MR. DILL IN AN EMBROIDERED SHIRT-FRONT.
It was a lovely morning in June, and all West Lynne was astir. West
Lynne generally was astir in the morning, but not in the bustling manner
that might be observed now. People were abroad in numbers, passing down
to St. Jude’s Church, for it was the day of Mr. Carlyle’s marriage to
Barbara Hare.
Miss Carlyle made herself into a sort of martyr. She would not go near
it; fine weddings in fine churches did not suit her, she proclaimed;
they could tie themselves up together fast enough without her presence.
She had invited the little Carlyles and their governess and Joyce to
spend the day with her; and she persisted in regarding the children as
martyrs too, in being obliged to submit to the advent of a second
mother. She was back in her old house again, next door to the office,
settled there for life now with her servants. Peter had mortally
offended her in electing to remain at East Lynne.
Mr. Dill committed himself terribly on the wedding morning. About ten
o’clock he made his appearance at Miss Carlyle’s; he was a man of the
old stage, possessing old-fashioned notions, and he had deemed that to
step in to congratulate her on the auspicious day would be only good
manners.
Miss Carlyle was seated in her dining-room, her hands folded before her.
It was rare indeed that she was caught doing nothing. She turned her
eyes on Mr. Dill as he entered.
“Why, what on earth has taken you?” began she, before he could speak.
“You are decked out like a young duck!”
“I am going to the wedding, Miss Cornelia. Did you know it? Mrs. Hare
was so kind as to invite me to the breakfast, and Mr. Archibald insists
upon my going to church. I am not too fine, am I?”
Poor old Dill’s “finery” consisted of a white waistcoat with gold
buttons, and an embroidered shirt-front. Miss Corny was pleased to
regard it with sarcastic wrath.
“Fine!” echoed she. “I don’t know what you call it. I would not make
myself such a spectacle for untold gold. You’ll have all the ragamuffins
in the street forming a tail after you, thinking you are the bridegroom.
A man of your years to deck yourself out in a worked shirt! I would have
had some rosettes on my coat-tails, while I was about it.”
“My coat’s quite plain, Miss Cornelia,” he meekly remonstrated.
“Plain! What would you have it?” snapped Miss Cornelia. “Perhaps you
covet a wreath of embroidery round it, gold leaves and scarlet flowers,
with a swansdown collar? It would only be in keeping with that shirt and
waistcoat. I might as well have gone and ordered a white tarletan dress,
looped up with peas, and streamed through the town in that guise. It
would be just as consistent.”
“People like to dress a little out of common at a wedding, Miss
Cornelia; it’s only respectful, when they are invited guests.”
“I don’t say people should go to a wedding in a hop sack. But there’s a
medium. Pray, do you know your age?”
“I am turned sixty, Miss Corny.”
“You just are. And do you consider it decent for an old man, going on
for seventy, to be decorated off as you are now? I don’t; and so I tell
you my mind. Why, you’ll be the laughing-stock of the parish! Take care
the boys don’t tie a tin kettle to you!”
Mr. Dill thought he would leave the subject. His own impression was,
that he was not too fine, and that the parish would not regard him as
being so; still, he had a great reverence for Miss Corny’s judgment, and
was not altogether easy. He had had his white gloves in his hand when he
entered, but he surreptitiously smuggled them into his pocket, lest they
might offend. He passed to the subject which had brought him thither.
“What I came in for, was to offer you my congratulations on this
auspicious day, Miss Cornelia. I hope Mr. Archibald and his wife, and
you, ma’am--”
“There! You need not trouble yourself to go on,” interrupted Miss Corny,
hotly arresting him. “We want condolence here to-day, rather than the
other thing. I’m sure I’d nearly as soon see Archibald go to his
hanging.”
“Oh, Miss Corny!”
“I would; and you need not stare at me as if you were throttled. What
business has he to go and fetter himself with a wife again. One would
have thought he had had enough with the other. It is as I have always
said, there’s a soft place in Archibald’s brain.”
