done it, too, in the hope of
coming across you somewhere or other."
His words were /bona fide/ as his admiration. Afy saw that, so she
could afford to treat him rather /de haut en bas/. "And he's as simple
as a calf," thought she.
"The greatest pleasure I have in life, Miss Hallijohn, is to see you
go by the shop window," continued Mr. Jiffin. "I'm sure it's like as
if the sun itself passed."
"Dear me!" bridled Afy, with a simper, "I don't know any good /that/
can do you. You might have seen me go by an hour or two ago--if you
had possessed eyes. I was on my way to Miss Carlyle's," she continued,
with the air of one who proclaims the fact of a morning call upon a
duchess.
"Where /could/ my eyes have been?" exclaimed Mr. Jiffin, in an agony
of regret. "In some of those precious butter-tubs, I shouldn't wonder!
We have had a bad lot in, Miss Hallijohn, and I am going to return
them!"
"Oh," said Afy, conspicuously resenting the remark. "I don't know
anything about that sort of thing. Butter-tubs are beneath me."
"Of course, of course, Miss Hallijohn," deprecated poor Jiffin. "They
are very profitable, though, to those who understand the trade."
"What /is/ all that shouting?" cried Afy, alluding to a tremendous
noise in the distance, which had continued for some little time.
"It's the voters cheering Mr. Carlyle. I suppose you know that he's
elected, Miss Hallijohn?"
"No, I didn't."
"The other was withdrawn by his friends, so they made short work of
it, and Mr. Carlyle is our member. God bless him! there's not many
like /him/. But, I say, Miss Hallijohn, whatever is it that the other
one has done? Murder, they say. I can't make top nor tail of it. Of
course we know he was bad enough before."
"Don't ask me," said Afy. "Murder's not a pleasant subject for a lady
to discuss. Are all these customers? Dear me, you'll have enough to do
to attend to them; your man can't do it all; so I won't stay talking
any longer."
With a gracious flourish of her flounces and wave of the handkerchief
Afy sailed off. And Mr. Jiffin, when he could withdraw his fascinated
eyes from following her, turned into his shop to assist in serving
four or five servant girls, who had entered it.
"It wouldn't be such a bad catch, after all," soliloquized Afy, as she
and her crinoline swayed along. "Of course I'd never put my nose
inside the shop--unless it was to order things like another customer.
The worst is the name. Jiffin, Joe Jiffin. How could I ever bear to be
called Mrs. Joe Jiffin! Not but-- Goodness me! what do you want?"
The interruption to Afy's chickens was caused by Mr. Ebenezer James.
That gentleman, who had been walking with quick steps to overtake her,
gave her flounces a twitch behind, to let her know somebody had come
up.
"How are you, Afy? I was going after you to Mrs. Latimer's, not
knowing but you had returned home. I saw you this morning at Miss
Corny's windows."
"Now, I don't want any of your sauce, Ebenezer James. Afy-ing me! The
other day, when you were on with your nonsense, I said you should keep
your distance. You took and told Mr. Jiffin that I was an old
sweetheart of yours. I heard of it."
"So you were," laughed Mr. Ebenezer.
"I never was," flashed Afy. "I was the company of your betters in
those days: and if there had been no betters in the case, I should
have scorned /you/. Why! you have been a strolling player!"
"And what have you been?" returned Mr. Ebenezer, a quiet tone of
meaning running through his good-humored laughter.
Afy's cheeks flushed scarlet, and she raised her hand with a quick,
menacing gesture. But that they were in the public street Mr. Ebenezer
might have found his ears boxed. Afy dropped her hand again, and made
a dead standstill.
"If you think any vile, false insinuations that you may concoct will
injure me, you are mistaken, Ebenezer James. I am too much respected
in the place. So don't try it on."
"Why, Afy, what has put you out? I don't want to injure you. Couldn't
do it, if I tried, as you say," he added, with another quiet laugh. "I
have been in too many scrapes myself to let my tongue bring other
folks into one."
"There, that's enough. Just take yourself off. It's not over reputable
to have you at one's side in public."
"Well, I will relieve you of my company, if you'll let me deliver my
commission. Though, as to 'reputable'--however, I won't put you out
further. You are wanted at the justice-room at three o'clock this
afternoon. And don't fail, please."
"Wanted at the justice-room!" retorted Afy. "I! What for?"
"And must not fail, as I say," repeated Mr. Ebenezer. "You saw Levison
taken up--your old flame----"
Afy stamped her foot in indignant interruption. "Take care what you
say, Ebenezer James! Flame! He? I'll have you put up for defamation of
character."
"Don't be a goose, Afy. It's of no use riding the high horse with me.
You know where I saw you--and saw him. People here said you were with
Dick Hare; I could have told them better; but I did not. It was no
affair of mine, that I should proclaim it, neither is it now. Levison
/alias/ Thorn is taken up for your father's murder, and you are wanted
to give evidence. There! that's your subpoena; Ball thought you would
not come without one."
"I will never give evidence against Levison," she uttered, tearing the
subpoena to pieces, and scattering them in the street. "I swear I
won't. There, for you! Will I help to hang an innocent man, when it
was Dick Hare who was the guilty one? No! I'll walk myself off a
hundred miles away first, and stop in hiding till it's over. I shan't
forget this turn that you have chosen to play me, Ebenezer James."
"I chosen! Why, do you suppose I have anything to do with it? Don't
take up that notion, Afy. Mr. Ball put that subpoena in my hand, and
told me to serve it. He might have given it to the other clerk, just
as he gave it to me; it was all chance. If I could do you a good turn
I'd do it--not a bad one."
Afy strode on at railroad speed, waving him off. "Mind you don't fail,
Afy," he said, as he prepared to return.
"Fail," answered she, with flashing eyes. "I shall fail giving
evidence, if you mean that. They don't get me up to their justice-
room, neither by force or stratagem."
Ebenezer James stood and looked after her as she tore along.
"What a spirit that Afy has got, when it's put up!" quoth he. "She'll
be doing as she said--make off--unless she's stopped. She's a great
simpleton! Nothing particular need come out about her and Thorn,
unless she lets it out herself in her tantrums. Here comes Ball, I
declare! I must tell him."
On went Afy, and gained Mrs. Latimer's. That lady, suffering from
indisposition was confined to the house. Afy, divesting herself of
certain little odds and ends of her finery, made her way into Mrs.
Latimer's presence.
"Oh, ma'am, such heartrending news as I have had!" began she. "A
relation of mine is dying, and wants to see me. I ought to be away by
the next train."
"Dear me!" cried Mrs. Latimer, after a pause of dismay. "But how can I
do without you, Afy?"
"It's a dying request, ma'am," pleaded Afy, covering her eyes with her
handkerchief--not the lace one--as if in the depth of woe. "Of course
I wouldn't ask you under any other circumstances, suffering as you
are!"
"Where is it to!" asked Mrs. Latimer. "How long shall you be away?"
Afy mentioned the first town that came uppermost, and "hoped" she
might be back to-morrow.
"What relation is it?" continued Mrs. Latimer. "I thought you had no
relatives, except Joyce and your aunt, Mrs. Kane."
"This is another aunt," cried Afy, softly. "I have never mentioned
her, not being friends. Differences divided us. Of course that makes
me all the more anxious to obey her request."
An uncommon good hand at an impromptu tale was Afy. And Mrs. Latimer
consented to her demand. Afy flew upstairs, attired herself once more,
put one or two things in a small leather bag, placed some money in her
purse, and left the house.
Sauntering idly on the pavement on the sunny side of the street was a
policeman. He crossed over to Afy, with whom he had a slight
acquaintance.
"Good-day, Miss Hallijohn. A fine day, is it not?"
"Fine enough," returned Afy, provoked at being hindered. "I can't talk
to you now, for I am in a hurry."
The faster she walked, the faster he walked, keeping at her side.
Afy's pace increased to a run. His increased to a run too.
"Whatever are you in such haste over?" asked he.
"Well, it's nothing to you. And I am sure I don't want you to dance
attendance upon me just now. There's a time for all things. I'll have
some chatter with you another day."
"One would think you were hurrying to catch a train."
"So I am--if you must have your curiosity satisfied. I am going on a
little pleasure excursion, Mr. Inquisitive."
"For long?"
"U--m! Home to-morrow, perhaps. Is it true that Mr. Carlyle's
elected?"
"Oh, yes; don't go up that way, please."
"Not up this way?" repeated Afy. "It's the nearest road to the
station. It cuts off all that corner."
The officer laid his hand upon her, gently. Afy thought he was
venturing upon it in sport--as if he deemed her too charming to be
parted with.
"What do you mean by your nonsense? I tell you I have not time for it
now. Take your hand off me," she added grimly--for the hand was
clasping her closer.
"I am sorry to hurt a lady's feelings, especially yours, miss, but I
daren't take it off, and I daren't part with you. My instructions are
to take you on at once to the witness-room. Your evidence is wanted
this afternoon."
If you ever saw a ghost more livid than ghosts in ordinary, you may
picture to your mind the appearance of Afy Hallijohn just then. She
did not faint as she had done once before that day, but she looked as
if she should die. One sharp cry, instantly suppressed, for Afy did
retain some presence of mind, and remembered that she was in the
public road--one sharp tussle for liberty, over as soon, and she
resigned herself, perforce, to her fate.
"I have no evidence to give," she said, in a calmer tone. "I know
nothing of the facts."
"I'm sure /I/ don't know anything of them," returned the man. "I don't
know why you are wanted. When instructions are given us, miss, we
can't ask what they mean. I was bid to watch that you didn't go off
out of the town, and to bring you on to the witness-room if you
attempted it, and I have tried to do it as politely as possible."
"You don't imagine I am going to walk through West Lynne with your
hand upon me!"
"I'll take it off, Miss Hallijohn, if you'll give a promise not to
bolt. You see, 'twould come to nothing if you did, for I should be up
with you in a couple of yards; besides, it would be drawing folks'
attention on you. You couldn't hope to outrun me, or be a match for me
in strength."
"I will go quietly," said Afy. "Take it off."
She kept her word. Afy was no simpleton, and knew that she /was/ no
match for him. She had fallen into the hands of the Philistines, was
powerless, and must make the best of it. So they walked through the
street as if they were taking a quiet stroll, he gallantly bearing the
leather bag. Miss Carlyle's shocked eyes happened to fall upon them as
they passed her window. She wondered where could be the eyes of the
man's inspector.
CHAPTER XL.
THE JUSTICE-ROOM.
The magistrates took their seats on the bench. The bench would not
hold them. All in the commission of the peace flocked in. Any other
day they would not have been at West Lynne. As to the room, the wonder
was how it ever got emptied again, so densely was it packed. Sir
Francis Levison's friends were there in a body. They did not believe a
word of the accusation. "A scandalous affair," cried they, "got up,
probably, by some sneak of the scarlet-and-purple party." Lord Mount
Severn, who chose to be present, had a place assigned him on the
bench. Lord Vane got the best place he could fight for amid the crowd.
Mr. Justice Hare sat as chairman, unusually stern, unbending, and
grim. No favor would he show, but no unfairness. Had it been to save
his son from hanging, he would not adjudge guilt to Francis Levison
against his conscience. Colonel Bethel was likewise on the bench,
stern also.
In that primitive place--primitive in what related to the justice-room
and the justices--things were not conducted with the regularity of the
law. The law there was often a dead letter. No very grave cases were
decided there; they went to Lynneborough. A month at the treadmill, or
a week's imprisonment, or a bout of juvenile whipping, were pretty
near the harshest sentences pronounced. Thus, in this examination, as
in others, evidence was advanced that was inadmissible--at least, that
would have been inadmissible in a more orthodox court--hearsay
testimony, and irregularities of that nature. Mr. Rubiny watched the
case on behalf of Sir Francis Levison.
Mr. Ball opened the proceedings, giving the account which had been
imparted to him by Richard Hare, but not mentioning Richard as his
informant. He was questioned as to whence he obtained his information,
but replied that it was not convenient at present to disclose the
source. The stumbling block of the magistrates appeared to be the
identifying Levison with Thorn. Ebenezer James came forward to prove
it.
"What do you know of the prisoner, Sir Francis Levison?" questioned
Justice Herbert.
"Not much," responded Mr. Ebenezer. "I used to know him as Captain
Thorn."
"/Captain/ Thorn?"
"Afy Hallijohn called him captain; but I understood he was but a
lieutenant."
"From whom did you understand that?"
"From Afy. She was the only person I heard speak of him."
"And you say you were in the habit of seeing him in the place
mentioned, the Abbey Wood?"
"I saw him there repeatedly; also at Hallijohn's cottage."
"Did you speak with him as Thorn?"
"Two or three times. I addressed him as Thorn, and he answered to the
name. I had no suspicion but that it was his name. Otway Bethel"--
casting his eyes on Mr. Otway, who stood in his shaggy attire--"also
knew him as Thorn, and so I have no doubt, did Locksley, for he was
always in the wood."
"Anybody else?"
"Poor Hallijohn himself knew him as Thorn. He said to Afy one day, in
my presence, that he would not have that confounded dandy, Thorn,
coming there."
"Were those the words he used?"
"They were; 'that confounded dandy Thorn.' I remember Afy's reply--it
was rather insolent. She said Thorn was as free to come there as
anybody else, and she would not be found fault with, as though she was
not fit to take care of herself."
"That is nothing to the purpose. Were any others acquainted with this
Thorn?"
"I should imagine the elder sister, Joyce, was. And the one who knew
him best of all of us was young Richard Hare."
/Old/ Richard Hare, from his place on the bench, frowned menacingly at
an imaginary Richard.
"What took Thorn into the wood so often?"
"He was courting Afy."
"With an intention of marrying her?"
"Well--no," cried Mr. Ebenezer, with a twist of the mouth; "I should
not suppose he entertained any intention of the sort. He used to come
over from Swainson, or its neighborhood, riding a splendid horse."
"Whom did you suppose him to be?"
"I supposed him to be moving in the upper ranks of life. There was no
doubt of it. His dress, his manners, his tone, all proclaimed it. He
appeared to wish to shun observation, and evidently did not care to be
seen by any of us. He rarely arrived until twilight."
"Did you see him there on the night of Hallijohn's murder?"
"No. I was not there myself that evening, so could not have seen him."
"Did a suspicion cross your mind at any time that he may have been
guilty of the murder?"
"Never. Richard Hare was accused of it by universal belief, and it
never occurred to me to suppose he had not done it."
"Pray, how many years is this ago?" sharply interrupted Mr. Rubiny,
perceiving that the witness was done with.
"Let's see!" responded Mr. Ebenezer. "I can't be sure as to a year
without reckoning up. A dozen, if not more."
"And you mean to say that you can swear to Sir Francis Levison being
that man, with all these years intervening?"
"I swear that he is the man. I am as positive of his identity as I am
of my own."
"Without having seen him from that time to this?" derisively returned
the lawyer. "Nonsense, witness."
"I did not say that," returned Mr. Ebenezer.
The court pricked up its ears. "Have you seen him between then and
now?" asked one of them.
"Once."
"Where and when?"
"It was in London, about eighteen months after the period of the
trial!"
"What communication had you with him?"
"None at all. I only saw him--quite by chance."
"And whom did you suppose him to be then--Thorn or Levison?"
"Thorn, certainly. I never dreamt of his being Levison until he
appeared here, now, to oppose Mr. Carlyle."
A wild, savage curse shot through Sir Francis's heart as he heard the
words. What demon had possessed him to venture his neck into the
lion's den? There had been a strong hidden power holding him back from
it, independent of his dislike to face Mr. Carlyle; how could he be so
mad as to disregard it? How? Could a man go from his doom? Can any?
"You may have been mistaken, witness, as to the identity of the man
you saw in London. It may not have been the Thorn you had known here."
Mr. Ebenezer James smiled a peculiar smile. "I was not mistaken," he
said, his tone sounding remarkably significant. "I am upon my oath."
"Call Aphrodite Hallijohn."
The lady appeared, supported by her friend, the policeman. And Mr.
Ebenezer James was desired by Mr. Ball to leave the court while she
gave her evidence. Doubtless he had his reasons.
"What is your name?"
"Afy," replied she, looking daggers at everybody, and sedulously
keeping her back turned upon Francis Levison and Otway Bethel.
"You name in full, if you please. You were not christened 'Afy'?"
"Aphrodite Hallijohn. You all know my name as well as I do. Where's
the use of asking useless questions?"
"Swear the witness," spoke up Mr. Justice Hare. The first word he had
uttered.
"I won't be sworn," said Afy.
"You must be sworn," said Mr. Justice Herbert.
"But I say I won't," repeated Afy.
"Then we must commit you to prison for contempt of court."
There was no mercy in his tone, and Afy turned white. Sir John Dobede
interposed.
"Young woman, had /you/ a hand in the murder of your father?"
"I?" returned Afy, struggling with passion, temper, and excitement.
"How dare you ask me such an unnatural question, sir? He was the
kindest father," she added, battling with her tears. "I loved him
dearly. I would have saved his life with mine."
"And yet you refuse to give evidence that may assist in bringing his
destroyer to justice."
"No; I don't refuse on that score. I should like his destroyer to be
hanged, and I'd go to see it. But who knows what other questions you
may be asking me, about things that concerned neither you nor anybody
else? That's why I object."
"We have only to deal with what bears upon the murder. The questions
put to you will relate to that."
Afy considered. "Well, you may swear me, then," she said.
Little notion had she of the broad gauge those questions would run
upon. And she was sworn accordingly. Very unwillingly yet; for Afy,
who would have told lies by the bushel /un/sworn, did look upon an
oath as a serious matter, and felt herself compelled to speak the
truth when examined under it.
"How did you become acquainted with a gentleman you often saw in those
days--Captain Thorn?"
"There," uttered the dismayed Afy. "You are beginning already. /He/
had nothing to do with it--he did not do the murder."
"You have sworn to answer the questions put," was the uncompromising
rejoinder. "How did you become acquainted with Captain Thorn?"
"I met him at Swainson," doggedly answered Afy. "I went over there one
day, just for a spree, and I met him at a pastrycook's."
"And he fell in love with your pretty face?" said Lawyer Ball, taking
up the examination.
In the incense to her vanity, Afy nearly forgot her scruples. "Yes, he
did," she answered, casting a smile of general satisfaction round upon
the court.
"And got out of you where you lived, and entered upon his courting,
riding over nearly every evening to see you?"
"Well," acknowledged Afy, "there was no harm in it."
"Oh, certainly not!" acquiesced the lawyer, in a pleasant, free tone,
to put the witness at her ease. "Rather good, I should say: I wish I
had had the like luck. Did you know him at the time by the name of
Levison?"
"No! He said he was Captain Thorn, and I thought he was."
"Did you know where he lived?"
"No! He never said that. I thought he was stopping temporarily at
Swainson."
"And--dear me! what a sweet bonnet that is you have on!"
Afy, whose egregious vanity was her besetting sin--who possessed
enough of it for any ten pretty women going--cast a glance out of the
corners of her eyes at the admired bonnet, and became Mr. Ball's
entirely.
"And how long was it, after your first meeting with him, before you
discovered his real name?"
"Not for a long time--several months."
"Subsequent to the murder, I presume?"
"Oh, yes!"
Mr. Ball's eyes gave a twinkle, and the unconscious Afy
surreptitiously smoothed, with one finger, the glossy parting of her
hair.
"Besides Captain Thorn, what gentlemen were in the wood the night of
the murder?"
"Richard Hare was there. Otway Bethel and Locksley also. Those were
all I saw until the crowd came."
"Were Locksley and Mr. Otway Bethel martyrs to your charms, as the
other two were?"
"No, indeed!" was the witness's answer, with an indignant toss of the
head. "A couple of poaching fellows like them! They had better have
tried it on!"
"Which of the two, Hare or Thorn, was inside the cottage with you that
evening?"
Afy came out of her vanity and hesitated. She was beginning to wonder
where the questions would get to.
"You are upon your oath, witness!" thundered Mr. Justice Hare. "If it
was my--if it was Richard Hare who was with you, say so. But there
must be no equivocation here."
Afy was startled. "It was Thorn," she answered to Mr. Ball.
"And where was Richard Hare?"
"I don't know. He came down, but I sent him away; I would not admit
him. I dare say he lingered in the wood."
"Did he leave a gun with you?"
"Yes. It was one he had promised to lend my father. I put it down just
inside the door. He told me it was loaded."
"How long after this was it, that your father interrupted you?"
"He didn't interrupt us at all," returned Afy. "I never saw my father
until I saw him dead."
"Were you not in the cottage all the time?"
"No; we went out for a stroll at the back. Captain Thorn wished me
good-bye there, and I stayed out."
"Did you hear the gun go off?"
"I heard a shot as I was sitting on the stump of a tree, and was
thinking; but I attached no importance to it, never supposing it was
in the cottage."
"What was it that Captain Thorn had to get from the cottage after he
quitted you? What had he left there?"
Now, this was a random shaft. Lawyer Ball, a keen man, who had well
weighed all points in the tale imparted to him by Richard, as well as
other points, had colored them with his own deductions, and spoke
accordingly. Afy was taken in.
"He had left his hat there--nothing else. It was a warm evening, and
he had gone out without it."
"He told you, I believe, sufficient to convince you of the guilt of
Richard Hare?" Another shaft thrown at random.
"I did not want convincing--I knew it without. Everybody else knew
it."
"To be sure," equably returned Lawyer Ball. "Did Captain Thorn /see/
it done--did he tell you that?"
"He had got his hat, and was away down the wood some little distance,
when he heard voices in dispute in the cottage, and recognized one of
them to be that of my father. The shot followed close upon it, and he
guessed some mischief had been done, though he did not suspect its
extent."
