Clary and Dulcie were slightly censured for their officiousness in the
affairs of these painter fellows: but it is in the nature of women not
to take well with contradiction: it is in the nature of good women to
fly furiously in the face of whatever crosses their generosity, or
thwarts their magnanimity.
The crisis came about in this way: Will Locke had finished his work long
before Sam; not that Will was more industrious, but he had not got half
the commissions at only half the price, and that was about the usual
division of labour between them. The two men were born to it. Sam's art
took the lucrative shape of portrait-painting; Will's the side of flower
and fruit and landscape painting, which was vilely unremunerative then,
and allegorical painting, which no one will be at the pains to
understand, or, what is more to the purpose, to buy, in this enlightened
nineteenth century. Sam, who was thriving already, fell in love with
Clarissa Gage, with her six thousand pounds fortune: there was no
premeditation, or expediency, or cunning, in the matter; it was the luck
of the man. But Will Locke could never have done it: he, who could never
make a clear subsistence for himself, must attach himself to a
penniless, cheery, quick little girl like Dulcie; and where he could not
well maintain one, must provide for two at the lowest estimate. Will
Locke was going, and there was no talk of his return; Dulcie was
helping him to put up his sketches with her orderly, ready, and
respectful hands.
"When we are parted for good, I shall miss you," he said, simply.
Her tender heart throbbed with gratitude, but she only answered, "Are we
to be parted for good? Will you never come back to Redwater?"
"I cannot come back like Sam," he affirmed, sadly, not bitterly; "I am
not a rising man, Dulcie, though I may paint for future ages."
A bright thought struck Dulcie, softening and warming her girlish
face, till it was like one of those faces which look out of Fra
Angelico's pictures, and express what we are fond of talking
about--adoration and beneficence: "Could I paint for the potteries,
Master Locke?" For, in his noble thriftless way, he had initiated her
into some of the very secrets of his tinting, and Dulcie was made bold
by the feats she had achieved.
"What should set you labouring on paltry porringers?--you are provided
with your bit and sup, Mistress Dulcie."
"I thought it might be fine to help a great painter like you," confessed
the gentle lass; very gently, with reluctance and pain, for it was wrung
by compulsion from her maidenliness.
"Do you think so? I love you for thinking it," he said directly: but he
would never have done so, brave as he was in his fantasies, without her
drawing him on.
However, after that speech, there was no further talk of their parting
for good: indeed, Dulcie would do her part; and slave at these "mugs and
pigs" to any extent; and all for a look of his painting before he
quitted the easel of nights; a walk, hanging upon his arm, up Primrose
Hill; a seat by his side on the Sundays in the city church where he
worshipped. Dulcie did not care to trouble her friends at home with the
matter: instead, she had a proud vision of surprising them with the
sight of--her husband. "They would be for waiting till they could spare
money to buy more clothes, or perhaps a chest of drawers; they could not
afford it; no more could Will find means to fly up and down the country.
Father dear will be pleased to see him so temperate: he cannot drink
more than a glass of orange-wine, or a sip of cherry-brandy; he says it
makes his head ache: he prefers the clear, cold water, or at most a dish
of chocolate. Mother may jeer at him as unmanly; she has a fine spirit,
mother: and she may think I might have done better; but mother has grown
a little mercenary, and forgotten that she was once young herself, and
would have liked to have served a great genius with such a loving heart
and such blue eyes as Will's. Ah! the girls will all envy me, when they
get a glance from Will's blue eyes: and let them, for he is too good a
fellow to look at anybody but his poor ordinary silly wife, and if he
did, the odds are that he would not see them: could not see whether
their hair were black or red. Ah me! I am not sure whether Will always
sees me--poor me--and not one of his angels from paradise."