Old Dill knew there was no “soft place” in the brain of Mr. Carlyle, but
he deemed it might be as well not to say so, in Miss Corny’s present
humor. “Marriage is a happy state, as I have heard, ma’am, and
honorable; and I am sure Mr. Archibald--”
“Very happy! Very honorable!” fiercely cried Miss Carlyle, sarcasm in
her tone. “His last marriage brought him all that, did it not?”
“That’s past and done with, Miss Corny, and none of us need recall it. I
hope he will find in his present wife a recompense for what’s gone; he
could not have chosen a prettier or nicer young lady than Miss Barbara;
and I am glad to my very heart that he has got her.”
“Couldn’t he?” jerked Miss Carlyle.
“No, ma’am, he could not. Were I young, and wanted a wife, there’s no
one in all West Lynne I would so soon look out for as Miss Barbara. Not
that she’d have me; and I was not speaking in that sense, Miss Corny.”
“It’s to be hoped you were not,” retorted Miss Corny. “She is an idle,
insolent, vain fagot, caring for nothing but her own doll’s face and for
Archibald.”
“Ah, well, ma’am never mind that; pretty young girls know they are
pretty, and you can’t take their vanity from them. She’ll be a good and
loving wife to him; I know she will; it is in her nature; she won’t
serve him as--as--that other poor unfortunate did.”
“If I feared she was one to bring shame to him, as the other did, I’d go
into the church this hour and forbid the marriage; and if that didn’t
do, I’d--smother her!” shrieked Miss Carlyle. “Look at that piece of
impudence!”
That last sentence was uttered in a different tone, and concerned
somebody in the street. Miss Carlyle hopped off her chair and strode to
the window. Mr. Dill’s eyes turned in the like direction.
In a gay and summer’s dress, fine and sparkling, with a coquettish
little bonnet, trimmed with pink, shaded by one of those nondescript
articles at present called veils, which article was made of white
spotted net with a pink ruche round it, sailed Afy Hallijohn, conceited
and foolish and good-looking as ever. Catching sight of Mr. Dill, she
made him a flourishing and gracious bow. The courteous old gentleman
returned it, and was pounced upon by Miss Corny’s tongue for his pains.
“Whatever possessed you to do that?”
“Well, Miss Corny, she spoke to me. You saw her.”
“I saw her? Yes, I did see her, the brazen bellwether! And she saw me,
and spoke to you in her insolence. And you must answer her, in spite of
my presence, instead of shaking your fist and giving her a reproving
frown. You want a little sharp talking to, yourself.”
“But, Miss Corny, it’s always best to let bygones be bygones,” he
pleaded. “She was flighty and foolish, and all that, was Afy; but now
that it’s proved she did not go with Richard Hare, as was suspected, and
is at present living creditably, why should she not be noticed?”
“If the very deuce himself stood there with his horns and tail, you
would find excuses to make for him,” fired Miss Corny. “You are as bad
as Archibald! Notice Afy Hallijohn, when she dresses and flirts and
minces as you saw her but now! What creditable servant would flaunt
abroad in such a dress and bonnet as that, with that flimsy gauze thing
over her face. It’s as disreputable as your shirt-front.”
Mr. Dill coughed humbly, not wishing to renew the point of the shirt-
front. “She is not exactly a servant, Miss Corny, she’s a lady’s maid;
and ladies’ maids do dress outrageously fine. I had great respect for
her father, ma’am; never a better clerk came into our office.”
“Perhaps you’ll tell me you have a respect for her! The world’s being
turned upside down, I think. Formerly, mistresses kept their servants to
work; now it seems they keep them for play! She’s going to St. Jude’s,
you may be sure of it, to stare at this fine wedding, instead of being
at home, in a cotton gown and white apron, making beds. Mrs. Latimer
must be a droll mistress, to give her liberty in this way. What’s that
fly for?” sharply added Miss Corny, as one drew up to the office door.