"Thorn told you this--when?"
"The same night--much later."
"How came you to see him?"
Afy hesitated; but she was sternly told to answer the question.
"A boy came up to the cottage and called me out, and said a strange
gentleman wanted to see me in the wood, and had given him sixpence to
come for me. I went, and found Captain Thorn. He asked me what the
commotion was about, and I told him Richard Hare had killed my father.
He said, that now I spoke of him, he could recognize Richard Hare's as
having been the other voice in the dispute."
"What boy was that--the one who came for you?"
"It was Mother Whiteman's little son."
"And Captain Thorn then gave you this version of the tragedy?"
"It was the right version," resentfully spoke Afy.
"How do you know that?"
"Oh! because I'm sure it was. Who else would kill him but Richard
Hare? It is a scandalous shame, your wanting to put it upon Thorn!"
"Look at the prisoner, Sir Francis Levison. Is it he whom you knew as
Thorn?"
"Yes; but that does not make him guilty of the murder."
"Of course it does not," complacently assented Lawyer Ball. "How long
did you remain with Captain Thorn in London--upon that little visit,
you know?"
Afy started like anybody moonstruck.
"When you quitted this place, after the tragedy, it was to join
Captain Thorn in London. How long, I ask, did you remain with him?"
Entirely a random shaft, this. But Richard had totally denied to
Lawyer Ball the popular assumption that Afy had been with him.
"Who says I was with him? Who says I went after him?" flashed Afy,
with scarlet cheeks.
"I do," replied Lawyer Ball, taking notes of her confusion. "Come,
it's over and done with--it's of no use to deny it now. We all go upon
visits to friends sometimes."
"I never heard anything so bold!" cried Afy. "Where will you tell me I
went next?"
"You are upon your oath, woman!" again interposed Justice Hare, and a
trembling, as of agitation, might be detected in his voice, in spite
of its ringing severity. "Were you with the prisoner Levison, or were
you with Richard Hare?"
"I with Richard Hare!" cried Afy, agitated in her turn, and shaking
like an aspen-leaf, partly with discomfiture, partly with unknown
dread. "How dare that cruel falsehood be brought up again, to my face?
I never saw Richard Hare after the night of the murder. I swear it. I
swear that I never saw him since. Visit /him/! I'd sooner visit
Calcraft, the hangman."
There was truth in the words--in the tone. The chairman let fall the
hand which had been raised to his face, holding on his eye-glasses;
and a sort of self-condemning fear arose, confusing his brain. His
son, proved innocent of one part, /might/ be proved innocent of the
other; and then--how would his own harsh conduct show out! West Lynne,
in its charity, the justice in his, had cast more odium to Richard,
with regard to his after conduct touching this girl, than it had on
the score of the murder.
"Come," said Lawyer Ball, in a coaxing tone, "let us be pleasant. Of
course you were not with Richard Hare--West Lynne is always ill-
natured--you were on a visit to Captain Thorn, as--as any other young
lady might be?"
Afy hung her head, cowed down to abject meekness.
"Answer the question," came forth the chairman's voice again. "/Were/
you with Thorn?"
"Yes," though the answer was feeble enough.
Mr. Ball coughed an insinuating cough.
"Did you remain with him--say two or three years?"
"Not three."
"A little over two, perhaps?"
"There was no harm in it," shrieked Afy, with a catching sob of
temper. "If I chose to live in London, and he chose to make a morning
call upon me, now and then, as an old friend, what's that to anybody?
Where was the harm, I ask?"
"Certainly--where was the harm? /I/ am not insinuating any," returned
Lawyer Ball, with a wink of the eye furthest from the witness and the
bench. "And, during the time that--that he was making these little
morning calls upon you, did you know him to be Levison?"
"Yes. I knew him to be Captain Levison then."
"Did he ever tell you why he had assumed the name of Thorn?"
"Only for a whim, he said. The day he spoke to me in the pastrycook's
shop at Swainson, something came over him, in the spur of the moment,
not to give his right name, so he gave the first that came into his
head. He never thought to retain it, or that other people would hear
of him by it."
"I dare say not," laconically spoke Lawyer Ball. "Well, Miss Afy, I
believe that is all for the present. I want Ebenezer James in again,"
he whispered to an officer of the justice-room, as the witness
retired.
Ebenezer James reappeared and took Afy's place.
"You informed their worships, just now, that you had met Thorn in
London, some eighteen months subsequent to the murder," began Lawyer
Ball, launching another of his shafts. "This must have been during the
period of Afy Hallijohn's sojourn with him. Did you also see /her/?"
Mr. Ebenezer opened his eyes. He knew nothing of the evidence just
given by Afy, and wondered how on earth it had come out--that she had
been with Thorn at all. He had never betrayed it.
"Afy?" stammered he.
"Yes, Afy," sharply returned the lawyer. "Their worships know that
when she took that trip of hers from West Lynne it was to join Thorn
not Richard Hare--though the latter has borne the credit of it. I ask
you, did you see her? for she was then still connected with him."
"Well--yes, I did," replied Mr. Ebenezer, his own scruples removed,
but wondering still how it had been discovered, unless Afy had--as he
had prophesied she would--let out in her "tantrums." "In fact, it was
Afy whom I first saw."
"State the circumstances."
"I was up Paddington way one afternoon, and saw a lady going into a
house. It was Afy Hallijohn. She lived there, I found--had the
drawing-room apartments. She invited me to stay to tea with her, and I
did."
"Did you see Captain Levison there?"
"I saw Thorn--as I thought him to be. Afy told me I must be away by
eight o'clock, for she was expecting a friend who sometimes came to
sit with her for an hour's chat. But, in talking over old times--not
that I could tell her much about West Lynne, for I had left it almost
as long as she had--the time slipped on past the hour. When Afy found
that out she hurried me off, and I had barely got outside the gate
when a cab drove up, and Thorn alighted from it, and let himself in
with a latch-key. That is all I know."
"When you knew that the scandal of Afy's absence rested on Richard
Hare, why could you not have said this, and cleared him, on your
return to West Lynne?"
"It was no affair of mine, that I should make it public. Afy asked me
not to say I had seen her, and I promised her I would not. As to
Richard Hare, a little extra scandal on his back was nothing, while
there remained on it the worse scandal of murder."
"Stop a bit," interposed Mr. Rubiny, as the witness was about to
retire. "You speak of the time being eight o'clock in the evening,
sir. Was it dark?"
"Yes."
"Then how can you be certain it was Thorn who got out of the cab and
entered?"
"I am quite certain. There was a gas-lamp right at the spot, and I saw
him as well as I should have seen him in daylight. I knew his voice,
too; could have sworn to it anywhere; and I would almost have sworn to
him by his splendid diamond ring. It flashed in the lamplight."
"His voice! Did he speak to you?"
"No. But he spoke to the cabman. There was a half dispute between
them. The man said Thorn had not paid him enough, that he had not
allowed for having been kept waiting twenty minutes on the road. Thorn
swore at him a bit, and then flung him an extra shilling."
The next witness was a man who had been groom to the late Sir Peter
Levison. He testified that the prisoner, Francis Levison had been on a
visit to his master late in the summer and part of the autumn, the
year that Hallijohn was killed. That he frequently rode out in the
direction of West Lynne, especially toward evening; would be away
three or four hours, and come home with the horse in a foam. Also that
he picked up two letters at different times, which Mr. Levison had
carelessly let fall from his pocket, and returned them to him. Both
the notes were addressed "Captain Thorn." But they had not been
through the post, for there was no further superscription on them; and
the writing looked like a lady's. He remembered quite well hearing of
the murder of Hallijohn, the witness added, in answer to a question;
it made a great stir through out the country. It was just at that same
time that Mr. Levison concluded his visit, and returned to London.
"A /wonderful/ memory!" Mr. Rubiny sarcastically remarked.
The witness, a quiet, respectable man, replied that he /had/ a good
memory; but that circumstances had impressed upon it particularly the
fact that Mr. Levison's departure followed close upon the murder of
Hallijohn.
"One day, when Sir Peter was round at the stables, gentlemen, he was
urging his nephew to prolong his visit, and asked what sudden freak
was taking him off. Mr. Levison replied that unexpected business
called him to London. While they were talking, the coachman came up,
all in a heat, telling that Hallijohn, of West Lynne, had been
murdered by young Mr. Hare. I remember Sir Peter said he could not
believe it; and that it must have been an accident, not murder."
"Is that all?"
"There was more said. Mr. Levison, in a shameful sort of manner, asked
his uncle, would he let him have five or ten pounds? Sir Peter seemed
angry, and asked, what had he done with the fifty-pound note he had
made him a present of only the previous morning? Mr. Levison replied
that he had sent that away to a brother officer, to whom he was in
debt. Sir Peter refused to believe it, and said he had more likely
squandered it upon some disgraceful folly. Mr. Levison denied that he
had; but he looked confused, indeed, his matter altogether was
confused that morning."
"Did he get the five or ten pounds?"
"I don't know, gentlemen. I dare say he did, for my master was as
persuadable as a woman, though he'd fly out a bit sometimes at first.
Mr. Levison departed for London that same night."
The last witness called was Mr. Dill. On the previous Tuesday evening,
he had been returning home from spending an hour at Mr. Beauchamp's,
when, in a field opposite to Mr. Justice Hare's, he suddenly heard a
commotion. It arose from the meeting of Sir Francis Levison and Otway
Bethel. The former appeared to have been enjoying a solitary moonlight
ramble, and the latter to have encountered him unexpectedly. Words
ensued. Bethel accused Sir Francis of "shirking" him. Sir Francis
answered angrily that he knew nothing of him, and nothing he wanted to
know.
" 'You were glad enough to know something of me the night of
Hallijohn's murder,' retorted Bethel to this. 'Do you remember that I
could hang you. One little word from me, and you'd stand in Dick
Hare's place.'
" 'You fool!' passionately cried Sir Francis. 'You couldn't hang me
without putting your own head in a noose. Did you not have your hush
money? Are you wanting to do me out of more?'
" 'A cursed paltry note of fifty pounds!' foamed Otway Bethel, 'which,
many a time since, I have wished my fingers were blown off before they
touched. I never should have touched it, but that I was altogether
overwhelmed with the moment's confusion. I have not been able to look
Mrs. Hare in the face since, knowing that I held the secret that would
save her son from the hangman.'
" 'And put yourself in his place,' sneered Sir Francis.
" 'No. Put you.'
" 'That's as it might be. But, if I went to the hangman, you would go
with me. There would be no excuse or escape for you. You know it.' "
The warfare continued longer, but this was the cream of it. Mr. Dill
heard the whole, and repeated it now to the magistrate. Mr. Rubiny
protested that it was "inadmissible;" "hearsay evidence;" "contrary to
law;" but the bench oracularly put Mr. Rubiny down, and told him they
did not want any stranger to come there and teach them their business.
Colonel Bethel had leaned forward at the conclusion of Mr. Dill's
evidence, dismay on his face, agitation in his voice. "Are you sure
that you made no mistake--that the other in this interview was Otway
Bethel?"
Mr. Dill sadly shook his head. "Am I one to swear to a wrong man,
colonel? I wish I had not heard it--save that it may be the means of
clearing Richard Hare."
Sir Francis Levison had braved out the proceedings with a haughty,
cavalier air, his delicate hands and his diamond ring remarkably
conspicuous. Was that stone the real thing, or a false one,
substituted for the real? Hard up as he had long been for money, the
suspicion might arise. A derisive smile crossed his features at parts
of the evidence, as much as to say, "You may convict me as to
Mademoiselle Afy, but you can't as to the murder." When, however, Mr.
Dill's testimony was given, what a change was there! His mood tamed
down to what looked like abject fear, and he shook in his shoes as he
stood.
"Of course your worships will take bail for Sir Francis?" said Mr.
Rubiny, at the close of the proceedings.
Bail! The bench looked at one another.
"Your worships will not refuse it--a gentleman in Sir Francis
Levison's position!"
The bench thought they never had so insolent an application made to
them. Bail for him!--on this charge! No; not if the lord chancellor
himself came down to offer it.
Mr. Otway Bethel, conscious, probably, that nobody would offer bail
for him, not even the colonel, did not ask the bench to take it. So
the two were fully committed to take their trial for the "Wilful
murder, otherwise the killing and slaying of George Hallijohn;" and
before night would be on their road to the county prison at
Lynneborough.
And that vain, ill-starred Afy! What of her? Well, Afy had retreated
to the witness-room again, after giving evidence, and there she
remained to the close, agreeably occupied in a mental debate. What
would they make out from her admission regarding her sojourn in London
and the morning calls? How would that precious West Lynne construe it?
She did not much care; she would brave it out, and assail them with
towering indignation, did any dare to cast a stone at her.
Such was her final decision, arrived at just as the proceedings
terminated. Afy was right glad to remain where she was, till some of
the bustle had gone.
"How was it ended?" asked she of Mr. Ball, who, being a bachelor, was
ever regarded with much graciousness by Afy, for she kept her eyes
open to contingencies; although Mr. Joe Jiffin was held in reserve.
"They are both committed for wilful murder--off to Lynneborough within
an hour!"
Afy's color rose. "What a shame! To commit two innocent men upon such
a charge."
"I can tell you what, Miss Afy, the sooner you disabuse your mind of
that prejudice, the better. Levison has been as good as proved guilty
to-day; but if proof were wanting, he and Bethel have criminated each
other. 'When rogues fall out, honest men get their own.' Not that I
can quite fathom Bethel's share in the exploit, though I can pretty
well guess at it. And, in proving themselves guilty they have proved
the innocence of Richard Hare."
Afy's face was changing to whiteness; her confident air to one of
dread; her vanity to humiliation.
"It--can't--be--true!" she gasped.
"It's true enough. The part you have hitherto ascribed to Thorn, was
enacted by Richard Hare. He heard the shot from his place in the wood,
and saw Thorn run, ghastly, trembling, horrified, from his wicked
work. Believe me, it was Thorn who killed your father."
Afy grew cold as she listened. That one awful moment, when conviction
that his words were true, forced itself upon her, was enough to sober
her for a whole lifetime. /Thorn!/ Her sight failed; her head reeled;
her very heart turned to sickness. One struggling cry of pain; and,
for the second time that day, Afy Hallijohn fell forward in a fainting
fit.
Shouts, hisses, execrations, yells! The prisoners were being brought
forth, to be conveyed to Lynneborough. A whole posse of constables was
necessary to protect them against the outbreak of the mob, which
outbreak was not directed against Otway Bethel, but against Sir
Francis Levison. Cowering like the guilty culprit that he was,
shivered he, hiding his white face--wondering whether it would be a
repetition of Justice Hare's green pond, or tearing him asunder
piecemeal--and cursing the earth because it did not open and let him
in!
CHAPTER XLI.
FIRM!
Miss Lucy was /en penitence/. She had been guilty of some childish
fault that day at Aunt Cornelia's, which, coming to the knowledge of
Mrs. Carlyle, after their return home the young lady was ordered to
the nursery for the rest of the day, and to be regaled upon bread and
water.
Barbara was in her pleasant dressing-room. There was to be a dinner
party at East Lynne that evening, and she had just finished dressing.
Very lovely looked she in her dinner dress, with purple and scarlet
flowers in her bosom. She glanced at her watch somewhat anxiously, for
the gentlemen had not made their appearance. Half-past six! And they
were to dine at seven.
Madame Vine tapped at the door. Her errand was to beg grace for Lucy.
She had been promised half an hour in the drawing-room, when the
ladies entered it from the dessert-table, and was now in agony of
grief at the disappointment. Would Mrs. Carlyle pardon her, and allow
her to be dressed?
"You are too lenient to the child, madame," spoke Barbara. "I don't
think you ever would punish her at all. But when she commits faults,
they must be corrected."
"She is very sorry for her fault; she promises not to be rude again.
She is crying as if she would cry her heart out."
"Not for her ill-behavior, but because she's afraid of missing the
drawing-room to-night," cried Barbara.
"Do, pray, restore her to favor," pleaded madame.
"I shall see. Just look, Madame Vine! I broke this, a minute or two
ago. Is it not a pity?"
Barbara held in her hand a beautiful toilette ornament, set in pure
gold. One of the petals had come off.
Madame Vine examined it. "I have some cement upstairs that would join
it," she exclaimed. "I could do it in two minutes. I bought it in
France."
"Oh, I wish you would," was Barbara's delighted response. "Do bring it
here and join it now. Shall I bribe you?" she added, laughing. "You
make this all right, and then you shall bear back grace to Lucy--for I
perceive that is what your heart is set upon."
Madame Vine went, and returned with her cement. Barbara watched her,
as she took the pieces in her hand, to see how the one must fit on to
the other.
"This has been broken once, as Joyce tells me," Barbara said. "But it
must have been imperceptibly joined, for I have looked in vain for the
damage. Mr. Carlyle bought it for his first wife, when they were in
London, after their marriage. She broke it subsequently here, at East
Lynne. You will never do it, Madame Vine, if your hand shakes like
that. What is the matter?"
A great deal was the matter. First, the ominous words had been upon
her tongue. "It was here where the stem joins the flower;" but she
recollected herself in time. Next came up the past vision of the place
and hour when the accident occurred. Her hanging sleeve had swept it
off the table. Mr. Carlyle was in the room, and he had soothed her
sorrow--her almost childish sorrow with kisses sweet. Ah me! poor
thing! I think our hands would have shaken as hers did. The ornament
and the kisses were Barbara's now.
"I ran quickly up the stairs and back again," was the explanation she
offered to Mrs. Carlyle for her shaking hands.
At that moment Mr. Carlyle and their guests were heard to return, and
ascend to their respective apartments, Lord Vane's gleeful voice
echoing through the house. Mr. Carlyle came into his wife's dressing-
room, and Madame Vine would have made a precipitate retreat.
"No, no," said Barbara, "finish it, now you have begun. Mr. Carlyle
will be going to his room. Look at the misfortune I have had.
Archibald, I have broken this."
Mr. Carlyle glanced carelessly at the trinket, and at Madame Vine's
white fingers. He crossed to the door of his dressing-room and opened
it, then held out his hand in silence for Barbara to approach and drew
her in with him. Madame Vine went on with her work.
Presently Barbara returned, and approached the table where stood
Madame Vine, while she drew on her gloves. Her eyelashes were wet.
"I could not help shedding a few tears of joy," exclaimed Barbara,
with a pretty blush, perceiving that madame observed the signs. "Mr.
Carlyle has been telling me that my brother's innocence is now all but
patent to the world. It came out upon the examination of those two
men, Sir Francis and Otway Bethel. Lord Mount Severn was present at
the proceedings, and says they have in some way incriminated each
other. Papa sat in his place as chairman; I wonder that he liked to do
so."
Lower bent the head of Madame Vine over her employment. "Has anything
been proved against them?" she asked, in her usual soft tone, almost a
whisper.
"There is not the least doubt of the guilt of Levison, but Otway
Bethel's share in the affair is a puzzle yet," replied Mrs. Carlyle.
"Both are committed for trial. Oh, that man! that man! how his sins
come out!" she continued in excitement.
Madame Vine glanced up through her spectacles.
"Would you believe," continued Barbara, dropping her voice, "that
while West Lynne, and I fear ourselves also, gave that miserable Afy
credit for having gone away with Richard, she was all the time with
Levison? Ball, the lawyer got her to confess to-day. I am unacquainted
with the details; Mr. Carlyle would not give them to me. He said the
bare fact was quite enough, and considering the associations it
involved, would not do to talk of."
Mr. Carlyle was right.
"Out it seems to come, little by little, one wickedness after
another!" resumed Barbara. "I do not like Mr. Carlyle to hear it. No,
I don't. Of course there is no help for it; but he must feel it
terribly, as must also Lord Mount Severn. She /was/ his wife, you
know, and the children are hers; and to think that she--I mean he--
must feel it /for her/," went on Barbara after her sudden pause, and
there was some hauteur in her tone lest she should be misunderstood.
"Mr. Carlyle is one of the very few men, so entirely noble, whom the
sort of disgrace reflected from Lady Isabel's conduct cannot touch."
The carriage of the first guest. Barbara ran across the room, and
rattled at Mr. Carlyle's door. "Archibald do you hear?"
Back came the laughing answer. "I shan't keep them long. But they may
surely accord a few minutes' grace to a man who has just been
converted into an M. P."
Barbara descended to the drawing-room, leaving her, that unhappy lady,
to the cement and the broken pieces, and to battle as best she could
with her bitter heart. Nothing but stabs; nothing but stabs! Was her
punishment ever to end? No. The step she had taken in coming back to
East Lynne had precluded that.
The guests arrived; all save Mr. and Mrs. Hare. Barbara received a
note from her instead. The justice did not feel well enough to join
them.
I should think he did not.
A pleasant party it was at East Lynne, and twelve o'clock struck
before the carriage of the last guest drove away. It may have been
from one to two hours after that, and the house was steeped in
moonlight and quietness, everybody being abed and asleep when a loud
summons at the hall bell echoed through the stillness.
The first to put her head out the window was Wilson. "Is it fire?"
shrieked she, in the most excessive state of terror conceivable.
Wilson had a natural dread of fire--some people do possess this dread
more than others--and had oftentime aroused the house to a commotion
by declaring she smelt it. "Is it fire?" shrieked Wilson.
"Yes!" was shouted at the top of a man's voice, who stepped from
between the entrance pillars to answer.
Wilson waited for no more. Clutching at the baby with one hand--a fine
young gentleman now of near twelve months old, promising fair to be as
great a source of trouble to Wilson and the nursery as was his brother
Archibald, whom he greatly resembled--and at Archie with the other,
out she flew to the corridor screeching "Fire! fire! fire!" never
ceasing, down tore Wilson with the four children, and burst
unceremoniously into the sleeping apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle.
