A Country Gentleman and his Family

But the Sunday morning was the best. The Rev. Eustace took the duty by special request of the vicar in the chief church of Highcombe, and Dick went with the mother and daughter to a humble little old church standing a little out of the town, with its little inclosure round it full of those rural graves where one cannot help thinking the inmates must sleep sounder than anywhere else. Here, as it was very near, they were in the habit of attending, and Chatty, though she was not a great musician, played the organ, as so many young ladies in country places do. When the little green curtain that veiled the organ loft was drawn aside for a moment Dick had a glimpse of her, looking out her music before she began, with a chubby-faced boy who was to "blow" for her at her hand: and this foolish lover thought of Luca della Robbia's friezes, and the white vision of Florentine singers and players on the lute. The puffy-cheeked boy was just like one of those sturdy Tuscan urchins, but the maiden was of finer ware, like a madonna. So Dick thought: although Chatty had never called forth such fine imaginations before. They all walked home together very peacefully in a tender quiet, which lasted until the Eustace Thynnes came back with their remarks upon everybody. And in the afternoon Dick told Mrs. Warrender that he must go over and see Wilberforce at Underwood. There were various things he had to talk to Wilberforce about, and he would be back to dinner, which was late on Sunday to leave time for the evening church-going. Chatty had her Sunday-school, so it was as well for him to go. He set out walking, having first engaged the people at the Plough Inn to send a dog-cart to bring him back. It was a very quiet unexciting road, rather dusty, with here and there a break through the fields. His mind was full of a hundred things to think of; his business was not with Wilberforce, but with Lizzie Hampson, whom he must see, and ask – what was he to ask? He could scarcely make out to himself. But she was the sole custodian of this secret, and he must know how she could be silenced, or if it would be necessary to silence her, to keep her from interfering. The walk, though it was six long miles, was not long enough for him to decide what he should say. He went round the longest way, passing the Elms in order to see if the house was still empty, with a chill terror in his heart of seeing some trace of those inhabitants whose presence had been an insult to him. But all was shut up, cold and silent; he knew that they were gone, and yet it was a relief to him when he saw with his eyes that this was so. Then he paused and looked down the little path opening by a rustic gate into the wood, which led to the Warren. It was a footpath free to the villagers, and he saw one or two people at long intervals passing along, for the road led by the farther side of the pond and was a favourite Sunday walk. Dick thought he would like to see what changes Warrender had made and also the spot where he had seen Chatty if not for the first time, yet the first time with the vision which identified her among all women. He went along, lingering to note the trees that had been cut down and the improvements made, and his mind had so completely abandoned its former course of thought for another, that when Lizzie Hampson came out of the little wood, and met him, he started as if he had not known she was here. There was nobody else in sight, and he had time enough as she approached him to recover the former thread of his musings. She did not recognise him until they were close to each other: then she showed the same reluctance to speak to him which she had done before, and after a hasty glance round as if looking for a way of escape, cast down her eyes and head evidently with the intention of hurrying past as if she had not seen him. He saw through the momentary conflict of thought, and kept his eyes upon her. "I am glad that I have met you," he said; "I wanted to see you," standing in front of her so that she could not escape.

"But I don't want to see you, sir," Lizzie said, respectfully enough.

"That may be: but still – I have some questions to ask you. Will you come with me towards the house? We shall be less interrupted there."

"If I must, I'd rather hear you here, sir," said Lizzie. "I won't have the folks say that I talk with a gentleman in out-of-the-way places. It's better on the common road."

"As you please," said Dick. "You know what the subject is. I want to know – "

"What, sir? You said as I was to let you know when trouble came. Now no trouble's come, and there's no need, nor ever will be. She would never take help from you."

"Why? She has done me harm enough," he said.

"She never says anything different. She will never take help from you. She will never hear of you, nor you of her. Never, never. Consider her as if she were dead, sir – that's all her desire."