But Dulcie did mean to tell Clary, and to ask her what she would
advise her to wear for her wedding-gown, and whether she and Sam
Winnington would be best maid and best man. But Clary put her foot
through the plan neatly. Clary was in one of her vapourish moods when
she inquired one night, "Is Will Locke coming down again, Dulcie? Oh!
what ever is he seeking here? What more can we do for him? Nobody
wants any more sheep or goats (were they sheep or goats, Dulcie?), or
strawberries and currants, unless as mutton, and kid, and preserves.
And, Dulcie, you must not stand in your own light, and throw away any
more notice upon him; it is wasting your time, and the word of him may
keep away others. A match with him would be purely preposterous: even
Sam Winnington, who is a great deal more of a scamp, my dear, treats
him as a sublime simpleton."
What induced Clary to attempt to lock the stable after the steed was
stolen? What drove her off all of a sudden on this dreadfully candid and
prudent tack? She only knew. Possibly it was to ease her own troubled
conscience: but with Sam Winnington constantly dangling about her
skirts, and receiving sufficient encouragement, too, it was hard for
Dulcie to bear. She was in a fine passion; she would not tell Clary,
after that round of advice; no, not a word. How did she know what Clary
would do next? Perhaps forbid Will the house, when he came back from
London with the licence, lock her into a room, and write an evil report
to her friends? No, Dulcie could keep her own counsel: she was sorry to
live in Clary's house, and eat the bread of deceit, but she would not
risk Will's happiness as well as her own.
Will Locke reappeared on the scene within a fortnight. The lad did not
tell Dulcie, though, that he had walked the most of the way, and that
he had rendered himself footsore, in order to be able to count out
Dulcie's modest expenses up to town, and perhaps a month's
housekeeping beforehand: for that was the extent of his outlook. Will
Locke appointed the Vicar to meet him and a young woman in Redwater
church, the very morning after his return: there was no use in delay,
except to melt down the first money he had hoarded; and Will and
Dulcie were like two children, eager to have the business over and
done with, and not to do again by the same parties. The Vicar was
quite accustomed to these sudden calls, and he submitted to them with
a little groan. He did not know who the young woman might be, and he
did not care; it might be Mistress Cambridge, it might be Mistress
Clarissa herself, it might be the still-room maid, or the barmaid at
the "Rod and Fly;" it was all one to him. As for the young painter
fellow, the quiet lads were as likely to slip into these scrapes as
the rattles; indeed, the chances were rather against them: the Vicar
was inclined to cry, "Catch Mr. Sam Winnington in such a corner." But
the Vicar was in no way responsible for a youth who was not even his
own parishioner; he was not accountable for his not having worldly
goods wherewith to endow the young woman whom he was to lead to the
altar. Oddly enough, though worldly goods are undoubtedly introduced
into the service, there are no accompanying awkward questions: such
as, "What are your worldly goods, M.?" or, "Have you any worldly
goods, M.?" The Vicar did not care at all, except for his incipient
yawns, and his disordered appetite; he was a rebuke to gossips.
When the hour came, Dulcie was distressed: not about wrongdoing, for the
girl had no more idea that she was doing wrong than you have when you
write a letter on your own responsibility, and at your own dictation;
not at the absence of friends, for in Dulcie's day friends were
considered very much in the way on such occasions. Indeed, the best
accredited and most popular couples would take a start away from their
companions and acquaintances, and ride ten miles or so to be married
privately, and so escape all ceremony. Dulcie was troubled by the want
of a wedding-gown; yes, a wedding-gown, whether it is to wear well or
not, is to a woman what a wig is to a barrister, what a uniform is to a
soldier. Dulcia's had no existence, not even in a snip; no one could
call a half-worn sacque a wedding-gown, and not even her mother's tabby
could be brought out for fear of observation. Only think! a scoured
silk: how could Dulcie "bridle" becomingly in a scoured silk? There
would have been a certain inappropriateness in its shabbiness in the
case of one who had done with the vanities of this world: but a scoured
silk beside bridal blushes!--alas, poor Dulcie!