“Fly,” said Mr. Dill, stretching forward his bald head. “It must be the
one I ordered. Then I’ll wish you good-day, Miss Corny.”
“Fly for you?” cried Miss Corny. “Have you got the gout, that you could
not walk to St. Jude’s on foot?”
“I am not going to the church yet; I am going on to the Grove, Miss
Corny. I thought it would look more proper to have a fly ma’am; more
respectful.”
“Not a doubt but you need it in that trim,” retorted she. “Why didn’t
you put on pumps and silk stockings with pink clocks?”
He was glad to bow himself out, she kept on so. But he thought he would
do it with a pleasant remark, to show her he bore no ill-will. “Just
look at the crowds pouring down, Miss Corny; the church will be as full
as it can cram.”
“I dare say it will,” retorted she. “One fool makes many.”
“I fear Miss Cornelia does not like this marriage, any more than she did
the last,” quoth Mr. Dill to himself as he stepped into his fly. “Such a
sensible woman as she is in other things, to be so bitter against Mr.
Archibald because he marries! It’s not like her. I wonder,” he added,
his thoughts changing, “whether I do look foolish in this shirt? I’m
sure I never thought of decking myself out to appear young--as Miss
Corny said--I only wished to testify respect to Mr. Archibald and Miss
Barbara; nothing else would have made me give five-and-twenty shillings
for it. Perhaps it’s not etiquette--or whatever they call it--to wear
them in the morning, Miss Corny ought to know; and there certainly must
be something wrong about it, by the way it put her up. Well, it can’t be
helped now; it must go; there’s no time to return home now to change
it.”
St. Jude’s Church was in a cram; all the world and his wife had flocked
into it. Those who could not get in, took up their station in the
churchyard and in the road.
Well, it was a goodly show. Ladies and gentlemen as smart as fine
feathers could make them. Mr. Carlyle was one of the first to enter the
church, self-possessed and calm, the very sense of a gentleman. Oh, but
he was noble to look upon; though when was he otherwise? Mr. and Mrs.
Clithero were there, Anne Hare, that was; a surprise for some of the
gazers, who had not known they were expected at the wedding. Gentle,
delicate Mrs. Hare walked up the church leaning on the arm of Sir John
Dobede, a paler shade than usual on her sweet, sad face. “She’s thinking
of her wretched, ill-doing son,” quoth the gossips, one to another. But
who comes in now, with an air as if the whole church belonged to him? An
imposing, pompous man, stern and grim, in a new flaxen wig, and a white
rose in his buttonhole. It is Mr. Justice Hare, and he leads in one,
whom folks jump upon seats to get a look at.
Very lovely was Barbara, in her soft white silk robes and her floating
veil. Her cheeks, now blushing rosy red, now pale as the veil that
shaded them, betrayed how intense was her emotion. The bridesmaids came
after her with jaunty steps, vain in their important office--Louisa
Dobede, Augusta and Kate Herbert, and Mary Pinner.
Mr. Carlyle was already in his place at the altar, and as Barbara neared
him, he advanced, took her hand, and placed her on his left. I don’t
think that it was quite usual; but he had been married before, and ought
to know. The clerk directed the rest where to stand, and, after some
little delay, the service proceeded.
In spite of her emotion--and that it was great, scarcely to be
suppressed, none could doubt--Barbara made the responses bravely. Be you
very sure that a woman who loves him she is being united to, must
experience this emotion.
“Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together
after God’s ordinance, in the holy estate of matrimony?” spoke the Rev.
Mr. Little. “Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep
him in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others, keep thee only
unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I will.”
Clearly, firmly, impressively was the answer given. It was as if Barbara
had in her thoughts one who had not “kept holy unto him,” and would
proclaim her own resolution never so to betray him, God helping her.
The ceremony was very soon over, and Barbara, the magic ring upon her
finger and her arm within Mr. Carlyle’s was led out to his chariot, now
hers--had he not just endowed her with his worldly goods?
