Trevelyan’s letter to his wife fell like a thunderbolt among them at Nuncombe Putney. Mrs Trevelyan was altogether unable to keep it to herself; indeed she made no attempt at doing so. Her husband had told her that she was to be banished from the Clock House because her present hostess was unable to endure her misconduct, and of course she demanded the reasons of the charge that was thus brought against her. When she first read the letter, which she did in the presence of her sister, she towered in her passion.
‘Disgraced him! I have never disgraced him. It is he that has disgraced me. Correspondence! Yes he shall see it all. Unjust, ignorant, foolish man! He does not remember that the last instructions he really gave me, were to bid me see Colonel Osborne. Take my boy away! Yes. Of course, I am a woman and must suffer. I will write to Colonel Osborne, and will tell him the truth, and will send my letter to Louis. He shall know how he has ill-treated me! I will not take a penny of his money, not a penny. Maintain you! I believe he thinks that we are beggars. Leave this house because of my conduct! What can Mrs Stanbury have said? What can any of them have said? I will demand to be told. Free himself from the connection! Oh, Nora, Nora! that it should come to this! that I should be thus threatened, who have been as innocent as a baby! If it were not for my child, I think that I should destroy myself!’
Nora said what she could to comfort her sister, insisting chiefly on the promise that the child should not be taken away. There was no doubt as to the husband’s power in the mind of either of them; and though, as regarded herself, Mrs Trevelyan would have defied her husband, let his power be what it might, yet she acknowledged to herself that she was in some degree restrained by the fear that she would find herself deprived of her only comfort.
‘We must just go where he bids us till papa comes,’ said Nora.
‘And when papa is here, what help will there be then? He will not let me go back to the islands with my boy. For myself I might die, or get out of his way anywhere. I can see that. Priscilla Stanbury is right when she says that no woman should trust herself to any man. Disgraced! That I should live to be told by my husband that I had disgraced him by a lover!’
There was some sort of agreement made between the two sisters as to the manner in which Priscilla should be interrogated respecting the sentence of banishment which had been passed. They both agreed that it would be useless to make inquiry of Mrs Stanbury. If anything had really been said to justify the statement made in Mr Trevelyan’s letter, it must have come from Priscilla, and have reached Trevelyan through Priscilla’s brother. They, both of them, had sufficiently learned the ways of the house to be sure that Mrs Stanbury had not been the person active in the matter. They went down, therefore, together, and found Priscilla seated at her desk in the parlour. Mrs Stanbury was also in the room, and it had been presumed between the sisters that the interrogation should be made in that lady’s absence; but Mrs Trevelyan was too hot in the matter for restraint, and she at once opened out her budget of grievance.
‘I have a letter from my husband,’ she said and then paused. But Priscilla, seeing from the fire in her eyes that she was much moved, made no reply, but turned to listen to what might further be said. ‘I do not know why I should trouble you with his suspicions,’ continued Mrs Trevelyan, ‘or read to you what he says about Colonel Osborne.’ As she spoke she was holding her husband’s letter open in her hands. ‘There is nothing in it that you do not know. He says I have corresponded with him. So I have and he shall see the correspondence. He says that Colonel Osborne visited me. He did come to see me and Nora.’
‘As any other old man might have done,’ said Nora.
‘It was not likely that I should openly confess myself to be afraid to see my father’s old friend. But the truth is, my husband does not know what a woman is.’
She had begun by declaring that she would not trouble her friend with any statement of her husband’s complaints against her; but now she had made her way to the subject, and could hardly refrain herself. Priscilla understood this, and thought that it would be wise to interrupt her by a word that might bring her back to her original purpose. ‘Is there anything,’ said she, ‘which we can do to help you?’
‘To help me? No God only can help me. But Louis informs me that I am to be turned out of this house, because you demand that we should go.’
‘Who says that?’ exclaimed Mrs Stanbury.
‘My husband. Listen; this is what he says “I am greatly grieved to hear from my friend Mr Stanbury that your conduct in reference to Colonel Osborne has been such as to make it necessary that you should leave Mrs Stanbury’s house.” Is that true? Is that true?’ In her general mode of carrying herself, and of enduring the troubles of her life, Mrs Trevelyan was a strong woman; but now her grief was too much for her, and she burst out into tears. ‘I am the most unfortunate woman that ever was born!’ she sobbed out through her tears.
‘I never said that you were to go,’ said Mrs Stanbury.
‘But your son has told Mr Trevelyan that we must go,’ said Nora, who felt that her sense of injury against Hugh Stanbury was greatly increased by what had taken place. To her mind he was the person most important in the matter. Why had he desired that they should be sent away from the Clock House? She was very angry with him, and declared to herself that she hated him with all her heart. For this man she had sent away that other lover, a lover who had really loved her! And she had even confessed that it was so!
‘There is a misunderstanding about this,’ said Priscilla.
‘It must be with your brother, then,’ said Nora.
‘I think not,’ said Priscilla: ‘I think that it has been with Mr Trevelyan.’ Then she went on to explain, with much difficulty, but still with a slow distinctness that was peculiar to her, what had really taken place. ‘We have endeavoured,’ she said, ‘to show you, my mother and I, that we have not misjudged you; but it is certainly true that I told my brother that I did not think the arrangement a good one quite as a permanence.’ It was very difficult, and her cheeks were red as she spoke, and her lips faltered. It was an exquisite pain to her to have to give the pain which her words would convey; but there was no help for it as she said to herself more than once at the time, there was nothing to be done but to tell the truth.
‘I never said so,’ blurted out Mrs Stanbury, with her usual weakness.
‘No, mother. It was my saying. In discussing what was best for us all, with Hugh, I told him what I have just now explained.’
‘Then of course we must go,’ said Mrs Trevelyan, who had gulped down her sobs and was resolved to be firm, to give way to no more tears, to bear all without sign of womanly weakness.
‘You will stay with us till your father comes,’ said Priscilla.
‘Of course you will,’ said Mrs Stanbury ‘you and Nora. We have got to be such friends, now.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Trevelyan. ‘As to friendship for me, it is out of the question. We must pack up, Nora, and go somewhere. Heaven knows where!’
Nora was now sobbing. ‘Why your brother should want to turn us out after he has sent us here!’
‘My brother wants nothing of the kind,’ said Priscilla. ‘Your sister has no better friend than my brother.’
‘It will be better, Nora, to discuss the matter no further,’ said Mrs Trevelyan. ‘We must go away somewhere; and the sooner the better. To be an unwelcome guest is always bad; but to be unwelcome for such a reason as this is terrible.’
‘There is no reason,’ said Mrs Stanbury; ‘indeed there is none.’
‘Mrs Trevelyan will understand us better when she is less excited,’ said Priscilla. ‘I am not surprised that she should be indignant now. I can only say again that we hope you will stay with us till Sir Marmaduke Rowley shall be in England.’
‘That is not what your brother means,’ said Nora.
‘Nor is it what I mean,’ said Mrs Trevelyan. ‘Nora, we had better go to our own room. I suppose I must write to my husband; indeed, of course I must, that I may send him the the correspondence. I fear I cannot walk out into the street, Mrs Stanbury, and make you quit of me till I hear from him. And if I were to go to an inn at once, people would speak evil of me and I have no money.’
‘My dear, how can you think of such a thing!’ said Mrs Stanbury.
‘But you may be quite sure that we shall be gone within three days or four at the furthest. Indeed, I will pledge myself not to remain longer than that even though I should have to go to the poor-house. Neither I nor my sister will stay in any family to contaminate it. Come, Nora.’ And so speaking she sailed out of the room, and her sister followed her.
‘Why did you say anything about, it? Oh dear, oh dear! why did you speak to Hugh? See what you have done?’
‘I am sorry that I did speak,’ replied Priscilla, slowly.
‘Sorry! Of course you are sorry; but what good is that?’
‘But, mother; I do not think that I was wrong. I feel sure that the real fault in all this is with Mr Trevelyan as it has been all through. He should not have written to her as he has done.’
‘I suppose Hugh did tell him.’
‘No doubt and I told Hugh; but not after the fashion in which he has told her. I blame myself mostly for this that we ever consented to come to this house. We had no business here. Who is to pay the rent?’
‘Hugh insisted upon taking it.’
‘Yes and he will pay the rent; and we shall be a drag upon him, as though he had been fool enough to have a wife and a family of his own. And what good have we done? We had not strength enough to say that that wicked man should not see her when he came, for he is a wicked man.’
‘If we had done that she would have been as bad then as she is now.’
‘Mother, we had no business to meddle either with her badness or her goodness. What had we to do with the wife of such a one as Mr Trevelyan, or with any woman who was separated from her husband?’
‘It was Hugh who thought we should be of service to them.’
‘Yes and I do not blame him. He is in a position to be of service to people. He can do work and earn money, and has a right to think and to speak. We have a right to think only for ourselves, and we should not have yielded to him. How are we to get back again out of this house to our cottage?’
‘They are pulling the cottage down, Priscilla.’
‘To some other cottage, mother. Do you not feel while we are living here that we are pretending to be what we are not? After all, Aunt Stanbury was right, though it was not her business to meddle with us. We should never have come here. That poor woman now regards us as her bitter enemies.’
‘I meant to do for the best,’ said Mrs Stanbury.
‘The fault was mine, mother.’
‘But you meant it for the best, my dear.’
‘Meaning for the best is trash. I don’t know that I did mean it for the best. While we were at the cottage we paid our way and were honest. What is it people say of us now?’
‘They can’t say any harm.’
‘They say that we are paid by the husband to keep his wife, and paid again by the lover to betray the husband.’
‘Priscilla!’
‘Yes it is shocking enough. But that comes of people going out of their proper course. We were too humble and low to have a right to take any part in such a matter. How true it is that while one crouches on the ground, one can never fall.’
The matter was discussed in the Clock House all day, between Mrs Stanbury and Priscilla, and between Mrs Trevelyan and Nora, in their rooms and in the garden; but nothing could come of such discussions. No change could be made till further instructions should have been received from the angry husband; nor could any kind of argument be even invented by Priscilla which might be efficacious in inducing the two ladies to remain at the Clock House, even should Mr Trevelyan allow them to do so. They all felt the intolerable injustice, as it appeared to them, of their subjection to the caprice of an unreasonable and ill-conditioned man; but to all of them it seemed plain enough that in this matter the husband must exercise his own will at any rate, till Sir Marmaduke should be in England. There were many difficulties throughout the day. Mrs Trevelyan would not go down to dinner, sending word that she was ill, and that she would, if she were allowed, have some tea in her own room. And Nora said that she would remain with her sister. Priscilla went to them more than once; and late in the evening they all met in the parlour. But any conversation seemed to he impossible; and Mrs Trevelyan, as she went up to her room at night, again declared that she would rid the house of her presence as soon as possible.
One thing, however, was done on that melancholy day. Mrs Trevelyan wrote to her husband, and enclosed Colonel Osborne’s letter to herself, and a copy of her reply. The reader will hardly require to be told that no such further letter had been written by her as that of which Bozzle had given information to her husband. Men whose business it is to detect hidden and secret things, are very apt to detect things which have never been done. What excuse can a detective make even to himself for his own existence if he can detect nothing? Mr Bozzle was an active-minded man, who gloried in detecting, and who, in the special spirit of his trade, had taught himself to believe that all around him were things secret and hidden, which would be within his power of unravelling if only the slightest clue were put in his hand. He lived by the crookednesses of people, and therefore was convinced that straight doings in the world were quite exceptional. Things dark and dishonest, fights fought and races run that they might be lost, plants and crosses, women false to their husbands, sons false to their fathers, daughters to their mothers, servants to their masters, affairs always secret, dark, foul, and fraudulent, were to him the normal condition of life. It was to be presumed that Mrs Trevelyan should continue to correspond with her lover, that old Mrs Stanbury should betray her trust by conniving at the lover’s visit, that everybody concerned should be steeped to the hips in lies and iniquity. When, therefore, he found at Colonel Osborne’s rooms that the Colonel had received a letter with the Lessboro’ post-mark, addressed in the handwriting of a woman, he did not scruple to declare that Colonel Osborne had received, on that morning, a letter from Mr Trevelyan’s ‘lady.’ But in sending to her husband what she called with so much bitterness, ‘the correspondence,’ Mrs Trevelyan had to enclose simply the copy of one sheet note from herself.
But she now wrote again to Colonel Osborne, and enclosed to her husband, not a copy of what she had written, but the note itself. It was as follows:
‘Nuncombe Putney, Wednesday, August 10.
‘My dear Colonel Osborne,
‘My husband has desired me not to see you, or to write to you, or to hear from you again. I must therefore beg you to enable me to obey him at any rate, till papa comes to England.
Yours truly,
Emily Trevelyan.
And then she wrote to her husband, and in the writing of this letter there was much doubt, much labour, and many changes. We will give it as it was written when completed:
‘I have received your letter, and will obey your commands to the best of my power. In order that you may not be displeased by any further unavoidable correspondence between me and Colonel Osborne, I have written to him a note, which I now send to you. I send it that you may forward it. If you do not choose to do so, I cannot be answerable either for his seeing me, or for his writing to me again.
I send also copies of all the correspondence I have had with Colonel Osborne since you turned me out of your house. When he came to call on me, Nora remained with me while he was here. I blush while I write this not for myself, but that I should be so suspected as to make such a statement necessary.
You say that I have disgraced you and myself. I have done neither. I am disgraced but it is you that have disgraced me. I have never spoken a word or done a thing, as regards you, of which I have cause to be ashamed.
I have told Mrs Stanbury that I and Nora will leave her house as soon as we can be made to know where we are to go. I beg that this may be decided instantly, as else we must walk out into the street without a shelter. After what has been said, I cannot remain here.
My sister bids me say that she will relieve you of all burden respecting herself as soon as possible. She will probably be able to find a home with my aunt, Mrs Outhouse, till papa comes to England. As for myself, I can only say that till he comes, I shall do exactly what you order.
Emily Trevelyan.
Nuncombe Putney, August 10.
Both Mr Outhouse and his wife were especially timid in taking upon themselves the cares of other people. Not on that account is it to be supposed that they were bad or selfish. They were both given much to charity, and bestowed both in time and money more than is ordinarily considered necessary even from persons in their position. But what they gave, they gave away from their own quiet hearth. Had money been wanting to the daughters of his wife’s brother, Mr Outhouse would have opened such small coffer as he had with a free hand. But he would have much preferred that his benevolence should be used in a way that would bring upon him no further responsibility and no questionings from people whom he did not know and could not understand.
The Rev. Oliphant Outhouse had been Rector of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East for the last fifteen years, having married the sister of Sir Marmaduke Rowley then simply Mr Rowley, with a colonial appointment in Jamaica of 120 pounds per annum twelve years before his promotion, while he was a curate in one of the populous borough parishes. He had thus been a London clergyman all his life; but he knew almost as little of London society as though he had held a cure in a Westmoreland valley. He had worked hard, but his work had been altogether among the poor. He had no gift of preaching, and had acquired neither reputation nor popularity. But he could work, and having been transferred because of that capability to the temporary curacy of St. Diddulph’s out of one diocese into another, he had received the living from the bishop’s hands when it became vacant.
A dreary place was the parsonage of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East for the abode of a gentleman. Mr Outhouse had not, in his whole parish, a parishioner with whom he could consort. The greatest men around him were the publicans, and the most numerous were men employed in and around the docks. Dredgers of mud, navvies employed on suburban canals, excavators, loaders and unloaders of cargo, cattle drivers, whose driving, however, was done mostly on board ship — such and such like were the men who were the fathers of the families of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East. And there was there, not far removed from the muddy estuary of a little stream that makes its black way from the Essex marshes among the houses of the poorest of the poor into the Thames, a large commercial establishment for turning the carcasses of horses into manure. Messrs Flowsem and Blurt were in truth the great people of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East; but the closeness of their establishment was not an additional attraction to the parsonage. They were liberal, however, with their money, and Mr Outhouse was disposed to think, custom perhaps having made the establishment less objectionable to him than it was at first, that St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East would be more of a Pandemonium than it now was, if by any sanitary law Messrs Flowsem and Blurt were compelled to close their doors. ‘Non olet,’ he would say with a grim smile when the charitable cheque of the firm would come punctually to hand on the first Saturday after Christmas.
But such a house as his would be, as he knew, but a poor residence for his wife’s nieces. Indeed, without positively saying that he was unwilling to receive them, he had, when he first heard of the breaking up of the house in Curzon Street, shewn that he would rather not take upon his shoulders so great a responsibility. He and his wife had discussed the matter between them, and had come to the conclusion that they did not know what kind of things might have been done in Curzon Street. They would think no evil, they said; but the very idea of a married woman with a lover was dreadful to them. It might be that their niece was free from blame. They hoped so. And even though her sin had been of ever so deep a dye, they would take her in if it were indeed necessary. But they hoped that such help from them might not be needed. They both knew how to give counsel to a poor woman, how to rebuke a poor man, how to comfort, encourage, or to upbraid the poor. Practice had told them how far they might go with some hope of doing good and at what stage of demoralisation no good from their hands was any longer within the scope of fair expectation. But all this was among the poor. With what words to encourage such a one as their niece Mrs Trevelyan, to encourage her or to rebuke her, as her conduct might seem to make necessary, they both felt that They were altogether ignorant. To them Mrs Trevelyan was a fine lady. To Mr Outhouse, Sir Marmaduke had ever been a fine gentleman, given much to worldly things, who cared more for whist and a glass of wine than for anything else, and who thought that he had a good excuse for never going to church in England because he was called upon, as he said, to show himself in the governor’s pew always once on Sundays, and frequently twice, when he was at the seat of his government. Sir Marmaduke manifestly looked upon church as a thing in itself notoriously disagreeable. To Mr Outhouse it afforded the great events of the week. And Mrs Outhouse would declare that to hear her husband preach was the greatest joy of her life. It may be understood therefore that though the family connection between the Rowleys and the Outhouses had been kept up with a semblance of affection, it had never blossomed forth into cordial friendship.
