If there is anything obstinate in this life it is Time, whom poets and
painters are so fond of depicting as a goose-winged, forelocked,
bald-headed, scraggy old gentleman, exceedingly hard up for clothes, but
bearing an old, overgrown egg-boiler, and a scythe with a shaft that,
however well adapted for mowing in his own particular fields, would, for
want of proper bend and handles, if he were set to cut grass in some
Essex or Sussex mead, make that old back of his double down in a grander
curve than ever, and give him such a fit of lumbago as was never
suffered by any stalk of the human corn he delights to level. Just want
the hours, weeks, and months to seem extended, and they shrink like
fourteen-shilling trouser legs. Just want the days to glide by so that
some blissful moment may be swift to arrive, and one might almost swear
that the ancient hay-maker had been putting his lips to some barrel, and
was lying down behind a hedge for a long nap. He had been busy enough
though at Walbrook, as many a defaulting bill acceptor knew to his cost,
and small mercy was meted to him by John Richards. The time, too, with
May seemed to speed by, as evening after evening it brought her
December, in the shape of Tom Brough--always pleasant, cheerful, and
apparently happy, if he gained one sad pleasant smile.
For there was a sadness in May Richards' face that was even at times
painful; but she seemed to bear her cares patiently. Only once had she
sought to talk to her father, to find him even gentle.
"You had better throw it all aside," he said. "Take my advice, child,
you will find it better."
"But I must see those papers, father," she said hoarsely.
She had followed the old man into his office, and stood facing him as he
laid one hand upon his great iron safe.
He did not seem to heed her for a few minutes; but at last he spoke.
"You will not destroy them?" he said. "No."
The next minute the great iron door opened with a groan, and he had
placed a cancelled cheque bearing frank Marr's name on the back, and a
couple of other documents before her.
She stood there and read them through, word for word, twice, and then
they dropped from her hand, and gazing straight before her she slowly
left the place.
He had sold her, then. He had preferred worldly prosperity to her love,
and she had been deceived in him as hundreds of others were every day
deceived by those in whom they trusted. But one document she held to
still--the one in her desk, the little desk that stood by her bed's
head, and that letter she had read night after night, and wept over when
there was none to see, till the blistering tears had all but obliterated
the words on the paper. But no tears could wash them out from her
heart, where they were burned in by anguish--those few cold formal words
dictated by her father--that he, Frank Marr, feeling it to be his duty,
then and there released her from all promises, and retained to himself
the right without prejudice to enter into any new engagement.
She had been asked to indite a few lines herself, setting him free on
her part, but she could not do it; and now, after the first month of
agony, she was striving hard to prepare herself for what she felt to be
her fate.
But all seemed in vain, and one day, almost beside herself with the long
strain, Keziah found her pacing the room and wringing her thin hands.
"You sha'n't marry him, and that's an end of it!" cried Keziah fiercely.
"I'll go over and see him to-night and talk to him; and if I can't win
him round my name isn't Bay. I'll marry him myself if it can't be done
any other how, that I will. Cheer up, then, my darling. Don't cry,
please, it almost breaks my heart to see you. He's a good old fellow,
that he is; and I'm sure when he comes to know how you dread it all
he'll give it up. If I only had that Mr Frank--What? Don't, my little
one? Then I won't; only it does seems so hard. Married on the shortest
day, indeed! I daresay he'd like to be. There's no day so short nor so
long ever been made that shall see you Tom Brough's wife, so I tell him.
Now, only promise me that you'll hold up."
"Don't talk to me, please. I shall be better soon," sobbed May; and
then after an interval of weeping, "'Ziah, I know you love me: when I'm
dead, will you think gently of me, and try to forgive all my little
pettish ways?"
"When you're what?" cried Keziah.
"When I'm dead; for I feel that it can't be long first. I used to smile
about broken hearts and sorrow of that kind, but, except when I'm asleep
and some bright dream comes, all seems here so black and gloomy that I
could almost feel glad to sleep always--always, never to wake again."
"O, O, O!" cried Keziah, bursting into a wail of misery, but only to
stop short and dash away a tear right and left with the opposite corners
of her apron. "There, I won't have it, and if you talk to me again like
that, I'll--I'll--I'll go to Mr Brough at once. No, my child, I'm not
going to sit still and see you murdered before my very eyes if I know
it. But though I don't want to be cruel I must tell you that your poor
affections really were misplaced; for that Frank Marr is as well off now
and as happy as can be. He lodges, you know, at Pash's, and they've got
all the best furnished rooms that he got ready for me; not that I was
going to leave you, my pet; and he's making money, and taking his mother
out of town, and all sorts, I can tell you."
It did not escape Keziah's eye how every word was eagerly drunk in, and
feeling at last that she was but feeding and fanning a flame that
scorched and seared the young life before her, she forbore, and soon
after left the room.
"But if I don't see Mr Tom Brough, and put a stop to this marriage, and
his preparations, and new house, and furnishing," she cried, "my name
isn't Keziah Bay?"
And Keziah kept her word.
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