By this time the children, terrified out of their senses, not at
Wilson's cry of alarm, but at the summary propelling downstairs, set
up a shrieking, too. Madame Vine, believing that half the house as
least was in flames, was the next to appear, throwing on a shawl she
had caught up, and then came Joyce.
"Fire! fire! fire!" shouted Wilson; "we are all being burnt up
together!"
Poor Mrs. Carlyle, thus wildly aroused from sleep, sprang out of bed
and into the corridor in her night-dress. Everybody else was in a
night-dress--when folks are flying for dear life, they don't stop to
look for their dress-coats and best blonde caps. Out came Mr. Carlyle,
who has hastily assumed his pantaloons.
He cast a rapid glance down to the hall, and saw that the stairs were
perfectly free for escape; therefore to hurry was not so violent.
Every soul around him was shrieking in concert, making the confusion
and din terrific. The bright moonlight streamed in at the corridor
windows, but there was no other light; shadowy and indistinct enough
looked the white figures.
"Where is the fire?" he exclaimed. "I don't smell any. Who gave the
first alarm?"
The bell answered him. The hall-bell, which rang out ten times louder
and longer than before. He opened one of the windows and leaned from
it. "Who's there?" Madame Vine caught up Archie.
"It's me, sir," responded a voice, which he at once recognized to be
that of one of Mr. Hare's men-servants. "Master has been took in a
fit, sir, and mistress sent me for you and Miss Barbara. You must
please make haste, sir, if you want to see him alive."
Miss Barbara! It was more familiar to Jasper, in a moment of
excitement, than the new name.
"You, Jasper! Is the house on fire--this house?"
"Well, I don't know, sir. I can hear a dreadful deal of screeching in
it."
Mr. Carlyle closed the window. He began to suspect that the danger lay
in fear alone. "Who told you there was fire?" he demanded of Wilson.
"That man ringing at the door," sobbed Wilson. "Thank goodness I have
saved the children!"
Mr. Carlyle felt somewhat exasperated at the mistake. His wife was
trembling from head to foot, her face of a deadly whiteness, and he
knew that she was not in a condition to be alarmed, necessarily or
unnecessarily. She clung to him in terror, asking if they /could/
escape.
"My darling, be calm! There's no fire; it's a stupid mistake. You may
all go back to bed and sleep in peace," he added to the rest, "and the
next time that you alarm the house in the night, Wilson, have the
goodness to make yourself sure, first of all, that there's cause for
it."
Barbara, frightened still, bewildered and uncertain, escaped to the
window and threw it open. But Mr. Carlyle was nearly as quick as she;
he caught her to him with one hand, and drew the window down with the
other. To have these tidings told to her abruptly would be worse than
all. By this time some of the servants had descended the other
staircase with a light, being in various stages of costume, and
hastened to open the hall-door. Jasper entered. The man had probably
waited to help to put out the "fire." Barbara caught sight of him ere
Mr. Carlyle could prevent it, and grew sick with fear, believing some
ill had happened to her mother.
Drawing her inside their chamber, he broke the news to her soothingly
and tenderly, making light of it.
She burst into tears. "You are not deceiving me, Archibald? Papa is
not dead?"
"Dead!" cheerfully echoed Mr. Carlyle, in the same tone he might have
used had Barbara wondered whether the justice was taking a night
airing for pleasure in a balloon. "Wilson has indeed frightened you,
love. Dress yourself, and we will go and see him."
At that moment Barbara recollected William. Strange that she should
have been the first to do so--before Lady Isabel--before Mr. Carlyle.
She ran out again to the corridors, where the boy stood shivering. "He
may have caught his death!" she uttered, snatching him up in her arms.
"Oh, Wilson! What have you done? His night-gown is damp and cold."
Unfit as she was for the burden, she bore him to her own bed. Wilson
was not at leisure to attend to reproaches just then. She was engaged
in a wordy war with Jasper, leaning over the balustrades to carry it
on.
"I never told you there was a fire!" indignantly denied Jasper.
"You did. I opened the nursery window and called out 'Is it fire?' and
you answered 'Yes.' "
"You called out 'Is it Jasper?' What else should I say but 'Yes,' to
that? Fire? Where was the fire likely to be--in the park?"
"Wilson take the children back to bed," authoritatively spoke Mr.
Carlyle, as he advanced to look down into the hall. "John, are you
there? The close carriage, instantly--look sharp. Madame Vine, pray
don't continue to hold that heavy boy; Joyce can't you relieve
madame?"
In crossing back to his room, Mr. Carlyle had brushed past madame, and
noticed that she appeared to be shaking, as with the weight of
Archibald. In reality she was still alarmed, not understanding yet the
cause of the commotion. Joyce, who comprehended it as little, and had
stood with her arms round Lucy, advanced to take Archibald, and Mr.
Carlyle disappeared. Barbara had taken off her own warm night-gown
then, and put it upon William in place of his cold one--had struck a
light and was busily dressing herself.
"Just feel his night-gown Archibald! Wilson--"
A shrill cry of awful terror interrupted the words, and Mr. Carlyle
made one bound out again. Barbara followed; the least she thought was
that Wilson had dropped the baby in the hall.
That was not the catastrophe. Wilson, with the baby and Lucy, had
already disappeared up the staircase, and Madame Vine was
disappearing. Archibald lay on the soft carpet of the corridor, where
madame had stood; for Joyce, in the act of taking him, had let him
slip to the ground--let him fall from sheer terror. She held on to the
balustrades, her face ghastly, her mouth open, her eyes fixed in
horror--altogether an object to look upon. Archie gathered himself on
his sturdy legs, and stood staring.
"Why, Joyce! What is the matter with /you/?" cried Mr. Carlyle. "You
look as if you had seen a spectre."
"Oh, master!" she wailed, "I have seen one."
"Are you all going deranged together?" retorted he, wondering what had
come to the house. "Seen a spectre, Joyce?"
Joyce fell on her knees, as if unable to support herself, and crossed
her shaking hands upon her chest. Had she seen ten spectres she could
not have betrayed more dire distress. She was a sensible and faithful
servant, one not given to flights of fancy, and Mr. Carlyle gazed at
her in very amazement.
"Joyce, what is this?" he asked, bending down and speaking kindly.
"Oh, my dear master! Heaven have mercy upon us all!" was the
inexplicable answer.
"Joyce I ask you what is this?"
She made no reply. She rose up shaking; and, taking Archie's hand,
slowly proceeded toward the upper stairs, low moans breaking from her,
and the boy's naked feet pattering on the carpet.
"What can ail her?" whispered Barbara, following Joyce with her eyes.
"What did she mean about a spectre?"
"She must have been reading a ghost-book," said Carlyle. "Wilson's
folly has turned the house topsy-turvy. Make your haste, Barbara."
Spring waned. Summer came, and would soon be waning, too, for the hot
days of July were now in. What had the months brought forth, since the
election of Mr. Carlyle in April? Be you very sure they had not been
without their events.
Mr. Justice Hare's illness had turned out to be a stroke of paralysis.
People cannot act with unnatural harshness toward a child, and then
discover they have been in the wrong, with impunity. Thus it proved
with Mr. Justice Hare. He was recovering, but would never again be the
man he had been. The fright, when Jasper had gone to tell of his
illness at East Lynne, and was mistaken for fire, had done nobody any
damage, save William and Joyce. William had caught a cold, which
brought increased malady to the lungs; and Joyce seemed to have caught
/fear/. She went about, more like one in a dream than awake, would be
buried in a reverie for an hour at a time, and if suddenly spoken to,
would start and shiver.
Mr. Carlyle and his wife departed for London immediately that Mr. Hare
was pronounced out of danger; which was in about a week from the time
of his seizure. William accompanied them, partly for the benefit of
London advice, partly that Mr. Carlyle would not be parted from him.
Joyce went, in attendance with some of the servants.
They found London ringing with the news of Sir Francis Levison's
arrest. London could not understand it; and the most wild and
improbable tales were in circulation. The season was at its height;
the excitement in proportion; it was more than a nine days' wonder. On
the very evening of their arrival a lady, young and beautiful, was
shown in to the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. She had declined to
give her name, but there arose to Mr. Carlyle's memory, when he looked
upon her, one whom he had seen in earlier days as the friend of his
first wife--Blanche Challoner. It was not Blanche, however.
The stranger looked keenly at Mr. Carlyle. He was standing with his
hat in his hand, on the point of going out. "Will you pardon this
intrusion?" she asked. "I have come to you as one human being in need
comes to crave help of another. I am Lady Levison."
Barbara's face flushed. Mr. Carlyle courteously invited the stranger
to a chair, remaining standing himself. She sat for a moment, and then
rose, evidently in an excess of agitation.
"Yes, I am Lady Levison, forced to call that man husband. That he has
been a wicked man, I have long known; but now I hear he is a criminal.
I hear it, I say, but I can get the truth from none. I went to Lord
Mount Severn; he declined to give me particulars. I heard that Mr.
Carlyle would be in town to-day, and I resolved to come and ask them
of him."
She delivered the sentences in a jerking, abrupt tone, betraying her
inward emotion. Mr. Carlyle, looking somewhat unapproachable, made no
immediate reply.
"You and I have both been deeply wronged by him, Mr. Carlyle, but I
brought my wrong upon myself, you did not. My sister, Blanche, whom he
had cruelly treated--and if I speak of it, I only speak of what is
known to the world--warned me against him. Mrs. Levison, his
grandmother, that ancient lady who must now be bordering upon ninety,
she warned me. The night before my wedding day, she came on purpose to
tell me that if I married Francis Levison I should rue it for life.
There was yet time to retract she said. Yes; there would have been
time; but there was no /will/. I would not listen to either. I was led
away by vanity, by folly, by something worse--the triumphing over my
own sister. Poor Blanche! But which has the best of the bargain now,
she or I? And I have a child," she continued, dropping her voice, "a
boy who inherits his father's name. Mr. Carlyle, will they /condemn/
him?"
"Nothing, as yet, is positively proved against him," replied Mr.
Carlyle, compassionating the unhappy lady.
"If I could but get a divorce!" she passionately uttered, apparently
losing all self-control. "I might have got one, over and over again,
since we married, but there would have been the /expose/ and the
scandal. If I could but change my child's name! Tell me--does any
chance of redress remain for me?"
There was none, and Mr. Carlyle did not attempt to speak of any. He
offered a few kind words of sympathy, very generally expressed, and
then prepared to go out. She moved, and stood in his way.
"You will not leave until you have given me the particulars! I pray
you, do not! I came trustingly to you, hoping to know them."
"I am waited for, to keep an important engagement," he answered. "And
were my time at liberty, I should decline to tell them to you, on my
own account, as well as on yours. Lay not discourtesy to my charge,
Lady Levison. Were I to speak of the man, even to you, his name would
blister my lips."
"In every word of hate spoken by you I would sympathize; every
contemptuous expression of scorn, cast upon him from your heart, I
would join in, tenfold."
Barbara was shocked. "He is your husband, after all," she took leave
to whisper.
"My husband!" broke forth Lady Levison, in agitation, seemingly. "Yes!
there's the wrong. Why did he, knowing what he was, delude me into
becoming his wife? You ought to feel for me, Mrs. Carlyle; and you do
feel for me, for you are a wife and mother. How dare these base men
marry--take to themselves an innocent, inexperienced girl, vowing,
before God, to love and honor and cherish her? Were not his other sins
impediment enough but he must have crime, also, and woo me! He has
done me deep and irredeemable wrong, and has entailed upon his child
an inheritance of shame. What had he or I done to deserve it, I ask?"
Barbara felt half frightened at her vehemence; and Barbara might be
thankful not to understand it. All her native gentleness, all her
reticence of feeling, as a wife and a gentlewoman, had been goaded out
of her. The process had been going on for some time, but this last
revelation was the crowning point; and Alice, Lady Levison, turned
round upon the world in her helpless resentment, as any poor wife,
working in a garret, might have done. There are certain wrongs which
bring out human nature in the high-born, as well as in the low. "Still
he is your husband," was all Barbara could, with deprecation, again
plead.
"He made himself my husband by deceit, and I will throw him off in the
face of day," returned Lady Levison. "There is no moral obligation why
I should not. He has worked ill and ruin--ill and ruin upon me and my
child, and the world shall never be allowed to think I have borne my
share in it. How was it you kept your hands off him, when he
reappeared, to brave you, in West Lynne?" she added, in a changed
tone, turning to Mr. Carlyle.
"I cannot tell. I was a marvel oftentimes to myself."
He quitted the room as he spoke, adding a few civil words about her
with Mrs. Carlyle. Barbara, not possessing the scruples of her
husband, yielded to Lady Levison's request, and gave her the outline
of the dark tale. Its outline only; and generously suppressing Afy's
name beyond the evening of the fatal event. Lady Levison listened
without interruption.
"Do you and Mr. Carlyle believe him to have been guilty?"
"Yes; but Mr. Carlyle will not express his opinion to the world. He
does not repay wrong with revenge. I have heard him say that if the
lifting of his finger would send the man to his punishment, he would
tie down his hand rather than lift it."
"Was his first wife, Isabel Vane, mad?" she presently asked.
"Mad!" echoed Barbara, in surprise.
"When she quitted him for the other. It could have been nothing else
than madness. I could understand a woman's flying from /him/ for love
of Mr. Carlyle; but now that I have seen your husband, I cannot
understand the reverse side of the picture. I thank you for your
courtesy, Mrs. Carlyle."
And, without another word, Alice Levison quitted the room as abruptly
as she had entered it.
Well, the London visit came to an end. It was of little more than
three weeks' duration, for Barbara must be safe at home again. Mr.
Carlyle remained for the rest of the season alone, but he varied it
with journeys to East Lynne. He had returned home for good now, July,
although the session had not quite terminated. There was another baby
at East Lynne, a lovely little baby, pretty as Barbara herself had
been at a month old. William was fading rapidly. The London physicians
had but confirmed the opinion of Dr. Martin, and it was evident to all
that the close would not be long protracted.
Somebody else was fading--Lady Isabel. The cross had been too heavy,
and she was sinking under its weight. Can you wonder at it?
An intensely hot day it was under the July sun. Afy Hallijohn was
sailing up the street in its beams, finer and vainer than ever. She
encountered Mr. Carlyle.
"So, Afy, you are really going to be married at last?"
"Jiffin fancies so, sir. I am not sure yet but what I shall change my
mind. Jiffin thinks there's nobody like me. If I could eat gold and
silver, he'd provide it; and he's as fond as fond can be. But then you
know, sir, he's half soft."
"Soft as to you, perhaps," laughed Mr. Carlyle. "I consider him a very
civil, respectable man, Afy."
"And then, I never did think to marry a shopkeeper," grumbled Afy; "I
looked a little higher than that. Only fancy, sir, having a husband
who wears a white apron tied round him!"
"Terrible!" responded Mr. Carlyle, with a grave face.
"Not but what it will be a tolerable settlement," rejoined Afy,
veering round a point. "He's having his house done up in style, and I
shall keep two good servants, and do nothing myself but dress and
subscribe to the library. He makes plenty of money."
"A very tolerable settlement, I should say," returned Mr. Carlyle; and
Afy's face fell before the glance of his eye, merry though it was.
"Take care you don't spend all his money for him, Afy."
"I'll take care of that," nodded Afy, significantly. "Sir," she
somewhat abruptly added, "what is it that's the matter with Joyce?"
"I do not know," said Mr. Carlyle, becoming serious. "There does
appear to be something the matter with her, for she is much changed."
"I never saw anybody so changed in my life," exclaimed Afy. "I told
her the other day that she was just like one who had got some dreadful
secret upon their mind."
"It is really more like that than anything else," observed Mr.
Carlyle.
"But she is one of the close ones, is Joyce," continued Afy. "No fear
that she'll give out a clue, if it does not suit her to do so. She
told me, in answer, to mind my own business, and not to take absurd
fancies in my head. How is the baby, sir, and Mrs. Carlyle?"
"All well. Good day, Afy."
CHAPTER XLII.
THE TRIAL.
Spacious courts were the assize courts of Lynneborough; and it was
well they were so, otherwise more people had been disappointed, and
numbers were, of hearing the noted trial of Sir Francis Levison for
the murder of George Hallijohn.
The circumstances attending the case caused it to bear for the public
an unparalleled interest. The rank of the accused, and his
antecedents, more especially that particular local antecedent touching
the Lady Isabel Carlyle; the verdict still out against Richard Hare;
the length of time which had elapsed since; the part played in it by
Afy; the intense curiosity as to the part taken in it by Otway Bethel;
the speculation as to what had been the exact details, and the doubt
of a conviction--all contributed to fan the curiosity of the public.
People came from far and near to be present--friends of Mr. Carlyle,
friends of the Hares, friends of the Challoner family, friends of the
prisoner, besides the general public. Colonel Bethel and Mr. Justice
Hare had conspicuous seats.
At a few minutes past nine the judge took his place on the bench, but
not before a rumor had gone through the court--a rumor that seemed to
shake it to its centre, and which people stretched out their necks to
hear--Otway Bethel had turned Queen's evidence, and was to be admitted
as a witness for the crown.
Thin, haggard, pale, looked Francis Levison as he was placed in the
dock. His incarceration had not in any way contributed to his personal
advantages, and there was an ever-recurring expression of dread upon
his countenance not pleasant to look upon. He was dressed in black,
old Mrs. Levison having died, and his diamond ring shone conspicuous
still on his white hand, now whiter than ever. The most eminent
counsel were engaged on both sides.
The testimony of the witnesses already given need not be
recapitulated. The identification of the prisoner with the man Thorn
was fully established--Ebenezer James proved that. Afy proved it, and
also that he, Thorn, was at the cottage that night. Sir Peter
Levison's groom was likewise re-examined. But still there wanted other
testimony. Afy was made to re-assert that Thorn had to go to the
cottage for his hat after leaving her, but that proved nothing, and
the conversation, or quarrel overheard by Mr. Dill was now again, put
forward. If this was all the evidence, people opined that the case for
the prosecution would break down.
"Call Richard Hare" said the counsel for the prosecution.
Those present who knew Mr. Justice Hare, looked up at him, wondering
why he did not stir in answer to his name--wondering at the pallid hue
which overspread his face. Not he, but another came forward--a fair,
placid, gentlemanly young man, with blue eyes, fair hair, and a
pleasant countenance. It was Richard Hare the younger. He had assumed
his original position in life, so far as attire went, and in that, at
least, was a gentleman again. In speech also--with his working dress
Richard had thrown off his working manners.
A strange hubbub arose in court. Richard Hare, the exile--the reported
dead--the man whose life was in jeopardy! The spectators rose with one
accord to get a better view; they stood on tiptoe; they pushed forth
their necks; they strained their eyesight: and, amidst all the noisy
hum, the groan bursting from the lips of Justice Hare was unnoticed.
Whilst order was being called for, and the judge threatened to clear
the court, two officers moved themselves quietly up and stood behind
the witness. Richard Hare was in custody, though he might know it not.
The witness was sworn.
"What is your name?"
"Richard Hare."
"Son of Mr. Justice Hare, I believe, of the Grove, West Lynne?"
"His only son."
"The same against whom a verdict of wilful murder is out?" interposed
the judge.
"The same, my lord," replied Richard Hare, who appeared, strange as it
may seem, to have cast away all his old fearfulness.
"Then, witness, let me warn you that you are not obliged to answer any
question that may tend to criminate yourself."
"My lord," answered Richard Hare, with some emotion, "I wish to answer
any and every question put to me. I have but one hope, that the full
truth of all pertaining to that fatal evening may be made manifest
this day."
"Look round at the prisoner," said the examining counsel. "Do you know
him?"
"I know him now as Sir Francis Levison. Up to April last I believed
his name to be Thorn."
"State what occurred on the evening of the murder, as far as your
knowledge goes."
"I had an appointment that evening with Afy Hallijohn, and went down
to their cottage to keep it--"
"A moment," interrupted the counsel. "Was your visit that evening made
in secret?"
"Partially so. My father and mother were displeased, naturally, at my
intimacy with Afy Hallijohn; therefore I did not care that they should
be cognizant of my visits there. I am ashamed to confess that I told
my father a lie over it that very evening. He saw me leave the dinner-
table to go out with my gun, and inquired where I was off to. I
answered that I was going out with young Beauchamp."
"When, in point of fact, you were not?"
"No. I took my gun, for I had promised to lend it to Hallijohn while
his own was being repaired. When I reached the cottage Afy refused to
admit me; she was busy, and could not, she said. I felt sure she had
got Thorn with her. She had, more than once before, refused to admit
me when I had gone there by her own appointment, and I always found
that Thorn's presence in the cottage was the obstacle."
"I suppose you and Thorn were jealous of each other?"
"I was jealous of him; I freely admit it. I don't know whether he was
of me."
"May I inquire what was the nature of your friendship for Miss Afy
Hallijohn?"
"I loved her with an honorable love, as I might have done by any young
lady in my own station of life. I would not have married her in
opposition to my father and mother; but I told Afy that if she was
content to wait for me until I was my own master I would then make her
my wife."
"You had no views toward her of a different nature?"
"None; I cared for her too much for that; and I respected her father.
Afy's mother had been a lady, too, although she had married Hallijohn,
who was but clerk to Mr. Carlyle. No; I never had a thought of wrong
toward Afy--I never could have had."
"Now relate the occurrences of the evening?"
"Afy would not admit me, and we had a few words over it; but at length
I went away, first giving her the gun, and telling her it was loaded.