When therefore the clergyman of St. Diddulph’s received a letter from his niece, Nora, begging him to take her into his parsonage till Sir Marmaduke should arrive in the course of the spring, and hinting also a wish that her uncle Oliphant should see Mr Trevelyan and if possible arrange that his other niece should also come to the parsonage, he was very much perturbed in spirit. There was a long consultation between him and his wife before anything could be settled, and it may be doubted whether anything would have been settled, had not Mr Trevelyan himself made his way to the parsonage, on the second day of the family conference. Mr and Mrs Outhouse had both seen the necessity of sleeping upon the matter. They had slept upon it, and the discourse between them on the second day was so doubtful in its tone that more sleeping would probably have been necessary had not Mr Trevelyan appeared and compelled them to a decision.
‘You must remember that I make no charge against her,’ said Trevelyan, after the matter had been discussed for about an hour.
‘Then why should she not come back to you?’ said Mr Outhouse, timidly.
‘Some day she may if she will be obedient. But it cannot be now. She has set me at defiance; and even yet it is too clear from the tone of her letter to me that she thinks that she has been right to do so. How could we live together in amity when she addresses me as a cruel tyrant?’
‘Why did she go away at first?’ asked Mrs Outhouse.
‘Because she would compromise my name by an intimacy which I did not approve. But I do not come here to defend myself, Mrs Outhouse. You probably think that I have been wrong. You are her friend; and to you, I will not even say that I have been right. What I want you to understand is this. She cannot come back to me now. It would not be for my honour that she should do so.’
‘But, sir would it not be for your welfare, as a Christian?’ asked Mr Outhouse.
‘You must not be angry with me, if I say that I will not discuss that just now. I did not come here to discuss it.’
‘It is very sad for our poor niece,’ said Mrs Outhouse. ‘It is very sad for me,’ said Trevelyan, gloomily ‘very sad, indeed. My home is destroyed; my life is made solitary; I do not even see my own child. She has her boy with her, and her sister. I have nobody.’
‘I can’t understand, for the life of me; why you should not live together just like any other people,’ said Mrs Outhouse, whose woman’s spirit was arising in her bosom. ‘When people are married, they must put up with something at least, most always.’ This she added, lest it might be for a moment imagined that she had had any cause for complaint with her Mr Outhouse.
‘Pray excuse me, Mrs Outhouse; but I cannot discuss that. The question between us is this: can you consent to receive your two nieces till their father’s return and if so, in what way shall I defray the expense of their living? You will of course understand that I willingly undertake the expense not only of my wife’s maintenance and of her sister’s also, but that I will cheerfully allow anything that may be required either for their comfort or recreation.’
‘I cannot take my nieces into my house as lodgers,’ said Mr Outhouse.
‘No, not as lodgers; but of course you can understand that it is for me to pay for my own wife. I know I owe you an apology for mentioning it but how else could I make my request to you?’
‘If Emily and Nora come here they must come as our guests,’ said Mrs Outhouse.
‘Certainly,’ said the clergyman. ‘And if I am told they are in want of a home they shall find one here till their father comes. But I am bound to say that as regards the elder I think her home should be elsewhere.’
‘Of course it should,’ said Mrs Outhouse. ‘I don’t know anything about the law, but it seems to me very odd that a young woman should be turned out in this way. You say she has done nothing?’
‘I will not argue the matter,’ said Trevelyan.
‘That’s all very well, Mr Trevelyan,’ said the lady, ‘but she’s my own niece, and if I don’t stand up for her I don’t know who will. I never heard such a thing in my life as a wife being sent away after such a fashion as that. We wouldn’t treat a cookmaid so; that we wouldn’t. As for coming here, she shall come if she pleases, but I shall always say that it’s the greatest shame I ever heard of.’
Nothing came of this visit at last. The lady grew in her anger; and Mr Trevelyan, in his own defence, was driven to declare that his wife’s obstinate intimacy with Colonel Osborne had almost driven him out of his senses. Before he left the parsonage he was brought even to tears by his own narration of his own misery whereby Mr Outhouse was considerably softened, although Mrs Outhouse became more and more stout in the defence of her own sex. But nothing at last came of it. Trevelyan insisted on paying for his wife, wherever she might be placed; and when he found that this would not be permitted to him at the parsonage, he was very anxious to take some small furnished house in the neighbourhood, in which the two sisters might live for the next six months under the wings of their uncle and aunt But even Mr Outhouse was moved to pleasantry by this suggestion, as he explained the nature of the tenements which were common at St. Diddulph’s. Two rooms, front and back, they might have for about five-and sixpence a week in a house with three other families. ‘But perhaps that is not exactly what you’d like,’ said Mr Outhouse. The interview ended with no result, and Mr Trevelyan took his leave, declaring to himself that he was worse off than the foxes, who have holes in which to lay their heads, but it must be presumed that his sufferings in this respect were to be by attorney; as it was for his wife, and not for himself, that the necessary hole was now required.
As soon as he was gone Mrs Outhouse answered Nora’s letter, and without meaning to be explicit, explained pretty closely what had taken place. The spare bedroom at the parsonage was ready to receive either one or both of the sisters till Sir Marmaduke should be in London, if one or both of them should choose to come. And though there was no nursery at the parsonage, for Mr and Mrs Outhouse had been blessed with no children, still room should be made for the little boy. But they must come as visitors ‘as our own nieces,’ said Mrs Outhouse. And she went on to say that she would have nothing to do with the quarrel between Mr Trevelyan and his wife. All such quarrels were very bad but as to this quarrel she could take no part either one side or the other. Then she stated that Mr Trevelyan had been at the parsonage, but that no arrangement had been made, because Mr Trevelyan had insisted on paying for their board and lodging.
This letter reached Nuncombe Putney before any reply was received by Mrs Trevelyan from her husband. This was on the Saturday morning, and Mrs Trevelyan had pledged herself to Mrs Stanbury that she would leave the Clock House on the Monday. Of course, there was no need that she should do so. Both Mrs Stanbury and Priscilla would now have willingly consented to their remaining till Sir Marmaduke should be in England. But Mrs Trevelyan’s high spirit revolted against this after all that had been said. She thought that she should hear from her husband on the morrow, but the post on Sunday brought no letter from Trevelyan. On the Saturday they had finished packing up so certain was Mrs Trevelyan that some instructions as to her future destiny would be sent to her by her lord.
At last they decided on the Sunday that they would both go at once to St. Diddulph’s; or perhaps it would be more correct to say that this was the decision of the elder sister. Nora would willingly have yielded to Priscilla’s entreaties, and have remained. But Emily declared that she could not, and would not, stay in the house. She had a few pounds what would suffice for her journey; and as Mr Trevelyan had not thought proper to send his orders to her, she would go without them. Mrs Outhouse was her aunt, and her nearest relative in England. Upon whom else could she lean in this time of her great affliction? A letter, therefore, was written to Mrs Outhouse, saying that the whole party, including the boy and nurse, would be at St. Diddulph’s on the Monday evening, and the last cord was put to the boxes.
‘I suppose that he is very angry,’ Mrs Trevelyan said to her sister, ‘but I do not feel that I care about that now. He shall have nothing to complain of in reference to any gaiety on my part. I will see no one. I will have no correspondence. But I will not remain here, after what he has said to me, let him be ever so angry. I declare, as I think of it, it seems to me that no woman was ever so cruelly treated as I have been.’ Then she wrote one further line to her husband.
‘Not having received any orders from you, and having promised Mrs Stanbury that I would leave this house on Monday, I go with Nora to my aunt, Mrs Outhouse, tomorrow.
E. T.’
On the Sunday evening the four ladies drank tea together, and they all made an effort to be civil, and even affectionate, to each other. Mrs Trevelyan had at last allowed Priscilla to explain how it had come to pass that she had told her brother that it would be better both for her mother and for herself that the existing arrangements should be brought to an end, and there had come to be an agreement between them that they should all part in amity. But the conversation on the Sunday evening was very difficult.
‘I am sure we shall always think of you both with the greatest kindness,’ said Mrs Stanbury.
‘As for me,’ said Priscilla, ‘your being with us has been a delight that I cannot describe, only it has been wrong.’
‘I know too well,’ said Mrs Trevelyan, ‘that in our present circumstances we are unable to carry delight with us anywhere.’
‘You hardly understand what our life has been,’ said Priscilla; ‘but the truth is that we had no right to receive you in such a house as this. It has not been our way of living, and it cannot continue to be so. It is not wonderful that people should talk of us. Had it been called your house, it might have been better.’
‘And what will you do now?’ asked Nora.
‘Get out of this place as soon as we can. It is often hard to go back to the right path; but it may always be done or at least attempted.’
‘It seems to me that I take misery with me wherever I go,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.
‘My dear, it has not been your fault,’ said Mrs Stanbury.
‘I do not like to blame my brother,’ said Priscilla, ‘because he has done his best to be good to us all and the punishment will fall heaviest upon him, because he must pay for it.’
‘He should not be allowed to pay a shilling,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.
Then the morning came, and at seven o’clock the two sisters, with the nurse and child, started for Lessboro’ Station in Mrs Crocket’s open carriage, the luggage having been sent on in a cart. There were many tears shed, and any one looking at the party would have thought that very dear friends were being torn asunder.
‘Mother,’ said Priscilla, as soon as the parlour door was shut, and the two were alone together, ‘we must take care that we never are brought again into such a mistake as that. They who protect the injured should be strong themselves.’
It was true that most ill-natured things had been said at Lessboro’ and at Nuncombe Putney about Mrs Stanbury and the visitors at the Clock House, and that these ill-natured things had spread themselves to Exeter. Mrs Ellison of Lessboro’, who was not the most good-natured woman in the world, had told Mrs Merton of Nuncombe that she had been told that the Colonel’s visit to the lady had been made by express arrangement between the Colonel and Mrs Stanbury. Mrs Merton, who was very good-natured, but not the wisest woman in the world, had declared that any such conduct on the part of Mrs Stanbury was quite impossible ‘What does it matter which it is Priscilla or her mother?’ Mrs Ellison had said. ‘These are the facts. Mrs Trevelyan has been sent there to be out of the way of this Colonel; and the Colonel immediately comes down and sees her at the Clock House. But when people are very poor they do get driven to do almost anything.’
Mrs Merton, not being very wise, had conceived it to be her duty to repeat this to Priscilla; and Mrs Ellison, not being very good-natured, had conceived it to be hers to repeat it to Mrs MacHugh at Exeter. And then Bozzle’s coming had become known.
‘Yes, Mrs MacHugh, a policeman in mufti down at Nuncombe! I wonder what our friend in the Close here will think about it! I have always said, you know, that if she wanted to keep things straight at Nuncombe, she should have opened her purse-strings.’
From all which it may be understood, that Priscilla Stanbury’s desire to go back to their old way of living had not been without reason.
It may be imagined that Miss Stanbury of the Close did not receive with equanimity the reports which reached her. And, of course, when she discussed the matter either with Martha or with Dorothy, she fell back upon her own early appreciation of the folly of the Clock House arrangement. Nevertheless, she had called Mrs Ellison very bad names, when she learned from her friend Mrs MacHugh what reports were being spread by the lady from Lessboro’.
‘Mrs Ellison! Yes; we all know Mrs Ellison. The bitterest tongue in Devonshire, and the falsest! There are some people at Lessboro’ who would be well pleased if she paid her way there as well as those poor women do at Nuncombe. I don’t think much of what Mrs Ellison says.’
‘But it is bad about the policeman,’ said Mrs MacHugh.
‘Of course it’s bad. It’s all bad. I’m not saying that it’s not bad. I’m glad I’ve got this other young woman out of it. It’s all that young man’s doing. If I had a son of my own, I’d sooner follow him to the grave than hear him call himself a Radical.’
Then, on a sudden, there came to the Close news that Mrs Trevelyan and her sister were gone. On the very Monday on which they went, Priscilla sent a note on to her sister, in which no special allusion was made to Aunt Stanbury, but which was no doubt written with the intention that the news should be communicated.
‘Gone; are they? As it is past wishing that they hadn’t come, it’s the best thing they could do now. And who is to pay the rent of the house, now they have gone?’ As this was a point on which Dorothy was not prepared to trouble herself at present, she made no answer to the question.
Dorothy at this time was in a state of very great perturbation on her own account. The reader may perhaps remember that she had been much startled by a proposition that had been made to her in reference to her future life. Her aunt had suggested to her that she should become Mrs Gibson. She had not as yet given any answer to that proposition, and had indeed found it to be quite impossible to speak about it at all. But there can be no doubt that the suggestion had opened out to her altogether new views of life. Up to the moment of her aunt’s speech to her, the idea of her becoming a married woman had never presented itself to her. In her humility it had not occurred to her that she should be counted as one among the candidates for matrimony. Priscilla had taught her to regard herself — indeed, they had both regarded themselves — as born to eat and drink, as little as might be, and then to die. Now, when she was told that she could, if she pleased, become Mrs Gibson, she was almost lost in a whirl of new and confused ideas. Since her aunt had spoken, Mr Gibson himself had dropped a hint or two which seemed to her to indicate that he also must be in the secret. There had been a party, with a supper, at Mrs Crumbie’s, at which both the Miss Frenches had been present. But Mr Gibson had taken her, Dorothy Stanbury, out to supper, leaving both Camilla and Arabella behind him in the drawing-room! During the quarter of an hour afterwards in which the ladies were alone while the gentlemen were eating and drinking, both Camilla and Arabella continued to wreak their vengeance. They asked questions about Mrs Trevelyan, and suggested that Mr Gibson might be sent over to put things right. But Miss Stanbury had heard them, and had fallen upon them with a heavy hand.
‘There’s a good deal expected of Mr Gibson, my dears,’ she said, ‘which it seems to me Mr Gibson is not inclined to perform.’
‘It is quite indifferent to us what Mr Gibson may be inclined to perform,’ said Arabella. ‘I’m sure we shan’t interfere with Miss Dorothy.’
As this was said quite out loud before all the other ladies, Dorothy was overcome with shame. But her aunt comforted her when they were again at home.
‘Laws, my dear; what does it matter? When you’re Mrs Gibson, you’ll be proud of it all.’
Was it then really written in the book of the Fates that she, Dorothy Stanbury, was to become Mrs Gibson? Poor Dorothy began to feel that she was called upon to exercise an amount of thought and personal decision to which she had not been accustomed. Hitherto, in the things which she had done, or left undone, she had received instructions which she could obey. Had her mother and Priscilla told her positively not to go to her aunt’s house, she would have remained at Nuncombe without complaint. Had her aunt since her coming given her orders as to her mode of life — enjoined, for instance, additional church attendances, or desired her to perform menial services in the house — she would have obeyed, from custom, without a word. But when she was told that she was to marry Mr Gibson, it did seem to her to be necessary to do something more than obey. Did she love Mr Gibson? She tried hard to teach herself to think that she might learn to love him. He was a nice-looking man enough, with sandy hair, and a head rather bald, with thin lips, and a narrow nose, who certainly did preach drawling sermons; but of whom everybody said that he was a very excellent clergyman. He had a house and an income, and all Exeter had long since decided that he was a man who would certainly marry. He was one of those men of whom it may be said that they have no possible claim to remain unmarried. He was fair game, and unless he surrendered himself to be bagged before long, would subject himself to just and loud complaint. The Miss Frenches had been aware of this, and had thought to make sure of him among them. It was a little hard upon them that the old maid of the Close, as they always called Miss Stanbury, should interfere with them when their booty was almost won. And they felt it to be the harder because Dorothy Stanbury was, as they thought, so poor a creature. That Dorothy herself should have any doubt as to accepting Mr Gibson, was an idea that never occurred to them. But Dorothy had her doubts. When she came to think of it, she remembered that she had never as yet spoken a word to Mr Gibson, beyond such little trifling remarks as are made over a tea-table. She might learn to love him, but she did not think that she loved him as yet.
‘I don’t suppose all this will make any difference to Mr Gibson,’ said Miss Stanbury to her niece, on the morning after the receipt of Priscilla’s note stating that the Trevelyans had left Nuncombe.
Dorothy always blushed when Mr Gibson’s name was mentioned, and she blushed now. But she did not at all understand her aunt’s allusion. ‘I don’t know what you mean, aunt,’ she said.
‘Well, you know, my dear, what they say about Mrs Trevelyan and the Clock House is not very nice. If Mr Gibson were to turn round and say that the connection wasn’t pleasant, no one would have a right to complain.’
The faint customary blush on Dorothy’s cheeks which Mr Gibson’s name had produced now covered her whole face even up to the roots of her hair. ‘If he believes bad of mamma, I’m sure, Aunt Stanbury, I don’t want to see him again.’
‘That’s all very fine, my dear, but a man has to think of himself, you know.’
‘Of course he thinks of himself. Why shouldn’t he? I dare say he thinks of himself more than I do.’
‘Dorothy, don’t be a fool. A good husband isn’t to be caught every day.’
‘Aunt Stanbury, I don’t want to catch any man.’
‘Dorothy, don’t be a fool.’
‘I must say it. I don’t suppose Mr Gibson thinks of me the least in the world.’
‘Psha! I tell you he does.’
