TOO LATE FOR REPENTANCE.
After considerable parley, and much supplication on the part of
the devotee Mr. Lobyer, it had been arranged that Miss Crawford's
marriage should take place on the last day of June; and for a period
of six weeks prior to that date the painter found his home a place of
confusion and his life a conflict.
Of course it was quite impossible that Florence should herself arrange
and superintend the preparations necessary for her bridal. Matronly
aid was here indispensable; and in order to give that aid efficiently,
Mrs. Frederick Bushby, otherwise Aunt Jane, abandoned the care of
her household to a useful maiden sister, and established herself _en
permanence_ at the Fountains. At her bidding came two estimable young
persons in the dress-making line, and an estimable elderly person
renowned for plain needlework; and the scrooping and snipping of these
worthy people's scissors set William Crawford's teeth on edge whenever
he passed the open door of the apartment in which their labours were
carried on. At Mrs. Bushby's bidding came also, at all seasonable
and unseasonable hours, gentlemanly-looking individuals carrying
pasteboard-boxes, who were generally announced as "the young man from
Regent Street," or "the young man from Wigmore Street," or a "young
person with some lace from South-Audley Street, if you please," or "the
white-satin boots from Oxford Street, Ma'am."
Poor William Crawford lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders in
utter despair when such announcements broke, time after time, upon the
quiet of his meditative evening hours.
"Is there any social law which forbids a woman buying clothes after
she is married?" asked the painter; "or how is it that a bride finds
it necessary to stock her trunks with garments that might serve for a
lifetime? Don't imagine I wince at the amount of the cheques, my dear.
You may have as much money as you like, Flo; but all this business
about white-satin boots and old point-lace seems such unnecessary
frivolity."
Of course, on this Mrs. Bushby swooped down upon her brother-in-law,
and annihilated him with feminine argumentation.
"When _I_ was married, Madame Devy had _carte blanche_," said the
matron, "though I was not an only daughter, and though I was going to
marry a hard-working solicitor. Such a marriage as Florence is about to
make is an event in society, and her _trousseau_ will be a subject of
conversation. The Wigmore-Street people have already asked permission
to exhibit the cambric and Valenciennes _peignoirs_ they are making for
her; and the Oxford-Street people are going to introduce quite a new
style for the Wellington boots we have ordered for riding."
William Crawford groaned aloud.
"And my daughter rides in Wellington boots!" he exclaimed. "Don't tell
me any thing more about the _trousseau_ if you please, Aunt Jane. Ask
me to sign as many cheques as you like, but don't let me know the
particulars. Isn't it Owen Meredith who says, 'There are some things
hard to understand?' surely a young lady's _corbeille de mariage_ is
one of them."
Mrs. Bushby did not trouble herself to notice these ribald remarks.
She regarded her distinguished brother-in-law with placid contempt.
It is not alone my Lord Dundreary who sets down every man who differs
from him as a lunatic. In Aunt Jane's opinion the royal academician
was an eccentric creature, who made more money than one could suppose
by painting scantily-draped young women, and who in the affairs of
every-day life was little better than a fool. She suffered him to
rail as he pleased against the frivolity of modern young ladies;
and she revenged herself upon his cheque-book. The little people in
Russell Square profited considerably by Miss Crawford's wedding; for
Mrs. Bushby's calculations as to material for dresses that were to be
made by the two estimable young persons were apt to err on the side
of liberality; and if a few yards of silk or velvet were left, dear
extravagant Flo was always the first to propose that the fabric should
be converted into a frock for Fanny, or a pelisse for Lilly, or a tunic
for Johnny, as the case might be.
And was the painter's daughter of so shallow and frivolous a nature as
to find perfect happiness in days spent in milliners' show-rooms and
before the counters of haberdashers? Was the society of Thomas Lobyer,
who hung about the Fountains after his own loutish fashion at all hours
of the day and evening, all-sufficient to satisfy the desires of her
heart and mind? She seemed happy, for a young lady who laughs a great
deal, and talks almost unceasingly, and pirouettes round the room
on the points of her pretty little feet, with the smallest possible
provocation, is generally supposed to enjoy a plethora of happiness.
But that very close observer--who, like the typical policeman, is never
in the way when he is wanted--might have perceived a shade of fever and
hurry in Miss Crawford's gaiety which rarely goes along with unalloyed
content. Perfect happiness is apt to be very quiet. There is a solemn
hush, a delicious repose in real joy, a delight too deep for words:
and such delight had no place in the heart of Florence Crawford. She
was pleased with her fine clothes; she was pleased with her jewels.
