Works of Ellen Wood, page 69
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 thou 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?”