‘But as for mamma and Priscilla, I never could like anybody for a moment who would be ashamed of them.’
She was most anxious to declare that, as far as she knew herself and her own wishes at present, she entertained no partiality for Mr Gibson, no feeling which could become partiality even if Mr Gibson was to declare himself willing to accept her mother and her sister with herself. But she did not dare to say so. There was an instinct within her which made it almost impossible to her to express an objection to a suitor before the suitor had declared himself to be one. She could speak out as touching her mother and her sister but as to her own feelings she could express neither assent or dissent.
‘I should like to have it settled soon,’ said Miss Stanbury, in a melancholy voice. Even to this Dorothy could make no reply. What did soon mean? Perhaps in the course of a year or two. ‘If it could be arranged by the end of this week, it would be a great comfort to me.’ Dorothy almost fell off her chair, and was stricken altogether dumb. ‘I told you, I think, that Brooke Burgess is coming here?’
‘You said he was to come some day.’
‘He is to be here on Monday. I haven’t seen him for more than twelve years; and now he’s to be here next week! Dear, dear! When I think sometimes of all the hard words that have been spoken, and the harder thoughts that have been in people’s minds, I often regret that the money ever came to me at all. I could have done without it very well, very well.’
‘But all the unpleasantness is over now, aunt.’
‘I don’t know about that. Unpleasantness of that kind is apt to rankle long. But I wasn’t going to give up my rights. Nobody but a coward does that. They talked of going to law and trying the will, but they wouldn’t have got much by that. And then they abused me for two years. When they had done and got sick of it, I told them they should have it all back again as soon as I am dead. It won’t be long now. This Burgess is the elder nephew, and he shall have it all.’
‘Is not he grateful?’
‘No. Why should he be grateful? I don’t do it for special love of him. I don’t want his gratitude; nor anybody’s gratitude. Look at Hugh. I did love him.’
‘I am grateful, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘Are you, my dear? Then show it by being a good wife to Mr Gibson, and a happy wife. I want to get everything settled while Burgess is here. If he is to have it, why should I keep him out of it whilst I live? I wonder whether Mr Gibson would mind coming and living here, Dolly?’
The thing was coming so near to her that Dorothy began to feel that she must, in truth, make up her mind, and let her aunt know also how it had been made up. She was sensible enough to perceive that if she did not prepare herself for the occasion she would find herself hampered by an engagement simply because her aunt had presumed that it was out of the question that she should not acquiesce. She would drift into marriage with Mr Gibson against her will. Her greatest difficulty was the fact that her aunt clearly had no doubt on the subject. And as for herself, hitherto her feelings did not, on either side, go beyond doubts. Assuredly it would be a very good thing for her to become Mrs Gibson, if only she could create for herself some attachment for the man. At the present moment her aunt said nothing more about Mr Gibson, having her mind much occupied with the coming of Mr Brooke Burgess.
‘I remember him twenty years ago and more; as nice a boy as you would wish to see. His father was the fourth of the brothers. Dear, dear! Three of them are gone; and the only one remaining is old Barty, whom no one ever loved.’
The Burgesses had been great people in Exeter, having been both bankers and brewers there, but the light of the family had paled; and though Bartholomew Burgess, of whom Miss Stanbury declared that no one had ever loved him, still had a share in the bank, it was well understood in the city that the real wealth in the firm of Cropper and Burgess belonged to the Cropper family. Indeed the most considerable portion of the fortune that had been realised by old Mr Burgess had come into the possession of Miss Stanbury herself. Bartholomew Burgess had never forgiven his brother’s will, and between him and Jemima Stanbury the feud was irreconcileable. The next brother, Tom Burgess, had been a solicitor at Liverpool, and had done well there. But Miss Stanbury knew nothing of the Tom Burgesses as she called them. The fourth brother, Harry Burgess, had been a clergyman, and this Brooke Burgess, Junior, who was now coming to the Close, had been left with a widowed mother, the eldest of a large family. It need not now be told at length how there had been ill-blood also between this clergyman and the heiress. There had been attempts at friendship, and at one time Miss Stanbury had received the Rev. Harry Burgess and all his family at the Close but the attempts had not been successful; and though our old friend had never wavered in her determination to leave the money all back to some one of the Burgess family, and with this view had made a pilgrimage to London some twelve years since, and had renewed her acquaintance with the widow and the children, still there had been no comfortable relations between her and any of the Burgess family. Old Barty Burgess, whom she met in the Close, or saw in the High Street every day of her life, was her great enemy. He had tried his best so at least she was convinced to drive her out of the pale of society, years upon years ago, by saying evil things of her. She had conquered in that combat. Her victory had been complete, and she had triumphed after a most signal fashion. But this triumph did not silence Barty’s tongue, nor soften his heart. When she prayed to be forgiven, as she herself forgave others, she always exempted Barty Burgess from her prayers. There are things which flesh and blood cannot do. She had not liked Harry Burgess’ widow, nor, for the matter of that, Harry Burgess himself. When she had last seen the children she had not liked any of them much, and had had her doubts even as to Brooke. But with that branch of the family she was willing to try again. Brooke was now coming to the Close, having received, however, an intimation, that if, during his visit to Exeter, he chose to see his Uncle Barty, any such intercourse must be kept quite in the background. While he remained in Miss Stanbury’s house he was to remain there as though there were no such person as Mr Bartholomew Burgess in Exeter.
At this time Brooke Burgess was a man just turned thirty, and was a clerk in the Ecclesiastical Record Office, in Somerset House. No doubt the peculiar nature and name of the public department to which he was attached had done something to recommend him to Miss Stanbury. Ecclesiastical records were things greatly to be reverenced in her eyes, and she felt that a gentleman who handled them and dealt with them would probably be sedate, gentlemanlike, and conservative. Brooke Burgess, when she had last seen him, was just about to enter upon the duties of the office. Then there had come offence, and she had in truth known nothing of him from that day to this. The visitor was to be at Exeter on the following Monday, and very much was done in preparation of his coming. There was to be a dinner party on that very day, and dinner parties were not common with Miss Stanbury. She had, however, explained to Martha that she intended to put her best foot forward. Martha understood perfectly that Mr Brooke Burgess was to be received as the heir of property. Sir Peter Mancrudy, the great Devonshire chemist, was coming to dinner, and Mr and Mrs Powel from Haldon, people of great distinction in that part of the county, Mrs MacHugh of course; and, equally of course, Mr Gibson. There was a deep discussion between Miss Stanbury and Martha as to asking two of the Cliffords, and Mr and Mrs Noel from Doddiscombeleigh. Martha had been very much in favour of having twelve. Miss Stanbury had declared that with twelve she must have two waiters from the greengrocers, and that two waiters would overpower her own domesticities below stairs. Martha had declared that she didn’t care about them any more than if they were puppy dogs. But Miss Stanbury had been quite firm against twelve. She had consented to have ten for the sake of artistic arrangement at the table; ‘They should be pantaloons and petticoats alternate, you know,’ she had said to Martha and had therefore asked the Cliffords. But the Cliffords could not come, and then she had declined to make any further attempt. Indeed, a new idea had struck her. Brooke Burgess, her guest, should sit at one end of the table, and Mr Gibson, the clergyman, at the other. In this way the proper alternation would be effected. When Martha heard this, Martha quite understood the extent of the good fortune that was in store for Dorothy. If Mr Gibson was to be welcomed in that way, it could only be in preparation of his becoming one of the family.
And Dorothy herself became aware that she must make up her mind. It was not so declared to her, but she came to understand that it was very probable that something would occur on the coming Monday which would require her to be ready with her answer on that day. And she was greatly tormented by feeling that if she could not bring herself to accept Mr Gibson should Mr Gibson propose to her, as to which she continued to tell herself that the chance of such a thing must be very remote indeed, but that if he should propose to her, and if she could not accept him, her aunt ought to know that it would be so before the moment came. But yet she could not bring herself to speak to her aunt as though any such proposition were possible.
It happened that during the week, on the Saturday, Priscilla came into Exeter. Dorothy met her sister at the railway station, and then the two walked together two miles and back along the Crediton Road. Aunt Stanbury had consented to Priscilla coming to the Close, even though it was not the day appointed for such visits; but the walk had been preferred, and Dorothy felt that she would be able to ask for counsel from the only human being to whom she could have brought herself to confide the fact that a gentleman was expected to ask her to marry him. But it was not till they had turned upon their walk, that she was able to open her mouth on the subject even to her sister. Priscilla had been very full of their own cares at Nuncombe, and had said much of her determination to leave the Clock House and to return to the retirement of some small cottage. She had already written to Hugh to this effect, and during their walk had said much of her own folly in having consented to so great a change in their mode of life. At last Dorothy struck in with her story.
‘Aunt Stanbury wants me to make a change too.’
‘What change?’ asked Priscilla anxiously.
‘It is not my idea, Priscilla, and I don’t think that there can be anything in it. Indeed, I’m sure there isn’t. I don’t see how it’s possible that there should be.’
‘But what is it, Dolly?’
‘I suppose there can’t be any harm in my telling you.’
‘If it’s anything concerning yourself, I should say not. If it concerns Aunt Stanbury, I dare say she’d rather you held your tongue.’
‘It concerns me most,’ said Dorothy.
‘She doesn’t want you to leave her, does she?’
‘Well; yes; no. By what she said last I shouldn’t leave her at all in that way. Only I’m sure it’s not possible.’
‘I am the worst hand in the world, Dolly, at guessing a riddle.’
‘You’ve heard of that Mr Gibson, the clergyman haven’t you?’
‘Of course I have.’
‘Well —. Mind, you know, it’s only what Aunt Stanbury says. He has never so much as opened his lips to me himself, except to say, “How do you do?” and that kind of thing.’
‘Aunt Stanbury wants you to marry him?’
‘Yes!’
‘Well?’
‘Of course it’s out of the question,’ said Dorothy, sadly.
‘I don’t see why it should be out of the question,’ said Priscilla, proudly. ‘Indeed, if Aunt Stanbury has said much about it, I should say that Mr Gibson himself must have spoken to her.’
‘Do you think he has?’
‘I do not believe that my aunt would raise false hopes,’ said Priscilla.
‘But I haven’t any hopes. That is to say, I had never thought about such a thing.’
‘But you think about it now, Dolly?’
‘I should never have dreamed about it, only for Aunt Stanbury.’
‘But, dearest, you are dreaming of it now, are you not?’
‘Only because she says that it is to be so. You don’t know how generous she is. She says that if it should be so, she will give me ever so much money two thousand pounds!’
‘Then I am quite sure that she and Mr Gibson must understand each other.’
‘Of course,’ said Dorothy, sadly, ‘if he were to think of such a thing at all, it would only be because the money would be convenient.’
‘Not at all,’ said Priscilla, sternly with a sternness that was very comfortable to her listener. ‘Not at all. Why should not Mr Gibson love you as well as any man ever loved any woman? You are nice-looking,’ Dorothy blushed beneath her hat even at her sister’s praise ‘and good-tempered, and lovable in every way. And I think you are just fitted to make a good wife. And you must not suppose, Dolly, that because Mr Gibson wouldn’t perhaps, have asked you without the money, that therefore he is mercenary. It so often happens that a gentleman can’t marry unless the lady has some money!’
‘But he hasn’t asked me at all.’
‘I suppose he will, dear.’
‘I only know what Aunt Stanbury says.’
‘You may be sure that he will ask you.’
‘And what must I say, Priscilla?’
‘What must you say? Nobody can tell you that, dear, but yourself. Do you like him?’
‘I don’t dislike him.’
‘Is that all?’
‘I know him so very little, Priscilla. Everybody says he is very good and then it’s a great thing, isn’t it, that he should be a clergyman?’
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘I think it is. If it were possible that I should ever marry any one, I should like a clergyman so much the best.’
‘Then you do know what to say to him.’
‘No, I don’t, Priscilla. I don’t know at all.’
‘Look here, dearest. What my aunt offers to you is a very great step in life. If you can accept this gentleman I think you would be happy and I think, also, which should be of more importance for your consideration, that you would make him happy. It is a brighter prospect, dear Dolly, than to live either with us at Nuncombe, or even with Aunt Stanbury as her niece.’
‘But if I don’t love him, Priscilla?’
‘Then give it up, and be as you are, my own, own, dearest sister.’
‘So I will,’ said Dorothy, and at that time her mind was made up.
The hour at which Mr Brooke Burgess was to arrive had come round, and Miss Stanbury was in a twitter, partly of expectation, and partly, it must be confessed, of fear. Why there should be any fear she did not herself know, as she had much to give and nothing to expect. But she was afraid, and was conscious of it, and was out of temper because she was ashamed of herself. Although it would be necessary that she should again dress for dinner at six, she had put on a clean cap at four, and appeared at that early hour in one of her gowns which was not customarily in use for home purposes at that early hour. She felt that she was ‘an old fool’ for her pains, and was consequently cross to poor Dorothy. And there were other reasons for some display of harshness to her niece. Mr Gibson had been at the house that very morning, and Dorothy had given herself airs. At least, so Miss Stanbury thought. And during the last three or four days, whenever Mr Gibson’s name had been mentioned, Dorothy had become silent, glum, and almost obstructive. Miss Stanbury had been at the trouble of explaining that she was specially anxious to have that little matter of the engagement settled at once. She knew that she was going to behave with great generosity, that she was going to sacrifice, not her money only, of which she did not think much, but a considerable portion of her authority, of which she did think a great deal; and that she was about to behave in a manner which demanded much gratitude. But it seemed to her that Dorothy was not in the least grateful. Hugh had proved himself to be ‘a mass of ingratitude,’ as she was in the habit of saying. None of the Burgesses had ever shewn to her any gratitude for promises made to them, or, indeed, for any substantial favours conferred upon them. And now Dorothy, to whom a very seventh heaven of happiness had been opened — a seventh heaven, as it must be computed in comparison with her low expectations — now Dorothy was already shewing how thankless she could become. Mr Gibson had not yet declared his passion, but he had freely admitted to Miss Stanbury that he was prepared to do so. Priscilla had been quite right in her suggestion that there was a clear understanding between the clergyman and her aunt.
‘I don’t think he is come after all,’ said Miss Stanbury, looking at her watch. Had the train arrived at the moment that it was due, had the expectant visitor jumped out of the railway carriage into a fly, and had the driver galloped up to the Close, it might have been possible that the wheels should have been at the door as Miss Stanbury spoke.
‘It’s hardly time yet, aunt.’
‘Nonsense; it is time. The train comes in at four. I dare say he won’t come at all.’
‘He is sure to come, aunt.’
‘I’ve no doubt you know all about it better than any one else. You usually do.’ Then five minutes were passed in silence. ‘Heaven and earth! what shall I do with these people that are coming? And I told them especially that it was to meet this young man! It’s the way I am always treated by everybody that I have about me.’
‘The train might be ten minutes late, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘Yes and monkeys might chew tobacco. There, there’s the omnibus at the Cock and Bottle; the omnibus up from the train. Now, of course, he won’t come.’
‘Perhaps he’s walking, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘Walking with his luggage on his shoulders? Is that your idea of the way in which a London gentleman goes about? And there are two flies coming up from the train, of course.’ Miss Stanbury was obliged to fix the side of her chair very close to the window in order that she might see that part of the Close in which the vehicles of which she had spoken were able to pass.
‘Perhaps they are not coming from the train, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘Perhaps a fiddlestick! You have lived here so much longer than I have done that, of course, you must know all about it.’ Then there was an interval of another ten minutes, and even Dorothy was beginning to think that Mr Burgess was not coming. ‘I’ve given him up now,’ said Miss Stanbury. ‘I think I’ll send and put them all off.’ Just at that moment there came a knock at the door. But there was no cab. Dorothy’s conjecture had been right. The London gentleman had walked, and his portmanteau had been carried behind him by a boy. ‘How did he get here?’ exclaimed Miss Stanbury, as she heard the strange voice speaking to Martha downstairs. But Dorothy knew better than to answer the question.
‘Miss Stanbury, I am very glad to see you,’ said Mr Brooke Burgess, as he entered the room. Miss Stanbury courtesied, and then took him by both hands. ‘You wouldn’t have known me, I dare say,’ he continued. ‘A black beard and a bald head do make a difference.’
‘You are not bald at all,’ said Miss Stanbury.
‘I am beginning to be thin enough at the top. I am so glad to come to you, and so much obliged to you for having me! How well I remember the old room!’
‘This is my niece, Miss Dorothy Stanbury, from Nuncombe Putney.’ Dorothy was about to make some formal acknowledgment of the introduction, when Brooke Burgess came up to her, and shook her hand heartily. ‘She lives with me,’ continued the aunt.
‘And what has become of Hugh?’ said Brooke.
‘We never talk of him,’ said Miss Stanbury gravely.
‘I hope there’s nothing wrong? I hear of him very often in London.’
‘My aunt and he don’t agree that’s all,’ said Dorothy.
‘He has given up his profession as a barrister in which he might have lived like a gentleman,’ said Miss Stanbury, ‘and has taken to writing for a penny newspaper.’
‘Everybody does that now, Miss Stanbury.’
‘I hope you don’t, Mr Burgess.’
‘I! Nobody would print anything that I wrote. I don’t write for anything, certainly.’
‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ said Miss Stanbury.