She had more diamond hearts and crosses and crescents than she could
count. She had an eagle newly alighted on a monster carbuncle, that
looked like a block of translucent red-currant jelly. She had been
satiated with suites of turquoise and opal, and had learned to discover
a "feather" in a fifty-guinea emerald ring. She was pleased with the
carriages which Mr. Lobyer showed her at the makers' in Long Acre,
and the horses that had been selected at one of Tattersall's crack
sales, for her especial benefit. She was pleased with her visits to the
upholsterer who was making new furniture for her rooms at Pevenshall,
and who submitted his designs for her approval with as deferential
an air as if she had been affianced to a prince of the blood-royal.
There are some follies to which womanhood on the sunny side of twenty
is prone to stoop, and Miss Crawford was weak enough to be just a
little intoxicated by the homage she received in the character of
Thomas Lobyer's plighted wife and a little inclined to forget that the
enjoyment of all the glories and grandeurs derived from Mr. Lobyer's
wealth involved a life-long alliance with Mr. Lobyer himself. And if
the modern Iphigenia is so base a creature as to immolate herself of
her own free will before the hymeneal altar, she is rarely without some
kind female relation to urge her to the fatal step, and to push her
forward with relentless hand, should she shrink from the consummation
of the sacrifice. Aunt Jane lost no opportunity of vaunting her niece's
good fortune, or of praising Mr. Lobyer--who, for his part, was barely
civil to the obliging matron, and was apt to lapse into a state of
despondent sulkiness when he found her in constant attendance upon her
niece.
No, for the modern Iphigenia there is no such thing as turning back.
The days hurried by the plighted bride with relentless haste. The
obsequious upholsterer bade his men work night and day, in order
that the Pevenshall splendour should be completed in due time. The
coachmaker of Hatton Garden would have immolated himself on the floor
of his workshop rather than have disappointed such a customer as Mr.
Lobyer. The inestimable young women worked as if for a wager. The
French milliner who made Miss Crawford's gala-dresses declared that
she had broken faith with duchesses in order to keep her promises
to the future Mrs. Lobyer. Flo tried to count the days that yet
remained of her unfettered girlhood, but they seemed to slip away
from her with a rapidity that defied all powers of calculation.
Aunt Jane grew busier and busier as the days grew fewer; and the
servants' bell at the Fountains had little rest from the hands of
tradesmen's boys. Flo's pretty bed-chamber was transformed into a chaos
of parcels and bonnet-boxes, trunks and packing-cases. Glittering
caskets of perfumery, mother-of-pearl glove-boxes, and enamelled
handkerchief-boxes, wonderful boudoir inkstands in lapis-lazuli and
ormolu, embroidered sachets, and perfumed pincushions,--all the
feminine delights of M. Rimmel's emporium,--were scattered upon
dressing-tables and writing-tables, waiting to be packed. Every day
the industrious females at work in the spare bed-room brought some
newly-finished garment to swell the heap of silk and moire, muslin
and cashmere, that was piled upon the sofa. Flo contemplated all
these treasures with a bewildered face sometimes when she was quite
alone; and there was some shadow of sadness in the bewilderment of her
countenance.
"I wonder whether I am much better or wiser than the savages who are so
fond of beads and feathers," she thought.
The modern Iphigenia has very little time for reflection. Poor Flo's
life was a perpetual fever during those last days which were so
difficult to count. Aunt Jane was never weary of discussing the bridal
grandeurs, the bridesmaids' toilettes, the breakfast, the continental
tour, the arrangements at Pevenshall. The only person whose equable
spirits seemed entirely undisturbed by the excitement of this period
was the bridegroom himself, who took matters as coolly as if he had
gone through the same important crisis twenty times before, and had
become thoroughly _blasé_ as to the emotions involved therein. He paid
daily visits to the Fountains with laudable devotion, and he conversed
with his future wife as much as it was in him to converse with any one,
which was not very much; but he still clung fondly to the companionship
of miniature bull-terriers and fawn-coloured pugs, and might be seen
seated in the brougham that was too small for him, taking his airing in
the park with a fawn-coloured pug on his knee.
The time came very speedily when Flo found it easier to count the
remaining hours of her unfettered girlhood than it had been to count
the days. On the last day Mrs. Bushby went back to Russell Square to
see to the finishing touches of her two elder girls' toilette, and to
secure the Bloomsbury hair-dresser for the arrangement of their tresses
on the all-important morning. These juvenile cousins were to swell the
train of Miss Crawford's bridesmaids, and were to exhibit themselves in
marvellous costumes of pale-blue glacé silk and tulle.