"I might have done that before I saw you. But now – "

"You don't mean," said Lizzie, with a sudden eager gleam of curiosity, "that you – that after all that's come and gone – ?" The look that passed over his face, a flush of indignation, a slight shudder of disgust, gave her the answer to her unspoken question. She drew herself together again, quickly, suddenly catching her breath. "I can't think," she said, "what questions there can be."

"There is this," he said: "I had almost forgotten her existence – till I saw you: but now that is not possible. Look here, I may have to try and get a divorce – you know what that means – out there, not here: and she must have warning. Will you let her know?"

The girl started a little, the word frightened her. "Oh, sir," she cried, "you wouldn't punish her, you wouldn't put her in prison or that? Oh, don't, sir. She would die – and you know she's not fit to die."

"You mistake," said Dick; "there is no question of punishment, only to be free of each other – as if indeed, as you say, she were dead to me."

"And so she is," cried Lizzie earnestly. "She never will have her name named to you, that's what she says, never if she should be ever so – She's given you your freedom as she's taken hers, and never, never shall you hear word of her more: that is what she says."

"Yet she is in England, for all she says."

"Did she ever pass you her word not to come to England? But I don't say as she's in England now. Oh, it was an ill wind, sir," cried Lizzie with vehemence, "that brought you here!"

"It may be so," Dick said, with a gravity that went beyond any conscious intention of regret he had. "There is but one thing now, and that is that I must be free. Let her know that I must take proceedings for divorce. I have no way of reaching her but through you."

"Sir, there is somebody coming," said Lizzie; "pass on as if you had been asking me the way. I'll let her know. I'll never open my lips to you more nor to any one, about her, but I'll do what you say. That's the way to the house," she added, turning, pointing out the path that led away from the side of the pond towards the Warren. He followed the indication without another word, and in a minute stood in the peaceful shadow of the deserted house. It came upon him chill, but wholesome, life reviving after the agitation of that brief encounter. Divorce – it was a bad word to breathe in such an honest place – a bad blasphemous word, worse than an oath. He had not meant to say it, nor thought of it before this meeting: but now he seemed to be pledged to this step involuntarily, unwillingly; was it by some good angel, something that was working in Chatty's interests and for her sweet sake?

CHAPTER XLI

Dick went back to town on the Monday, having taken no decisive step, nor said any decisive words. All that he had done was to make it apparent that the matter was not to end there, as had seemed likely when they parted in London. Chatty now saw that it was not to be so. The thing was not to drop into the mere blank of unfulfilledness, but was to be brought to her decision, to yea or nay. This conviction, and the company of Dick in a relation which could not but be new, since it was no longer accidental, but of the utmost gravity in her life, gave a new turn altogether to her existence. The change in her was too subtle for the general eye. Even Minnie, sharp as she was, could make nothing more of it than that Chatty was "more alive looking," a conclusion which, like most things nowadays, she declared to come from Eustace. Mrs. Warrender entered with more sympathy into her daughter's life, veiled not so much by intention as by instinctive modesty and reserve from her as from all others: but even she did not know what was in Chatty's mind, the slow rising of an intense light which illuminated her as the sun lights up a fertile plain, – the low land drinking in every ray, unconscious of shadow, – making few dramatic effects, but receiving the radiance at every point. Chatty herself felt like that low-lying land. The new life suffused her altogether, drawing forth few reflections, but flooding the surface of her being, and warming her nature through and through. It was to be hers, then, – not as Minnie, not as Theo had it, – but like Shakespeare, like poetry, like that which maidens dream.

Dick went back to town. When he had gone to his old friend for advice his mind had revolted against that advice and determined upon his own way; but the short interview with Lizzie Hampson had changed everything. He had not meant to speak to her on the subject; and what did it matter though he had spoken to her for a twelvemonth? She could not have understood him or his desire. She thought he meant to punish the poor, lost creature, perhaps to put her in prison. The word divorce had terrified her. And yet he now felt as if he had committed himself to that procedure, and it must be carried out. Yet a strange reluctance to take the first steps retarded him. Even to an unknown advocate in the far West a man is reluctant to allow that his name has been dishonoured. The publicity of an investigation before a tribunal, even when three or four thousand miles away, is horrible to think of, – although less horrible than had the wrong and misery taken place nearer home. But after six years, and over a great ocean and the greater part of a continent, how futile it seemed to stir up all those long-settled sediments again! He wrote and rewrote a letter to a lawyer whose name he remembered, to whom he had done one or two slight services, in the distant State which was the scene of his brief and miserable story. But he had not yet satisfied himself with this letter when there occurred an interruption which put everything of the kind out of his thoughts.