Brooke Burgess, or Mr Brooke, as he came to be called very shortly by the servants in the house, was a good-looking man, with black whiskers and black hair, which, as he said, was beginning to be thin on the top of his head, and pleasant small bright eyes. Dorothy thought that next to her brother Hugh he was the most good-natured looking man she had ever seen. He was rather below the middle height, and somewhat inclined to be stout. But he would boast that he could still walk his twelve miles in three hours, and would add that as long as he could do that he would never recognise the necessity of putting himself on short commons. He had a well-cut nose, not quite aquiline, but tending that way, a chin with a dimple on it, and as sweet a mouth as ever declared the excellence of a man’s temper. Dorothy immediately began to compare him with her brother Hugh, who was to her, of all men, the most godlike. It never occurred to her to make any comparison between Mr Gibson and Mr Burgess. Her brother Hugh was the most godlike of men; but there was something godlike also about the new corner. Mr Gibson, to Dorothy’s eyes, was by no means divine;
‘I used to call you Aunt Stanbury,’ said Brooke Burgess to the old lady; ‘am I to go on doing it now?’
‘You may call me what you like,’ said Miss Stanbury. ‘Only dear me I never did see anybody so much altered.’ Before she went up to dress herself for dinner, Miss Stanbury was quite restored to her good humour, as Dorothy could perceive.
The dinner passed off well enough. Mr Gibson, at the head of the table, did, indeed, look very much out of his element, as though he conceived that his position revealed to the outer world those ideas of his in regard to Dorothy, which ought to have been secret for a while longer. There are few men who do not feel ashamed of being paraded before the world as acknowledged suitors, whereas ladies accept the position with something almost of triumph. The lady perhaps regards herself as the successful angler, whereas the gentleman is conscious of some similitude to the unsuccessful fish. Mr Gibson, though he was not yet gasping in the basket, had some presentiment of this feeling, which made his present seat of honour unpleasant to him. Brooke Burgess, at the other end of the table, was as gay as a lark. Mrs MacHugh sat on one side of him, and Miss Stanbury on the other, and he laughed at the two old ladies, reminding them of his former doings in Exeter, how he had hunted Mrs MacHugh’s cat, and had stolen Aunt Stanbury’s best apricot jam, till everybody began to perceive that he was quite a success. Even Sir Peter Mancrudy laughed at his jokes, and Mrs Powel, from the other side of Sir Peter, stretched her head forward so that she might become one of the gay party.
‘There isn’t a word of it true,’ said Miss Stanbury. ‘It’s all pure invention, and a great scandal. I never did such a thing in my life.’
‘Didn’t you though?’ said Brooke Burgess. ‘I remember it as well as if it was yesterday, and old Dr. Ball, the prebendary, with the carbuncles on his nose, saw it too!’
‘Dr. Ball had no carbuncles on his nose,’ said Mrs MacHugh. ‘You’ll say next that I have carbuncles on my nose.’
‘He had three. I remember each of them quite well, and so does Sir Peter.’
Then everybody laughed; and Martha, who was in the room, knew that Brooke Burgess was a complete success.
In the meantime Mr Gibson was talking to Dorothy; but Dorothy was endeavouring to listen to the conversation at the other end of the table. ‘I found it very dirty on the roads today outside the city,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘Very dirty,’ said Dorothy, looking round at Mr Burgess, as she spoke.
‘But the pavement in the High Street was dry enough.’
‘Quite dry,’ said Dorothy. Then there came a peal of laughter from Mrs MacHugh and Sir Peter, and Dorothy wondered whether anybody before had ever made those two steady old people laugh after that fashion.
‘I should so like to get a drive with you up to the top of Haldon Hill,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘When the weather gets fine, that is. Mrs Powel was talking about it.’
‘It would be very nice,’ said Dorothy.
‘You have never seen the view from Haldon Hill yet?’ asked Mr Gibson. But to this question Dorothy could make no answer. Miss Stanbury had lifted one of the table-spoons, as though she was going to strike Mr Brooke Burgess with the bowl of it. And this during a dinner party! From that moment Dorothy turned herself round, and became one of the listeners to the fun at the other end of the table; Poor Mr Gibson soon found himself ‘nowhere.’
‘I never saw a man so much altered in my life,’ said Mrs MacHugh, up in the drawing-room.
‘I don’t remember that he used to be clever.’
‘He was a bright boy!’ said Miss Stanbury.
‘But the Burgesses all used to be such serious, straitlaced people,’ said Mrs MacHugh. ‘Excellent people,’ she added, remembering the source of her friend’s wealth; ‘but none of them like that.’
‘I call him a very handsome man,’ said Mrs Powel. ‘I suppose he’s not married yet?’
‘Oh, dear no,’ said Miss Stanbury. ‘There’s time enough for him yet.’
‘He’ll find plenty here to set their caps at him,’ said Mrs MacHugh.
‘He’s a little old for my girls,’ said Mrs Powel, laughing. Mrs Powel was the happy mother of four daughters, of whom the eldest was only twelve.
‘There are others who are more forward,’ said Mrs MacHugh. ‘What a chance it would be for dear Arabella French!’
‘Heaven forbid!’ said Miss Stanbury.
‘And then poor Mr Gibson wouldn’t any longer be like the donkey between two bundles of hay,’ said Mrs Powel. Dorothy was quite determined that she would never marry a man who was like a donkey between two bundles of hay.
When the gentlemen came up into the drawing-room Dorothy was seated behind the urn and tea-things at a large table, in such a position as to be approached only at one side. There was one chair at her left hand, but at her right hand there was no room for a seat, only room for some civil gentleman to take away full cups and bring them back empty. Dorothy was not sufficiently ready-witted to see the danger of this position till Mr Gibson had seated himself in the chair. Then it did seem cruel to her that she should be thus besieged for the rest of the evening as she had been also at dinner. While the tea was being consumed Mr Gibson assisted at the service, asking ladies whether they would have cake or bread and butter; but when all that was over Dorothy was still in her prison, and Mr Gibson was still the jailer at the gate. She soon perceived that everybody else was chatting and laughing, and that Brooke Burgess was the centre of a little circle which had formed itself quite at a distance from her seat. Once, twice, thrice she meditated an escape, but she had not the courage to make the attempt. She did not know how to manage it. She was conscious that her aunt’s eye was upon her, and that her aunt would expect her to listen to Mr Gibson. At last she gave up all hope of moving, and was anxious simply that Mr Gibson should confine himself to the dirt of the paths and the noble prospect from Haldon Hill.
‘I think we shall have more rain before we have done with it,’ he said. Twice before during the evening he had been very eloquent about the rain.
‘I dare say we shall,’ said Dorothy. And then there came the sound of loud laughter from Sir Peter, and Dorothy could see that he was poking Brooke Burgess in the ribs. There had never been anything so gay before since she had been in Exeter, and now she was hemmed up in that corner, away from it all, by Mr Gibson!
‘This Mr Burgess seems to be different from the other Burgesses,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘I think he must be very clever,’ said Dorothy.
‘Well yes; in a sort of a way. What people call a Merry Andrew.’
‘I like people who make me laugh and laugh themselves,’ said Dorothy.
‘I quite agree with you that laughter is a very good thing in its place. I am not at all one of those who would make the world altogether grave. There are serious things, and there must be serious moments.’
‘Of course,’ said Dorothy.
‘And I think that serious conversation upon the whole has more allurements than conversation which when you come to examine it is found to mean nothing. Don’t you?’
‘I suppose everybody should mean something when he talks.’
‘Just so. That is exactly my idea,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘On all such subjects as that I should be so sorry if you and I did not agree. I really should.’ Then he paused, and Dorothy was so confounded by what she conceived to be the dangers of the coming moment that she was unable even to think what she ought to say. She heard Mrs MacHugh’s clear, sharp, merry voice, and she heard her aunt’s tone of pretended anger, and she heard Sir Peter’s continued laughter, and Brooke Burgess as he continued the telling of some story; but her own trouble was too great to allow of her attending to what was going on at the other end of the room. ‘There is nothing as to which I am so anxious as that you and I should agree about serious things,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘I suppose we do agree about going to church,’ said Dorothy. She knew that she could have made no speech more stupid, more senseless, more inefficacious but what was she to say in answer to such an assurance?
‘I hope so,’ said Mr Gibson; ‘and I think so. Your aunt is a most excellent woman, and her opinion has very great weight with me on all subjects even as to matters of church discipline and doctrine, in which, as a clergyman, I am of course presumed to be more at home. But your aunt is a woman among a thousand.’
‘Of course I think she is very good.’
‘And she is so right about this young man and her property. Don’t you think so?’
‘Quite right, Mr Gibson.’
‘Because, you know, to you, of course, being her near relative, and the one she has singled out as the recipient of her kindness, it might have been cause for some discontent.’
‘Discontent to me, Mr Gibson!’
‘I am quite sure your feelings are what they ought to be. And for myself, if I ever were that is to say, supposing I could be in any way interested. But perhaps it is premature to make any suggestion on that head at present.’
‘I don’t at all understand what you mean, Mr Gibson.’
‘I thought that perhaps I might take this opportunity of expressing-. But, after all, the levity of the moment is hardly in accordance with the sentiments which I should wish to express.’
‘I think that I ought to go to my aunt now, Mr Gibson, as perhaps she might want something.’ Then she did push back her chair and stand upon her legs-and Mr Gibson, after pausing for a moment, allowed her to escape. Soon after that the visitors went, and Brooke Burgess was left in the drawing-room with Miss Stanbury and Dorothy.
‘How well I recollect all the people,’ said Brooke; ‘Sir Peter, and old Mrs MacHugh; and Mrs Powel who then used to be called the beautiful Miss Noel. And I remember every bit of furniture in the room.’
‘Nothing changed except the old woman, Brooke,’ said Miss Stanbury.
‘Upon my word you are the least changed of all except that you don’t seem to be so terrible as you were then.’
‘Was I very terrible, Brooke?’
‘My mother had told me, I fancy, that I was never to make a noise, and be sure not to break any of the china. You were always very good-natured, and when you gave me a silver watch I could hardly believe the extent of my own bliss.’
‘You wouldn’t care about a watch from an old woman now, Brooke?’
‘You try me. But what rakes you are here! It’s past eleven o’clock, and I must go and have a smoke.’
‘Have a what?’ said Miss Stanbury, with a startled air.
‘A smoke. You needn’t be frightened, I don’t mean in the house.’
‘No I hope you don’t mean that.’
‘But I may take a turn round the Close with a pipe mayn’t I?’
‘I suppose all young men do smoke now,’ said Miss Stanbury, sorrowfully.
‘Every one of them; and they tell me that the young women mean to take to it before long.’
‘If I saw a young woman smoking, I should blush for my sex; and though she were the nearest and dearest that I had, I would never speak to her never. Dorothy, I don’t think Mr Gibson smokes.’
‘I’m sure I don’t know, aunt.’
‘I hope he doesn’t. I do hope that he does not. I cannot understand what pleasure it is that men take in making chimneys of themselves, and going about smelling so that no one can bear to come near them.’
Brooke merely laughed at this, and went his way, and smoked his pipe out in the Close, while Martha sat up to let him in when he had finished it. Then Dorothy escaped at once to her room, fearful of being questioned by her aunt about Mr Gibson. She had, she thought now, quite made up her mind. There was nothing in Mr Gibson that she liked. She was by no means so sure as she had been when she was talking to her sister, that she would prefer a clergyman to any one else. She had formed no strong ideas on the subject of lovemaking, but she did think that any man who really cared for her would find some other way of expressing his love than that which Mr Gibson had adopted. And then Mr Gibson had spoken to her about her aunt’s money in a way that was distasteful to her. She thought that she was quite sure that if he should ask her, she would not accept him.
She was nearly undressed, nearly safe for the night, when there came a knock at the door, and her aunt entered the room. ‘He has come in,’ said Miss Stanbury.
‘I suppose he has had his pipe, then.’
‘I wish he didn’t smoke. I do wish he didn’t smoke. But I suppose an old woman like me is only making herself a fool to care about such things. If they all do it I can’t prevent them. He seems to be a very nice young man in other things; does he not, Dolly?’
‘Very nice indeed, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘And he has done very well in his office. And as for his saying that he must smoke, I like that a great deal better than doing it on the sly.’
‘I don’t think Mr Burgess would do anything on the sly, aunt.’
‘No, no; I don’t think he would. Dear me; he’s not at all like what I fancied.’
‘Everybody seemed to like him very much.’
‘Didn’t they. I never saw Sir Peter so much taken. And there was quite a flirtation between him and Mrs MacHugh. And now, my dear, tell me about Mr Gibson.’
‘There is nothing to tell, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘Isn’t there? From what I saw going on, I thought there would be something to tell. He was talking to you the whole evening.’
‘As it happened he was sitting next to me of course.’
‘Indeed he was sitting next to you so much so that I thought everything would be settled.’
‘If I tell you something, Aunt Stanbury, you mustn’t be angry with me.’
‘Tell me what? What is it you have to tell me?’
‘I don’t think I shall ever care for Mr Gibson not in that way.’
‘Why not, Dorothy?’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t care for me. And I don’t think he means it.’
‘I tell you he does mean it. Mean it! Why, I tell you it has all been settled between us. Since I first spoke to you I have explained to him exactly what I intend to do, He knows that he can give up his house and come and live here. I am sure he must have said something about it to you tonight.’
‘Not a word, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘Then he will.’
‘Dear aunt, I do so wish you would prevent it. I don’t like him. I don’t indeed.’
‘Not like him!’
‘No I don’t care for him a bit, and I never shall. I can’t help it, Aunt Stanbury. I thought I would try, but I find it would be impossible. You can’t want me to marry a man if I don’t love him.’
‘I never heard of such a thing in my life. Not love him! And why shouldn’t you love him? He’s a gentleman. Everybody respects him. He’ll have plenty to make you comfortable all your life! And then why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I didn’t know, Aunt Stanbury. I thought that perhaps —’
‘Perhaps what?’
‘I could not say all at once that I didn’t care for him, when I had never so much as thought about it for a moment before.’
‘You haven’t told him this?’
‘No, I have not told him. I couldn’t begin by telling him, you know.’
‘Then I must pray that you will think about it again. Have you imagined what a great thing for you it would be to be established for life so that you should never have any more trouble again about a home, or about money, or anything? Don’t answer me now, Dorothy, but think of it. It seemed to me that I was doing such an excellent thing for both of you.’ So saying Miss Stanbury left the room, and Dorothy was enabled to obey her, at any rate, in one matter. She did think of it. She laid awake thinking of it almost all the night. But the more she thought of it, the less able was she to realise to herself any future comfort or happiness in the idea of becoming Mrs Gibson.
The receipt of Mrs Trevelyan’s letter on that Monday morning was a great surprise both to Mr and Mrs Outhouse. There was no time for any consideration, no opportunity for delaying their arrival till they should have again referred the matter to Mr Trevelyan. Their two nieces were to be with them on that evening, and even the telegraph wires, if employed with such purpose, would not be quick enough to stop their coming. The party, as they knew, would have left Nuncombe Putney before the arrival of the letter at the parsonage of St. Diddulph’s. There would have been nothing in this to have caused vexation, had it not been decided between Trevelyan and Mr Outhouse that Mrs Trevelyan was not to find a home at the parsonage. Mr Outhouse was greatly afraid of being so entangled in the matter as to be driven to take the part of the wife against the husband; and Mrs Outhouse, though she was full of indignation against Trevelyan, was at the same time not free from anger in regard to her own niece. She more than once repeated that most unjust of all proverbs, which declares that there is never smoke without fire, and asserted broadly that she did not like to be with people who could not live at home, husbands with wives, and wives with husbands, in a decent, respectable manner. Nevertheless the preparations went on busily, and when the party arrived at seven o’clock in the evening, two rooms had been prepared close to each other, one for the two sisters, and the other for the child and nurse, although poor Mr Outhouse himself was turned out of his own little chamber in order that the accommodation might be given. They were all very hot, very tired, and very dusty, when the cab reached the parsonage. There had been the preliminary drive from Nuncombe Putney to Lessboro’. Then the railway journey from thence to the Waterloo Bridge Station had been long. And it had seemed to them that the distance from the station to St. Diddulph’s had been endless. When the cabman was told whither he was to go, he looked doubtingly at his poor old horse, and then at the luggage which he was required to pack on the top of his cab, and laid himself out for his work with a full understanding that it would not be accomplished without considerable difficulty. The cabman made it twelve miles from Waterloo Bridge to St. Diddulph’s, and suggested that extra passengers and parcels would make the fare up to ten and six. Had he named double as much Mrs Trevelyan would have assented. So great was the fatigue, and so wretched the occasion, that there was sobbing and crying in the cab, and when at last the parsonage was reached, even the nurse was hardly able to turn her hand to anything. The poor wanderers were made welcome on that evening without a word of discussion as to the cause of their coming. ‘I hope you are not angry with us, Uncle Oliphant,’ Emily Trevelyan had said, with tears in her eyes. ‘Angry with you, my dear for coming to our house! How could I be angry with you?’ Then the travellers were hurried upstairs by Mrs Outhouse, and the master of the parsonage was left alone for a while. He certainly was not angry, but he was ill at ease, and unhappy. His guests would probably remain with him for six or seven months. He had resolutely refused all payment from Mr Trevelyan, but, nevertheless, he was a poor man. It is impossible to conceive that a clergyman in such a parish as St. Diddulph’s, without a private income, should not be a poor man. It was but a hand-to-mouth existence which he lived, paying his way as his money came to him, and sharing the proceeds of his parish with the poor. He was always more or less in debt. That was quite understood among the tradesmen. And the butcher who trusted him, though he was a bad churchman, did not look upon the parson’s account as he did on other debts. He would often hint to Mr Outhouse that a little money ought to be paid, and then a little money would be paid. But it was never expected that the parsonage bill should be settled. In such a household the arrival of four guests, who were expected to remain for an almost indefinite number of months, could not be regarded without dismay. On that first evening, Emily and Nora did come down to tea, but they went up again to their rooms almost immediately afterwards; and Mr Outhouse found that many hours of solitary meditation were allowed to him on the occasion. ‘I suppose your brother has been told all about it,’ he said to his wife, as soon as they were together on that evening.