In every other respect, there appears something touching as well as
humorous in that primitive marriage-party on the grey October morning,
with the autumn sunbeams, silver not golden, faintly brightening the
yellowing vine, over the sexton's house, and the orange and grey
lichens, the only ornaments outside the solid old church, with its low,
heavy Saxon arches. The Vicar bowed with ceremony, and with a dignified
and deliberate air, as he recognised Mistress Dulcie; the old clerk and
his wrinkled wife stumbled into an apprehension that it was Mistress
Clarissa Gage's friend who was to have the knot tied all by herself so
early: but it was nothing to them either--nothing in comparison with the
Christmas dole. The lad and lass so trustful, so isolated, making such a
tremendous venture, deserved to have the cheery sunshine on their lot,
if only for their faith and firmness.
When it was over, Dulcie plucked Will's sleeve, to turn him into the
vestry. One must be the guide if not the other, and "it's main often the
woman," the old clerk would tell you, with a toothless grin.
Then Dulcie went with Will straight to the "Rod and Fly;" for such was
the established rule. These occurrences were so frequent, that they had
their etiquette cut out for them. From the "Rod and Fly" Will and Dulcie
sent the coolest and most composed, the most perfectly reasonable and
polite of messages, to say they had got married together that morning,
and that Mistress Cambridge need not have the trouble of keeping
breakfast for Mistress Dulcie. A separate apology was sent from Dulcie
for not having procured the watercresses which she was to have sought
for Cambridge. Further, Mr. and Mrs. Will Locke would expect all of
their friends who approved of the step they had taken to come to the
"Rod and Fly," and offer their congratulations and drink their healths
that morning without fail; as the young couple had to start by the very
waggon in which they had first set eyes on each other. "Think of that,
Will!" Dulcie had exclaimed, breathlessly, as if she was calling his
notice to a natural phenomenon. They had now to ask and receive
Dulcie's parents' blessing before they began housekeeping in Will's
lodgings in London, on the strength of a month's prices with future
orders and outwork from the potteries. Oh! these old easy beginnings!
What have we gained by complicating them?
Will Locke and Dulcie had cast the die, and, on the first brush of the
affair, their friends at Redwater took it as ill as possible: Clarissa
was hysterical, Sam Winnington was as sulky as a bear. If this treatment
were to be regarded as a foreshadowing of what the behaviour of the
authorities at Fairfax would prove, then the actors in the little drama
might shake in their shoes. But Will Locke placidly stood the storm they
had brewed, only remembering in years to come some words which Dulcie
did not retain for a sun-down. Dulcie was now affronted and hurt, now
steady as a stepping-stone and erect as a sweet-pea, when either of the
two assailants dared to blame Will, or to imply that he should have
refrained from this mischief. Why, what could Will have done? What could
she have done without him? She was not ashamed to ask that, the moment
they reflected upon Will Locke, though she had not borne his name an
hour. Oh! child, child!
Notwithstanding, it was very trying to Dulcie when Clary protested
that she never would have believed that Dulcie could have stolen such
a march upon her; never. Dulcie to deceive her! Dulcie to betray her!
Poor Clary! Whom could she turn to for affection and integrity, in the
days that might remain to her in this wicked world? She had walked all
along the street with its four or five windows in every gable turned
to the thoroughfare, with her handkerchief at her eyes, while the
whole town was up, and each window full. She was so spent now, with
her exertions and her righteous indignation, that she sat fanning
herself in the bar: for Will and Dulcie could not even afford a
private room to receive their wedding company so summarily assembled.
Never was such a business, in Clary's opinion; not that she had not
often heard of its like--but to happen to a kind, silly, credulous
pair, such as Dulcie and Will Locke! Clary sat fanning herself, and
casting knots on her pocket-handkerchief, and glancing quickly at Sam
Winnington's gloomy, dogged face, so different from the little man's
wonted bland, animated countenance. What on earth could make Sam
Winnington take the wilful deed so much to heart? Hear him rating
Will, whom he had been used to patronize in a careless, gracious
style, but upon whom he now turned in strong resentment. These
reproaches were not unprovoked, but they were surely out of bounds;
and their matter and manner rankled in the breasts of both these men
many a day after they had crossed the Rubicon, and travelled far into
the country on whose borders they were still pressing.