This was the receipt of a communication in black borders so portentous that Dick, always alive to the comic side of everything, was moved for the moment to a profane laugh. "No mourning could ever be so deep as this looks," he said to himself, and opened the gloomy missive with little thought. It could, he believed, only convey to him information of the death of some one whom he knew little, and for whom he cared less. But the first glance effectually changed his aspect. His face grew colourless, the paper fell out of his hands. "Good God!" he said. It was no profane exclamation. What was this? a direct interposition of heaven in his behalf, a miracle such as is supposed never to happen nowadays? The first effect was to take breath and strength from him. He sat with his under jaw fallen, his face livid as if with dismay. His heart seemed to stand still; awe, as if an execution had been performed before his eyes, came over him. He felt as if he had a hand in it, as if some action of his had brought doom upon the sufferer. A cold perspiration came out on his forehead. Had he wished her death in the midst of her sins, poor, miserable woman? Had he set the powers of fate to work against her, he, arrogant in his virtue and the happiness that lay within his reach? Compunction was the first thought. It seemed to him that he had done it. Had he a right to do it, to cut off her time of repentance, to push her beyond the range of hope?

After this, however, he picked up the letter again with trembling hands, and read it. It was from a man who described himself as the head of a circus company in Liverpool, with whom Emma Altamont had been performing. She had died in consequence of a fall two days before. "She directed me with her last breath to write to you, to say that you would know her under another name, which she was not going to soil by naming it even on her deathbed, but that you would know. She died very penitent, and leaving her love to all friends. She was very well liked in the company, though she joined it not so very long ago. A few things that she left behind she requested you to have the choice of, if you cared for any keepsake to remember her by, and sent you her forgiveness freely, as she hoped to be forgiven by you. The funeral is to be on Sunday, at two o'clock; and I think she would have taken it kind as a mark of respect if she had thought you would come. I leave that to your own sense of what is best."

This was the letter which fell like a bomb into Dick's life. It was long before he could command himself enough to understand anything but the first startling fact. She was dead. In his heart, by his thoughts, had he killed her? was it his fault? He did not go beyond this horrible idea for some long minutes. Then there suddenly seized upon him a flood of gladness, a sensation of guilty joy. God had stepped in to set the matter straight. The miracle which we all hope for, which never seems impossible in our own case, had been wrought. All lesser ways of making wrong right were unnecessary now. All was over, the pain of retrospection, the painful expedients of law, the danger of publicity, all over. The choice of her poor little leavings for a token to remember her by! Dick shuddered at the thought. To remember her by! when to forget her was all that he wished.

It was long before he could do anything save think, in confused whirls of recollection, and painful flashes of memory, seeing before his hot eyes a hundred phantasmal scenes. But at last he roused himself to a consideration of what he ought to do. Prudence seemed to suggest an immediate journey to Liverpool, to satisfy himself personally that all was effectually winded up and concluded in this miserable account; but a dread, a repugnance, which he could not overcome, held him back. He could not take part by act or word in anything that concerned her again; not even, poor creature, in her funeral; not from any enmity or hatred to her, poor unfortunate one, but because of the horror, the instinctive shrinking, which he could not overcome. Dick determined, however, to send the man who had charge of his chambers, a man half servant, half clerk, in whom he could fully trust. It was Friday when he received the letter. He sent him down next day to Liverpool with instructions to represent him at the funeral, to offer money if necessary to defray its expenses, to let no "respect" be spared. She would have liked "respect" in this way. It would have given her pleasure to think that she was to have a fine funeral. Dick gave his man the fullest instructions. "She was connected with – friends of mine," Dick said, "who would wish everything to be respectably done, though they cannot themselves take any part." "I understand, sir," said the man, who put the most natural interpretation upon the strange commission, and did not believe in any fiction about Dick's "friends." Dick called him back when he had reached the door. "You can see the things of which this person writes, and choose some small thing without value, the smaller the better, to send as he proposes to – the people she belongs to." This seemed the last precaution of prudence to make assurance sure.