‘Yes he has been told. She did not write to her mother till after she had got to Nuncombe Putney. She did not like to speak about her troubles while there was a hope that things might be made smooth.’
‘You can’t blame her for that, my dear.’
‘But there was a month lost, or nearly. Letters go only once a month. And now they can’t hear from Marmaduke or Bessy,’ Lady Rowley’s name was Bessy ‘till the beginning of September.’
‘That will be in a fortnight.’
‘But what can my brother say to them? He will suppose that they are still down in Devonshire.’
‘You don’t think he will come at once?’
‘How can he, my dear? He can’t come without leave, and the expense would be ruinous. They would stop his pay, and there would be all manner of evils. He is to come in the spring, and they must stay here till he comes.’ The parson of St. Diddulph’s sighed and groaned. Would it not have been almost better that he should have put his pride in his pocket, and have consented to take Mr Trevelyan’s money?
On the second morning Hugh Stanbury called at the parsonage, and was closeted for a while with the parson. Nora had heard his voice in the passage, and every one in the house knew who it was that was talking to Mr Outhouse, in the little back parlour that was called a study. Nora was full of anxiety. Would he ask to see them to see her? And why was he there so long? ‘No doubt he has brought a message from Mr Trevelyan,’ said her sister. ‘I dare say he will send word that I ought not to have come to my uncle’s house.’ Then, at last, both Mr Outhouse and Hugh Stanbury came into the room in which they were all sitting. The greetings were cold and unsatisfactory, and Nora barely allowed Hugh to touch the tip of her fingers. She was very angry with him, and yet she knew that her anger was altogether unreasonable. That he had caused her to refuse a marriage that had so much to attract her was not his sin, not that; but that, having thus overpowered her by his influence, he should then have stopped. And yet Nora had told herself twenty times that it was quite impossible that she should become Hugh Stanbury’s wife and that, were Hugh Stanbury to ask her, it would become her to be indignant with him, for daring to make a proposition so outrageous. And now she was sick at heart, because he did not speak to her!
He had, of course, come to St. Diddulph’s with a message from Trevelyan, and his secret was soon told to them all. Trevelyan himself was upstairs in the sanded parlour of the Full Moon public-house, round the corner. Mrs Trevelyan, when she heard this, clasped her hands and bit her lips. What was he there for? If he wanted to see her, why did he not come boldly to the parsonage? But it soon appeared that he had no desire to see his wife. ‘I am to take Louey to him,’ said Hugh Stanbury, ‘if you will allow me.’
‘What to be taken away from me!’ exclaimed the mother. But Hugh assured her that no such idea had been formed; that he would have concerned himself in no such stratagem, and that he would himself undertake to bring the boy back again within an hour. Emily was, of course, anxious to be informed what other message was to be conveyed to her; but there was no other message — no message either of love or of instruction.
‘Mr Stanbury,’ said the parson, ‘has left me something in my hands for you.’ This ‘something’ was given over to her as soon as Stanbury had left the house, and consisted of cheques for various small sums, amounting in all to 200 pounds. ‘And he hasn’t said what I am to do with it?’ Emily asked of her uncle. Mr Outhouse declared that the cheques had been given to him without any instructions on that head. Mr Trevelyan had simply expressed his satisfaction that his wife should be with her uncle and aunt, had sent the money, and had desired to see the child.
The boy was got ready, and Hugh walked with him in his arms round the corner, to the Full Moon. He had to pass by the bar, and the barmaid and the potboy looked at him very hard. ‘There’s a young ‘ooman has to do with that ere little game,’ said the potboy ‘And it’s two to one the young ‘ooman has the worst of it,’ said the barmaid. ‘They mostly does,’ said the potboy, not without some feeling of pride in the immunities of his sex. ‘Here he is,’ said Hugh, as he entered the parlour. ‘My boy, there’s papa.’ The child at this time was more than a year old, and could crawl about and use his own legs with the assistance of a finger to his little hand, and could utter a sound which the fond mother interpreted to mean papa; for with all her hot anger against her husband, the mother was above all things anxious that her child should be taught to love his father’s name. She would talk of her separation from her husband as though it must be permanent; she would declare to her sister how impossible it was that they should ever again live together; she would repeat to herself over and over the tale of the injustice that had been done to her, assuring herself that it was out of the question that she should ever pardon the man; but yet, at the bottom of her heart, there was a hope that the quarrel should be healed before her boy would be old enough to understand the nature of quarrelling. Trevelyan took the child on to his knee, and kissed him; but the poor little fellow, startled by his transference from one male set of arms to another, confused by the strangeness of the room, and by the absence of things familiar to his sight, burst out into loud tears. He had stood the journey round the corner in Hugh’s arms manfully, and, though he had looked about him with very serious eyes, as he passed through the bar, he had borne that, and his carriage up the stairs; but when he was transferred to his father, whose air, as he took the boy, was melancholy and lugubrious in the extreme, the poor little fellow could endure no longer a mode of treatment so unusual, and, with a grimace which for a moment or two threatened the coming storm, burst out with an infantile howl. ‘That’s how he has been taught,’ said Trevelyan.
‘Nonsense,’ said Stanbury. ‘He’s not been taught at all. It’s Nature.’
‘Nature that he should be afraid of his own father! He did not cry when he was with you.’
‘No as it happened, he did not. I played with him when I was at Nuncombe; but, of course, one can’t tell when a child will cry, and when it won’t.’
‘My darling, my dearest, my own son!’ said Trevelyan, caressing the child, and trying to comfort him; but the poor little fellow only cried the louder. It was now nearly two months since he had seen his father, and, when age is counted by months only, almost everything may be forgotten in six weeks. ‘I suppose you must take him back again,’ said Trevelyan, sadly.
‘Of course, I must take him back again. Come along, Louey, my boy.’
‘It is cruel very cruel,’ said Trevelyan. ‘No man living could love his child better than I love mine or, for the matter of that, his wife. It is very cruel.’
‘The remedy is in your own hands, Trevelyan,’ said Stanbury, as he marched off with the boy in his arms.
Trevelyan had now become so accustomed to being told by everybody that he was wrong, and was at the same time so convinced that he was right, that he regarded the perversity of his friends as a part of the persecution to which he was subjected. Even Lady Milborough, who objected to Colonel Osborne quite as strongly as did Trevelyan himself, even she blamed him now, telling him that he had done wrong to separate himself from his wife. Mr Bideawhile, the old family lawyer, was of the same opinion. Trevelyan had spoken to Mr Bideawhile as to the expediency of making some lasting arrangement for a permanent maintenance for his wife; but the attorney had told him that nothing of the kind could be held to be lasting. It was clearly the husband’s duty to look forward to a reconciliation, and Mr Bideawhile became quite severe in the tone of rebuke which he assumed. Stanbury treated him almost as though he were a madman. And as for his wife herself when she wrote to him she would not even pretend to express any feeling of affection. And yet, as he thought, no man had ever done more for a wife. When Stanbury had gone with the child, he sat waiting for him in the parlour of the public-house, as miserable a man as one could find.
He had promised himself something that should be akin to pleasure in seeing his boy but it had been all disappointment and pain. What was it that they expected him to do? What was it that they desired? His wife had behaved with such indiscretion as almost to have compromised his honour; and in return for that he was to beg her pardon, confess himself to have done wrong, and allow her to return in triumph! That was the light in which he regarded his own position; but he promised to himself that let his own misery be what it might he would never so degrade him. The only person who had been true to him was Bozzle. Let them all look to it. If there were any further intercourse between his wife and Colonel Osborne, he would take the matter into open court, and put her away publicly, let Mr Bideawhile say what he might. Bozzle should see to that and as to himself, he would take himself out of England and hide himself abroad. Bozzle should know his address, but he would give it to no one else. Nothing on earth should make him yield to a woman who had ill-treated him nothing but confession and promise of amendment on her part. If she would acknowledge and promise, then he would forgive all, and the events of the last four months should never again be mentioned by him. So resolving he sat and waited till Stanbury should return to him.
When Stanbury got back to the parsonage with the boy he had nothing to do but to take his leave. He would fain have asked permission to come again, could he have invented any reason for doing so. But the child was taken from him at once by its mother, and he was left alone with Mr Outhouse. Nora Rowley did not even show herself, and he hardly knew how to express sympathy and friendship for the guests at the parsonage, without seeming to be untrue to his friend Trevelyan. ‘I hope all this may come to an end soon,’ he said.
‘I hope it may, Mr Stanbury,’ said the clergyman; ‘but to tell you the truth, it seems to me that Mr Trevelyan is so unreasonable a man, so much like a madman indeed, that I hardly know how to look forward to any future happiness for my niece.’ This was spoken with the utmost severity that Mr Outhouse could assume.
‘And yet no man loves his wife more tenderly.’
‘Tender love should show itself by tender conduct, Mr Stanbury. What has he done to his wife? He has blackened her name among all his friends and hers, he has turned her out of his house, he has reviled her and then thinks to prove how good he is by sending her money. The only possible excuse is that he must be mad.’
Stanbury went back to the Full Moon, and retraced his steps with his friend towards Lincoln’s Inn. Two minutes took him from the parsonage to the public-house, but during these two minutes he resolved that he would speak his mind roundly to Trevelyan as they returned home. Trevelyan should either take his wife back again at once, or else he, Stanbury, would have no more to do with him. He said nothing till they had threaded together the maze of streets which led them from the neighbourhood of the Church of St. Diddulph’s into the straight way of the Commercial Road. Then he began. ‘Trevelyan,’ said he, ‘you are wrong in all this from beginning to end.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Just what I say. If there was anything in what your wife did to offend you, a soft word from you would have put it all right.’
‘A soft word! How do you know what soft words I used?’
‘A soft word now would do it. You have only to bid her come back to you, and let bygones be bygones, and all would be right. Can’t you be man enough to remember that you are a man?’
‘Stanbury, I believe you want to quarrel with me.’
‘I tell you fairly that I think that you are wrong.’
‘They have talked you over to their side.’
‘I know nothing about sides. I only know that you are wrong.’
‘And what would you have me do?’
‘Go and travel together for six months.’ Here was Lady Milborough’s receipt again! ‘Travel together for a year if you will. Then come back and live where you please. People will have forgotten it or if they remember it, what matters? No sane person can advise you to go on as you are doing now.’
But it was of no avail. Before they had reached the Bank the two friends had quarrelled and had parted.
Then Trevelyan felt that there was indeed no one left to him but Bozzle. On the following morning he saw Bozzle, and on the evening of the next day he was in Paris.
Trevelyan was gone, and Bozzle alone knew his address. During the first fortnight of her residence at St. Diddulph’s Mrs Trevelyan received two letters from Lady Milborough, in both of which she was recommended, indeed tenderly implored, to be submissive to her husband. ‘Anything,’ said Lady Milborough, ‘is better than separation.’ In answer to the second letter Mrs Trevelyan told the old lady that she had no means by which she could shew any submission to her husband, even if she were so minded. Her husband had gone away, she did not know whither, and she had no means by which she could communicate with him. And then came a packet to her from her father and mother, despatched from the islands after the receipt by Lady Rowley of the melancholy tidings of the journey to Nuncombe Putney. Both Sir Marmaduke and Lady Rowley were full of anger against Trevelyan, and wrote as though the husband could certainly be brought back to a sense of his duty, if they only were present. This packet had been at Nuncombe Putney, and contained a sealed note from Sir Marmaduke addressed to Mr Trevelyan. Lady Rowley explained that it was impossible that they should get to England earlier than in the spring. ‘I would come myself at once and leave papa to follow,’ said Lady Rowley, ‘only for the children. If I were to bring them, I must take a house for them, and the expense would ruin us. Papa has written to Mr Trevelyan in a way that he thinks will bring him to reason.’
But how was this letter, by which the husband was to be brought to reason, to be put into the husband’s hands? Mrs Trevelyan applied to Mr Bideawhile and to Lady Milborough, and to Stanbury, for Trevelyan’s address; but was told by each of them that nothing was known of his whereabouts. She did not apply to Mr Bozzle, although Mr Bozzle was more than once in her neighbourhood; but as yet she knew nothing of Mr Bozzle. The replies from Mr Bideawhile and from Lady Milborough came by the post; but Hugh Stanbury thought that duty required him to make another journey to St. Diddulph’s and carry his own answer with him.
And on this occasion Fortune was either very kind to him or very unkind. Whichever it was, he found himself alone for a few seconds in the parsonage parlour with Nora Rowley. Mr Outhouse was away at the time. Emily had gone upstairs for the boy; and Mrs Outhouse, suspecting nothing, had followed her. ‘Miss Rowley,’ said he, getting up from his seat, ‘if you think it will do any good I will follow Trevelyan till I find him.’
‘How can you find him? Besides, why should you give up your own business?’
‘I would do anything to serve your sister.’ This he said with hesitation in his voice, as though he did not dare to speak all that he desired to have spoken.
‘I am sure that Emily is very grateful,’ said Nora; ‘but she would not wish to give you such trouble as that.’
‘I would do anything for your sister,’ he repeated, ‘for your sake, Miss Rowley.’ This was the first time that he had ever spoken a word to her in such a strain, and it would be hardly too much to say that her heart was sick for some such expression. But now that it had come, though there was a sweetness about it that was delicious to her, she was absolutely silenced by it.
And she was at once not only silent, but stern, rigid, and apparently cold. Stanbury could not but feel as he looked at her that he had offended her. ‘Perhaps I ought not to say as much,’ said he; ‘but it is so.’
‘Mr Stanbury,’ said she, ‘that is nonsense. It is of my sister, not of me, that we are speaking.’
Then the door was opened and Emily came in with her child, followed by her aunt. There was no other opportunity, and perhaps it was well for Nora and for Hugh that there should have been no other. Enough had been said to give her comfort; and more might have led to his discomposure. As to that matter on which he was presumed to have come to St. Diddulph’s, he could do nothing. He did not know Trevelyan’s address, but did know that Trevelyan had abandoned the chambers in Lincoln’s Inn. And then he found himself compelled to confess that he had quarrelled with Trevelyan, and that they had parted in anger on the day of their joint visit to the East. ‘Everybody who knows him must quarrel with him,’ said Mrs Outhouse. Hugh when he took his leave was treated by them all as a friend who had been gained. Mrs Outhouse was gracious to him. Mrs Trevelyan whispered a word to him of her own trouble. ‘If I can hear anything of him, you may be sure that I will let you know,’ he said. Then it was Nora’s turn to bid him adieu. There was nothing to be said. No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference.
On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl; and as it was so, would it not be better, at any rate more manly, that he should tell her so honestly, than go on groping about with half-expressed words when he saw her, thinking of her and yet hardly daring to go near her, bidding himself to forget her although he knew that such forgetting was impossible, hankering after the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand, and something of the tenderness of returned affection and yet regarding her as a prize altogether out of his reach! Why should she be out of his reach? She had no money, and he had not a couple of hundred pounds in the world. But he was earning an income which would give them both shelter and clothes and bread and cheese.
What reader is there, male or female, of such stories as is this, who has not often discussed in his or her own mind the different sides of this question of love and marriage? On either side enough may be said by any arguer to convince at any rate himself. It must be wrong for a man, whose income is both insufficient and precarious also, not only to double his own cares and burdens, but to place the weight of that doubled burden on other shoulders besides his own, on shoulders that are tender and soft, and ill adapted to the carriage of any crushing weight. And then that doubled burden, that burden of two mouths to be fed, of two backs to be covered, of two minds to be satisfied, is so apt to double itself again and again The two so speedily become four, and six! And then there is the feeling that that kind of semi-poverty, which has in itself something of the pleasantness of independence, when it is borne by a man alone, entails the miseries of a draggle-tailed and querulous existence when it is imposed on a woman who has in her own home enjoyed the comforts of affluence. As a man thinks of all this, if he chooses to argue with himself on that side, there is enough in the argument to make him feel that not only as a wise man but as an honest man, he had better let the young lady alone. She is well as she is, and he sees around him so many who have tried the chances of marriage and who are not well! Look at Jones with his wan, worn wife and his five children, Jones who is not yet thirty, of whom he happens to know that the wretched man cannot look his doctor in the face, and that the doctor is as necessary to the man’s house as is the butcher! What heart can Jones have for his work with such a burden as this upon his shoulders? And so the thinker, who argues on that side, resolves that the young lady shall go her own way for him.