She lodged it against the wall, just inside the door, and I went into
the wood and waited, determined to see whether or not Thorn was with
her, for she had denied that he was. Locksley saw me there, and asked
why I was hiding. I did not answer; but I went further off, quite out
of view of the cottage. Some time afterward, less than half an hour, I
heard a shot in the direction of the cottage. Somebody was having a
late pop at the partridge, I thought. Just then I saw Otway Bethel
emerge from the trees, not far from me, and run toward the cottage. My
lord," added Richard Hare, looking at the judge, "that was the shot
that killed Hallijohn!"
"Could the shot," asked the counsel, "have been fired by Otway
Bethel?"
"It could not. It was much further off. Bethel disappeared, and in
another minute there came some one flying down the path leading from
the cottage. It was Thorn, and evidently in a state of intense terror.
His face was livid, his eyes staring, and he panted and shook like one
in the ague. Past me he tore, on down the path, and I afterwards heard
the sound of his horse galloping away; it had been tied in the wood."
"Did you follow him?"
"No. I wondered what had happened to put him in that state; but I made
haste to the cottage, intending to reproach Afy with her duplicity. I
leaped up the two steps, and fell over the prostrate body of
Hallijohn. He was lying dead within the door. My gun, just discharged,
was flung on the floor, its contents in Hallijohn's side."
You might have heard a pin drop in court, so intense was the interest.
"There appeared to be no one in the cottage, upstairs or down. I
called to Afy, but she did not answer. I caught up the gun, and was
running from the cottage when Locksley came out of the wood and looked
at me. I grew confused, fearful, and I threw the gun back again and
made off."
"What were your motives for acting in that way?"
"A panic had come over me, and in that moment I must have lost the use
of my reason, otherwise I never should have acted as I did. Thoughts,
especially of fear, pass through our minds with astonishing swiftness,
and I feared lest the crime should be fastened upon me. It was fear
made me snatch up my gun, lest it should be found near the body; it
was fear made me throw it back again when Locksley appeared in view--a
fear you understand, from which all judgment, all reason, had
departed. But for my own conduct, the charge never would have been
laid to me."
"Go on."
"In my flight I came upon Bethel. I knew that if he had gone toward
the cottage after the shot was fired, he must have encountered Thorn
flying from it. He denied that he had; he said he had only gone along
the path for a few paces, and had then plunged into the wood again. I
believed him and departed."
"Departed from West Lynne?"
"That night I did. It was a foolish, fatal step, the result of
cowardice. I found the charge was laid to me, and I thought I would
absent myself for a day or two, to see how things turned out. Next
came the inquest and the verdict against me, and I then left for
good."
"This is the truth, so far as you are cognizant of it?"
"I swear that it is truth, and the whole truth, so far as I am
cognizant of it," replied Richard Hare, with emotion. "I could not
assert it more solemnly were I before God."
He was subjected to a rigid cross-examination, but his testimony was
not shaken in the least. Perhaps not one present but was impressed
with its truth.
Afy Hallijohn was recalled, and questioned as to Richard's presence at
her father's house that night. It tallied with the account given by
Richard; but it had to be drawn from her.
"Why did you decline to receive Richard Hare into the cottage, after
appointing him to come?"
"Because I chose," returned Afy.
"Tell the jury why you chose."
"Well, I had got a friend with me--it was Captain Thorn," she added,
feeling that she should only be questioned on this point, so might as
well acknowledge it. "I did not admit Richard Hare, for I fancied they
might get up a quarrel if they were together."
"For what purpose did Richard Hare bring down his gun--do you know?"
"It was to lend to my father. My father's gun had something the matter
with it, and was at the smith's. I had heard him, the previous day,
ask Mr. Richard to lend him one of his, and Mr. Richard said he would
bring one, as he did."
"You lodged the gun against the wall--safely?"
"Quite safely."
"Was it touched by you, after placing it there, or by the prisoner?"
"I did not touch it; neither did he, that I saw. It was that same gun
which was afterward found near my father, and had been discharged."
The next witness called was Otway Bethel. He also held share in the
curiosity of the public, but not in equal degree with Afy, still less
with Richard Hare. The substance of his testimony was as follows:--
"On the evening that Hallijohn was killed, I was in the Abbey Wood,
and I saw Richard Hare come down the path with a gun, as if he had
come down from his own home."
"Did Richard Hare see you?"
"No; he could not see me; I was right in the thicket. He went to the
cottage door, and was about to enter, when Afy Hallijohn came hastily
out of it, pulling the door to behind her, and holding it in her hand,
as if afraid he would go in. Some colloquy ensued, but I was too far
off to hear it; and then she took the gun from him and went indoors.
Some time after that I saw Richard Hare amid the trees at a distance,
farther off the cottage, then, than I was, and apparently watching the
path. I was wondering what he was up to, hiding there, when I head a
shot fired, close, as it seemed, to the cottage, and--"
"Stop a bit, witness. Could that shot have been fired by Richard
Hare?"
"It could not. He was a quarter of a mile, nearly, away from it. I was
much nearer the cottage than he."
"Go on."
"I could not imagine what that shot meant, or who could have fired it
--not that I suspected mischief--and I knew that poachers did not
congregate so near Hallijohn's cottage. I set off to reconnoiter, and
as I turned the corner, which brought the house within my view, I saw
Captain Thorn, as he was called, come leaping out of it. His face was
white with terror, his breath was gone--in short, I never saw any
living man betray so much agitation. I caught his arm as he would have
passed me. 'What have you been about?' I asked. 'Was it you that
fired?' He--"
"Stay. Why did you suspect him?"
"From his state of excitement--from the terror he was in--that some
ill had happened, I felt sure; and so would you, had you seen him as I
did. My arresting him increased his agitation; he tried to throw me
off, but I am a strong man, and I suppose he thought it best to
temporize. 'Keep dark upon it, Bethel,' he said, 'I will make it worth
your while. The thing was not premeditated; it was done in the heat of
passion. What business had the fellow to abuse me? I have done no harm
to the girl.' As he thus spoke, he took out a pocket book with the
hand that was at liberty; I held the other--"
"As the prisoner thus spoke, you mean?"
"The prisoner. He took a bank-note from his pocket book, and thrust it
into my hands. It was a note for fifty pounds. 'What's done can't be
undone, Bethel,' he said, 'and your saying that you saw me here can
serve no good turn. Shall it be silence?' I took the note and answered
that it should be silence. I had not the least idea that anybody was
killed."
"What did you suppose had happened, then?"
"I could not suppose; I could not think; it all passed in the haste
and confusion of a moment, and no definite idea occurred to me. Thorn
flew on down the path, and I stood looking after him. The next was I
heard footsteps, and I slipped within the trees. They were those of
Richard Hare, who took the path to the cottage. Presently he returned,
little less agitated than Thorn had been. I had gone into an open
space, then, and he accosted me, asking if I had seen 'that hound' fly
from the cottage? 'What hound?' I asked of him. 'That fine fellow,
that Thorn, who comes after Afy,' he answered, but I stoutly denied
that I had seen any one. Richard Hare continued his way, and I
afterward found that Hallijohn was killed."
"And so you took a bribe to conceal one of the foulest crimes that man
ever committed, Mr. Otway Bethel!"
"I took the money, and I am ashamed to confess it. But it was done
without reflection. I swear that had I known what crime it was
intended to hush up, I never would have touched it. I was hard up for
funds, and the amount tempted me. When I discovered what had really
happened, and that Richard Hare was accused, I was thunderstruck at my
own deed; many a hundred times since have I cursed the money; and the
fate of Richard has been as a heavy weight upon my conscience."
"You might have lifted the weight by confessing."
"To what end? It was too late. Thorn had disappeared. I never heard of
him, or saw him, until he came to West Lynne this last spring, as Sir
Francis Levison, to oppose Mr. Carlyle. Richard Hare had also
disappeared--had never been seen or heard of, and most people supposed
he was dead. To what end then should I confess? Perhaps only to be
suspected myself. Besides, I had taken the money upon a certain
understanding, and it was only fair that I should keep to it."
If Richard Hare was subjected to a severe cross-examination, a far
more severe one was awaiting Otway Bethel. The judge spoke to him only
once, his tone ringing with reproach.
"It appears then, witness, that you have retained within you, all
these years, the proofs of Richard Hare's innocence?"
"I can only acknowledge it with contrition, my lord."
"What did you know of Thorn in those days?" asked the counsel.
"Nothing, save that he frequented the Abbey Wood, his object being Afy
Hallijohn. I had never exchanged a word with him until that night; but
I knew his name, Thorn--at least, the one he went by, and by his
addressing me as Bethel, it appeared that he knew mine."
The case for the prosecution closed. An able and ingenious speech was
made for the defence, the learned counsel who offered it contending
that there was still no proof of Sir Francis having been the guilty
man. Neither was there any proof that the catastrophe was not the
result of pure accident. A loaded gun, standing against a wall in a
small room, was not a safe weapon, and he called upon the jury not
rashly to convict in the uncertainty, but to give the prisoner the
benefit of the doubt. He should call no witnesses, he observed, not
even to character. Character! for Sir Francis Levison! The court burst
into a grin; the only sober face in it being that of the judge.
The judge summed up. Certainly not in the prisoner's favor; but, to
use the expression of some amidst the audience, dead against him.
Otway Bethel came in for a side shaft or two from his lordship;
Richard Hare for sympathy. The jury retired about four o'clock, and
the judge quitted the bench.
A very short time they were absent. Scarcely a quarter of an hour. His
lordship returned into court, and the prisoner was again placed in the
dock. He was the hue of marble, and, in his nervous agitation, kept
incessantly throwing back his hair from his forehead--the action
already spoken of. Silence was proclaimed.
"How say you, gentlemen of the jury? Guilty, or not guilty?"
"GUILTY."
It was a silence to be felt; and the prisoner gasped once or twice
convulsively.
"But," said the foreman, "we wish to recommend him to mercy."
"On what grounds?" inquired the judge.
"Because, my lord, we believe it was not a crime planned by the
prisoner beforehand, but arose out of the bad passions of the moment,
and was so committed."
The judge paused, and drew something black from the receptacle of his
pocket, buried deep in his robes.
"Prisoner at the bar! Have you anything to urge why sentence of death
should not be passed upon you?"
The prisoner clutched the front of the dock. He threw up his head, as
if shaking off the dread fear which had oppressed him, and the marble
of his face changed to scarlet.
"Only this, my lord. The jury, in giving their reason for recommending
me to your lordship's mercy, have adopted the right view of the case
as it actually occurred. The man Hallijohn's life was taken by me, it
will be useless for me to deny, in the face of the evidence given this
day, but it was not taken in malice. When I quitted the girl, Afy, and
went to the cottage for my hat, I no more contemplated injuring mortal
man than I contemplate it at this moment. He was there, the father,
and in the dispute that ensued the catastrophe occurred. My lord, it
was not wilful murder."
The prisoner ceased, and the judge, the black cap on his head, crossed
his hands one upon the other.
"Prisoner at the bar. You have been convicted by clear and undoubted
evidence of the crime of wilful murder. The jury have pronounced you
guilty; and in their verdict I entirely coincide. That you took the
life of that ill-fated and unoffending man, there is no doubt; you
have, yourself, confessed it. It was a foul, a barbarous, a wicked
act. I care not for what may have been the particular circumstances
attending it; he may have provoked you by words; but no provocation of
that nature could justify your drawing the gun upon him. Your counsel
urged that you were a gentleman, a member of the British aristocracy,
and therefore deserved consideration. I confess that I was much
surprised to hear such a doctrine fall from his lips. In my opinion,
you being what you are, your position in life makes your crime the
worse, and I have always maintained that when a man possessed of
advantages falls into sin, he deserves less consideration than does
one who is poor, simple, and uneducated. Certain portions of the
evidence given to-day (and I do not now allude to the actual crime)
tell very greatly against you, and I am sure not one in the court but
must have turned from them with abhorrence. You were pursuing the
daughter of this man with no honorable purpose--and in this point your
conduct contrasts badly with the avowal of Richard Hare, equally a
gentleman with yourself. In this pursuit you killed her father; and
not content with that, you still pursued the girl--and pursued her to
ruin, basely deceiving her as to the actual facts, and laying the
crime upon another. I cannot trust myself to speak further upon this
point, nor is it necessary that I should; it is not to answer for
that, that you stand before me. Uncalled, unprepared, and by you
unpitied, you hurried that unfortunate man into eternity, and you must
now expiate the crime with your own life. The jury have recommended
you to mercy, and the recommendation will be forwarded in due course
to the proper quarter, but you must be aware how frequently this
clause is appended to a verdict, and how very rarely it is attended
to, just cause being wanting. I can but enjoin you, and I do so most
earnestly, to pass the little time that probably remains to you on
earth in seeking repentance and forgiveness. You are best aware,
yourself, what your past life has been; the world knows somewhat of
it; but there is pardon above for the most guilty, when it is
earnestly sought. It now only remains for me to pass the sentence of
the law. It is, that you, Francis Levison, be taken back to the place
from whence you came, and thence to the place of execution, and that
you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may the Lord
God Almighty have mercy on your soul!"
"Amen!"
The court was cleared. The day's excitement was over, and the next
case was inquired for. Not quite over, however, yet, the excitement,
and the audience crowded in again. For the next case proved to be the
arraignment of Richard Hare the younger. A formal proceeding merely,
in pursuance of the verdict of the coroner's inquest. No evidence was
offered against him, and the judge ordered him to be discharged.
Richard, poor, ill-used, baited Richard was a free man again.
Then ensued the scene of all scenes. Half, at least, of those present,
were residents of, or from near West Lynne. They had known Richard
Hare from infancy--they had admired the boy in his pretty childhood--
they had liked him in his unoffending boyhood, but they had been none
the less ready to cast their harsh stones at him, and to thunder down
their denunciations when the time came. In proportion to their
fierceness then, was their contrition now; Richard had been innocent
all the while; they had been more guilty than he.
An English mob, gentle or simple, never gets up its excitement by
halves. Whether its demonstration be of a laudatory or a condemnatory
nature, the steam is sure to be put on to bursting point. With one
universal shout, with one bound, they rallied round Richard; they
congratulated him; they overwhelmed him with good wishes; they
expressed with shame their repentance; they said the future would
atone for the past. Had he possessed a hundred hands, they would have
been shaken off. And when Richard extracted himself, and turned, in
his pleasant, forgiving, loving nature, to his father, the stern old
justice, forgetting his pride and pomposity, burst into tears and
sobbed like a child, as he murmured something about his also needing
forgiveness.
"Dear father," cried Richard, his own eyes wet, "it is forgiven and
forgotten already. Think how happy we shall be again together, you,
and I, and my mother."
The justice's hands, which had been wound around his son, relaxed
their hold. They were twitching curiously; the body also began to
twitch, and he fell upon the shoulder of Colonel Bethel in a second
stroke of paralysis.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE DEATH CHAMBER.
By the side of William Carlyle's dying bed knelt the Lady Isabel. The
time was at hand, and the boy was quite reconciled to his fate.
Merciful, indeed, is God to dying children! It is astonishing how very
readily, when the right means are taken, they may be brought to look
with pleasure, rather than fear, upon their unknown journey.
The brilliant hectic, type of the disease, had gone from his cheeks,
his features were white and wasted, and his eyes large and bright. His
silky brown hair was pushed off his temples, and his little hot hands
were thrown outside the bed.
"It won't be very long to wait, you know, will it, Madame Vine?"
"For what, darling?"
"Before they all come. Papa and mamma, and Lucy, and all of them."
A jealous feeling shot across her wearied heart. Was /she/ nothing to
him? "Do you not care that I should come to you, William?"
"Yes, I hope you will. But do you think we shall know /everybody/ in
Heaven? Or will it be only our own relations?"
"Oh, child! I think there will be no relations, as you call it, up
there. We can trust all that to God, however it may be."
William lay looking upward at the sky, apparently in thought, a dark
blue, serene sky, from which shone the hot July sun. His bed had been
moved toward the window, for he liked to sit in it, and look at the
landscape. The window was open now, and the butterflies and bees
sported in the summer air.
"I wonder how it will be?" pondered he, aloud. "There will be the
beautiful city, its gates of pearl, and its shining precious stones,
and its streets of gold; and there will be the clear river, and the
trees with their fruits and their healing leaves, and the lovely
flowers; and there will be the harps, and music, and singing. And what
else will there be?"
"Everything that is desirable and beautiful, William; but, what we may
not anticipate here."
Another pause. "Madame Vine, will Jesus come for me, do you think, or
will He send an angel?"
"Jesus has /promised/ to come for His own redeemed--for those who love
Him and wait for Him."
"Yes, yes, and then I shall be happy forever. It will be so pleasant
to be there, never to be tired or ill again."
"Pleasant? Ay! Oh, William! Would that the time were come!"
She was thinking of herself--of her freedom--though the boy knew it
not. She buried her face in her hands and continued speaking; William
had to bend his ear to catch the faint whisper.
" 'And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying:
neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed
away.' "
"Madame Vine, do you think mamma will be there?" he presently asked.
"I mean mamma that was."
"Ay, ere long."
"But how shall I know her? You see, I have nearly forgotten what she
was like."
She leaned over him, laying her forehead upon his wasted arm, and
burst into a flood of impassioned tears. "You will know her, never
fear, William; she has not forgotten you."
"But how can we be sure that she will be there?" debated William,
after a pause of thought. "You know"--sinking his voice, and speaking
with hesitation--"she was not quite good; she was not good enough to
papa or to us. Sometimes I think, suppose she did not grow good, and
did not ask God to forgive her!"
"Oh, William!" sobbed the unhappy lady, "her whole life, after she
left you, was one long scene of repentance, of seeking forgiveness.
Her repentance, her sorrow, was greater than she could bear, and----"
"And what?" asked William, for there was a pause.
"Her heart broke in it--yearning after you and your father."
"What makes you think it?"
"Child, I /know/ it!"
William considered. Then, had he been strong enough, he would have
started up with energy. "Madame Vine, you could only know that by
mamma's telling you! Did you ever see her? Did you know her abroad?"
Lady Isabel's thoughts were far away--up in the clouds perhaps. She
reflected not on the possible consequences of her answer, or she had
never given it.
"Yes, I knew her abroad."
"Oh!" said the boy. "Why did you never tell us? What did she say? What
was she like?"
"She said"--sobbing wildly--"that she was parted from her children
here; but she should meet them in Heaven, and be with them forever.
William, darling! all the awful pain, and sadness, and guilt of this
world will be washed out, and God will wipe your tears away."
"What was her face like?" he questioned softly.
"Like yours. Very much like Lucy's."
"Was she pretty?"
A momentary pause. "Yes."
"Oh, dear, I am ill. Hold me!" cried out William, as his head sank to
one side, and great drops, as large as peas, broke forth upon his
clammy face. It appeared to be one of the temporary faint attacks that
overpowered him at times lately, and Lady Isabel rang the bell
hastily.
Wilson came in, in answer. Joyce was the usual attendant upon the sick
room; but Mrs. Carlyle, with her infant, was passing the day at the
Grove; unconscious of the critical state of William, and she had taken
Joyce with her. It was the day following the trial. Mr. Justice Hare
had been brought to West Lynne in his second attack, and Barbara had
gone to see him, to console her mother, and to welcome Richard to his
home again. If one carriage drove, that day, to the Grove, with cards
and inquiries, fifty did, not to speak of the foot callers. "It is all
meant by way of attention to you, Richard," said gentle Mrs. Hare,
smiling through her loving tears at her restored son. Lucy and Archie
were dining at Miss Carlyle's, and Sarah attended little Arthur,
leaving Wilson free. She came in, in answer to Madame Vine's ring.
"Is he off in another faint?" unceremoniously cried she, hastening to
the bed.
"I think so. Help to raise him."
William did not faint. No; the attack was quite different from those
he was subject to. Instead of losing consciousness and power, as was
customary, he shook as if he had the ague, and laid hold both of
Madame Vine and Wilson, grasping them convulsively.
"Don't let me fall! Don't let me fall!" he gasped.
"My dear, you cannot fall," responded Madame Vine. "You forget that
you are on the bed."
He clasped them yet, and trembled still, as from fear. "Don't let me
fall! Don't let me fall" the incessant burden of his cry.
The paroxysm passed. They wiped his brow, and stood looking at him;
Wilson with a pursed up mouth, and a peculiar expression of face. She
put a spoonful of restorative jelly between his lips, and he swallowed
it, but shook his head when she would have given him another. Turning
his face to the pillow, in a few minutes he was in a doze.
"What could it have been?" exclaimed Lady Isabel, in an undertone, to
Wilson.
"/I/ know," was the oracular answer. "I saw this same sort of an
attack once before, madame."
"And what caused it?"
"Twasn't in a child though," went on Wilson--"'twas in a grown person.
But that's nothing, it comes for the same thing in all. I think he was
taken for death."
"Who?" uttered Lady Isabel, startled.
Wilson made no reply in words, but she pointed with her finger to the
bed.
"Oh, Wilson, he is not so ill as that. Mr. Wainwright said this
morning, that he might last a week or two."
Wilson composedly sat herself down in the easiest chair. She was not
wont to put herself out of the way for the governess; and that
governess was too much afraid of her, in one sense, to let her know
her place. "As to Wainwright, he's nobody," quoth she. "And if he saw
the child's breath going out before his face, and knew that the next
moment would be his last, he'd vow to us all that he was good for
twelve hours to come. You don't know Wainwright as I do, madame. He
was our doctor at mother's; and he has attended in all the places I
have lived in since I went out to service. Five years I was maid at
Mrs. Hare's. I came here when Miss Lucy was a baby, and in all my
places has he attended, like one's shadow. My Lady Isabel thought
great guns of old Wainwright, I remember. It was more than I did."