After this, three days of tumultuous silence till the messenger came back. He came bringing a description of the funeral, a photograph of "the poor young lady," and a little ring – a ring which Dick himself had given her, so long, so long ago. The sight of these relics had an effect upon him impossible to describe. He had to keep his countenance somehow till the man had been dismissed. The photograph was taken in fancy dress, in one of the circus costumes, and was full of all manner of dreadful accessories; the stage smile, the made-up beauty, the tortured hair: but there was no difficulty in recognising it. A trembling like palsy seized upon him as he gazed at it: then he lit his taper once more, and with a prayer upon his quivering lips burnt it. The ring he twisted up in paper, and carried out with him in his hand till he reached the muddy, dark-flowing river, where he dropped it in. Thus all relics and vestiges of her, poor creature, God forgive her! were vanished and put out of sight for evermore.

Next day Dick Cavendish, a new man, went once more to Highcombe. He was not quite the light-hearted fellow he had been. There was a little emotion about him, a liquid look in the eyes, a faint quiver about the mouth, which Chatty, when she lifted her soft eyes with a little start of surprise and consciousness to greet him, perceived at once and set down to their true cause. Ah yes, it was their true cause. Here he was, come to offer himself with a past full of the recollections we know, with a life which had been all but ruined in times gone by, to the whitest soul he had ever met with, a woman who was innocence and purity personified; who would perhaps, if she knew, shrink from him, refuse the hand which she would think a soiled one. Dick had all this in his mind, and it showed in his countenance, which was full of feeling, but feeling of which Chatty understood nothing. He found her alone by the merest chance. Everything seemed to work for him in this season of fortune. No inquisitive sister, no intrusive brother-in-law, not even the mother with her inquiring eyes was here to interrupt. The jar with the big campanulas stood in the corner; the mignonettes breathed softly an atmosphere of fragrance; her muslin work was in Chatty's hand.

Well, he had not a great deal to say. It had all been said by his eyes in the first moment, so that the formal words were but a repetition. The muslin work dropped after a few seconds, and Chatty's hands were transferred to his to be caressed and kissed and whispered over. He had loved her ever since that day when she had lightly pushed open the door of the faded drawing-room at the Warren and walked in with her bowl of roses. "That was the door of my heart," Dick said. "You had come in before I knew. I can smell the roses still, and I shall ask Theo for that bowl for a wedding present. And you, my Chatty, and you?"

Mrs. Warrender had her little triumph that afternoon. She said, with the most delicate politeness: "I hope, Minnie, that Eustace after all will be able to tolerate his new brother-in-law." Minnie gave her mother a look of such astonishment as proved that the fine edge of the sarcasm was lost.

"To tolerate – a Cavendish! I can't think what you mean, mamma! Eustace is not an ignorant goose, though you seem to think so; nor am I."

"I am glad your Honours are pleased," said the ironical mother, with a laugh. Minnie stared and repeated the speech to Eustace, who was not very clear either about its meaning. But "Depend upon it, dear, your mother meant to be nasty," he said, which was quite true.