But the arguments on the other side are equally cogent, and so much more alluring! And they are used by the same man with reference to the same passion, and are intended by him to put himself right in his conduct in reference to the same dear girl. Only the former line of thoughts occurred to him on a Saturday, when he was ending his week rather gloomily, and this other way of thinking on the same subject has come upon him on a Monday, as he is beginning his week with renewed hope. Does this young girl of his heart love him? And if so, their affection for each other being thus reciprocal, is she not entitled to an expression of her opinion and her wishes on this difficult subject? And if she be willing to run the risk and to encounter the dangers, to do so on his behalf, because she is willing to share everything with him, is it becoming in him, a man, to fear what she does not fear? If she be not willing let her say so. If there be any speaking, he must speak first but she is entitled, as much as he is, to her own ideas respecting their great outlook into the affairs of the world. And then is it not manifestly God’s ordinance that a man should live together with a woman? How poor a creature does the man become who has shirked his duty in this respect, who has done nothing to keep the world going, who has been willing to ignore all affection so that he might avoid all burdens, and who has put into his own belly every good thing that has come to him, either by the earning of his own hands or from the bounty and industry of others! Of course there is a risk; but what excitement is there in anything in which there is none? So on the Tuesday he speaks his mind to the young lady, and tells her candidly that there will be potatoes for the two of them sufficient, as he hopes, of potatoes, but no more. As a matter of course the young lady replies that she for her part will be quite content to take the parings for her own eating. Then they rush deliciously into each others arms and the matter is settled. For, though the convictions arising from the former line of argument may be set aside as often as need be, those reached from the latter are generally conclusive. That such a settlement will always be better for the young gentleman and the young lady concerned than one founded on a sterner prudence is more than one may dare to say; but we do feel sure that that country will be most prosperous in which such leaps in the dark are made with the greatest freedom.
Our friend Hugh, as he sat smoking on the knife-board of the omnibus, determined that he would risk everything. If it were ordained that prudence should prevail, the prudence should be hers. Why should he take upon himself to have prudence enough for two, seeing that she was so very discreet in all her bearings? Then he remembered the touch of her hand, which he still felt upon his palm as he sat handling his pipe, and he told himself that after that he was bound to say a word more. And moreover he confessed to himself that he was compelled by a feeling that mastered him altogether. He could not get through an hour’s work without throwing down his pen and thinking of Nora Rowley. It was his destiny to love her and there was, to his mind, a mean, pettifogging secrecy, amounting almost to daily lying, in his thus loving her and not telling her that he loved her. It might well be that she should rebuke him; but he thought that he could bear that. It might well be that he had altogether mistaken that touch of her hand. After all it had been the slightest possible motion of no more than one finger. But he would at any rate know the truth. If she would tell him at once that she did not care for him, he thought that he could get over it; but life was not worth having while he lived in this shifty, dubious, and uncomfortable state. So he made up his mind that he would go to St. Diddulph’s with his heart in his hand.
In the mean time, Mr Bozzle had been twice to St. Diddulph’s and now he made a third journey there, two days after Stanbury’s visit. Trevelyan, who, in truth, hated the sight of the man, and who suffered agonies in his presence, had, nevertheless, taught himself to believe that he could not live without his assistance. That it should be so was a part of the cruelty of his lot. Who else was there that he could trust? His wife had renewed her intimacy with Colonel Osborne the moment that she had left him. Mrs Stanbury, who had been represented to him as the most correct of matrons, had at once been false to him and to her trust, in allowing Colonel Osborne to enter her house. Mr and Mrs Outhouse, with whom his wife had now located herself, not by his orders, were, of course, his enemies. His old friend, Hugh Stanbury, had gone over to the other side, and had quarrelled with him purposely, with malice prepense, because he would not submit himself to the caprices of the wife who had injured him. His own lawyer had refused to act for him; and his fast and oldest ally, the very person who had sounded in his ear the earliest warning note against that odious villain, whose daily work it was to destroy the peace of families, even Lady Milborough had turned against him! Because he would not follow the stupid prescription which she, with pig-headed obstinacy, persisted in giving, because he would not carry his wife off to Naples, she was ill-judging and inconsistent enough to tell him that he was wrong! Who was then left to him but Bozzle? Bozzle was very disagreeable. Bozzle said things, and made suggestions to him which were as bad as pins stuck into his flesh. But Bozzle was true to his employer, and could find out facts. Had it not been for Bozzle, he would have known nothing of the Colonel’s journey to Devonshire. Had it not been for Bozzle, he would never have heard of the correspondence; and, therefore, when he left London, he gave Bozzle a roving commission; and when he went to Paris, and from Paris onwards, over the Alps into Italy, he furnished Bozzle with his address. At this time, in the midst of all his misery, it never occurred to him to inquire of himself whether it might be possible that his old friends were right, and that he himself was wrong. From morning to night he sang to himself melancholy silent songs of inward wailing, as to the cruelty of his own lot in life and, in the mean time, he employed Bozzle to find out for him how far that cruelty was carried.
Mr Bozzle was, of course, convinced that the lady whom he was employed to watch was no better than she ought to be. That is the usual Bozzlian language for broken vows, secrecy, intrigue, dirt, and adultery. It was his business to obtain evidence of her guilt. There was no question to be solved as to her innocency. The Bozzlian mind would have regarded any such suggestion as the product of a green softness, the possession of which would have made him quite unfit for his profession. He was aware that ladies who are no better than they should be are often very clever, so clever, as to make it necessary that the Bozzles who shall at last confound them should be first-rate Bozzles, Bozzles quite at the top of their profession and, therefore, he went about his work with great industry and much caution. Colonel Osborne was at the present moment in Scotland. Bozzle was sure of that. He was quite in the north of Scotland. Bozzle had examined his map, and had found that Wick, which was the Colonel’s post-town, was very far north indeed. He had half a mind to run down to Wick, as he was possessed by a certain honest zeal, which made him long to do something hard and laborious; but his experience told him that it was very easy for the Colonel to come up to the neighbourhood of St. Diddulph’s, whereas the lady could not go down to Wick, unless she were to decide upon throwing herself into her lover’s arms, whereby Bozzle’s work would be brought to an end. He, therefore, confined his immediate operations to St. Diddulph’s.
He made acquaintance with one or two important persons in and about Mr Outhouse’s parsonage. He became very familiar with the postman. He arranged terms of intimacy, I am sorry to say, with the housemaid; and, on the third journey, he made an alliance with the potboy at the Full Moon. The potboy remembered well the fact of the child being brought to ‘our ’ouse,’ as he called the Full Moon; and he was enabled to say, that the same ‘gent as had brought the boy backards and forrards,’ had since that been at the parsonage. But Bozzle was quite quick enough to perceive that all this had nothing to do with the Colonel. He was led, indeed, to fear that his ‘governor,’ as he was in the habit of calling Trevelyan in his half-spoken soliloquies, that his governor was not as true to him as he was to his governor. What business had that meddling fellow Stanbury at St. Diddulph’s? for Trevelyan had not thought it necessary to tell his satellite that he had quarrelled with his friend. Bozzle was grieved in his mind when he learned that Stanbury’s interference was still to be dreaded; and wrote to his governor, rather severely, to that effect; but, when so writing, he was able to give no further information. Facts, in such cases, will not unravel themselves without much patience on the part of the investigators.
On the night after the dinner party in the Close, Dorothy was not the only person in the house who laid awake thinking of what had taken place. Miss Stanbury also was full of anxiety, and for hour after hour could not sleep as she remembered the fruitlessness of her efforts on behalf of her nephew and niece.
It had never occurred to her when she had first proposed to herself that Dorothy should become Mrs Gibson that Dorothy herself would have any objection to such a step in life. Her fear had been that Dorothy would have become over-radiant with triumph at the idea of having a husband, and going to that husband with a fortune of her own. That Mr Gibson might hesitate, she had thought very likely. It is thus, in general, that women regard the feelings, desires, and aspirations of other women. You will hardly ever meet an elderly lady who will not speak of her juniors as living in a state of breathless anxiety to catch husbands. And the elder lady will speak of the younger as though any kind of choice in such catching was quite disregarded. The man must be a gentleman or, at least, gentlemanlike and there must be bread. Let these things be given, and what girl won’t jump into what man’s arms? Female reader, is it not thus that the elders of your sex speak of the younger? When old Mrs Stanbury heard that Nora Rowley had refused Mr Glascock, the thing was to her unintelligible; and it was now quite unintelligible to Miss Stanbury that Dorothy should prefer a single life to matrimony with Mr Gibson.
It must be acknowledged, on Aunt Stanbury’s behalf, that Dorothy was one of those yielding, hesitating, submissive young women, trusting others but doubting ever of themselves, as to whom it is natural that their stronger friends should find it expedient to decide for them. Miss Stanbury was almost justified in thinking that unless she were to find a husband for her niece, her niece would never find one for herself. Dorothy would drift into being an old maid, like Priscilla, simply because she would never assert herself, never put her best foot foremost. Aunt Stanbury had therefore taken upon herself to put out a foot; and having carefully found that Mr Gibson was ‘willing,’ had conceived that all difficulties were over. She would be enabled to do her duty by her niece, and establish comfortably in life, at any rate, one of her brother’s children. And now Dorothy was taking upon herself to say that she did not like the gentleman! Such conduct was almost equal to writing for a penny newspaper!
On the following morning, after breakfast, when Brooke Burgess was gone out to call upon his uncle, which he insisted upon doing openly, and not under the rose, in spite of Miss Stanbury’s great gravity on the occasion, there was a very serious conversation, and poor Dorothy had found herself to be almost silenced. She did argue for a time; but her arguments seemed, even to herself, to amount to so little! Why shouldn’t she love Mr Gibson? That was a question which she found it impossible to answer. And though she did not actually yield, though she did not say that she would accept the man, still, when she was told that three days were to be allowed to her for consideration, and that then the offer would be made to her in form, she felt that, as regarded the anti-Gibson interest, she had not a leg to stand upon. Why should not such an insignificant creature, as was she, love Mr Gibson or any other man, who had bread to give her, and was in some degree like a gentleman? On that night, she wrote the following letter to her sister:
‘The Close, Tuesday
DEAREST PRISCILLA,
I do so wish that you could be with me, so that I could talk to you again. Aunt Stanbury is the most affectionate and kindest friend in the world; but she has always been so able to have her own way, because she is both clever and good, that I find myself almost like a baby with her. She has been talking to me again about Mr Gibson; and it seems that Mr Gibson really does mean it. It is certainly very strange; but I do think now that it is true. He is to come on Friday. It seems very odd that it should all be settled for him in that way; but then Aunt Stanbury is so clever at settling things!
He sat next to me almost all the evening yesterday but he didn’t say anything about it, except that he hoped I agreed with him about going to church, and all that. I suppose I do; and I am quite sure that if I were to be a clergyman’s wife, I should endeavour to do whatever my husband thought right about religion. One ought to try to do so, even if the clergyman is not one’s husband. Mr Burgess has come, and he was so very amusing all the evening, that perhaps that was the reason Mr Gibson said so little. Mr Burgess is a very nice man, and I think Aunt Stanbury is more fond of him than of anybody. He is not at all the sort of person that I expected.
But if Mr Gibson does come on Friday, and do really mean it, what am I to say to him? Aunt Stanbury will be very angry if I do not take her advice. I am quite sure that she intends it all for my happiness; and then, of course, she knows so much more about the world than I do. She asks me what it is that I expect. Of course, I do not expect anything. It is a great compliment from Mr Gibson, who is a clergyman, and thought well of by everybody. And nothing could be more respectable. Aunt Stanbury says that with the money she would give us we should be quite comfortable; and she wants us to live in this house. She says that there are thirty girls round Exeter who would give their eyes for such a chance; and, looking at it in that light, of course, it is a very great thing for me. Only think how poor we have been! And then, dear Priscilla, perhaps he would let me be good to you and dear mamma!
But, of course, he will ask me whether I love him; and what am I to say? Aunt Stanbury says that I am to love him. “Begin to love him at once,” she said this morning. I would if I could, partly for her sake, and because I do feel that it would be so respectable. When I think of it, it does seem such a pity that poor I should throw away such a chance. And I must say that Mr Gibson is very good, and most obliging; and everybody says that he has an excellent temper, and that he is a most prudent, well-dispositioned man. I declare, dear Priscilla, when I think of it, I cannot bring myself to believe that such a man should want me to be his wife.
But what ought I to do? I suppose when a girl is in love she is very unhappy if the gentleman does not propose to her. I am sure it would not make me at all unhappy if I were told that Mr Gibson had changed his mind.
Dearest Priscilla, you must write at once; because he is to be here on Friday. Oh, dear; Friday does seem to be so near! And I shall never know what to say to him, either one way or the other.
Your most affectionate sister,
DOROTHY STANBURY.
P.S. Give my kindest love to mamma; but you need not tell her unless you think it best.’
Priscilla received this letter on the Wednesday morning, and felt herself bound to answer it on that same afternoon. Had she postponed her reply for a day, it would still have been in Dorothy’s hands before Mr Gibson could have come to her on the dreaded Friday morning. But still that would hardly give her time enough to consider the matter with any degree of deliberation after she should have been armed with what wisdom Priscilla might be able to send her. The post left Nuncombe Putney at three; and therefore the letter had to be written before their early dinner.
So Priscilla went into the garden and sat hers down under an old cedar that she might discuss the matter with herself in all its bearings. She felt that no woman could be called upon to write a letter that should be of more importance. The whole welfare in life of the person who was dearest to her would probably depend upon it. The weight upon her was so great that she thought for a while she would take counsel with her mother; but she felt sure that her mother would recommend the marriage; and that if she afterwards should find herself bound to oppose it, then her mother would be a miserable woman. There could be no use to her taking counsel with her mother, because her mother’s mind was known to her beforehand. The responsibility was thrown upon her, and she alone must bear it.
She tried hard to persuade herself to write at once and tell her sister to marry the man. She knew her sister’s heart so well as to be sure that Dorothy would learn to love the man who was her husband. It was almost impossible that Dorothy should not love those with whom she lived. And then her sister was so well adapted to be a wife and a mother. Her temper was so sweet, she was so pure, so unselfish, so devoted, and so healthy withal! She was so happy when she was acting for others; and so excellent in action when she had another one to think for her! She was so trusting and trustworthy that any husband would adore her! Then Priscilla walked slowly into the house, got her prayer-book, and returning to her seat under the tree, read the marriage service. It was one o’clock when she went upstairs to write her letter, and it had not yet struck eleven when she first seated herself beneath the tree. Her letter, when written, was as follows:
‘Nuncombe Putney, August 25, 186-.
DEAREST DOROTHY,
I got your letter this morning, and I think it is better to answer it at once, as the time is very short. I have been thinking about it with all my mind, and I feel almost awe-stricken lest I should advise you wrongly. After all, I believe that your own dear sweet truth and honesty would guide you better than anybody else can guide you. You may be sure of this, that whichever way it is, I shall think that you have done right. Dearest sister, I suppose there can be no doubt that for most women a married life is happier than a single one. It is always thought so, as we may see by the anxiety of others to get married; and when an opinion becomes general, I think that the world is most often right. And then, my own one, I feel sure that you are adapted both for the cares and for the joys of married life. You would do your duty as a married woman happily, and would be a comfort to your husband not a thorn in his side, as are so many women.
‘But, my pet, do not let that reasoning of Aunt Stanbury’s about the thirty young girls who would give their eyes for Mr Gibson, have any weight with you. You should not take him because thirty other young girls would be glad to have him. And do not think too much of that respectability of which you speak. I would never advise my Dolly to marry any man unless she could be respectable in her new position; but that alone should go for nothing. Nor should our poverty. We shall not starve. And even if we did, that would be but a poor excuse.
I can find no escape from this that you should love him before you say that you will take him. But honest, loyal love need not, I take it, be of that romantic kind which people write about in novels and poetry. You need not think him to be perfect, or the best or grandest of men. Your heart will tell you whether he is dear to you. And remember, Dolly, that I shall remember that love itself must begin at some precise time. Though you had not learned to love him when you wrote on Tuesday, you may have begun to do so when you get this on Thursday.
If you find that you love him, then say that you will be his wife. If your heart revolts from such a declaration as being false if you cannot bring yourself to feel that you prefer him to others as the partner of your life then tell him, with thanks for his courtesy, that it cannot be as he would have it.
Yours always and ever most affectionately,
PRISCILLA.’
‘I’ll bet you half-a-crown, my lad, you’re thrown over at last, like the rest of them. There’s nothing she likes so much as taking some one up in order that she may throw him over afterwards.’ It was thus that Mr Bartholomew Burgess cautioned his nephew Brooke.
‘I’ll take care that she shan’t break my heart, Uncle Barty. I will go my way and she may go hers, and she may give her money to the hospital if she pleases.’
On the morning after his arrival Brooke Burgess had declared aloud in Miss Stanbury’s parlour that he was going over to the bank to see his uncle. Now there was in this almost a breach of contract. Miss Stanbury, when she invited the young man to Exeter, had stipulated that there should be no intercourse between her house and the bank. ‘Of course, I shall not need to know where you go or where you don’t go,’ she had written; ‘but after all that has passed there must not be any positive intercourse between my house and the bank And now he had spoken of going over to C and B, as he called them, with the utmost indifference. Miss Stanbury had looked very grave, but had said nothing. She had determined to be on her guard, so that she should not be driven to quarrel with Brooke if she could avoid it.
Bartholomew Burgess was a tall, thin, ill-tempered old man, as well-known in Exeter as the cathedral, and respected after a fashion. No one liked him. He said ill-natured things of all his neighbours, and had never earned any reputation for doing good-natured acts. But he had lived in Exeter for nearly seventy years, and had achieved that sort of esteem which comes from long tenure. And he had committed no great iniquities in the course of his fifty years of business. The bank had never stopped payment, and he had robbed no one. He had not swallowed up widows and orphans, and had done his work in the firm of Cropper and Burgess after the old-fashioned safe manner, which leads neither to riches nor to ruin. Therefore he was respected. But he was a discontented, sour old man, who believed himself to have been injured by all his own friends, who disliked his own partners because they had bought that which had, at any rate, never belonged to him and whose strongest passion it was to hate Miss Stanbury of the Close.
‘She’s got a parson by the hand now,’ said the uncle, as he continued his caution to the nephew.
‘There was a clergyman there last night.’
‘No doubt, and she’ll play him off against you, and you against him; and then she’ll throw you both over. I know her.’