My Lady Isabel made no response to this. She took a seat and watched
William through her glasses. His breathing was more labored than
usual.
"That idiot, Sarah, says to me to-day, says she, 'Which of his two
grandpapas will they bury him by, old Mr. Carlyle or Lord Mount
Severn?' 'Don't be a calf!' I answered her. 'D'ye think they'll stick
him out in the corner with my lord?--he'll be put into the Carlyle
vault, of course,' It would have been different, you see, Madame Vine,
if my lady had died at home, all proper--Mr. Carlyle's wife. They'd
have buried her, no doubt, by her father, and the boy would have been
laid with her. But she did not."
No reply was made by Madame Vine, and a silence ensued; nothing to be
heard but that fleeting breath.
"I wonder how that beauty feels?" suddenly broke forth Wilson again,
her tone one of scornful irony.
Lady Isabel, her eyes and her thoughts absorbed by William, positively
thought Wilson's words must relate to him. She turned to her in
surprise.
"That bright gem in the prison at Lynneborough," exclaimed Wilson. "I
hope he may have found himself pretty well since yesterday! I wonder
how many trainfuls from West Lynne will go to his hanging?"
Isabel's face turned crimson, her heart sick. She had not dared to
inquire how the trial terminated. The subject altogether was too
dreadful, and nobody had happened to mention it in her hearing.
"Is he condemned?" she breathed, in a low tone.
"He is condemned, and good luck to him! And Mr. Otway Bethel's let
loose again, and good luck to /him/. A nice pair they are! Nobody went
from this house to hear the trial--it might not have been pleasant,
you know, to Mr. Carlyle; but people came in last night and told us
all about it. Young Richard Hare chiefly convicted him. He is back
again, and so nice-looking, they say--ten times more so than he was
when quite a young man. You should have heard, they say, the cheering
and shouts that greeted Mr. Richard when his innocence came out; it
pretty near rose off the roof of the court, and the judge didn't stop
it."
Wilson paused, but there was no answering comment. On she went again.
"When Mr. Carlyle brought the news home last evening, and broke it to
his wife, telling her how Mr. Richard had been received with
acclamations, she nearly fainted, for she's not strong yet. Mr.
Carlyle called out to me to bring some water--I was in the next room
with the baby--and there she was, the tears raining from her eyes, and
he holding her to him. I always said there was a whole world of love
between those two; though he did go and marry another. Mr. Carlyle
ordered me to put the water down, and sent me away again. But I don't
fancy he told her of old Hare's attack until this morning."
Lady Isabel lifted her aching forehead. "What attack?"
"Why, madame, don't you know. I declare you box yourself up in the
house, keeping from everybody, and you hear nothing. You might as well
be living at the bottom of a coal-pit. Old Hare had another stroke in
the court at Lynneborough, and that's why my mistress is gone to the
Grove to-day."
"Who says Richard Hare's come home, Wilson?"
The question--the weak, scarcely audible question--had come from the
dying boy. Wilson threw up her hands, and made a bound to the bed.
"The like of that!" she uttered, aside to Mrs. Vine. "One never knows
when to take these sick ones. Master William, you hold your tongue and
drop to sleep again. Your papa will be home soon from Lynneborough;
and if you talk and get tired, he'll say it's my fault. Come shut your
eyes. Will you have a bit more jelly?"
William, making no reply to the offer of jelly, buried his face again
on the pillow. But he was grievously restless; the nearly worn-out
spirit was ebbing and flowing.
Mr. Carlyle was at Lynneborough. He always had much business there at
assize time and the /Nisi Prius/ Court; but the previous day he had
not gone himself, Mr. Dill had been dispatched to represent him.
Between seven and eight he returned home, and came into William's
chamber. The boy brightened up at the well-known presence.
"Papa!"
Mr. Carlyle sat down on the bed and kissed him. The passing beams of
the sun, slanting from the horizon, shone into the room, and Mr.
Carlyle could view well the dying face. The gray hue of death was
certainly on it.
"Is he worse?" he exclaimed hastily, to Madame Vine, who was jacketed,
and capped, and spectacled, and tied up round the throat, and
otherwise disguised, in her universal fashion.
"He appears worse this evening, sir--more weak."
"Papa," panted William, "is the trial over?"
"What trial, my boy?"
"Sir Francis Levison's."
"It was over yesterday. Never trouble your head about him, my brave
boy, he is not worth it."
"But I want to know. Will they hang him?"
"He is sentenced to it."
"Did he kill Hallijohn?"
"Yes. Who has been talking to him upon the subject?" Mr. Carlyle
continued to Madame Vine, with marked displeasure in his tone.
"Wilson mentioned it, sir," was the low answer.
"Oh, papa! What will he do? Will Jesus forgive /him/?"
"We must hope it."
"Do you hope it, papa?"
"Yes. I wish that all the world may be forgiven, William, whatever may
have been their sins. My child, how restless you seem!"
"I can't keep in one place; the bed gets wrong. Pull me up on the
pillow, will you Madame Vine?"
Mr. Carlyle gently lifted the boy himself.
"Madame Vine is an untiring nurse to you, William," he observed,
gratefully casting a glance toward her in the distance, where she had
retreated, and was shaded by the window curtain.
William made no reply; he seemed to be trying to recall something. "I
forget! I forget!"
"Forget what?" asked Mr. Carlyle.
"It was something I wanted to ask you, or to tell you. Isn't Lucy come
home?"
"I suppose not."
"Papa, I want Joyce."
"I will send her home to you. I am going for your mamma after dinner."
"For mamma?--oh, I remember now. Papa, how shall I know mamma in
Heaven? Not this mamma."
Mr. Carlyle did not immediately reply. The question may have puzzled
him. William continued hastily; possibly mistaking the motive of the
silence.
"She /will/ be in Heaven, you know."
"Yes, yes, child," speaking hurriedly.
"Madame Vine knows she will. She saw her abroad; and mamma told her
that--what was it, madame?"
Madame Vine grew sick with alarm. Mr. Carlyle turned his eyes upon her
scarlet face--as much as he could get to see of it. She would have
escaped from the room if she could.
"Mamma was more sorry than she could bear," went on William, finding
he was not helped. "She wanted you, papa, and she wanted us, and her
heart broke, and she died."
A flush rose to Mr. Carlyle's brow. He turned inquiringly to Madame
Vine.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir," she murmured, with desperate energy. "I
ought not to have spoken; I ought not to have interfered in your
family affairs. I spoke only as I thought it must be, sir. The boy
seemed troubled about his mother."
Mr. Carlyle was at sea. "Did you meet his mother abroad? I scarcely
understand."
She lifted her hand and covered her glowing face. "No, sir." Surely
the recording angel blotted out the words! If ever a prayer for
forgiveness went up from an aching heart, it must have gone up then,
for the equivocation over her child's death-bed!
Mr. Carlyle went toward her. "Do you perceive the change in his
countenance?" he whispered.
"Yes, sir. He has looked like this since a strange fit of trembling
that came on in the afternoon. Wilson thought he might be taken for
death. I fear that some four and twenty hours will end it."
Mr. Carlyle rested his elbow on the window frame, and his hand upon
his brow, his drooping eyelids falling over his eyes. "It is hard to
lose him."
"Oh, sir, he will be better off!" she wailed, choking down the sobs
and the emotion that arose threateningly. "We /can/ bear death; it is
not the worst parting that the earth knows. He will be quit of this
cruel world, sheltered in Heaven. I wish we were all there!"
A servant came to say that Mr. Carlyle's dinner was served, and he
proceeded to it with what appetite he had. When he returned to the
sick room the daylight had faded, and a solitary candle was placed
where its rays could not fall upon the child's face. Mr. Carlyle took
the light in his hand to scan that face again. He was lying sideways
on the pillow, his hollow breath echoing through the room. The light
caused him to open his eyes.
"Don't, papa, please. I like it dark."
"Only for a moment, my precious boy." And not for more than a moment
did Mr. Carlyle hold it. The blue, pinched, ghastly look was there
yet. Death was certainly coming on quick.
At that moment Lucy and Archibald came in, on their return from their
visit to Miss Carlyle. The dying boy looked up eagerly.
"Good-bye, Lucy," he said, putting out his cold, damp hand.
"I am not going out," replied Lucy. "We have but just come home."
"Good-bye, Lucy," repeated he.
She laid hold of the little hand then, leaned over, and kissed him.
"Good-bye, William; but indeed I am not going out anywhere."
"I am," said he. "I am going to Heaven. Where's Archie?"
Mr. Carlyle lifted Archie on to the bed. Lucy looked frightened,
Archie surprised.
"Archie, good-bye; good-bye, dear, I am going to Heaven; to that
bright, blue sky, you know. I shall see mamma there, and I'll tell her
that you and Lucy are coming soon."
Lucy, a sensitive child, broke into a loud storm of sobs, enough to
disturb the equanimity of any sober sick room. Wilson hastened in at
the sound, and Mr. Carlyle sent the two children away, with soothing
promises that they should see William in the morning, if he continued
well enough.
Down on her knees, her face buried in the counterpane, a corner of it
stuffed into her mouth that it might help to stifle her agony, knelt
Lady Isabel. The moment's excitement was well nigh beyond her strength
of endurance. Her own child--his child--they alone around its death-
bed, and she might not ask or receive a word of comfort, of
consolation!
Mr. Carlyle glanced at her as he caught her choking sobs just as he
would have glanced at any other attentive governess--feeling her
sympathy, doubtless, but nothing more; she was not heart and part with
him and his departing boy. Lower and lower bent he over that boy; for
his eyes were wet. "Don't cry, papa," whispered William, raising his
feeble hand caressingly to his father's cheek, "I am not afraid to go.
Jesus is coming for me."
"Afraid to go! Indeed I hope not, my gentle boy. You are going to God
--to happiness. A few years--we know not how few--and we shall all
come to you."
"Yes, you will be sure to come; I know that. I shall tell mamma so. I
dare say she is looking out for me now. Perhaps she's standing on the
banks of the river, watching the boats."
He had evidently got that picture of Martin's in his mind, "The Plains
of Heaven." Mr. Carlyle turned to the table. He saw some strawberry
juice, pressed from the fresh fruit, and moistened with it the boy's
fevered lips.
"Papa, I can't think how Jesus can be in all the boats! Perhaps they
don't go quite at the same time. He must be, you know, because He
comes to fetch us."
"He will be yours, darling," was the whispered, fervent answer.
"Oh, yes. He will take me all the way up to God, and say, 'Here's a
poor little boy come, you must please to forgive him and let him go
into Heaven, because I died for him!' Papa did you know that mamma's
heart broke?"
"William, I think it likely that your poor mamma's heart did break,
ere death came. But let us talk of you, not of her. Are you in pain?"
"I can't breathe; I can't swallow. I wish Joyce was here."
"She will not be long now."
The boy nestled himself in his father's arms, and in a few minutes
appeared to be asleep. Mr. Carlyle, after a while, gently laid him on
his pillow, and watched him, and then turned to depart.
"Oh, papa! Papa!" he cried out, in a tone of painful entreaty, opening
wide his yearning eyes, "say good-bye to me!"
Mr. Carlyle's tears fell upon the little upturned face, as he once
more caught it to his breast.
"My darling, your papa will soon be back. He is going to bring mamma
to see you."
"And pretty little baby Anna?"
"And baby Anna, if you would like her to come in. I will not leave my
darling boy for long; he need not fear. I shall not leave you again
to-night, William, when once I am back."
"Then put me down, and go, papa."
A lingering embrace--a fond, lingering, tearful embrace--Mr. Carlyle
holding him to his beating heart, then he laid him comfortably on his
pillow, gave him a teaspoonful of strawberry juice, and hastened away.
"Good-bye, papa!" came forth the little feeble cry.
It was not heard. Mr. Carlyle was gone, gone from his living child--
forever. Up rose Lady Isabel, and flung her arms aloft in a storm of
sobs!
"Oh, William, darling! in this dying moment let me be to you as your
mother!"
Again he unclosed his wearied eyelids. It is probable that he only
partially understood.
"Papa's gone for her."
"Not /her/! I--I----" Lady Isabel checked herself, and fell sobbing on
the bed. No; not even at the last hour when the world was closing on
him, dared she say, I am your mother.
Wilson re-entered. "He looks as if he were dropping off to sleep,"
quoth she.
"Yes," said Lady Isabel. "You need not wait, Wilson. I will ring if he
requires anything."
Wilson though withal not a bad-hearted woman, was not one to remain
for pleasure in a sick-room, if told she might leave it. She, Lady
Isabel, remained alone. She fell on her knees again, this time in
prayer for the departing spirit, on its wing, and that God would
mercifully vouchsafe herself a resting-place with it in heaven.
A review of the past then rose up before her, from the time of her
first entering that house, the bride of Mr. Carlyle, to her present
sojourn in it. The old scenes passed through her mind like the
changing picture in a phantasmagoria.
Why should they have come, there and then? She knew not.
William slept on silently; /she/ thought of the past. The dreadful
reflection, "If I had not done as I did, how different would it have
been now!" had been sounding its knell in her heart so often that she
had almost ceased to shudder at it. The very nails of her hands had,
before now, entered the palms, with the sharp pain it brought.
Stealing over her more especially this night, there, as she knelt, her
head lying on the counterpane, came the recollection of that first
illness of hers. How she had lain, and, in that unfounded jealousy,
imagined Barbara the house's mistress. She dead! Barbara exalted to
her place. Mr. Carlyle's wife, her child's stepmother! She recalled
the day when, her mind excited by a certain gossip of Wilson's--it was
previously in a state of fever bordering on delirium--she had prayed
her husband, in terror and anguish, not to marry Barbara. "How could
he marry her?" he had replied, in his soothing pity. "She, Isabel, was
his wife. Who was Barbara? Nothing to them?" But it had all come to
pass. /She/ had brought it forth. Not Mr. Carlyle; not Barbara; she
alone. Oh, the dreadful misery of the retrospect!
Lost in thought, in anguish past and present, in self-condemning
repentance, the time passed on. Nearly an hour must have elapsed since
Mr. Carlyle's departure, and William had not disturbed her. But who
was this, coming into the room? Joyce.
She hastily rose up, as Joyce, advancing with a quiet step drew aside
the clothes to look at William. "Master says he has been wanting me,"
she observed. "Why--oh!"
It was a sharp, momentary cry, subdued as soon as uttered. Madame Vine
sprang forward to Joyce's side, looking also. The pale young face lay
calm in its utter stillness; the busy little heart had ceased to beat.
Jesus Christ had indeed come and taken the fleeting spirit.
Then she lost all self-control. She believed that she had reconciled
herself to the child's death, that she could part with him without too
great emotion. But she had not anticipated it would be quite so soon;
she had deemed that some hours more would at least be given him, and
now the storm overwhelmed her. Crying, sobbing, calling, she flung
herself upon him; she clasped him to her; she dashed off her
disguising glasses; she laid her face upon his, beseeching him to come
back to her, that she might say farewell--to her, his mother; her
darling child, her lost William!
Joyce was terrified--terrified for consequences. With her full
strength she pulled her from the boy, praying her to consider--to be
still. "Do not, do not, for the love of Heaven! /My lady! My lady!/"
It was the old familiar title that struck upon her fears and induced
calmness. She stared at Joyce, and retreated backward, after the
manner of one receding from some hideous vision. Then, as recollection
came to her, she snatched her glasses up and hurried them on.
"My lady, let me take you into your room. Mr. Carlyle is come; he is
just bringing up his wife. Only think if you should give way before
him! Pray come away!"
"How did you know me?" she asked in a hollow voice.
"My lady, it was that night when there was an alarm of fire. I went
close up to you to take Master Archibald from your arms; and, as sure
as I am now standing here, I believe that for the moment my senses
left me. I thought I saw a spectre--the spectre of my dead lady. I
forgot the present; I forgot that all were standing round me; that
you, Madame Vine, were alive before me. Your face was not disguised
then; the moonlight shone full upon it, and I knew it, after the first
few moments of terror, to be, in dreadful truth, the /living/ one of
Lady Isabel. My lady, come away! We shall have Mr. Carlyle here."
Poor thing! She sank upon her knees, in her humility, her dread. "Oh,
Joyce, have pity upon me! don't betray me! I will leave the house;
indeed I will. Don't betray me while I am in it!"
"My lady, you have nothing to fear from me. I have kept the secret
buried within my breast since then. Last April! It has nearly been too
much for me. By night and by day I have had no peace, dreading what
might come out. Think of the awful confusion, the consequences, should
it come to the knowledge of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. Indeed, my lady, you
never ought to have come."
"Joyce," she said, hollowly, lifting her haggard face, "I could not
keep away from my unhappy children. Is it no punishment to /me/, think
you, the being here?" she added, vehemently. "To see him--my husband--
the husband of another! It is killing me."
"Oh, my lady, come away! I hear him; I hear him!"
Partly coaxing, partly dragging her, Joyce took her into her own room,
and left her there. Mr. Carlyle was at that moment at the door of the
sick one. Joyce sprang forward. Her face, in her emotion and fear, was
of one livid whiteness, and she shook as William had shaken, poor
child, in the afternoon. It was only too apparent in the well-lighted
corridor.
"Joyce," he exclaimed, in amazement, "what ails you?"
"Sir! master!" she panted; "be prepared. Master William--Master
William----"
"Joyce! Not /dead/!"
"Alas, yes, sir!"
Mr. Carlyle strode into the chamber. But ere he was well across it, he
turned back to slip the bolt of the door. On the pillow lay the white,
thin face, at rest now.
"My boy! my boy! Oh, my God!" he murmured, in bowed reverence, "mayest
Thou have received this child to rest in Jesus, even as, I trust, Thou
hadst already received his unhappy mother!"
CHAPTER XLIV.
LORD VANE DATING FORWARD.
To the burial of William Carlyle came Lord Mount Severn and his son.
Wilson had been right in her surmises as to the resting-place. The
Carlyle vault was opened for him, and an order went forth to the
sculptor for an inscription to be added to their marble tablet in the
church: "William Vane Carlyle, eldest son of Archibald Carlyle, of
East Lynne." Amongst those who attended the funeral as mourners went
one more notable in the eyes of the gazers than the rest--Richard Hare
the younger.
Lady Isabel was ill. Ill in mind, and ominously ill in body. She kept
her room, and Joyce attended on her. The household set down madame's
illness to the fatigue of having attended upon Master William; it was
not thought of seriously by any one, especially as she declined to see
a doctor. All her thoughts now were directed to the getting away from
East Lynne, for it would never do to remain there to die; and she knew
that death was on his way to her, and that no human power or skill--
not all the faculty combined--could turn him back again. The excessive
dread of detection was not upon her as it had been formerly. I mean
she did not dread the consequences so much, if detection came. In
nearing the grave, all fears and hopes, of whatever nature, relating
to this world, lose their force, and fears or hopes regarding the next
world take their place. Our petty feelings here are lost in the
greater.
In returning to East Lynne, Lady Isabel had entered upon a daring act,
and she found, in the working, that neither strength nor spirit was
equal to it. Human passions and tempers were brought with us into this
world, and they can only quit us when we bid it farewell, to enter
upon immortality in the next.
When Lady Isabel was Mr. Carlyle's wife, she had never wholly loved
him. The very utmost homage that esteem, admiration, affection could
give was his, but that mysterious passion called by the name of love,
and which, as I truly and heartily believe, cannot, in its refined
etherealism, be known to many of us, had not been given to him. It was
now. From the very night she came back to East Lynne, her love for Mr.
Carlyle had burst forth with an intensity never before felt. It had
been smoldering almost ever since she quitted him. "Reprehensible!"
groans a moralist. Very. Everybody knows that, as Afy would say. But
her heart, you see, had /not/ done with human passions, and they work
ill, and contrariness, let the word stand, critic, if you please, and
precisely everything they should not.
I shall get in for it, I fear, if I attempt to defend her. But it was
not exactly the same thing, as though she suffered herself to fall in
love with somebody else's husband. Nobody would defend that. We have
not turned Mormons yet, and the world does not walk upon its head. But
this was a peculiar case. She, poor thing, almost regarded Mr. Carlyle
as /her/ husband. The bent of her thoughts was only too much inclined
to this. The evil human heart again. Many and many a time did she wake
up from a reverie, and strive to drive this mistaken view of things
away from her, taking shame to herself. Ten minutes afterward, she
would catch her brain reveling in the same rebellious vision. Mr.
Carlyle's love was not hers now, it was Barbara's. Mr. Carlyle did not
belong to her, he belonged to his wife. It was not only that he was
not hers--he was another's. You may, therefore, if you have the
pleasure of being experienced in this sort of thing, guess a little of
what her inward life was. Had there been no Barbara in the case, she
might have lived and borne it; as it was, it had killed her before her
time, that and the remorse together.
There had been other things, too. The re-appearance of Francis Levison
at West Lynne, in fresh contact, as may be said, with herself, had
struck terror to her heart, and the dark charge brought against him
augmented awfully her remorse. Then, the sharp lances perpetually
thrust upon her memory--the Lady Isabel's memory--from all sides, were
full of cruel stings, unintentionally though they were hurled. And
there was the hourly chance of discovery, and the never ceasing battle
with her conscience, for being at East Lynne at all. No wonder that
the chords of life were snapping; the wonder would have been had they
remained whole.
"She brought it upon herself--she ought not to have come back to East
Lynne!" groans our moralist again.
Didn't I say so? Of course she ought not. Neither ought she to have
suffered her thoughts to stray, in the manner they did, towards Mr.