But if Aunt Jane had deserted her post upon this last day, she was not
the person to leave disorder or confusion behind her. Every arrangement
had been completed before the matron's departure. The formidable deed
of settlement, which secured Miss Crawford a yearly income that might
have satisfied a countess's requirements as to pin-money, had been
executed with all due ceremony. The handsome trunks for the continental
tour, the gigantic packing-cases that were to be sent straight to
Pevenshall, were labelled, and Florence looked with a vague sense of
confusion at the addresses in which she was entitled "Mrs. Lobyer." The
smallest details had been carefully supervised by the indefatigable
matron before she departed to spend a busy day in the bosom of her own
house-hold.
"I am going away quite easy in my mind, dear," said Aunt Jane, when
Florence escorted her to the porch; "for I don't think there has been
an iota forgotten. You will see me again at nine o'clock to-morrow
morning, with the children. And now, my love, be sure you take plenty
of rest, for I want you to look your best and brightest to-morrow."
There was nothing left to be done,--no more shopping, no more solemn
interviews with the French milliner, no more excitement of any kind
whatever, but a dead, sullen calm. No sooner had Aunt Jane's hired
brougham driven away from the gates of the Fountains, than Florence
Crawford's spirits sank as suddenly as the wind drops sometimes on a
sultry summer's day. She went up stairs to her room, and on her way
thither had occasion to pass those boxes whose primly-written labels
had become obnoxious to her.
"It is such an ugly name," she thought; "_nobody_ could like to be
called Mrs. Lobyer."
In the bed-room Miss Crawford found the new maid who had been engaged
to attend her in her altered estate; and if, in such moments of
unreasonable depression, one individual can be more antipathetic than
another, that individual is a new maid. The young person was busying
herself with the arrangements of the dressing-table, and Florence fled
from her as from a pestilence; but not before she had caught a glimpse
of the wedding-dress laid out on the sofa like a shroud, and looking
almost as ghastly in its spotless whiteness.
"She'd want to talk to me if I stayed," thought Flo, as she hurried
from her abigail's presence; "and I should have to hear all about her
last place, and her anxiety to please me and understand my ways, and so
on: as if I had any particular ways, except always losing my things and
leaving my keys about."
Miss Crawford wandered into the drawing-room, and thence into an
apartment which served as a library. The windows were all open,
the birds were singing in the conservatory-passage that led to the
painter's sacred chamber, the warm June sunlight shone upon dazzling
flower-beds, and sparkled amid the waters of those marble basins which
gave a name to William Crawford's abode. All things were looking their
gayest and brightest; but poor Flo's heart sank amid this summer
radiance. She closed the venetian-shutters, and seated herself in the
darkest corner of the shadowy room.
She was quite alone. Mr. Lobyer had pleaded some especially important
engagement of a business character as an excuse for his absence on this
day, and Flo had told her father's servant that she would be at home
to no one. She had the long summer hours to herself, and her aunt had
entreated her to rest. If repose consists in sitting motionless in an
easy-chair, with fixed eyes and idle hands, Flo certainly obeyed Mrs.
Bushby's injunction; for the little clock on the chimneypiece recorded
the passage of more than one hour while the bride-elect sat in the same
attitude, with sad eyes fixed on one spot in the carpet, and listless
hands loosely intertwined in her lap.
She aroused herself at length from this melancholy meditation; but she
sighed more heavily than a millionaire's bride-elect has any right to
sigh as she lifted her head and looked dreamily round the room.
"I don't know what is the matter with me to-day," she thought. "I seem
to have grown sick of my life all at once; and if I am ever so tired, I
must go on living just the same. It is not every body who can die at a
moment's notice, like Shelley's Ginevra."
Miss Crawford sighed heavily for the second time, and turned to the
book-shelves near her with an impatient gesture.
"I don't suppose there is a creature in this world whose life will bear
thinking about," she said. "What is it that dreadful person in the play
says? 'These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will
make us mad!' I'm sure _my_ life has been all hurry and excitement ever
since I left school--one perpetual contest with other girls, as to
which of us should wear the best dresses, and know the nicest people,
and go to most parties. I sometimes think things might have happened
differently if I had had time to think and had been less influenced by
other girls."
She took a book from one of the shelves haphazard; but there is a
Nemesis who governs and pervades the trifles of every-day life. The
book on which Miss Crawford's careless hand happened to fall was a
volume of the Waverley novels, containing _The Bride of Lammermoor_;
and in the mind of a young lady who is about to make a mercenary
marriage that sad story is likely to awaken painful ideas. Poor old
George III. had a fancy to read Shakespeare's _Lear_ at that time
when he, like the legendary monarch, was old and distraught; and his
physicians ordered that the pitiful tragedy should be kept from his
hands; but the king was wiser than his medical attendants, and knew
where to find the play in spite of them. He asked for Colman's Dramatic
Works, which his unsuspecting servants willingly gave him, and amongst
which he knew there was the modern playwright's adaptation of the grand
old play. He read the tragedy, and was found by his daughters weeping.