"You have disgraced yourself and me, sir! You have gone far to ruin the
two of us! People will credit us of the same stock: a pair of needy and
reckless adventurers!"
"Master Winnington, I was willing: I could do what I liked with myself
without your leave; and I suppose Will Locke was equally independent,"
fired up Dulcie.
"We'll never be mistaken for the same grain, Sam Winnington," declared
Will Locke, with something like disdain. "I always knew that we were
clean different: and the real substance of the wood will come out more
and more distinctly, now that the mere bark is rubbed off."
Clary was modified at last; she kissed and sobbed over Dulcie, wished
her joy sincerely, half promised to visit her in town, and slipped a
posy ring from her own hand to the bride's, on the very finger where
Will Locke had the face to put the marriage-ring which wedded a comely,
sprightly, affectionate young woman to struggles and disappointments,
and a mad contest between spirit and matter. But Sam Winnington would
not so much as shake hands with Will; though he did not bear any malice
against Dulcie, and would have kissed her fingers if she would have
allowed it: and the young men, erstwhile comrades, looked so glumly and
grimly at each other, that it was a universal relief when the great
waggon drew up at the inn door.
Dulcie, in another character now, and that even before the fall of
the russet leaves--half ashamed but very proud, the little goose! of
the quick transformation--stepped into the waggon; the same boxes
were piled beside her; Will leapt in after her, and away they
rolled. There was nothing more for Dulcie to do but to wave her hand
to Clary and Cambridge, and the women of the inn (already fathoms
deep in her interest), and to realize that she was now a married
woman, and had young Will Locke the great painter, in his chrysalis
state, to look after.
But why was Sam Winnington so irate? He had never looked sweet on Dulcie
for half a second. Was it not rather that a blundering dreamer like Will
Locke had anticipated him, marred his tactics, and fatally injured his
scientific game? Sam came dropping down upon Redwater whenever he could
find leisure, when the snow was on the ground, or when the peaches were
plump and juicy, for the next two or three years. If he had not been
coming on finely in his profession, heightening his charges five guineas
at a time, and if Clary had not possessed that six thousand pounds'
fortune, they would have done off the matter in a trice, like Will Locke
and Dulcie Cowper. Poor Sam! poor Clary!--what an expenditure of hours
and days and emotions, they contrived for themselves! They were often
wretched! and they shook each other's faith: it is doubtful if they ever
quite recovered it. They were so low occasionally that it must have been
dreadfully difficult for them to get up again; they were so bitter that
how they became altogether sweet once more, without any lingering
remains of the acrid flavour in their mouths, is scarcely to be
imagined. They were good and true in their inmost hearts; but it does
appear that some of the tricks of which they were guilty left them less
honest human creatures. There was a strong dash of satire in Sam's fun
afterwards; there was a sharpness in Clary's temper, and a despotism in
her dignity. To be sure, Clary always liked Sam's irony a thousand times
better than another man's charity, and Sam ever thought Clary's
impatient, imperious ways far before the cooing of any turtle-dove in
the wood; but that was only an indication that the real metal was
there, not that it was not smirched and corroded with rust.