After this, all was commotion in the house. Dick, though he had been an uncertain lover, was very urgent now. He made a brief explanation to Mrs. Warrender that his proposal had not been made at the time they parted in London, "only because of an entanglement of early youth," which made her look grave. "I do not inquire what you mean," she said, "but I hope at least that it is entirely concluded." "Entirely," he replied with fervour; "nor am I to blame as you think, nor has it had any existence for six years. I was young then." "Very young, poor boy!" she said with her old indulgent smile. He made the same brief explanation to Chatty, but Chatty had no understanding whatever of what the words meant and took no notice. If she thought of it at all she thought it was something about money, to her a matter of the most complete indifference. And so everything became bustle and commotion, and the preparations for the wedding were put in hand at once. The atmosphere was full of congratulations, of blushes and wreathed smiles. "Marriage is certainly contagious; when it once begins in a family, one never knows where it will stop," the neighbours said: and some thought Mrs. Warrender much to be felicitated on getting all her young people settled; and some, much to be condoled with on losing her last girl just as she had settled down. But these last were in the minority, for to get rid of your daughters is a well understood advantage, which commends itself to the meanest capacity.

It was arranged for the convenience of everybody that the wedding was to take place in London. Dick's relations were legion, and to stow them away in the Dower house at Highcombe, or even to find room to give them a sandwich and a glass of wine, let alone a breakfast, after the ceremony, was impossible. Dick himself was particularly urgent about this particular, he could not have told why, whether from a foreboding of disturbance or some other incomprehensible reason. But as for disturbance, there was no possibility of that. Every evil thing that could have interfered had been exorcised and lost its power. There was nothing in his way; nothing to alarm or trouble, but only general approval and the satisfaction of everybody concerned.

CHAPTER XLII

Lizzie Hampson heard, like everybody in the village, of what was about to happen. Miss Chatty was going to be married. At first all that was known was that the bridegroom was a gentleman from London, which in those days was a description imposing to rustics. He was a gentleman who had once been visiting at the Rectory, who had been seen in the rector's pew at church, and walking about the village, and on the road to the Warren. Many of the village gossips remembered, or thought they remembered, to have seen him, and they said to each other, with a natural enjoyment of a love story which never fails in women, that no doubt that was when "it was all made up." It gave many of them a great deal of pleasure to think that before Miss Minnie had ever seen "that parson," her more popular sister had also had a lover, though he hadn't spoken till after, being mayhap a shy gentleman, as is seen often and often. He was a fair-haired gentleman and very pleasant spoken. What his name was nobody cared so much; the villagers found it more easy to recollect him by the colour of his hair than by his name. It was some time before Lizzie identified the gentleman whom Miss Chatty was about to marry. She had a small part of the trousseau to prepare, one or two morning dresses to make, a commission which made her proud and happy, and gave her honour in the sight of her friends and detractors, a thing dear to all. And then at the very last Lizzie discovered who the bridegroom was. The discovery affected her very greatly. It was the occasion of innumerable self-arguments, carried on in the absolute seclusion of a mind occupied by matters, its acquaintance with which is unknown. Old Mrs. Bagley talked about the marriage to every one who came into the shop. It was, she said, almost as if it was a child of her own.

Thus Lizzie heard – all that there was to hear: and her mind grew more perplexed as time went on. She had the strange ignorances and the still more strange beliefs common to her kind. She put her faith in those popular glosses of the law, at which the better instructed laugh, but which are to the poor and unlearned like the canons of faith. It was the very eve of the wedding before her growing anxiety forced her to action. When Mr. Wilberforce was told that a young woman wanted to see him, he was arranging with his wife the train by which they were to go up to town to the wedding, not without comments on the oddness of the proceeding, which Mrs. Wilberforce thought was but another of the many signs of the times – which severed all bonds, and made a nasty big hotel better than your own house. The rector was in the habit of taking his wife's comments very calmly, for he himself was not so much alarmed about our national progress to destruction as she was. But yet he had his own opinion on the subject, and thought it was undignified on the part of Mrs. Warrender not to have her daughter married at home. He was only to be the second in importance in point of view of the ceremony itself, having no more to do than to assist a bishop who was of the Cavendish clan: whereas he felt himself quite man enough to have married Chatty out of hand without any assistance at all. However, to assist a bishop in the capacity of the parish clergyman of the bride was a position not without dignity, and he felt that he had, on the whole, little to complain of. He went into his study to speak to the young woman when that little consultation was over. Lizzie was seated, as they always were, upon the edge of one of the chairs. He was surprised to see her, though he could scarcely have said why.