"I am like poor Lear," he said piteously; "but I have no Goneril and
Regan--only two Cordelias." One can fancy the scene a touching one, and
the king's daughters melted into tears that were not entirely bitter as
they bent over the sorrowful old man, amidst whose madness there was so
much wisdom.
Flo turned the leaves of Sir Walter's masterpiece listlessly at first;
but who can read half-a-dozen pages of that wondrous story and not be
interested? The sweet romance was very familiar to her; but she read
on, charmed anew by the sad tender record of an "o'er true tale."
She read on till her tears fell fast, and a vague sense of her own
disquietudes seemed strangely blended with the sorrows of Lucy Ashton.
She sat reading till her father's step on the tiled floor of the
conservatory startled her from her abstraction.
"Are you all alone, my darling?" asked the painter tenderly, as his
daughter laid aside her book, and rose to greet him.
"Yes, papa; I have been alone all day."
"But where is Aunt Jane?"
"She has gone to the Square to see to the children's dresses for
to-morrow," answered Flo with a sigh.
The thought of that bridal finery carried her back from Lucy Ashton's
omen-haunted courtship to all the frivolous splendours of her own
wedding.
"Why didn't you come to me, dear?" asked the painter: "I should have
liked to have had you with me on this last day."
"I thought you were working hard, papa, and I didn't like to interrupt
you. And--and--I felt rather melancholy to-day. This house seems such
a dear old place now I'm going to leave it: and I love you so dearly,
papa, though I have never given you any proof of my love."
She clung to him as she spoke, and hid her face upon his breast. There
were a few tears upon the collar of Mr. Crawford's coat when Flo lifted
her head and slipped her hand through his arm, to lead him towards the
dining-room.
"Tell me that I have not been a _very_ wicked daughter, papa," said Flo
pleadingly. "I'm sure I feel as if I were Goneril and Regan and those
two dreadful sisters in Balzac's _Père Goriot_ all in one."
"My pet, you have been a charming daughter," answered the painter,
smiling.
"Yes, papa, but not a good one."
"As good as you have been charming, my darling, though just a little
bewildering sometimes in the way of slang phrases and Wellington boots.
There, there, let me see my own bright Flo again. I suppose it's only
natural that this last day should make you a little melancholy; but a
lady of fashion ought not to be melancholy, even on the last day of her
girlhood. I have always had a vague idea that nobody ever cried on the
Piccadilly side of Oxford-Street. Of course people must die everywhere,
and there are grand funerals, and hatchments on house-fronts, and
court-mourning at the West-end; but I did not think fashionable people
were ever sorry. They seem to me like actors and pantomimists, obliged
to put private griefs aside in order to comply with the exigencies of
public life. Come, darling, we are to dine _tête-à-tête_ to-day. You
must imagine yourself a woman of fashion, who has taken a fancy for
entertaining a popular painter."
"I had rather be your loving daughter, papa, and forget all about
fashion," Flo answered sadly.
All the feverish gaiety of the last few weeks had departed, leaving
a very real sadness in its place. But Miss Crawford was not the sort
of person to abandon herself weakly to any morbid feelings. She saw
her father's eyes fixed upon her in earnest watchfulness, and shook
off her despondency with one of those heroic efforts of which even
frivolous women are capable. She talked gaily all through the cosy
little _tête-à-tête_ dinner, which the painter found very agreeable
after that surfeit of Aunt Jane's society, from which he had suffered
of late. Throughout that pleasant dinner there was a tacit avoidance
of all allusion to the grand event so near at hand. Flo talked of any
thing and every thing except Mr. Lobyer and the future.
"Papa," she cried suddenly, as they sat listlessly trifling with
some strawberries after the table had been cleared, "let us spend the
evening in your painting-room. I know it is your pet retreat, and I
want to be a dutiful daughter for once in my life."
She crept behind the painter's chair, encircled his head with her arms,
and kissed him on the forehead. So had his young wife stolen behind
him sometimes, to administer consolation, during those dreary days
in Buckingham Street, when he had seated himself before his easel to
stare blankly at his hopeless work, prostrate in body and mind. His
daughter's touch recalled those departed days with all their mournful
associations. He took one of the little caressing hands, and pressed it
gently to his lips.