Carlyle. She ought not, but she did. If we all did just what we
"ought," this lower proverb touching /fruit defendu/ would go out as a
dead letter.
She was nearer to death than she imagined. She knew, judging by her
declining strength and her inner feelings, that it could not be far
off; but she did not deem it was coming so very soon. Her mother had
died in a similar way. Some said of consumption--Dr. Martin did, you
may remember; some said of "waste;" the earl, her husband, said a
broken heart--you heard him say so to Mr. Carlyle in the first chapter
of this history. The earl was the one who might be supposed to know
best. Whatever may have been Lady Mount Severn's malady, she--to give
you the phrase that was in people's mouth's at the time--"went out
like the snuff of a candle." It was now the turn of Lady Isabel. She
had no more decided disorder than the countess had had, yet death had
marked her. She felt that it had, and in its approach she dreaded not,
as she once had done, the consequences that must ensue, did discovery
come. Which brings us back to the point whence ensued this long
digression. I dare say you are chafing at it, but it is not often I
trouble you with one.
But she would not willingly let discovery come, neither had she the
least intention of remaining at East Lynne to die. Where she should
take refuge was quite a secondary consideration, only let her get
smoothly and plausibly away. Joyce, in her dread, was forever urging
it. Of course, the preliminary step was to arrange matters with Mrs.
Carlyle, and in the afternoon of the day following the funeral, Lady
Isabel proceeded to her dressing-room, and craved an interview.
Mr. Carlyle quitted the room as she entered it. Barbara, fatigued with
a recent drive, was lying on the sofa. She would scarcely take the
notice.
"We shall be so sorry to lose you, Madame Vine. You are all we could
wish for Lucy, and Mr. Carlyle feels truly grateful for your love and
attention to his poor boy."
"To leave you will give me pain also," Madame Vine answered, in a
subdued tone. Pain? Ay. Mrs. Carlyle little guessed at its extent. All
she cared for on earth she should leave behind her at East Lynne.
"Indeed you must not leave," resumed Barbara. "It would be unjust to
allow you to do so. You have made yourself ill, waiting upon poor
William, and you must stay here and take a holiday until you are
cured. You will soon get well, if you will only suffer yourself to be
properly waited on and taken care of."
"You are very considerate. Pray do not think me insensible if I
decline. I believe my strength is beyond getting up--that I shall
never be able to teach again."
"Oh, nonsense," said Barbara, in her quick way. "We are all given to
fancy the worst when we are ill. I was feeling terribly weak, only a
few minutes ago, and said something of the same sort to Archibald. He
talked and soothed me out of it. I wish you had your dear husband
living, Madame Vine, to support you and love you, as I have him."
A tinge of scarlet streaked Madame Vine's pale face, and she laid her
hand upon her beating heart.
"How could you think of leaving? We should be glad to help
re-establish your health, in any case, but it is only fair to do it
now. I felt sure, by the news brought to me when I was ill, that your
attention upon William was overtasking your strength."
"It is not the attendance upon William that has brought me into this
state," was the quick answer. "I /must/ leave; I have well considered
it over."
"Would you like to go to the seaside?" exclaimed Barbara with sudden
energy. "I am going there on Monday next. Mr. Carlyle insists upon it
that I try a little change. I had intended only to take my baby, but
we can make different arrangements, and take you and Lucy. It might do
you good, Madame Vine."
She shook her head. "No; it would make me worse. All that I want is
perfect quiet. I must beg you to understand that I shall leave. And I
should be glad if you could allow the customary notice to be dispensed
with, so that I may be at liberty to depart within a few days."
"Look here, then," said Barbara, after a pause of consideration, "you
remain at East Lynne until my return, which will be in a fortnight.
Mr. Carlyle cannot stay with me, so I know I shall be tired in less
time than that. I do not want you to remain to teach, you know, Madame
Vine; I do not wish you to do a single thing. Lucy shall have a
holiday, and Mr. Kane can come up for her music. Only I could not be
content to leave her, unless under your surveillance; she is getting
of an age now not to be consigned to servants, not to Joyce. Upon my
return, if you still wish to leave, you shall then be at liberty to do
so. What do you say?"
Madame Vine said "Yes." Said it eagerly. To have another fortnight
with her children, Lucy and Archibald, was very like a reprieve, and
she embraced it. Although she knew, as I have said, that grim Death
was on his way, she did not think he had drawn so near the end of his
journey. Her thoughts went back to the time when she had been ordered
to the seaside after an illness. It had been a marvel if they had not.
She remembered how he, her husband, had urged the change upon her; how
he had taken her, traveling carefully; how tenderly anxious he had
been in the arrangements for her comfort, when settling her in the
lodgings; how, when he came again to see her, he had met her with his
passionate fondness, thanking God for the visible improvement in her
looks. That one injunction which she had called him back to give him,
as he was departing for the boat, was bitterly present to her now: "Do
not get making love to Barbara Hare." All this care, and love, and
tenderness belonged now of right to Barbara, and were given to her.
But now Barbara, although she pressed Madame Vine to remain at East
Lynne, and indeed would have been glad that she should do so, did not
take her refusal at heart. Barbara could not fail to perceive that she
was a thoroughly refined gentlewoman, far superior to the generality
of governesses. That she was truly fond of Lucy, and most anxious for
her welfare in every way, Barbara also saw. For Lucy's sake,
therefore, she would be grieved to part with Madame Vine, and would
raise her salary to anything in reason, if she would but stay. But, on
her own score, Barbara had as soon Madame Vine went as not; for, in
her heart of hearts, she had never liked her. She could not have told
why. Was it instinct? Very probably. The birds of the air, the beasts
of the field, the fishes of the sea, have their instincts, and so does
man have his. Perhaps it was the unaccountable resemblance that Madame
Vine bore to Lady Isabel. A strange likeness! Barbara often thought,
but whether it lay in the face, the voice, or the manner, she could
not decide. A suspicion of the truth did not cross her mind. How
should it? And she never spoke of it; had the resemblance been to any
one but Lady Isabel she would have talked of it freely. Or, it may
have been that there was now and then a tone in Madame Vine's voice
that grated on her ear; a wrung, impatient tone, wanting in respect,
savoring of hauteur, which Barbara did not understand, and did not
like. However it may have been, certain it is that Mrs. Carlyle would
not shed tears after the governess. Only for Lucy's sake did she
regret parting with her.
These different resemblances and reflections were separately passing
through the minds of the two ladies when their conference was over.
Madame Vine at length rose from her chair to depart.
"Would you mind holding my baby for one minute?" cried Barbara.
Madame Vine quite started.
"The baby there!" she uttered.
Barbara laughed.
"It is lying by my side, under the shawl, quiet little sleeping
thing."
Madame Vine advanced and took the sleeping baby. How could she refuse?
She had never had it in her arms before; she had, in fact, scarcely
seen it. One visit of ceremony she had paid Mrs. Carlyle, as in
politeness bound, a day or two after the young lady's arrival, and had
been shown a little face, nearly covered with lace, in a cradle.
"Thank you. I can get up now. I might have half smothered it, had I
attempted before," continued Barbara, still laughing. "I have been
here long enough, and am quite rested. Talking about smothering
children, what accounts have we in the registrar-general's weekly
returns of health! So many children 'overlaid in bed,' so many
children 'suffocated in bed.' One week there were nearly twenty; and
often there are as many as eight or ten. Mr. Carlyle says he knows
they are smothered on purpose."
"Oh, Mrs. Carlyle!"
"I exclaimed, just as you do, when he said it, and laid my hand over
his lips. He laughed, and told me I did not know half the wickedness
of the world. Thank you," again repeated Mrs. Carlyle, taking her
child from Lady Isabel. "Is she not a pretty baby? Do you like the
name--Anne?"
"It is a simple name," replied Lady Isabel; "and simple names are
always the most attractive."
"That is just what Archibald thinks. But he wanted this child's to be
Barbara. I would not have had it Barbara for the world. I remember his
once saying, a long, long while ago that he did not like elaborate
names; they were mouthfuls; and he instanced mine and his sister's,
and his own. I recalled his words to him, and he said he may not have
liked the name of Barbara then, but he loved it now. So we entered
into a compromise; Miss Baby was named Anne Barbara, with an
understanding that the first name is to be for use, and the last for
the registers."
"It is not christened?" said Lady Isabel.
"Only baptized. We should have had it christened before now, but for
William's death. Not that we give christening dinners; but I waited
for the trial at Lynneborough to be over, that my dear brother Richard
might stand to the child."
"Mr. Carlyle does not like christenings made into festivals," Lady
Isabel dreamily observed, her thoughts buried in the past.
"How do you know that?" exclaimed Barbara, opening her eyes.
And poor Madame Vine, her pale face flushing, had to stammer forth
some confused words that she had "heard so somewhere."
"It is quite true," said Barbara. "He has never given a christening-
dinner for any of his children, and gets out of attending if invited
to one. He cannot understand the analogy between a solemn religious
rite and the meeting together afterward to eat and drink and make
merry, according to the fashion of this world."
As Lady Isabel quitted the room, young Vane was careering through the
corridor, throwing his head in all directions, and calling out,--
"Lucy! I want Lucy!"
"What do you want with her?" asked Madame Vine.
"/Il m'est impossible de vous le dire madame/," responded he. Being,
for an Eton boy, wonderfully up in French, he was rather given to show
it off when he got the chance. He did not owe thanks for it to Eton.
Lady Mount Severn had taken better care than that. Better care? What
/could/ she want? There was one whole, real, live French tutor--and he
an Englishman!--for the eight hundred boys. Very unreasonable of her
ladyship to disparage that ample provision.
"Lucy cannot come to you just now. She is practicing."
"/Mais, il le faut. J'ai le droit de demander apres elle. Elle
m'appartient, vous comprenez, madame, cette demoiselle la./"
Madame could not forbear a smile. "I wish you would speak English
sense, instead of French nonsense."
"Then the English sense is that I want Lucy and I must have her. I am
going to take her for a drive in the pony carriage, if you must know.
She said she'd come, and John's getting it ready."
"I could not possibly allow it," said Madame Vine. "You'd be sure to
upset her."
"The idea!" he returned, indignantly. "As if I should upset Lucy! Why,
I'm one of the great whips at Eton. I care for Lucy too much not to
drive steadily. She is to be my wife, you know, /ma bonne dame/."
At this juncture two heads were pushed out from the library, close by;
those of the earl and Mr. Carlyle. Barbara, also, attracted by the
talking, appeared at the door of her dressing-room.
"What's that about a wife?" asked my lord of his son.
The blood mantled in the young gentleman's cheek as he turned round
and saw who had spoken, but he possessed all the fearlessness of an
Eton boy.
"I intend Lucy Carlyle to be my wife, papa. I mean in earnest--when we
shall both be grown up--if you will approve, and Mr. Carlyle will give
her to me."
The earl looked somewhat impassable, Mr. Carlyle amused. "Suppose,"
said the latter, "we adjourn the discussion to this day ten years?"
"But that Lucy is so very young a child, I should reprove you
seriously, sir," said the earl. "You have no right to bring Lucy's
name into any such absurdity."
"I mean it, papa; you'll all see. And I intend to keep out of scrapes
--that is, of nasty, dishonorable scrapes--on purpose that Mr. Carlyle
shall find no excuse against me. I have made up my mind to be what he
is--a man of honor. I am right glad you know about it, sir, and I
shall let mamma know it before long."
The last sentence tickled the earl's fancy, and a grim smile passed
over his lips. "It will be war to the knife, if you do."
"I know that," laughed the viscount. "But I am getting a better match
for mamma in our battles than I used to be."
Nobody saw fit to prolong the discussion. Barbara put her veto upon
the drive in the pony carriage unless John sat behind to look after
the driver, which Lord Vane still resented as an insult. Madame Vine,
when the corridor became empty again, laid her hand upon the boy's arm
as he was moving away, and drew him to the window.
"In speaking as you do of Lucy Carlyle, do you forget the disgrace
reflected on her by the conduct of her mother?"
"Her mother is not Lucy."
"It may prove an impediment, that, with Lord and Lady Mount Severn."
"Not with his lordship. And I must do--as you heard me say--battle
with my mother. Conciliatory battle, you understand, madame; bringing
the enemy to reason."
Madame Vine was agitated. She held her handkerchief to her mouth, and
the boy noticed how her hands trembled.
"I have learnt to love Lucy. It has appeared to me in these few
months' sojourn with her, that I have stood to her in light of a
mother. William Vane," she solemnly added, keeping her hold upon him,
"I shall soon be where earthly distinctions are no more; where sin and
sorrow are no more. Should Lucy Carlyle indeed become your wife, in
after years, never, never cast upon her, by so much as the slightest
word of reproach, the sin of Lady Isabel."
Lord Vane threw back his head, his honest eyes flashing in their
indignant earnestness.
"What do you take me for?"
"It would be a cruel wrong upon Lucy. She does not deserve it. That
unhappy lady's sin was all her own; let it die with her. Never speak
to Lucy of her mother."
The lad dashed his hand across his eyes for they were filling.
"I shall. I shall speak to her often of her mother--that is, you know,
after she's my wife. I shall tell her how I loved Lady Isabel--that
there's nobody I ever loved so much in the world, but Lucy herself.
/I/ cast a reproach to Lucy on the score of her mother!" he hotly
added. "It is through her mother that I love her. You don't
understand, madame."
"Cherish and love her forever, should she become yours," said Lady
Isabel, wringing his hand. "I ask it you as one who is dying."
"I will--I promise it. But I say, madame," he continued, dropping his
fervent tone, "what do you allude to? Are you worse?"
Madame Vine did not answer. She glided away without speaking.
Later, when she was sitting by twilight in the gray parlor, cold and
shivering, and wrapped up in a shawl, though it was hot summer
weather, somebody knocked at the door.
"Come in," cried she, apathetically.
It was Mr. Carlyle who entered. She rose up, her pulses quickening,
her heart thumping against her side. In her wild confusion she was
drawing forward a chair for him. He laid his hand upon it, and
motioned her to her own.
"Mrs. Carlyle tells me that you have been speaking to her of leaving--
that you find yourself too much out of health to continue with us."
"Yes, sir," she faintly replied, having a most imperfect notion of
what she did say.
"What is it that you find to be the matter with you?"
"I--think--it is chiefly--weakness," she stammered.
Her face had grown as gray as the walls. A dusky, livid sort of hue,
not unlike William's had worn the night of his death, and her voice
sounded strangely hollow. It, the voice, struck Mr. Carlyle and awoke
his fears.
"You cannot--you never can have caught William's complaint, in your
close attendance upon him?" he exclaimed, speaking in the impulse of
the moment, as the idea flashed across him. "I have heard of such
things."
"Caught it from him?" she rejoined, carried away also by impulse. "It
is more likely that he----"
She stopped herself just in time. /"Inherited it from me,"/ had been
the destined conclusion. In her alarm, she went off volubly, something
to the effect that "it was no wonder she was ill: illness was natural
to her family."
"At any rate, you have become ill at East Lynne, in attendance on my
children," rejoined Mr. Carlyle, decisively, when her voice died away.
"You must therefore allow me to insist that you allow East Lynne to do
what it can toward renovating you. What is your objection to see a
doctor?"
"A doctor could do me no good," she faintly answered.
"Certainly not, so long as you will not consult one."
"Indeed, sir, doctors could not cure me, nor, as I believe prolong my
life."
Mr. Carlyle paused.
"Are you believing yourself to be in danger?"
"Not in immediate danger, sir; only in so far as that I know I shall
not live."
"And yet you will not see a doctor. Madame Vine, you must be aware
that I could not permit such a thing to go on in my house. Dangerous
illness and no advice!"
She could not say to him, "My malady is on the mind; it is a breaking
heart, and therefore no doctor of physic could serve me." That would
never do. She had sat with her hand across her face, between her
spectacles and her wrapped-up chin. Had Mr. Carlyle possessed the eyes
of Argus, backed by Sam Weller's patent magnifying microscopes of
double hextra power, he could not have made anything of her features
in the broad light of day. But /she/ did not feel so sure of it. There
was always an undefined terror of discovery when in his presence, and
she wished the interview at an end.
"I will see Mr. Wainwright, if it will be any satisfaction to you,
sir."
"Madame Vine, I have intruded upon you here to say that you /must/ see
him, and, should he deem it necessary, Dr. Martin also."
"Oh, sir," she rejoined with a curious smile, "Mr. Wainwright will be
quite sufficient. There will be no need of another. I will write a
note to him to-morrow."
"Spare yourself the trouble. I am going into West Lynne, and will send
him up. You will permit me to urge that you spare no pains or care,
that you suffer my servants to spare no pains or care, to re-establish
your health. Mrs. Carlyle tells me that the question of your leaving
remains in abeyance until her return."
"Pardon me, sir. The understanding with Mrs. Carlyle was that I should
remain here until her return, and should then be at liberty at once to
leave."
"Exactly. That is what Mrs. Carlyle said. But I must express a hope
that by that time you may be feeling so much better as to reconsider
your decision and continue with us. For my daughter's sake, Madame
Vine, I trust it will be so."
He rose as he spoke, and held out his hand. What could she do but rise
also, drop hers from her face, and give it him in answer? He retained
it, clasping it warmly.
"How should I repay you--how thank you for your love to my poor, lost
boy?"
His earnest, tender eyes were on her blue double spectacles; a sad
smile mingled with the sweet expression of his lips as he bent toward
her--lips that had once been hers! A faint exclamation of despair, a
vivid glow of hot crimson, and she caught up her new black silk apron
so deeply bordered with crape, in her disengaged hand, and flung it up
to her face. He mistook the sound--mistook the action.
"Do not grieve for him. He is at rest. Thank you--thank you greatly
for your sympathy."
Another wring of her hand, and Mr. Carlyle had quitted the room. She
laid her head upon the table, and thought how merciful would be death
when he should come.
CHAPTER XLV.
"IT WON'T DO, AFY!"
Mr. Jiffin was in his glory. Mr. Jiffin's house was the same. Both
were in apple-pie order to receive Miss Afy Hallijohn, who was, in a
very short period, indeed, to be converted into Mrs. Jiffin.
Mr. Jiffin had not seen Afy for some days--had never been able to come
across her since the trial at Lynneborough. Every evening had he
danced attendance at her lodgings, but could not get admitted. "Not at
home--not at home," was the invariable answer, though Afy might be
sunning herself at the window in his very sight. Mr. Jiffin, throwing
off as best he could the temporary disappointment, was in an ecstasy
of admiration, for he set it all down to Afy's retiring modesty on the
approach of the nuptial day. "And they could try to calumniate her!"
he indignantly replied.
But now, one afternoon, when Mr. Jiffin and his shopman, and his shop,
and his wares, were all set out to the best advantage--and very
tempting they looked, as a whole, especially the spiced bacon--Mr.
Jiffin happening to cast his eyes to the opposite side of the street,
beheld his beloved sailing by. She was got up in the fashion. A mauve
silk dress with eighteen flounces, and about eighteen hundred steel
buttons that glittered your sight away; a "zouave" jacket worked with
gold; a black turban perched on the top of her skull, garnished in
front with what court milliners are pleased to term a "plume de coq,"
but which, by its size and height, might have been taken for a "coq"
himself, while a white ostrich feather was carried round and did duty
behind, and a spangled hair net hung down to her waist. Gloriously
grand was Afy that day and if I had but a photographing machine at
hand--or whatever may be the scientific name of the thing--you should
certainly have been regaled with the sight of her. Joyce would have
gone down in a fit had she encountered her by an unhappy chance. Mr.
Jiffin, dashing his apron anywhere, tore across.
"Oh, it is you!" said Afy, freezingly, when compelled to acknowledge
him, but his offered hand she utterly repudiated. "Really, Mr. Jiffin,
I should feel obliged if you would not come out to me in this
offensive and public manner."
Mr. Jiffin grew cold. "Offensive! Not come out?" gasped he. "I do
trust I have not been so unfortunate as to offend you, Miss Afy!"
"Well--you see," said Afy, calling up all her impudence to say what
she had made up her mind to say, "I have been considering it well
over, Jiffin, and I find that to carry out the marriage will not be
for my--for our happiness. I intended to write to inform you of this;
but I shall be spared the trouble--as you /have/ come out to me."
The perspiration, cold as ice, began to pour off Mr. Jiffin in his
agony and horror. You might have wrung every thread he had on. "You--
don't mean--to--imply--that--you--give--me--up--Miss--Afy?" he jerked
out, unevenly.
"Well, yes, I do," replied Afy. "It's as good to be plain, and then
there can be no misapprehension. I'll shake hands now with you,
Jiffin, for the last time; and I am very sorry that we both made such
a mistake."
Poor Jiffin looked at her. His gaze would have melted a heart of
stone. "Miss Afy, you /can't/ mean it! You'd never, sure, crush a
fellow in this manner, whose whole soul is yours; who trusted you
entirely? There's not an earthly thing I would not do to please you.
You have been the light of my existence."
"Of course," returned Afy, with a lofty and indifferent air, as if to
be "the light of his existence" was only her due. "But it's all done
and over. It is not at all a settlement that will suit me, you see,
Jiffin. A butter and bacon factor is so very--so very--what I have not
been accustomed to! And then, those aprons! I never could get
reconciled to them."
"I'll discard the aprons altogether," cried he, in a fever. "I'll get
a second shopman, and buy a little gig, and do nothing but drive you
out. I'll do anything if you will but have me still, Miss Afy. I have
bought the ring, you know."
"Your intentions are very kind," was the distant answer, "but it's a
thing impossible; my mind is fully made up. So farewell for good,
Jiffin; and I wish you better luck in your next venture."