‘She has got a right to do what she likes with her own, Uncle Barty.’
‘And how did she get it? Never mind. I’m not going to set you against her, if you’re her favourite for the moment. She has a niece with her there hasn’t she?’
‘One of her brother’s daughters.’
‘They say she’s going to make that clergyman marry her.’
‘What, Mr Gibson?’
‘Yes. They tell me he was as good as engaged to another girl, one of the Frenches of Heavitree. And therefore dear Jemima could do nothing better than interfere. When she has succeeded in breaking the girl’s heart —’
‘Which girl’s heart, Uncle Barty?’
‘The girl the man was to have married; when that’s done she’ll throw Gibson over. You’ll see. She’ll refuse to give the girl a shilling. She took the girl’s brother by the hand ever so long, and then she threw him over. And she’ll throw the girl over too, and send her back to the place she came from. And then she’ll throw you over.’
‘According to you, she must be the most malicious old woman that ever was allowed to live!’
‘I don’t think there are many to beat her, as far as malice goes. But you’ll find out for yourself. I shouldn’t be surprised if she were to tell you before long that you were to marry the niece.’
‘I shouldn’t think that such very hard lines either,’ said Brooke Burgess.
‘I’ve no doubt you may have her if you like,’ said Barty, ‘in spite of Mr Gibson. Only I should recommend you to take care and get the money first.’
When Brooke went back to the house in the Close, Miss Stanbury was quite fussy in her silence. She would have given much to have been told something about Barty, and, above all, to have learned what Barty had said about herself. But she was far too proud even to mention the old man’s name of her own accord. She was quite sure that she had been abused. She guessed, probably with tolerable accuracy, the kind of things that had been said of her, and suggested to herself what answer Brooke would make to such accusations. But she had resolved to cloak it all in silence, and pretended for awhile not to remember the young man’s declared intention when he left the house. ‘It seems odd to me,’ said Brooke, ‘that Uncle Barty should always live alone as he does. He must have a dreary time of it.’
‘I don’t know anything about your Uncle Barty’s manner of living.’
‘No I suppose not. You and he are not friends.’
‘By no means, Brooke.’
‘He lives there all alone in that poky bank-house, and nobody ever goes near him. I wonder whether he has any friends in the city?’
‘I really cannot tell you anything about his friends. And, to tell you the truth, Brooke, I don’t want to talk about your uncle. Of course, you can go to see him when you please, but I’d rather you didn’t tell me of your visits afterwards.’
‘There is nothing in the world I hate so much as a secret,’ said he. He had no intention in this of animadverting upon Miss Stanbury’s secret enmity, nor had he purposed to ask any question as to her relations with the old man. He had alluded to his dislike of having secrets of his own. But she misunderstood him.
‘If you are anxious to know —’ she said, becoming very red in the face.
‘I am not at all curious to know. You quite mistake me.’
‘He has chosen to believe or to say that he believed that I wronged him in regard to his brother’s will. I nursed his brother when he was dying as I considered it to be my duty to do. I cannot tell you all that story. It is too long, and too sad. Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.’
‘I quite believe that.’
‘But your Uncle Barty chose to think indeed, I hardly know what he thought. He said that the will was a will of my making. When it was made I and his brother were apart; we were not even on speaking terms. There had been a quarrel, and all manner of folly. I am not very proud when I look back upon it. It is not that I think myself better than others; but your Uncle Brooke’s will was made before we had come together again. When he was ill it was natural that I should go to him after all that had passed between us. Eh, Brooke?’
‘It was womanly.’
‘But it made no difference about the will. Mr Bartholomew Burgess might have known that at once, and must have known it afterwards. But he has never acknowledged that he was wrong, never even yet.’
‘He could not bring himself to do that, I should say.’
‘The will was no great triumph to me. I could have done without it. As God is my judge, I would not have lifted up my little finger to get either a part or the whole of poor Brooke’s money. If I had known that a word would have done it, I would have bitten my tongue before it should have been spoken.’ She had risen from her seat, and was speaking with a solemnity that almost filled her listener with awe. She was a woman short of stature; but now, as she stood over him, she seemed to be tall and majestic. ‘But when the man was dead,’ she continued, ‘and the will was there the property was mine, and I was bound in duty to exercise the privileges and bear the responsibilities which the dead man had conferred upon me. It was Barty, then, who sent a low attorney to me, offering me a compromise. What had I to compromise? Compromise! No. If it was not mine by all the right the law could give, I would sooner have starved than have had a crust of bread out of the money.’ She had now clenched both her fists, and was shaking them rapidly as she stood over him, looking down upon him.
‘Of course it was your own.’
‘Yes. Though they asked me to compromise, and sent messages to me to frighten me, both Barty and your Uncle Tom; ay, and your father too, Brooke; they did not dare to go to law. To law, indeed! If ever there was a good will in the world, the will of your Uncle Brooke was good. They could talk, and malign me, and tell lies as to dates, and strive to make my name odious in the county; but they knew that the will was good. They did not succeed very well in what they did attempt.’
‘I would try to forget it all now, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘Forget it! How is that to be done? How can the mind forget the history of its own life? No I cannot forget it. I can forgive it.’
‘Then why not forgive it?’
‘I do. I have. Why else are you here?’
‘But forgive old Uncle Barty also!’
‘Has he forgiven me? Come now. If I wished to forgive him, how should I begin? Would he be gracious if I went to him? Does he love me, do you think or hate me? Uncle Barty is a good hater. It is the best point about him. No, Brooke, we won’t try the farce of a reconciliation after a long life of enmity. Nobody would believe us, and we should not believe each other.’
‘Then I certainly would not try.’
‘I do not mean to do so. The truth is, Brooke, you shall have it all when I’m gone, if you don’t turn against me. You won’t take to writing for penny newspapers, will you, Brooke?’ As she asked the question she put one of her hands softly on his shoulder.
‘I certainly shan’t offend in that way.’
‘And you won’t be a Radical?’
‘No, not a Radical.’
‘I mean a man to follow Beales and Bright, a republican, a putter-down of the Church, a hater of the Throne. You won’t take up that line, will you, Brooke?’
‘It isn’t my way at present, Aunt Stanbury. But a man shouldn’t promise.’
‘Ah me! It makes me sad when I think what the country is coming to. I’m told there are scores of members of Parliament who don’t pronounce their h’s. When I was young, a member of Parliament used to be a gentleman and they’ve taken to ordaining all manner of people. It used to be the case that when you met a clergyman you met a gentleman. By-the-bye, Brooke, what do you think of Mr Gibson?’
‘Mr Gibson! To tell the truth, I haven’t thought much about him yet.’
‘But you must think about him. Perhaps you haven’t thought about my niece, Dolly Stanbury?’
‘I think she’s an uncommonly nice girl.’
‘She’s not to be nice for you, young man. She’s to be married to Mr Gibson.’
‘Are they engaged?’
‘Well, no; but I intend that they shall be. You won’t begrudge that I should give my little savings to one of my own name?’
‘You don’t know me, Aunt Stanbury, if you think that I should begrudge anything that you might do with your money.’
‘Dolly has been here a month or two. I think it’s three months since she came, and I do like her. She’s soft and womanly, and hasn’t taken up those vile, filthy habits which almost all the girls have adopted. Have you seen those Frenches with the things they have on their heads?’
‘I was speaking to them yesterday.’
‘Nasty sluts! You can see the grease on their foreheads when they try to make their hair go back in the dirty French fashion. Dolly is not like that is she?’
‘She is not in the least like either of the Miss Frenches.’
‘And now I want her to become Mrs Gibson. He is quite taken.’
‘Is he?’
‘Oh dear, yes. Didn’t you see him the other night at dinner and afterwards? Of course he knows that I can give her a little bit of money, which always goes for something, Brooke. And I do think it would be such a nice thing for Dolly.’
‘And what does Dolly think about it?’
‘There’s the difficulty. She likes him well enough; I’m sure of that. And she has no stuck-up ideas about herself. She isn’t one of those who think that almost nothing is good enough for them. But —’
‘She has an objection.’
‘I don’t know what it is. I sometimes think she is so bashful and modest she doesn’t like to talk of being married even to an old woman like me.’
‘Dear me! That’s not the way of the age is it, Aunt Stanbury?’
‘It’s coming to that, Brooke, that the girls will ask the men soon. Yes and that they won’t take a refusal either. I do believe that Camilla French did ask Mr Gibson.’
‘And what did Mr Gibson say?’
‘Ah I can’t tell you that. He knows too well what he’s about to take her. He’s to come here on Friday at eleven, and you must be out of the way. I shall be out of the way too. But if Dolly says a word to you before that, mind you make her understand that she ought to accept Gibson.’
‘She’s too good for him, according to my thinking.’
‘Don’t you be a fool. How can any young woman be too good for a gentleman and a clergyman? Mr Gibson is a gentleman. Do you know, only you must not mention this, that I have a kind of idea we could get Nuncombe Putney for him. My father had the living, and my brother; and I should like it to go on in the family.’
No opportunity came in the way of Brooke Burgess to say anything in favour of Mr Gibson to Dorothy Stanbury. There did come to be very quickly a sort of intimacy between her and her aunt’s favourite; but she was one not prone to talk about her own affairs. And as to such an affair as this, a question as to whether she should or should not give herself in marriage to her suitor, she, who could not speak of it even to her own sister without a blush, who felt confused and almost confounded when receiving her aunt’s admonitions and instigations on the subject, would not have endured to hear Brooke Burgess speak on the matter. Dorothy did feel that a person easier to know than Brooke had never come in her way. She had already said as much to him as she had spoken to Mr Gibson in the three months that she had made his acquaintance. They had talked about Exeter, and about Mrs MacHugh, and the cathedral, and Tennyson’s poems, and the London theatres, and Uncle Barty, and the family quarrel. They had become quite confidential with each other on some matters. But on this heavy subject of Mr Gibson and his proposal of marriage not a word had been said. When Brooke once mentioned Mr Gibson on the Thursday morning, Dorothy within a minute had taken an opportunity of escaping from the room.
But circumstances did give him an opportunity of speaking to Mr Gibson. On the Wednesday afternoon both he and Mr Gibson were invited to drink tea at Mrs French’s house on that evening. Such invitations at Exeter were wont to be given at short dates, and both the gentlemen had said that they would go. Then Arabella French had called in the Close and had asked Miss Stanbury and Dorothy. It was well understood by Arabella that Miss Stanbury herself would not drink tea at Heavitree. And it may be that Dorothy’s company was not in truth desired. The ladies both declined. ‘Don’t you stay at home for me, my dear,’ Miss Stanbury said to her niece. But Dorothy had not been out without her aunt since she had been at Exeter, and understood perfectly that it would not be wise to commence the practice at the house of the Frenches. ‘Mr Brooke is coming, Miss Stanbury; and Mr Gibson,’ Miss French said. And Miss Stanbury had thought that there was some triumph in her tone. ‘Mr Brooke can go where he pleases, my dear,’ Miss Stanbury replied. ‘And as for Mr Gibson, I am not his keeper.’ The tone in which Miss Stanbury spoke would have implied great imprudence, had not the two ladies understood each other so thoroughly, and had not each known that it was so.
There was the accustomed set of people in Mrs French’s drawing-room, the Crumbies, and the Wrights, and the Apjohns. And Mrs MacHugh came also knowing that there would be a rubber. ‘Their naked shoulders don’t hurt me,’ Mrs MacHugh said, when her friend almost scolded her for going to the house. ‘I’m not a young man. I don’t care what they do to themselves.’ ‘You might say as much if they went naked altogether,’ Miss Stanbury had replied in anger. ‘If nobody else complained, I shouldn’t,’ said Mrs MacHugh. Mrs MacHugh got her rubber; and as she had gone for her rubber, on a distinct promise that there should be a rubber, and as there was a rubber, she felt that she had no right to say ill-natured things. ‘What does it matter to me,’ said Mrs MacHugh, ‘how nasty she is? She’s not going to be my wife.’ ‘Ugh!’ exclaimed Miss Stanbury, shaking her head both in anger and disgust.
Camilla French was by no means so bad as she was painted by Miss Stanbury, and Brooke Burgess rather liked her than otherwise. And it seemed to him that Mr Gibson did not at all dislike Arabella, and felt no repugnance at either the lady’s noddle or shoulders now that he was removed from Miss Stanbury’s influence. It was clear enough also that Arabella had not given up the attempt, although she must have admitted to herself that the claims of Dorothy Stanbury were very strong. On this evening it seemed to have been specially permitted to Arabella, who was the elder sister, to take into her own hands the management of the case. Beholders of the game had hitherto declared that Mr Gibson’s safety was secured by the constant coupling of the sisters. Neither would allow the other to hunt alone. But a common sense of the common danger had made some special strategy necessary, and Camilla hardly spoke a word to Mr Gibson during the evening. Let us hope that she found some temporary consolation in the presence of the stranger.
‘I hope you are going to stay with us ever so long, Mr Burgess?’ said Camilla.
‘A month. That is ever so long isn’t it? Why I mean to see all Devonshire within that time. I feel already that I know Exeter thoroughly and everybody in it.’
‘I’m sure we are very much flattered.’
‘As for you, Miss French, I’ve heard so much about you all my life, that I felt that I knew you before I came here.’
‘Who can have spoken to you about me?’
‘You forget how many relatives I have in the city. Do you think my Uncle Barty never writes to me?’
‘Not about me.’
‘Does he not? And do you suppose I don’t hear from Miss Stanbury?’
‘But she hates me. I know that.’
‘And do you hate her?’
‘No, indeed. I’ve the greatest respect for her. But she is a little odd; isn’t she, now, Mr Burgess? We all like her ever so much; and we’ve known her ever so long, six or seven years since we were quite young things. But she has such queer notions about girls.’
‘What sort of notions?’
‘She’d like them all to dress just like herself; and she thinks that they should never talk to young men. If she was here she’d say I was flirting with you, because we’re sitting together.’
‘But you are not; are you?’
‘Of course I am not.’
‘I wish you would,’ said Brooke.
‘I shouldn’t know how to begin. I shouldn’t, indeed. I don’t know what flirting means, and I don’t know who does know. When young ladies and gentlemen go out, I suppose they are intended to talk to each other.’
‘But very often they, don’t, you know.’
‘I call that stupid,’ said Camilla. ‘And yet, when they do, all the old maids say that the girls are flirting. I’ll tell you one thing, Mr Burgess. I don’t care what any old maid says about me. I always talk to people that I like, and if they choose to call me a flirt, they may. It’s my opinion that still waters run the deepest.’
‘No doubt the noisy streams are very shallow,’ said Brooke.
‘You may call me a shallow stream if you like, Mr Burgess.’
‘I meant nothing of the kind.’
‘But what do you call Dorothy Stanbury? That’s what I call still water. She runs deep enough.’
‘The quietest young lady I ever saw in my life.’
‘Exactly. So quiet, but so clever. What do you think of Mr Gibson?’
‘Everybody is asking me what I think of Mr Gibson.’
‘You know what they say. They say he is to marry Dorothy Stanbury. Poor man! I don’t think his own consent has ever been asked yet but, nevertheless, it’s settled.’
‘Just at present he seems to me to be what shall I say? I oughtn’t to say flirting with your sister; ought I?’
‘Miss Stanbury would say so if she were here, no doubt. But the fact is, Mr Burgess, we’ve known him almost since we were infants, and of course we take an interest in his welfare. There has never been anything more than that. Arabella is nothing more to him than I am. Once, indeed — but, however that does not signify. It would be nothing to us, if he really liked Dorothy Stanbury. But as far as we can see, and we do see a good deal of him, there is no such feeling on his part. Of course we haven’t asked. We should not think of such a thing. Mr Gibson may do just as he likes for us. But I am not quite sure that Dorothy Stanbury is just the girl that would make him a good wife. Of course when you’ve known a person seven or eight years you do get anxious about his happiness. Do you know, we think her perhaps a little sly.’
In the meantime, Mr Gibson was completely subject to the individual charms of Arabella. Camilla had been quite correct in a part of her description of their intimacy. She and her sister had known Mr Gibson for seven or eight years; but nevertheless the intimacy could not with truth be said to have commenced during the infancy of the young ladies, even if the word were used in its legal sense. Seven or eight years, however, is a long acquaintance; and there was, perhaps, something of a real grievance in this Stanbury intervention. If it be a recognised fact in society that young ladies are in want of husbands, and that an effort on their part towards matrimony is not altogether impossible, it must be recognised also that failure will be disagreeable, and interference regarded with animosity. Miss Stanbury the elder was undoubtedly interfering between Mr Gibson and the Frenches; and it is neither manly nor womanly to submit to interference with one’s dearest prospects. It may, perhaps, be admitted that the Miss Frenches had shown too much open ardour in their pursuit of Mr Gibson. Perhaps there should have been no ardour and no pursuit. It may be that the theory of womanhood is right which forbids to women any such attempts, which teaches them that they must ever be the pursued, never the pursuers. As to that there shall be no discourse at present. But it must be granted that whenever the pursuit has been attempted, it is not in human nature to abandon it without an effort. That the French girls should be very angry with Miss Stanbury, that they should put their heads together with the intention of thwarting her, that they should think evil things of poor Dorothy, that they should half despise Mr Gibson, and yet resolve to keep their hold upon him as a chattel and a thing of value that was almost their own, was not perhaps much to their discredit.
‘You are a good deal at the house in the Close now,’ said Arabella, in her lowest voice, in a voice so low that it was almost melancholy.