"My darling," he said very softly, "you remind me of your mother."
It was the first time he had ever said this in all his intercourse with
his daughter.
They went together to the painting-room, and sat in the great
bay-window, through which the soft evening air crept towards them, like
a soothing influence. The painter sat in his favourite easy-chair,
looking dreamily towards the western sunlight, warm and golden behind a
foreground of sombre green. Flo brought a low ottoman to her father's
feet and seated herself upon it, with her folded arms resting on his
knee, and her head drooping a little upon those round white arms. Not
very far away from them, rapid broughams were hurrying to and fro
in the shadowy park, bearing airily-attired beauty to the elegant
solemnity of patrician dinner-tables, but in the painter's garden the
faint sighing of summer winds among the leaves and the twitter of one
belated bird alone broke the stillness.
Within the twilit painting-room neither William Crawford nor his
daughter seemed inclined to break the spell of that summer silence.
Amid the brightest and happiest surroundings there is always some touch
of melancholy in the atmosphere of a summer evening, and to-night
Florence Crawford was not especially happy.
"Papa," she said at last, after they had both abandoned themselves for
some time to a thoughtful silence, "if I were going to live with you
two more years, I think I should be a very different kind of daughter
from the creature I have been."
She laid a contemptuous emphasis on the word creature, as in the
extremity of self-humiliation.
"But why, why, darling?"
She did not reply to his question, but went on with her
self-upbraiding.
"I would never call a picture of yours 'jolly' again. Had Rubens any
daughters, I wonder?--surely with two or three wives he could scarcely
escape daughters; and were they hateful, pert creatures like me, and
did they call that wonderful picture he painted for the Arquebusiers
'jolly,' if there was any Flemish equivalent for that horrid word? I
know how horrible it is now, since"--"since I've heard Mr. Lobyer use
it," Miss Crawford had been about to say; but she pulled herself up
suddenly, and continued, "since I've heard it worn threadbare by all
kinds of people. Oh, papa," she cried with sudden enthusiasm, "I know
what a great man you are, and how proud I ought to be of being able to
call myself your daughter! I do know that, though I seem so vain and
frivolous: and I know that your 'Aspasia' is the greatest picture that
ever was painted--'bar none,' as Mr. Lobyer would say."
The little bit of slang escaped poor Flo's lips in the midst of her
sentiment; but the painter was too deeply moved to be cognizant of the
vile phrase which concluded his daughter's exordium. He took her up in
his arms and kissed her tenderly.
"My dearest girl," he said, with an assumed gaiety, "we do not expect
to find the wisdom of all the sages under these crinkled golden locks;
and if you have called my pictures 'jolly,' I am sure the epithet
is infinitely more civil than many my critics have applied to them.
Besides, you are to be as much my daughter in the future as you have
been in the past, and I shall expect Mrs. Lobyer to be as deeply
interested in my work as Miss Crawford has been. And now, dear, come
into the drawing-room and sing to me. We must not prove ourselves
unworthy of the blessing of Aunt Jane's absence by lapsing into
melancholy."
Upon this Florence embraced her father, and protested vehemently that
he was the best and dearest of created beings. And then before he had
time to recover himself, she buried her face in his breast, and sobbed
aloud.
"Papa, tell me that you don't think me a wicked mercenary creature,"
she cried; "pray, pray tell me that you don't think I'm that."
* * * * *
Who shall find words wherewith to set down the glory of that ceremonial
which was performed on the following day at a fashionable temple?
a temple the priests of which were broadly accused of Puseyite
tendencies, and on whose communion-table there glittered brazen
candlesticks. All the nursemaids of the neighbourhood dragged their
charges to behold the splendour of Miss Crawford's bridal train; and
the fashionable reporters were more than usually grandiloquent in their
descriptions of the wedding.
Nevertheless it was very much like other weddings, except in the one
grand fact that the bride shed no tears.
"I didn't cry, you see, papa," she said, when she found herself for a
few moments alone with her father after the ceremony. "I feel myself
quite a woman of fashion."
The brilliant Florence did not inform her father that she had been
crying all through the previous night, and that copious applications of
cold water and _eau-de-Cologne_ had alone prevented her appearing at
the fashionable altar with swollen red circles surrounding her pretty
grey eyes.
The express-train that bore Mr. Lobyer and his bride to Dover on the
first stage of their continental tour rushed past many a pleasant
rustic dwelling, nestling deep amid summer verdure: and, looking
down at humble homesteads and cottage-gardens, warmly tinted by the
westering sun, the millionaire's wife thought sadly:
"I wonder whether the people who live in cottages marry for love?"