Afy, lifting her capacious dress, for the streets had just been
watered, minced off. And Mr. Joe Jiffin, wiping his wet face as he
gazed after her, instantly wished that he could be nailed up in one of
his pickled pork barrels, and so be out of his misery.
"That's done with, thank goodness," soliloquized Afy. "Have /him/,
indeed. After what Richard let out on the trial. As if I should look
after anybody less than Dick Hare! I shall get him, too. I always knew
Dick Hare loved me above everything on earth; and he does still, or
he'd never had said what he did in open court. 'It's better to be born
lucky than rich.' Won't West Lynne envy me! Mrs. Richard Hare of the
Grove. Old Hare is on his last legs, and then Dick comes into his own.
Mrs. Hare must have her jointure house elsewhere, for we shall want
the Grove for ourselves. I wonder if Madame Barbara will condescend to
recognize me. And that blessed Corny? I shall be a sort of cousin of
Corny's then. I wonder how much Dick comes into--three or four
thousand a year? And to think that I had nearly escaped this by tying
myself to that ape of a Jiffin! What sharks do get in our unsuspecting
paths in this world!"
On went Afy, through West Lynne, till she arrived close to Mr. Justice
Hare's. Then she paced slowly. It had been a frequent walk of hers
since the trial. Luck favored her to-day. As she was passing the gate,
young Richard Hare came up from the direction of East Lynne. It was
the first time Afy had obtained speech of him.
"Good day, Richard. Why! you were never going to pass an old friend?"
"I have so many friends," said Richard, "I can scarcely spare time for
them individually."
"But you might for me. Have you forgotten old days?" continued she,
bridling and flirting, and altogether showing herself off to
advantage.
"No, I have not," replied Richard. "And I am not likely to do so," he
pointedly added.
"Ah, I felt sure of that. My heart told me so. When you went off, that
dreadful night, leaving me to anguish and suspense, I thought I should
have died. I never have had, so to say, a happy moment until this,
when I meet you again."
"Don't be a fool, Afy!" was Richard's gallant rejoinder, borrowing the
favorite reproach of Miss Carlyle. "I was young and green once; you
don't suppose I have remained so. We will drop the past, if you
please. How is Mr. Jiffin?"
"Oh, the wretch!" shrieked Afy. "Is it possible that you can have
fallen into the popular scandal that I have anything to say to /him/?
You know I'd never demean myself to it. That's West Lynne all over!
Nothing but inventions in it from week's end to week's end. A man who
sells cheese! Who cuts up bacon! Well, I am surprised at you, Mr.
Richard!"
"I have been thinking what luck you were in to get him," said Richard,
with composure. "But it is your business not mine."
"Could /you/ bear to see me stooping to him?" returned Afy, dropping
her voice to the most insinuating whisper.
"Look you, Afy. What ridiculous folly you are nursing in your head I
don't trouble myself to guess, but, the sooner you get it out again
the better. I was an idiot once, I don't deny it; but you cured me of
that, and cured me with a vengeance. You must pardon me for intimating
that from henceforth we are strangers; in the street as elsewhere. I
have resumed my own standing again, which I periled when I ran after
you."
Afy turned faint. "How can you speak those cruel words?" gasped she.
"You have called them forth. I was told yesterday that Afy Hallijohn,
dressed up to a caricature, was looking after me again. It won't do,
Afy."
"Oh-o-o-oh!" sobbed Afy, growing hysterical, "and is this to be all my
recompense for the years I have spent pining after you, keeping single
for your sake!"
"Recompense! Oh, if you want that, I'll get my mother to give Jiffin
her custom." And with a ringing laugh, which, though it had nothing of
malice in it, showed Afy that he took her reproach for what it was
worth, Richard turned in at his own gate.
It was a deathblow to Afy's vanity. The worst it had ever received;
and she took a few minutes to compose herself, and smooth her ruffled
feathers. Then she turned and sailed back toward Mr. Jiffin's, her
turban up in the skies and the plume de coq tossing to the admiration
of all beholders, especially of Miss Carlyle, who had the
gratification of surveying her from her window. Arrived at Mr.
Jiffin's, she was taken ill exactly opposite his door, and staggered
into the shop in a most exhausted state.
Round the counter flew Mr. Jiffin, leaving the shopman staring behind
it. What /was/ the matter? What /could/ he do for her?
"Faint--heat of the sun--walked too fast--allowed to sit down for five
minutes!" gasped Afy, in disjointed sentences.
Mr. Jiffin tenderly conducted her through the shop to his parlor. Afy
cast half an eye round, saw how comfortable were its arrangements, and
her symptoms of faintness increased. Gasps and hysterical sobs came
forth together. Mr. Jiffin was as one upon spikes.
"She'd recover better there than in the public shop--if she'd only
excuse his bringing her in, and consent to stop for a few minutes. No
harm could come to her, and West Lynne could never say it. He'd stand
at the far end of the room, right away from her; he'd prop open the
two doors and the windows; he'd call in the maid--anything she thought
right. Should he get her a glass of wine?"
Afy declined the wine by a gesture, and sat fanning herself. Mr.
Jiffin looking on from a respectful distance. Gradually she grew
composed--grew herself again. As she gained courage, Mr. Jiffin lost
it, and he ventured upon some faint words of reproach, of him.
Afy burst into a laugh. "Did I not do it well?" she exclaimed. "I
thought I'd play off a joke upon you, so I came out this afternoon and
did it."
Mr. Jiffin clasped his hands. "/Was/ it a joke/" he returned,
trembling with agitation, uncertain whether he was in paradise or not.
"Are you still ready to let me call you mine?"
"Of course it was a joke," said Afy. "What a soft you must have been,
Mr. Jiffin, not to see through it! When young ladies engage themselves
to be married, you can't suppose they run back from it, close upon the
wedding-day?"
"Oh, Miss Afy!" And the poor little man actually burst into delicious
tears, as he caught hold of Afy's hand and kissed it.
"A great green donkey!" thought Afy to herself, bending on him,
however the sweetest smile.
Rather. But Mr. Jiffin is not the only great donkey in the world.
Richard Hare, meanwhile, had entered his mother's presence. She was
sitting at the open window, the justice opposite to her, in an invalid
chair, basking in the air and the sun. This last attack of the
justice's had affected the mind more than the body. He was brought
down to the sitting-room that day for the first time; but, of his
mind, there was little hope. It was in a state of half imbecility; the
most wonderful characteristic being, that all its selfwill, its
surliness had gone. Almost as a little child in tractability, was
Justice Hare.
Richard came up to his mother, and kissed her. He had been to East
Lynne. Mrs. Hare took his hand and fondly held it. The change in her
was wonderful; she was a young and happy woman again.
"Barbara has decided to go to the seaside, mother. Mr. Carlyle takes
her on Monday."
"I am glad, my dear, it will be sure to go her good. Richard"--bending
over to her husband, but still retaining her son's hand--"Barbara has
agreed to go to the seaside, I will set her up."
"Ay, ay," nodded the justice, "set her up. Seaside? Can't we go?"
"Certainly, dear, if you wish it; when you shall be a little
stronger."
"Ay, ay," nodded the justice again. It was his usual answer now.
"Stronger. Where's Barbara?"
"She goes on Monday, sir," said Richard, likewise bending his head.
"Only for a fortnight. But they talk of going again later in the
autumn."
"Can't I go, too?" repeated the justice, looking pleadingly in
Richard's face.
"You shall, dear father. Who knows but a month or two's bracing would
bring you quite round again? We might go all together, ourselves and
the Carlyles. Anne comes to stay with us next week, you know, and we
might go when her visit is over."
"Aye, all go together. Anne's coming?"
"Have you forgotten, dear Richard? She comes to stay a month with us,
and Mr. Clitheroe and the children. I am so pleased she will find you
better," added Mrs. Hare, her gentle eyes filling. "Mr. Wainwright
says you may go out for a drive to-morrow."
"And I'll be coachman," laughed Richard. "It will be the old times
come round again. Do you remember, father, my breaking the pole, one
moonlight night, and your not letting me drive for six months
afterwards?"
The poor justice laughed in answer to Richard, laughed till the tears
ran down his face, probably not knowing in the least what he was
laughing at.
"Richard," said Mrs. Hare to her son, almost in an apprehensive tone,
her hand pressing his nervously, "was not that Afy Hallijohn I saw you
speaking with at the gate?"
"Did you? What a spectacle she had made of herself! I wonder she is
not ashamed to go through the streets in such a guise! Indeed, I
wonder she shows herself at all."
"Richard, you--you--will not be drawn in again?" were the next
whispered words.
"Mother!" There was a sternness in his mild blue eyes as he cast them
upon his mother. Those beautiful eyes--the very counterpart of
Barbara's, both his and hers the counterpart of Mrs. Hare's. The look
had been sufficient refutation without words.
"Mother mine, I am going to belong to you in the future, and to nobody
else. West Lynne is already busy for me, I understand, pleasantly
carving out my destiny. One marvels whether I shall lose myself with
Miss Afy; another, that I shall set on offhand, and court Louisa
Dobede. They are all wrong; my place will be with my darling mother,--
at least, for several years to come."
She clasped his hand to her bosom in her glad delight.
"We want happiness together, mother, to enable us to forget the past;
for upon none did the blow fall, as upon you and upon me. And the
happiness we shall find, in our own home, living for each other, and
striving to amuse my poor father."
"Aye, aye," complacently put in Justice Hare.
So it would be. Richard had returned to his home, had become, to all
intent and purposes, its master; for the justice would never be in a
state to hold sway again. He had resumed his position; and regained
the favor of West Lynne, which, always in extremes, was now wanting to
kill him with kindness. A happy, happy home from henceforth; and Mrs.
Hare lifted up her full heart in thankfulness to God. Perhaps
Richard's went up also.
One word touching that wretched prisoner in the condemned cell at
Lynneborough. As you must have anticipated, the extreme sentence was
not carried out. And, little favorite as Sir Francis is with you and
with me, we can but admit that justice did not demand that it should
be. That he had willfully killed Hallijohn, was certain; but the act
was committed in a moment of wild rage; it had not been premeditated.
The sentence was commuted to transportation. A far more disgraceful
one in the estimation of Sir Francis; a far more unwelcome one in the
eyes of his wife. It is no use to mince the truth, one little grain of
comfort had penetrated to Lady Levison; the anticipation of the time
when she and her ill-fated child should be alone, and could hide
themselves in some hidden nook of the wide world; /he/, and his crime,
and his end gone; forgotten. But it seems he was not to go and be
forgotten; she and the boy must be tied to him still; and she was lost
in horror and rebellion.
He envied the dead Hallijohn, did that man, as he looked forth on the
future. A cheering prospect truly! The gay Sir Francis Levison working
in chains with his gang! Where would his diamonds and his perfumed
handkerchiefs and his white hands be then? After a time he might get a
ticket-of-leave. He groaned in agony as the turnkey suggested it to
him. A ticket-of-leave for /him/! Oh, why did they not hang him? he
wailed forth as he closed his eyes to the dim light. The light of the
cell, you understand; he could not close them to the light of the
future. No; never again; it shone out all too plainly, dazzling his
brain as with a flame of living fire.
CHAPTER XLVI.
UNTIL ETERNITY.
Barbara was at the seaside, and Lady Isabel was in her bed, dying. You
remember the old French saying, /L'homme propose, et Dieu dispose/. An
exemplification of it was here.
She, Lady Isabel, had consented to remain at East Lynne during Mrs.
Carlyle's absence, on purpose that she might be with her children. But
the object was frustrated, for Lucy and Archibald had been removed to
Miss Carlyle's. It was Mr. Carlyle's arrangement. He thought the
governess ought to have entire respite from all charge; and that poor
governess dared not say, let them stay with me. Lady Isabel had also
purposed to be safely away from East Lynne before the time came for
her to die; but that time had advanced with giant strides, and the
period for removal was past. She was going out as her mother had done,
rapidly unexpectedly, "like the snuff of a candle." Wilson was in
attendance on her mistress; Joyce remained at home.
Barbara had chosen a watering-place near, not thirty miles off, so
that Mr. Carlyle went there most evenings, returning to his office in
the mornings. Thus he saw little of East Lynne, paying one or two
flying visits only. From the Saturday to the Wednesday in the second
week, he did not come home at all, and it was in those few days that
Lady Isabel had changed for the worse. On the Wednesday he was
expected home to dinner and to sleep.
Joyce was in a state of frenzy--or next door to it. Lady Isabel was
dying, and what would become of the ominous secret? A conviction, born
of her fears, was on the girl's mind that, with death, the whole must
become known; and who was to foresee what blame might not be cast upon
her, by her master and mistress, for not having disclosed it? She
might be accused of having been an abettor in the plot from the first!
Fifty times it was in Joyce's mind to send for Miss Carlyle and tell
her all.
The afternoon was fast waning, and the spirit of Lady Isabel seemed to
be waning with it. Joyce was in the room in attendance upon her. She
had been in a fainting state all day, but felt better now. She was
partially raised in bed by pillows, a white Cashmere shawl over her
shoulders, her nightcap off, to allow as much air as possible to come
to her, and the windows stood open.
Footsteps sounded on the gravel in the quiet stillness of the summer
air. They penetrated even to her ear, for all her faculties were keen
yet. Beloved footsteps; and a tinge of hectic rose to her cheeks.
Joyce, who stood at the window, glanced out. It was Mr. Carlyle.
"Joyce!" came forth a cry from the bed, sharp and eager.
Joyce turned round. "My lady?"
"I should die happily if I might see him."
"See him!" uttered Joyce, doubting her own ears. "My lady! See /him/!
Mr. Carlyle!"
"What can it signify? I am already as one dead. Should I ask it or
wish it, think you, in rude life? The yearning has been upon me for
days Joyce; it is keeping death away."
"It could not be, my lady," was the decisive answer. "It must not be.
It is as a thing impossible."
Lady Isabel burst into tears. "I can't die for the trouble," she
wailed. "You keep my children from me. They must not come, you say,
lest I should betray myself. Now you would keep my husband. Joyce,
Joyce, let me see him!"
Her husband! Poor thing! Joyce was in a maze of distress, though not
the less firm. Her eyes were wet with tears; but she believed she
should be infringing her allegiance to her mistress did she bring Mr.
Carlyle to the presence of his former wife; altogether it might be
productive of nothing but confusion.
A knock at the chamber door. Joyce called out, "Come in." The two
maids, Hannah and Sarah, were alone in the habit of coming to the
room, and neither of them had ever known Madame Vine as Lady Isabel.
Sarah put in her head.
"Master wants you, Miss Joyce."
"I'll come."
"He is in the dining-room. I have just taken down Master Arthur to
him."
Mr. Carlyle had got "Master Arthur" on his shoulder when Joyce
entered. Master Arthur was decidedly given to noise and rebellion, and
was already, as Wilson expressed it, "sturdy upon his pins."
"How is Madame Vine, Joyce?"
Joyce scarcely knew how to answer. But she did not dare to equivocate
as to her precarious state. And where the use, when a few hours would
probably see the end of it?
"She is very ill, indeed, sir."
"Worse?"
"Sir, I fear she is dying."
Mr. Carlyle, in his consternation, put down Arthur. "Dying!"
"I hardly think she will last till morning, sir!"
"Why, what has killed her?" he uttered in amazement.
Joyce did not answer. She looked pale and confused.
"Have you had Dr. Martin?"
"Oh, no, sir. It would be of no use."
"No use!" repeated Mr. Carlyle, in a sharp accent. "Is that the way to
treat dying people? Assume it is of no use to send for advice, and so
quietly let them die! If Madame Vine is as ill as you say, a
telegraphic message must be sent off at once. I had better see her,"
he cried, moving to the door.
Joyce, in her perplexity, dared to place her back against it,
preventing his egress. "Oh, master! I beg your pardon, but--it would
not be right. Please, sir, do not think of going into her room!"
Mr. Carlyle thought Joyce was taken with a fit of prudery. "Why can't
I go in?" he asked.
"Mrs. Carlyle would not like it, sir," stammered Joyce, her cheeks
scarlet now.
Mr. Carlyle stared at her. "Some of you take up odd ideas," he cried.
"In Mrs. Carlyle's absence, it is necessary that some one should see
her! Let a lady die in my house, and never see after her! You are out
of your senses, Joyce. I shall go in after dinner; so prepare Madame
Vine."
The dinner was being brought in then. Joyce, feeling like one in a
nervous attack, picked up Arthur and carried him to Sarah in the
nursery. What on earth was she to do?
Scarcely had Mr. Carlyle begun his dinner, when his sister entered.
Some grievance had arisen between her and the tenants of certain
houses of hers, and she was bringing the dispute to him. Before he
would hear it, he begged her to go up to Madame Vine, telling her what
Joyce had said of her state.
"Dying!" exclaimed Miss Corny, in disbelieving derision. "That Joyce
has been more like a simpleton lately than like herself. I can't think
what has come to the woman."
She took off her bonnet and mantle, and laid them on a chair, gave a
twitch or two to her cap, as she surveyed it in the pier-glass, and
went upstairs. Joyce answered her knock at the invalid's door; and
Joyce, when she saw who it was, turned as white as any sheet.
"Oh, ma'am, you must not come in!" she blundered out, in her confusion
and fear, as she put herself right in the doorway.
"Who is to keep me out?" demanded Miss Carlyle, after a pause of
surprise, her tone of quiet power. "Move away, girl. Joyce, I think
your brain must be softening. What will you try at next?"
Joyce was powerless, both in right and strength, and she knew it. She
knew there was no help--that Miss Carlyle would and must enter. She
stood aside, shivering, and passed out of the room as soon as Miss
Carlyle was within it.
Ah! there could no longer be concealment now! There she was, her pale
face lying against the pillow, free from its disguising trappings. The
band of gray velvet, the spectacles, the wraps for the throat and
chin, the huge cap, all were gone. It was the face of Lady Isabel;
changed, certainly, very, very much; but still hers. The silvered hair
fell on either side of her face, like the silky curls had once fallen;
the sweet, sad eyes were the eyes of yore.
"Mercy be good to us!" uttered Miss Carlyle.
They remained gazing at each other, both panting with emotion; yes,
even Miss Carlyle. Though a wild suspicion had once crossed her brain
that Madame Vine might be Lady Isabel, it had died away again, from
the sheer improbability of the thing, as much as from the convincing
proofs offered by Lord Mount Severn. Not but what Miss Carlyle had
borne in mind the suspicion, and had been fond of tracing the likeness
in Madame Vine's face.
"How could you dare come back here!" she abruptly asked, her tone of
sad, soft wailing, not one of reproach.
Lady Isabel humbly crossed her attenuated hands upon her chest. "My
children," she whispered. "How could I stay away from them? Have pity,
Miss Carlyle! Don't reproach me. I am on my way to God, to answer for
all my sins and sorrows."
"I do not reproach you," said Miss Carlyle.
"I am so glad to go," she continued to murmur, her eyes full of tears.
"Jesus did not come, you know, to save the good like you; He came for
the sake of us poor sinners. I tried to take up my cross, as He bade
us, and bear it bravely for His sake; but its weight has killed me."
The good like you! Humbly, meekly, deferentially was it expressed, in
all good faith and trust, as though Miss Corny was a sort of upper
angel. Somehow the words grated on Miss Corny's ear: grated fiercely
on her conscience. It came into her mind, then, as she stood there,
that the harsh religion that she had through life professed, was not
the religion that would best bring peace to her dying bed.
"Child," said she, drawing near to and leaning over Lady Isabel, "had
I anything to do with sending you from East Lynne?"
Lady Isabel shook her head and cast down her gaze, as she whispered:
"You did not send me; you did not help to send me. I was not very
happy with you, but that was not the cause--of my going away. Forgive
me, Miss Carlyle, forgive me!"
"Thank God!" inwardly breathed Miss Carlyle. "Forgive me," she said,
aloud and in agitation, touching her hand. "I could have made your
home happier, and I wish I had done it. I have wished it ever since
you left it."
Lady Isabel drew the hand in hers. "I want to see Archibald," she
whispered, going back, in thought, to the old time and the old name.
"I have prayed Joyce to bring him to me, and she will not. Only for a
minute! Just to hear him say that he forgives me! What can it matter,
now that I am as one lost to the world? I should die easier."
Upon what impulse or grounds Miss Carlyle saw fit to accede to the
request, cannot be told. Probably she did not choose to refuse a
death-bed prayer; possibly she reasoned, as did Lady Isabel--what
could it matter? She went to the door. Joyce was in the corridor,
leaning against the wall, her apron up to her eyes. Miss Carlyle
beckoned to her.
"How long have you known of this?"
"Since that night in the spring, when there was an alarm of fire. I
saw her then, with nothing on her face, and knew her; though, at the
first moment, I thought it was her ghost. Ma'am, I have just gone
about since, like a ghost myself from fear."
"Go and request your master to come up to me."
"Oh, ma'am! Will it be well to tell him?" remonstrated Joyce. "Well
that he should see her?"
"Go and request your master to come to me," unequivocally repeated
Miss Carlyle. "Are you mistress, Joyce, or am I?"
Joyce went down and brought Mr. Carlyle up from the dinner-table.
"Is Madame Vine worse, Cornelia? Will she see me?"
"She wishes to see you."
Miss Carlyle opened the door as she spoke. He motioned her to pass in
first. "No," she said, "you had better see her alone."
He was going in when Joyce caught his arm. "Master! Master! You ought
to be prepared. Ma'am, won't you tell him?"
He looked at them, thinking they must be moonstruck, for their conduct
seemed inexplicable. Both were in evident agitation, an emotion Miss
Carlyle was not given to. Her face and lips were twitching, but she
kept a studied silence. Mr. Carlyle knit his brow and went into the
chamber. They shut him in.