The first effect of Will and Dulcie's exploit was extremely prejudicial
to the second case on the books. Uncle Barnet, a flourishing London
barrister, a man with strong lines about his mouth, a wart on his
forehead, and great laced flaps at his coat pockets, and who was
supposed to be vehemently irresistible in the courts, hurried down to
Redwater on purpose to overhaul Clary. What sort of doings were those
she presided over in her maiden house at Redwater? Not the runaway
marriage of a companion; that occurred every day in the most polite
circles; Clary could not fairly be called to account for such a trifle;
besides, a girl without a penny might do as she chose. But there was
something a vast deal more scandalous lurking in the background: there
was word of another fellow of the same kidney buzzing about Clary--Clary
with her six thousand pounds' fortune, her Uncle Barnet, her youth, her
handsome person, her what not? Now, as sure as Uncle Barnet's name was
Barnet, as he wore a wig, as there was justice in the country, he would
have the law of the fellow. Don't tell him the man was advancing rapidly
in his profession. What was a painter's profession?--or the son of a
gallant Captain Winnington? If a gallant Captain Winnington could do
nothing more than gallant, he did not deserve the name; it was a piece
of fudge to cheat foolish women with. Yes; he would have the law of the
fellow if he buzzed about his niece; he would have the law of Clary if
she encouraged him.
What could Clary do? she had been taught to look up to Uncle Barnet;
she had seen polite society under his wife's wing; she had obeyed him at
once as her Mentor and her Mæcenas--as her father and prime-minister.
She cried and kissed his hand, and promised not to forget her position,
and to be a good girl; and as she was not engaged to Sam Winnington, and
did not know for certain that he would return to Redwater for the
grass-mowing or the hop-gathering, she thought she might be free to
promise also that she would not see him again with her will. Of course,
she meant to keep her word if she might; but there are two at a
bargain-making: and observe, she said "with her will;" she made no
reference to Sam Winnington's pleasure. And yet, arrogant as Clary could
be on her worst side, she had found her own intentions and purposes
knocked down by Sam Winnington's determinations before now.
When Sam Winnington did come down next, Clary had such honour and
spirit, that she ordered the door to be shut in his face; but then she
cried far more bitterly than she had done to Uncle Barnet, in the same
hall where Sam had painted her and jested with her; and somehow her
affliction reached Sam's ears, living in a little place like Redwater at
the "Rod and Fly" for several days on end.
At last another spice entered into the dish; another puppet appeared on
the boards, and increased the disorder of the former puppets. The county
member did turn up. Clary was a prophet: he came on a visit to his
cousin the Justice, and was struck with tall, red and white, and
large-eyed Clary; he furbished up an introduction, and offered her the
most marked attention.
Mistress Clarissa was in ecstasy, so her gossips declared, and so she
almost persuaded herself, even after she had certain drawbacks to her
pleasure, and certain cares intruding upon her exultation; after she was
again harassed and pestered with the inconvenient resuscitation of that
incorrigible little plain, vain portrait painter, Sam Winnington. He was
plain--he had not the county member's Roman nose; and he was vain--Clary
had already mimicked the fling of his cravat, and the wave of his white
hands. Clever, smart fellows, like Sam Winnington, are generally
coxcombs. Oh, Sam! where, in order to serve your own turn now, be your
purple shadows, your creamy whites, your marvellous reading of people's
characters, and writing of the same on their faces, their backs, their
very hands and feet, which should leave the world your delighted debtor
long after it had forgotten yon member's mighty services?
Clarissa had never danced so many dances with one evening's partner as
with the smitten member, at the assembly given on the spur of the
moment in his honour, whereat Sam Winnington, standing with his hat
under his arm, and leaning against the carved door, was an observant
spectator. He was not sullen as when Will Locke and Dulcie tumbled
headlong into the pit of matrimony! he was smiling and civil; but his
lips were white and his eyes sunken, as if the energetic young painter
did not sleep of nights.
Clary was not sincere; she gave that infatuated, tolerably heavy,
red-faced, fox-hunting member, own cousin to the Justice, every reason
to suppose that she would lend him the most favourable ear, when he
chose to pay her his addresses, and then afforded him the amplest
provocation to cry, "Caprice--thy name is woman." She had just sung
"Tantivy" to him after supper, when she sailed up to Sam Winnington, and
addressed him demurely:--
"I have come to wish you good-night, sir."
"And I to wish you farewell, madam."