‘Well; yes. Miss Stanbury, you know, has always been a staunch friend of mine. And she takes an interest in my little church.’ People say that girls are sly; but men can be sly, too, sometimes.
‘It seems that she has taken you so much away from us, Mr Gibson.’
‘I don’t know why you should say that, Miss French.’
‘Perhaps I am wrong. One is apt to be sensitive about one’s friends. We seem to have known you so well. There is nobody else in Exeter that mamma regards as she does you. But, of course, if you are happy with Miss Stanbury that is everything.’
‘I am speaking of the old lady,’ said Mr Gibson, who, in spite of his slyness, was here thrown a little off his guard.
‘And I am speaking of the old lady too,’ said Arabella. ‘Of whom else should I be speaking?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Of course,’ continued Arabella, ‘I hear what people say about the niece. One cannot help what one hears, you know, Mr Gibson; but I don’t believe that, I can assure you.’ As she said this, she looked into his face, as though waiting for an answer; but Mr Gibson had no answer ready. Then Arabella told herself that if anything was to be done it must be done at once. What use was there in beating round the bush, when the only chance of getting the game was to be had by dashing at once into the thicket. ‘I own I should be glad,’ she said, turning her eyes away from him, ‘if I could hear from your own mouth that it is not true.’
Mr Gibson’s position was one not to be envied. Were he willing to tell the very secrets of his soul to Miss French with the utmost candour, he could not answer her question either one way or the other, and he was not willing to tell her any of his secrets. It was certainly the fact, too, that there had been tender passages between him and Arabella. Now, when there have been such passages, and the gentleman is cross-examined by the lady, as Mr Gibson was being cross-examined at the present moment, the gentleman usually teaches himself to think that a little falsehood is permissible. A gentleman can hardly tell a lady that he has become tired of her, and has changed his mind. He feels the matter, perhaps, more keenly even than she does; and though, at all other times he may be a very Paladin in the cause of truth, in such strait as this he does allow himself some latitude.
‘You are only joking, of course,’ he said.
‘Indeed, I am not joking. I can assure you, Mr Gibson, that the welfare of the friends whom I really love can never be a matter of joke to me. Mrs Crumbie says that you positively are engaged to marry Dorothy Stanbury.’
‘What does Mrs Crumbie know about it?’
‘I dare say nothing; It is not so is it?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘And there is nothing in it is there?’
‘I wonder why people make these reports,’ said Mr Gibson, prevaricating.
‘It is a fabrication from beginning to end, then?’ said Arabella, pressing the matter quite home. At this time she was very close to him, and though her words were severe, the glance from her eyes was soft. And the scent from her hair was not objectionable to him as it would have been to Miss Stanbury. And the mode of her head-dress was not displeasing to him. And the folds of her dress, as they fell across his knee, were welcome to his feelings. He knew that he was as one under temptation, but he was not strong enough to bid the tempter avaunt. ‘Say that it is so, Mr Gibson!’
‘Of course, it is not so,’ said Mr Gibson lying.
‘I am so glad. For, of course, Mr Gibson, when we heard it we thought a great deal about it. A man’s happiness depends so much on whom he marries doesn’t it? And a clergyman’s more than anybody else’s. And we didn’t think she was quite the sort of woman that you would like. You see, she has had no advantages, poor thing! She has been shut up in a little country cottage all her life, just a labourer’s hovel, no more, and though it wasn’t her fault, of course, and we all pitied her, and were so glad when Miss Stanbury brought her to the Close — still, you know, though one was very glad of her as an acquaintance, yet, you know, as a wife and for such a dear, dear friend.’ She went on, and said many other things with equal enthusiasm, and then wiped her eyes, and then smiled and laughed. After that she declared that she was quite happy, so happy; and so she left him. The poor man, after the falsehood had been extracted from him, said nothing more; but sat, in patience, listening to the raptures and enthusiasm of his friend. He knew that he had disgraced himself; and he knew also that his disgrace would be known, if Dorothy Stanbury should accept his offer on the morrow. And yet how hardly he had been used! What answer could he have given compatible both with the truth and with his own personal dignity?
About half an hour afterwards, he was walking back to Exeter with Brooke Burgess, and then Brooke did ask him a question or two.
‘Nice girls those Frenches, I think,’ said Brooke.
‘Very nice,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘How Miss Stanbury does hate them,’ says Brooke.
‘Not hate them, I hope,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘She doesn’t love them does she?’
‘Well, as for love, yes; in one sense I hope she does. Miss Stanbury, you know, is a woman who expresses herself strongly.’
‘What would she say, if she were told that you and I were going to marry those two girls? We are both favourites, you know.’
‘Dear me! What a very odd supposition,’ said Mr Gibson.
‘For my part, I don’t think I shall,’ said Brooke.
‘I don’t suppose I shall either,’ said Mr Gibson, with a gravity which was intended to convey some smattering of rebuke.
‘A fellow might do worse, you know,’ said Brooke. ‘For my part, I rather like girls with chignons, and all that sort of get-up. But the worst of it is, one can’t marry two at a time.’
‘That would be bigamy,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘Just so,’ said Brooke.
Punctually at eleven o’clock on the Friday morning Mr Gibson knocked at the door of the house in the Close. The reader must not imagine that he had ever wavered in his intention with regard to Dorothy Stanbury, because he had been driven into a corner by the pertinacious ingenuity of Miss French. He never for a moment thought of being false to Miss Stanbury, the elder. Falseness of that nature would have been ruinous to him, would have made him a marked man in the city all his days, and would probably have reached even to the bishop’s ears. He was neither bad enough, nor audacious enough, nor foolish enough, for such perjury as that. And, moreover, though the wiles of Arabella had been potent with him, he very much preferred Dorothy Stanbury. Seven years of flirtation with a young lady is more trying to the affection than any duration of matrimony. Arabella had managed to awaken something of the old glow, but Mr Gibson, as soon as he was alone, turned from her mentally in disgust. No! Whatever little trouble there might be in his way, it was clearly his duty to marry Dorothy Stanbury. She had the sweetest temper in the world, and blushed with the prettiest blush! She would have, moreover, two thousand pounds on the day she married, and there was no saying what other and greater pecuniary advantages might follow. His mind was quite made up; and during the whole morning he had been endeavouring to drive all disagreeable reminiscences of Miss French from his memory, and to arrange the words with which he would make his offer to Dorothy. He was aware that he need not be very particular about his words, as Dorothy, from the bashfulness of her nature, would be no judge of eloquence at such a time. But still, for his own sake, there should be some form of expression, some propriety of diction. Before eleven o’clock he had it all by heart, and had nearly freed himself from the uneasiness of his falsehood to Arabella. He had given much serious thought to the matter, and had quite resolved that he was right in his purpose, and that he could marry Dorothy with a pure conscience, and with a true promise of a husband’s love. ‘Dear Dolly!’ he said to himself, with something of enthusiasm as he walked across the Close. And he looked up to the house as he came to it. There was to be his future home. There was not one of the prebends who had a better house. And there was a dovelike softness about Dorothy’s eyes, and a winning obedience in her manner, that were charming. His lines had fallen to him in very pleasant places. Yes he would go up to her and take her at once by the hand, and ask her whether she would be his, now and for ever. He would not let go her hand, till he had brought her so close to him that she could hide her blushes on his shoulder. The whole thing had been so well conceived, had become so clear to his mind, that he felt no hesitation or embarrassment as he knocked at the door. Arabella French would, no doubt, hear of it soon. Well she must hear of it. After all she could do him no injury.
He was shewn up at once into the drawing-room, and there he found Miss Stanbury the elder.
‘Oh, Mr Gibson!’ she said at once.
‘Is anything the matter with dear Dorothy?’
‘She is the most obstinate, pig-headed young woman I ever came across since the world began.’
‘You don’t say so! But what is it, Miss Stanbury?’
‘What is it? Why just this. Nothing on earth that I can say to her will induce her to come down and speak to you.’
‘Have I offended her?’
‘Offended a fiddlestick! Offence indeed! An offer from an honest man, with her friends’ approval, and a fortune at her back as though she had been born with a gold spoon in her mouth! And she tells me that she can’t, and won’t, and wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, as though I were asking her to walk the streets. I declare I don’t know what has come to the young women or what it is they want. One would have thought that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.’
‘But what is the reason, Miss Stanbury?’
‘Oh, reason! You don’t suppose people give reasons in these days. What reason have they when they dress themselves up with bandboxes on their sconces? Just simply the old reason “I do not like thee, Dr. Fell; why I cannot tell.”’
‘May I not see her myself, Miss Stanbury?’
‘I can’t make her come downstairs to you. I’ve been at her the whole morning, Mr Gibson, ever since daylight pretty nearly. She came into my room before I was up and told me she’d made up her mind. I’ve coaxed, and scolded, and threatened, and cried but if she’d been a milestone it couldn’t have been of less use. I told her she might go back to Nuncombe, and she just went off to pack up.’
‘But she’s not to go?’
‘How can I say what such a young woman will do? I’m never allowed a way of my own for a moment. There’s Brooke Burgess been scolding me at that rate I didn’t know whether I stood on my head or my heels. And I don’t know now.’
Then there was a pause, while Mr Gibson was endeavouring to decide what would now be his best course of action. ‘Don’t you think she’ll ever come round, Miss Stanbury?’
‘I don’t think she’ll ever come any way that anybody wants her to come, Mr Gibson.’
‘I didn’t think she was at all like that,’ said Mr Gibson, almost in tears.
‘No nor anybody else. I have been seeing it come all the same. It’s just the Stanbury perversity. If I’d wanted to keep her by herself, to take care of me, and had set my back up at her if she spoke to a man, and made her understand that she wasn’t to think of getting married, she’d have been making eyes at every man that came into the house. It’s just what one gets for going out of one’s way. I did think she’d be so happy, Mr Gibson, living here as your wife. She and I between us could have managed for you so nicely.’
Mr Gibson was silent for a minute or two, during which he walked up and down the room contemplating, no doubt, the picture of married life which Miss Stanbury had painted for him, a picture which, as it seemed, was not to be realised. ‘And what had I better do, Miss Stanbury?’ he asked at last.
‘Do! I don’t know what you’re to do. I’m groom enough to bring a mare to water, but I can’t make her drink.’
‘Will waiting be any good?’
‘How can I say? I’ll tell you one thing not to do. Don’t go and philander with those girls at Heavitree. It’s my belief that Dorothy has been thinking of them. People talk to her, of course.’
‘I wish people would hold their tongues. People are so indiscreet. People don’t know how much harm they may do.’
‘You’ve given them some excuse, you know, Mr Gibson.’
This was very ill-natured, and was felt by Mr Gibson to be so rude, that he almost turned upon his patroness in anger. He had known Dolly for not more than three months, and had devoted himself to her, to the great anger of his older friends. He had come this morning true to his appointment, expecting that others would keep their promises to him, as he was ready to keep those which he had made, and now he was told that it was his fault! ‘I do think that’s rather hard, Miss Stanbury,’ he said.
‘So you have,’ said she ‘nasty, slatternly girls, without an idea inside their noddles. But it’s no use your scolding me.’
‘I didn’t mean to scold, Miss Stanbury.’
‘I’ve done all that I could.’
‘And you think she won’t see me for a minute?’
‘She says she won’t. I can’t bid Martha carry her down.’
‘Then, perhaps, I had better leave you for the present,’ said Mr Gibson, after another pause. So he went, a melancholy, blighted man. Leaving the Close, he passed through into Southernhay, and walked across by the new streets towards the Heavitree road. He had no design in taking this route, but he went on till he came in sight of the house in which Mrs French lived. As he walked slowly by it, he looked up at the windows, and something of a feeling of romance came across his heart. Were his young affections buried there, or were they not? And, if so, with which of those fair girls were they buried? For the last two years, up to last night, Camilla had certainly been in the ascendant. But Arabella was a sweet young woman; and there had been a time when those tender passages were going on in which he had thought that no young woman ever was so sweet. A period of romance, an era of enthusiasm, a short-lived, delicious holiday of hot-tongued insanity had been permitted to him in his youth but all that was now over. And yet here he was, with three strings to his bow, so he told himself, and he had not as yet settled for himself the great business of matrimony. He was inclined to think, as he walked on, that he would walk his life alone, an active, useful, but a melancholy man. After such experiences as his, how should he ever again speak of his heart to a woman? During this walk, his mind recurred frequently to Dorothy Stanbury; and, doubtless, he thought that he had often spoken of his heart to her. He was back at his lodgings before three, at which hour he ate an early dinner, and then took the afternoon cathedral service at four. The evening he spent at home, thinking of the romance of his early days. What would Miss Stanbury have said, had she seen him in his easy chair behind the ‘Exeter Argus,’ with a pipe in his mouth?
In the meantime, there was an uncomfortable scene in progress between Dorothy and her aunt. Brooke Burgess, as desired, had left the house before eleven, having taken upon himself, when consulted, to say in the mildest terms, that he thought that, in general, young women should not be asked to marry if they did not like to, which opinion had been so galling to Miss Stanbury that she had declared that he had so scolded her, that she did not know whether she was standing on her head or her heels. As soon as Mr Gibson left her, she sat herself down, and fairly cried. She had ardently desired this thing, and had allowed herself to think of her desire as of one that would certainly be accomplished. Dorothy would have been so happy as the wife of a clergyman! Miss Stanbury’s standard for men and women was not high. She did not expect others to be as self sacrificing, as charitable, and as good as herself. It was not that she gave to herself credit for such virtues; but she thought of herself as one who, from the peculiar circumstances of life, was bound to do much for others. There was no end to her doing good for others if only the others would allow themselves to be governed by her. She did not think that Mr Gibson was a great divine; but she perceived that he was a clergyman, living decently — of that secret pipe Miss Stanbury knew nothing — doing his duty punctually, and, as she thought, very much in want of a wife. Then there was her niece, Dolly soft, pretty, feminine, without a shilling, and much in want of some one to comfort and take care of her. What could be better than such a marriage! And the overthrow to the girls with the big chignons would be so complete! She had set her mind upon it, and now Dorothy said that it couldn’t, and it wouldn’t, and it shouldn’t be accomplished! She was to be thrown over by this chit of a girl, as she had been thrown over by the girl’s brother! And, when she complained, the girl simply offered to go away!
At about twelve Dorothy came creeping down into the room in which her aunt was sitting, and pretended to occupy herself on some piece of work. For a considerable time, for three minutes perhaps, Miss Stanbury did not speak. She resolved that she would not speak to her niece again at least, not for that day. She would let the ungrateful girl know how miserable she had been made. But at the close of the three minutes her patience was exhausted. ‘What are you doing there?’ she said.
‘I am quilting your cap, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘Put it down. You shan’t do anything for me. I won’t have you touch my things any more. I don’t like pretended service.’
‘It is not pretended, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘I say it is pretended. Why did you pretend to me that you would have him when you had made up your mind against it all the time?’
‘But I hadn’t made up my mind.’
‘If you had so much doubt about it, you might have done what I wanted you.’
‘I couldn’t, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘You mean you wouldn’t. I wonder what it is you do expect.’
‘I don’t expect anything, Aunt Stanbury.’
‘No; and I don’t expect anything. What an old fool I am ever to look for any comfort. Why should I think that anybody would care for me?’
‘Indeed, I do care for you.’
‘In what sort of way do you show it? You’re just like your brother Hugh. I’ve disgraced myself to that man promising what I could not perform. I declare it makes me sick when I think of it. Why did you not tell me at once?’ Dorothy said nothing further, but sat with the cap on her lap. She did not dare to resume her needle, and she did not like to put the cap aside, as by doing so it would seem as though she had accepted her aunt’s prohibition against her work. For half an hour she sat thus, during which time Miss Stanbury dropped asleep. She woke with a start, and began to scold again. ‘What’s the good of sitting there all the day, with your hands before you, doing nothing?’
But Dorothy had been very busy. She had been making up her mind, and had determined to communicate her resolution to her aunt. ‘Dear aunt,’ she said, ‘I’ve been thinking of something.’
‘It’s too late now,’ said Miss Stanbury.
‘I see I’ve made you very unhappy.’
‘Of course you have.’
‘And you think that I’m ungrateful. I’m not ungrateful, and I don’t think that Hugh is.’
‘Never mind Hugh.’
‘Only because it seems so hard that you should take so much trouble about us, and that then there should be so much vexation.’
‘I find it very hard.’
‘So I think that I’d better go back to Nuncombe.’
‘That’s what you call gratitude.’
‘I don’t like to stay here and make you unhappy. I can’t think that I ought to have done what you asked me, because I did not feel at all in that way about Mr Gibson. But as I have only disappointed you, it will be better that I should go home. I have been very happy here very.’
‘Bother!’ exclaimed Miss Stanbury.
‘I have, and I do love you, though you won’t believe it. But I am sure I oughtn’t to remain to make you unhappy. I shall never forget all that you have done for me; and though you call me ungrateful, I am not. But I know that I ought not to stay, as I cannot do what you wish. So, if you please, I will go back to Nuncombe.’
‘You’ll not do anything of the kind,’ said Miss Stanbury.
‘But it will be better.’
‘Yes, of course; no doubt. I suppose you’re tired of us all.’
‘It is not that I’m tired, Aunt Stanbury. It isn’t that at all.’ Dorothy had now become red up to the roots of her hair, and her eyes were full of tears. ‘But I cannot stay where people think that I am ungrateful. If you please, Aunt Stanbury, I will go.’ Then, of course, there was a compromise. Dorothy did at last consent to remain in the Close, but only on condition that she should be forgiven for her sin in reference to Mr Gibson, and be permitted to go on with her aunt’s cap.