He walked gently at once to the bed, in his straightforward manner.
"I am grieved, Madame Vine----"
The words faltered on his tongue. He was a man as little given to show
emotion as man can well be. Did he think, as Joyce had once done, that
it was a ghost he saw? Certain it is that his face and lips turned the
hue of death, and he backed a few steps from the bed. The falling
hair, the sweet, mournful eyes, the hectic which his presence brought
to her cheeks, told too plainly of the Lady Isabel.
"Archibald!"
She put out her trembling hand. She caught him ere he had drawn quite
beyond her reach. He looked at her, he looked round the room, as does
one awaking from a dream.
"I could not die without your forgiveness," she murmured, her eyes
falling before him as she thought of her past. "Do you turn from me?
Bear with me a little minute! Only say you forgive me, and I shall die
in peace!"
"Isabel?" he spoke, not knowing in the least what he said. "Are you--
are you--were you Madame Vine?"
"Oh, forgive--forgive me! I did not die. I got well from the accident,
but it changed me dreadfully. Nobody knew me, and I came here as
Madame Vine. I could not stay away, Archibald, forgive me!"
His mind was in a whirl, his ideas had gone wool-gathering. The first
clear thought that came thumping through his brain was, that he must
be a man of two wives. She noticed his perplexed silence.
"I could not stay away from you and my children. The longing for you
was killing me," she reiterated, wildly, like one talking in a fever.
"I never knew a moment's peace after the mad act I was guilty of, in
quitting you. Not an hour had I departed when my repentance set in;
and even then I would have retraced and come back, but I did not know
how. See what it has done for me!" tossing up her gray hair, holding
out her attenuated wrists. "Oh, forgive--forgive me! My sin was great,
but my punishment was greater. It has been as one long scene of mortal
agony."
"Why did you go?" asked Mr. Carlyle.
"Did you not know?"
"No. It has always been a mystery to me."
"I went out of love for you."
A shade of disdain crossed his lips. She was equivocating to him on
her death-bed.
"Do not look in that way," she panted. "My strength is nearly gone--
you must perceive that it is--and I do not, perhaps, express myself
clearly. I loved you dearly, and I grew suspicious of you. I thought
you were false and deceitful to me; that your love was all given to
another; and in my sore jealousy, I listened to the temptings of that
bad man, who whispered to me of revenge. It was not so, was it?"
Mr. Carlyle had regained his calmness, outwardly, at any rate. He
stood by the side of the bed, looking down upon her, his arms crossed
upon his chest, and his noble form raised to its full height.
"Was it so?" she feverishly repeated.
"Can you ask it, knowing me as you did then, as you must have known me
since? I never was false to you in thought, in word, or in deed."
"Oh, Archibald, I was mad--I was mad! I could not have done it in
anything but madness. Surely you will forget and forgive!"
"I cannot forget. I have already forgiven!"
"Try and forget the dreadful time that has passed since that night!"
she continued, the tears falling on her cheeks, as she held up to him
one of her poor hot hands. "Let your thoughts go back to the days when
you first knew me; when I was here, Isabel Vane, a happy girl with my
father. At times I have lost myself in a moment's happiness in
thinking of it. Do you remember how you grew to love me, though you
thought you might not tell it to me--and how gentle you were with me,
when papa died--and the hundred pound note? Do you remember coming to
Castle Marling?--and my promise to be your wife--and the first kiss
you left upon my lips? And, oh, Archibald! Do you remember the loving
days after I was your wife--how happy we were with each other? Do you
remember when Lucy was born, we thought I should have died; and your
joy, your thankfulness that God restored me? Do you remember all this?
Aye. He did remember it. He took the poor hand into his, and
unconsciously played with its wasted fingers.
"Have you any reproach to cast to me?" he gently said, bending his
head a little.
"Reproach to you! To you, who must be almost without reproach in the
sight of Heaven! You, who were everlasting to me--ever anxious for my
welfare! When I think of what you were, and are, and how I quitted
you, I could sink into the earth with remorse and shame. My own sin, I
have surely expiated; I cannot expiate the shame I entailed upon you,
and upon our children."
Never. He felt it as keenly now as he had felt it then.
"Think what it has been for me!" she resumed, and he was obliged to
bend his ear to catch her gradually weakening tones. "To live in this
house with your wife--to see your love for her--to watch the envied
caresses that once were mine! I never loved you so passionately as I
have done since I lost you. Think what it was to watch William's
decaying strength; to be alone with him in his dying hour, and not to
be able to say he is my child as well as yours! When he lay dead, and
the news went forth to the household, it was /her/ petty grief you
soothed, not mine, his mother's. God alone knows how I have lived
through it all; it as been to me as the bitterness of death."
"Why did you come back?" was the response of Mr. Carlyle.
"I have told you. I could not live, wanting you and my children."
"It was wrong; wrong in all ways."
"Wickedly wrong. You cannot think worse of it than I have done. But
the consequences and the punishment would be mine alone, as long as I
guarded against discovery. I never thought to stop here to die; but
death seems to have come on me with a leap, like it came to my
mother."
A pause of labored hard breathing. Mr. Carlyle did not interrupt it.
"All wrong, all wrong," she resumed; "this interview with you, among
the rest. And yet--I hardly know; it cannot hurt the new ties you have
formed, for I am as one dead now to this world, hovering on the brink
of the next. But you /were/ my husband, Archibald; and, the last few
days, I have longed for your forgiveness with a fevered longing. Oh!
that the past could be blotted out! That I could wake up and find it
but a hideous dream; that I were here as in old days, in health and
happiness, your ever loving wife. Do you wish it, that the dark past
had never had place?"
She put the question in a sharp, eager tone, gazing up to him with an
anxious gaze, as though the answer must be one of life or death.
"For your sake I wish it." Calm enough were the words spoken; and her
eyes fell again, and a deep sigh came forth.
"I am going to William. But Lucy and Archibald will be left. Oh, do
you never be unkind to them! I pray you, visit not their mother's sin
upon their heads! Do not in your love for your later children, lose
your love for them!"
"Have you seen anything in my conduct that could give rise to fears of
this?" he returned, reproach mingled in his sad tone. "The children
are dear to me, as you once were."
"As I once was. Aye, and as I might have been now."
"Indeed you might," he answered, with emotion. "The fault was not
mine."
"Archibald, I am on the very threshold of the next world. Will you not
bless me--will you not say a word of love to me before I pass it! Let
what I am, I say, be blotted for the moment from your memory; think of
me, if you can, as the innocent, timid child whom you made your wife.
Only a word of love. My heart is breaking for it."
He leaned over her, he pushed aside the hair from her brow with his
gentle hand, his tears dropping on her face. "You nearly broke mine,
when you left me, Isabel," he whispered.
"May God bless you, and take you to His rest in Heaven! May He so deal
with me, as I now fully and freely forgive you."
What was he about to do? Lower and lower bent his head, until his
breath nearly mingled with hers. To kiss her? He best knew. But,
suddenly, his face grew red with a scarlet flush, and he lifted it
again. Did the form of one, then in a felon's cell at Lynneborough,
thrust itself before him, or that of his absent and unconscious wife?
"To His rest in Heaven," she murmured, in the hollow tones of the
departing. "Yes, yes I know that God had forgiven me. Oh, what a
struggle it has been! Nothing but bad feelings, rebellion, and sorrow,
and repining, for a long while after I came back here, but Jesus
prayed for me, and helped me, and you know how merciful He is to the
weary and heavy-laden. We shall meet again, Archibald, and live
together forever and ever. But for that great hope I could hardly die.
William said mamma would be on the banks of the river, looking out for
him; but it is William who is looking for me."
Mr. Carlyle released one of his hands; she had taken them both; and
with his own white handkerchief, wiped the death-dew from her
forehead.
"It is no sin to anticipate it, Archibald, for there will be no
marrying or giving in marriage in Heaven: Christ said so. Though we do
not know how it will be, my sin will be remembered no more there, and
we shall be together with our children forever and forever. Keep a
little corner in your heart for your poor lost Isabel."
"Yes, yes," he whispered.
"Are you leaving me?" she uttered, in a wild tone of pain.
"You are growing faint, I perceive, I must call assistance."
"Farewell, then; farewell, until eternity," she sighed, the tears
raining from her eyes. "It is death, I think, not faintness. Oh! but
it is hard to part! Farewell, farewell my once dear husband!"
She raised her head from the pillow, excitement giving her strength;
she clung to his arm; she lifted her face in its sad yearning. Mr.
Carlyle laid her tenderly down again, and suffered his wet cheek to
rest upon hers.
"Until eternity."
She followed him with her eyes as he retreated, and watched him from
the room: then turned her face to the wall. "It is over. Only God
now."
Mr. Carlyle took an instant's counsel with himself, stopping at the
head of the stairs to do it. Joyce, in obedience to a sign from him,
had already gone into the sick-chamber: his sister was standing at the
door.
"Cornelia."
She followed him down to the dining-room.
"You will remain here to-night? With /her/?"
"Do you suppose I shouldn't?" crossly responded Miss Corny; "where are
you off to now?"
"To the telegraph office, at present. To send for Lord Mount Severn."
"What good can he do?"
"None. But I shall send for him."
"Can't one of the servants go just as well as you? You have not
finished your dinner; hardly begun it."
He turned his eyes on the dinner-table in a mechanical sort of way,
his mind wholly preoccupied, made some remark in answer, which Miss
Corny did not catch, and went out.
On his return his sister met him in the hall, drew him inside the
nearest room, and closed the door. Lady Isabel was dead. Had been dead
about ten minutes.
"She never spoke after you left her, Archibald. There was a slight
struggle at the last, a fighting for breath, otherwise she went off
quite peacefully. I felt sure, when I first saw her this afternoon,
that she could not last till midnight."
CHAPTER XLVII.
I. M. V.
Lord Mount Severn, wondering greatly what the urgent summons could be
for, lost no time in obeying it, and was at East Lynne the following
morning early. Mr. Carlyle had his carriage at the station--his close
carriage--and shut up in that he made the communication to the earl as
they drove to East Lynne.
The earl could with difficulty believe it. Never had he been so
utterly astonished. At first he really could not understand the tale.
"Did she--did she--come back to your house to die?" he blundered. "You
never took her in? I don't understand."
Mr. Carlyle explained further; and the earl at length understood. But
he did not recover his perplexed astonishment.
"What a mad act to come back here. Madame Vine! How on earth did she
escape detection?"
"She did escape it," said Mr. Carlyle. "The strange likeness Madame
Vine possessed to my first wife did often strike me as being
marvelous, but I never suspected the truth. It was a likeness, and not
a likeness, for every part of her face and form was changed except her
eyes, and those I never saw but through those disguising glasses."
The earl wiped his hot face. The news had ruffled him no measured
degree. He felt angry with Isabel, dead though she was, and thankful
that Mrs. Carlyle was away.
"Will you see her?" whispered Mr. Carlyle as they entered the house.
"Yes."
They went up to the death-chamber, Mr. Carlyle procuring the key. It
was the only time that he entered it. Very peaceful she looked now,
her pale features so composed under her white cap and hands. Miss
Carlyle and Joyce had done all that was necessary; nobody else had
been suffered to approach her. Lord Mount Severn leaned over her,
tracing the former looks of Isabel; and the likeness grew upon him in
a wonderful degree.
"What did she die of?" he asked.
"She said a broken heart."
"Ah!" said the earl. "The wonder is that it did not break before. Poor
thing! Poor Isabel!" he added, touching her hand, "how she marred her
own happiness! Carlyle, I suppose this is your wedding ring?"
Mr. Carlyle cast his eyes upon the ring. "Very probably."
"To think of her never having discarded it!" remarked the earl,
releasing the cold hand. "Well, I can hardly believe the tale now."
He turned and quitted the room as he spoke. Mr. Carlyle looked
steadfastly at the dead face for a minute or two, his fingers touching
the forehead; but what his thoughts or feelings may have been, none
can tell. Then he replaced the sheet over her face, and followed the
earl.
They descended in silence to the breakfast-room. Miss Carlyle was
seated at the table waiting for them. "Where /could/ all your eyes
have been?" exclaimed the earl to her, after a few sentences,
referring to the event just passed.
"Just where yours would have been," replied Miss Corny, with a touch
of her old temper. "You saw Madame Vine as well as we did."
"But not continuously. Only two or three times in all. And I do not
remember ever to have seen her without her bonnet and veil. That
Carlyle should not have recognized her is almost beyond belief."
"It /seems/ so, to speak of it," said Miss Corny; "but facts are
facts. She was young and gay, active, when she left here, upright as a
dart, her dark hair drawn from her open brow, and flowing on her neck,
her cheeks like crimson paint, her face altogether beautiful. Madame
Vine arrived here a pale, stooping woman, lame of one leg, /shorter/
than Lady Isabel--and her figure stuffed out under those sacks of
jackets. Not a bit, scarcely, of her forehead to be seen, for gray
velvet and gray bands of hair; her head smothered under a close cap,
large, blue, double spectacles hiding the eyes and their sides, and
the throat tied up; the chin partially. The mouth was entirely altered
in its character, and that upward scar, always so conspicuous, made it
almost ugly. Then she had lost some of her front teeth, you know, and
she lisped when she spoke. Take her for all in all," summed up Miss
Carlyle, "she looked no more like Isabel who went away from here than
I look like Adam. Just get your dearest friend damaged and disguised
as she was, my lord, and see if you'd recognize him."
The observation came home to Lord Mount Severn. A gentleman whom he
knew well, had been so altered by a fearful accident, that little
resemblance could be traced to his former self. In fact, his own
family could not recognize him: and /he/ used an artificial disguise.
It was a case in point; and--reader--I assure you it was a true one.
"It was the /disguise/ that we ought to have suspected," quietly
observed Mr. Carlyle. "The likeness was not sufficiently striking to
cause suspicion."
"But she turned the house from that scent as soon as she came into
it," struck in Miss Corny, "telling of the 'neuralgic pains' that
affected her head and face, rendering the guarding them from exposure
necessary. Remember, Lord Mount Severn, that the Ducies had been with
her in Germany, and had never suspected her. Remember also another
thing, that, however great a likeness we may have detected, we could
not and did not speak of it, one to another. Lady Isabel's name is
never so much as whispered among us."
"True: all true," nodded the earl. And they sat themselves down to
breakfast.
On the Friday, the following letter was dispatched to Mrs. Carlyle.
"MY DEAREST--I find I shall not be able to get to you on Saturday
afternoon, as I promised, but will leave here by the late train
that night. Mind you don't sit up for me. Lord Mount Severn is
here for a few days; he sends his regards to you.
"And now, Barbara, prepare for news that will prove a shock. Madame
Vine is dead. She grew rapidly worse, they tell me, after our
departure, and died on Wednesday night. I am glad you were away.
"Love from the children. Lucy and Archie are still at Cornelia's;
Arthur wearing out Sarah's legs in the nursery.
"Ever yours, my dearest,
"ARCHIBALD CARLYLE."
Of course, as Madame Vine, the governess, died at Mr. Carlyle's house,
he could not, in courtesy, do less than follow her to the grave. So
decided West Lynne, when they found which way the wind was going to
blow. Lord Mount Severn followed also, to keep him company, being on a
visit to him, and very polite, indeed, of his lordship to do it--
condescending, also! West Lynne remembered another funeral at which
those two had been the only mourners--that of the earl. By some
curious coincidence the French governess was buried close to the
earl's grave. As good there as anywhere else, quoth West Lynne. There
happened to be a vacant spot of ground.
The funeral took place on a Sunday morning. A plain, respectable
funeral. A hearse and pair, and mourning coach and pair, with a
chariot for the Rev. Mr. Little. No pall-bearers or mutes, or anything
of that show-off kind; and no plumes on the horses, only on the
hearse. West Lynne looked on with approbation, and conjectured that
the governess had left sufficient money to bury herself; but, of
course, that was Mr. Carlyle's affair, not West Lynne's. Quiet enough
lay she in her last resting-place.
They left her in it, the earl and Mr. Carlyle, and entered the
mourning-coach, to be conveyed back again to East Lynne.
"Just a little stone of white marble, two feet high by a foot and a
half broad," remarked the earl, on their road, pursuing a topic they
were speaking upon. "With the initials 'I. V.' and the date of the
year. Nothing more. What do you think?"
"I. M. V.," corrected Mr. Carlyle.
"Yes."
At this moment the bells of another church, not St. Jude's, broke out
in a joyous peal, and the earl inclined his ear to listen.
"What can they be ringing for?" he cried.
They were ringing for a wedding. Afy Hallijohn, by the help of two
clergymen and six bridesmaids, of which you may be sure Joyce was
/not/ one, had just been converted into Mrs. Joe Jiffin. When Afy took
a thing into her heard, she somehow contrived to carry it through, and
to bend even clergymen and bridesmaids to her will. Mr. Jiffin was
blest at last.
In the afternoon the earl left East Lynne, and somewhat later Barbara
arrived at it. Wilson scarcely gave her mistress time to step into the
house before her, and she very nearly left the baby in the fly.
Curiously anxious was Wilson to hear all particulars as to whatever
could have took off that French governess. Mr. Carlyle was much
surprised at their arrival.
"How could I stay away, Archibald, even until Monday, after the news
you sent me?" said Barbara. "What did she die of? It must have been
awfully sudden."
"I suppose so," was his dreamy answer. He was debating a question with
himself, one he had thought over a good deal since Wednesday night.
Should he, or should he not, tell his wife? He would have preferred
not to tell her; and, were the secret confined to his own breast, he
would decidedly not have done so. But it was known to three others--to
Miss Carlyle, to lord Mount Severn, and to Joyce. All trustworthy and
of good intention; but it was impossible for Mr. Carlyle to make sure
that not one of them would ever, through any chance and unpremeditated
word, let the secret come to the knowledge of Mrs. Carlyle. That would
not do, if she must hear it at all, she must hear it from him, and at
once. He took his course.
"Are you ill, Archibald?" she asked, noting his face. It wore a pale,
worn sort of look.
"I have something to tell you, Barbara," he answered, drawing her hand
into his, as they stood together. They were in her dressing-room,
where she was taking off her things. "On the Wednesday evening when I
got home to dinner Joyce told me that she feared Madame Vine was
dying, and I thought it right to see her."
"Certainly," returned Barbara. "Quite right."
"I went into her room, and I found that she was dying. But I found
something else, Barbara. She was not Madame Vine."
"Not Madame Vine!" echoed Barbara, believing in good truth that her
husband could not know what he was saying.
"It was my former wife, Isabel Vane."
Barbara's face flushed crimson, and then grew white as marble; and she
drew her hand unconsciously from Mr. Carlyles's. He did not appear to
notice the movement, but stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece while
he talked, giving her a rapid summary of the interview and its
details.
"She could not stay away from her children, she said, and came back as
Madame Vine. What with the effects of the railroad accident in France,
and those spectacles she wore, and her style of dress, and her gray
hair, she felt secure in not being recognized. I am astonished now
that she was not discovered. Were such a thing related to me I should
give no credence to it."
Barbara's heart felt faint with its utter sickness, and she turned her
face from the view of her husband. Her first confused thoughts were as
Mr. Carlyle's had been--that she had been living in his house with
another wife. "Did you suspect her?" she breathed, in a low tone.
"Barbara! Had I suspected it, should I have allowed it to go on? She
implored my forgiveness for the past, and for having returned here,
and I gave it to her fully. I then went to West Lynne, to telegraph to
Mount Severn, and when I came back she was dead."
There was a pause. Mr. Carlyle began to perceive that his wife's face
was hidden from him.
"She said her heart was broken. Barbara, we cannot wonder at it."
There was no reply. Mr. Carlyle took his arm from the mantelpiece, and
moved so that he could see her countenance: a wan countenance, telling
of pain.
He laid his hand upon her shoulder, and made her look at him. "My
dearest, what is this?"
"Oh, Archibald!" she uttered, clasping her hands together, all her
pent up feelings bursting forth, and the tears streaming from her
eyes, "has this taken your love from me?"
He took both her hands in one of his, he put the other round her waist
and held her there, before him, never speaking, only looking gravely
into her face. Who could look at its sincere truthfulness, at the
sweet expression of his lips, and doubt him? Not Barbara. She allowed
the moment's excitement to act upon her feelings, and carry her away.
"I had thought my wife possessed entire trust in me."
"Oh, I do, I do; you know I do. Forgive me, Archibald," she slowly
whispered.
"I deemed it better to impart this to you, Barbara. Had there been
wrong feeling on my part, I should have left you in ignorance. My
darling, I have told you it in love."
She was leaning on his breast, sobbing gently, her repentant face
turned towards him. He held her there in his strong protection, his
enduring tenderness.
"My wife! My darling! now and always."
"It was a foolish feeling to cross my heart, Archibald. It is done
with and gone."
"Never let it come back, Barbara. Neither need her name be mentioned
again between us. A barred name it has hitherto been; so let it
continue."
"Anything you will. My earnest wish is to please you; to be worthy of
your esteem and love, Archibald," she timidly added, her eye-lids
drooping, and her fair cheeks blushing, as she made the confession.
"There has been a feeling in my heart against your children, a sort of
jealous feeling, you can understand, because they were hers; because
she had once been your wife. I knew how wrong it was, and I have tried
earnestly to subdue it. I have, indeed, and I think it is nearly
gone," her voice sunk. "I constantly pray to be helped to do it; to
love them and care for them as if they were my own. It will come with
time."
"Every good thing will come with time that we may earnestly seek,"
said Mr. Carlyle. "Oh, Barbara, never forget--never forget that the
only way to ensure peace in the end is to strive always to be doing
right, unselfishly under God."