"Farewell is a hard word, Master Winnington," returned Clary, with a
great tide of colour rushing into her face, and a gasp as for breath,
and tracing figures nervously on the floor with her little shoe and its
brave paste-buckle.
"It shall be said though, and that without further delay, unless three
very different words be put in its place."
"Sir, you are tyrannous," protested Clary, in a tremulous voice.
"No, Mistress Clarissa, I have had too good cause to know who has been
the tyrant in this business," declared Sam Winnington, speaking out
roundly, as a woman loves to hear a man, though it be to her own
condemnation, "You have used me cruelly, Clarissa Gage; you have abused
my faith, wasted the best years of my life, and deceived my affections."
"What were the three words," asked Clary, faint and low.
"'Yours, Sam Winnington;' or else, 'Farewell, Clarissa Gage?'"
"Yours, Sam Winnington."
He caught her so sharp up by the arm at that sentence, that some persons
said Mistress Clarissa had staggered and was about to swoon; others,
that the vulgar fellow of a painter had behaved like a brute, pulled her
to his side as she was marching past him, and accused her of perjury
before the whole ball-room. Bold men were apt at that time to seize
aggravating women (especially if they were the wives of their bosoms) by
the hairs of their heads, so that a trifling rudeness was little thought
of. The county member, however, pricked up his long ears, flushed,
fiercely stamped to the particular corner, and had a constable in his
eye to arrest the beggarly offender; but before he could get at the
disputants, he had the mortification to see them retreat amicably into a
side room, and the next thing announced to him was, that Mistress
Clarissa had evanished home, before anybody could get rightly at the
bottom of the mystery.
Very fortunately, the county member ascertained the following day,
before he had compromised his pride another hair's-breadth, that the
fickle damsel had accepted the painter's escort the previous evening,
and had admitted the painter at an incredibly early hour the subsequent
morning. After such indiscretion, the great man would have nothing more
to say to Mistress Clarissa, but departed in great dudgeon, and would
never so much as set his foot within Redwater again; not even at the
following election.
Uncle Barnet was forced to come round and acknowledge, with a very bad
grace, that legislation in heiresses' marriages--in any marriage--is out
of the question. No man knew how a marriage would turn out; you might as
well pledge yourself for the weather next morning; certainly there were
signs for the wise; but were weather almanacs deceptive institutions or
were they not? The innocent old theory of marriages being made in heaven
was the best. Clary was not such a mighty catch after all: a six
thousand pounds' fortune was not inexhaustible, and the county member
might never have come the length of asking its owner's price. People did
talk of a foolish engagement in his youth to one of his yeomen's
daughters, and of a wealthy old aunt who ruled the roast; though her
well-grown nephew, not being returned for a rotten borough, voted with
dignity for so many thousands of his fellow-subjects in the Commons.
Uncle Barnet, with a peculiarly wry face, did reluctantly what he did
not often advise his clients to do, unless in desperate
circumstances--he compromised.
Clary was made a wife in the height of summer, with all the rites and
ceremonies of the Church, with all the damasks, and laces, and leadings
by the tips of the fingers, and lavishings of larkspurs, lupins, and
tiger-lilies proper for the occasion, which Dulcie had lost. Nay, the
supper came off at the very "Rod and Fly," with the tap open to the
roaring, jubilant public; a score of healths were drunk upstairs with
all the honours, the bride and bridegroom being king and queen of the
company: even Uncle Barnet owned that Sam Winnington was very
complaisant--rather exceed in his complaisance, he supplemented
scornfully; but surely Sam might mend that fault with others in the
bright days to come. It is only the modern English who act Hamlet
_minus_ the Prince of Denmark; sitting at the bridal feast without bride
or bridegroom. They say hearts are often caught on the rebound, and if
all ill-treated suitors spoke out warmly yet sternly like Sam
Winnington, and did not merely fence about and either sneer or whine,
more young fools might be saved, even when at touch-and-go with their
folly, after the merciful fate of Clary and to the benefit of themselves
and of society.