The crowd shouted and hurrahed as they caught sight of her blushing
face, but the carriage was soon clear of the crowd, who concentrated
their curiosity upon the other carriages that were to follow it. The
company were speeding back to the Grove to breakfast. Mr. Carlyle,
breaking the silence, suddenly turned to his bride and spoke, his tone
impassioned, almost unto pain.
“Barbara, you will keep your vows to me?”
She raised her shy blue eyes, so full of love to his; earnest feeling
had brought the tears to them.
“Always, in the spirit and in the letter, until death shall claim me. So
help me Heaven!”
The German watering-places were crowded that early autumn. They
generally are crowded at that season, now that the English flock abroad
in shoals, like the swallows quitting our cold country, to return again
some time. France has been pretty well used up, so now we fall upon
Germany. Stalkenberg was that year particularly full, for its size--you
might have put it in a nutshell; and it derived its importance, name,
and most else belonging to it, from its lord of the soil, the Baron von
Stalkenberg. A stalwart old man was the baron, with grizzly hair, a
grizzled beard, and manners as loutish as those of the boars he hunted.
He had four sons as stalwart as himself, and who promised to be in time
as grizzled. They were all styled the Counts von Stalkenberg, being
distinguished by their Christian names--all save the eldest son, and he
was generally called the young baron. Two of them were away--soldiers;
and two, the eldest and the youngest, lived with their father in the
tumble-down castle of Stalkenberg, situated about a mile from the
village to which it gave its name. The young Baron von Stalkenberg was
at liberty to marry; the three Counts von Stalkenberg were not--unless
they could pick up a wife with enough money to keep herself and her
husband. In this creed they had been brought up. It was a perfectly
understood creed, and not rebelled against.
The young Baron von Stalkenberg, who was only styled young in
contradistinction to his father, being in his forty-first year, was
famous for a handsome person, and for his passionate love of the chase:
of wild boars and wolves he was the deadly enemy. The Count Otto von
Stalkenberg, eleven years his brother’s junior, was famous for nothing
but his fiercely-ringed moustache, a habit of eating, and an undue
addiction to draughts of Marcobrunen. Somewhat meager fare, so report
ran, was the fashion in the Castle of Stalkenberg--neither the old baron
nor his heir cared for luxury; therefore Count von Otto was sure to be
seen at the table d’ hote as often as anybody would invite him, and that
was nearly every day, for the Count von Stalkenberg was a high-sounding
title, and his baronial father, proprietor of all Stalkenberg, lorded it
in the baronial castle close by, all of which appeared very grand and
great, and that the English bow down to with an idol’s worship.
Stopping at the Ludwig Bad, the chief hotel in the place, was a family
of the name of Crosby. It consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Crosby, an only
daughter, her governess, and two or three servants. What Mr. Crosby had
done to England, or England to him, I can’t say, but he never went near
his native country. For years and years he had lived abroad--not in any
settled place of residence: they would travel about, and remain a year
or two in one place, a year or two in another, as the whim suited them.
A respectable, portly man, of quiet and gentlemanly manners, looking as
little like one who need be afraid of the laws of his own land as can
be. Neither is it said or insinuated that he was afraid of them. A
gentleman who knew him had told, many years before, in answer to a
doubt, that Crosby was as free to go home and establish himself in a
mansion in Piccadilly as the best of them. But he had lost fearfully by
some roguish scheme, like the South Sea Bubble, and could not live in
the style he once had done, therefore preferred remaining abroad. Mrs.
Crosby was a pleasant, chatty woman given to take as much gayety as she
could get, and Helena Crosby was a remarkably fine grown girl of
seventeen. You might have given her some years on it had you been
guessing her age, for she was no child, either in appearance or manners,
and never had been. She was an heiress, too. An uncle had left her
twenty thousand pounds, and at her mother’s death she would have ten
thousand more. The Count Otto von Stalkenberg heard of the thirty
thousand pounds, and turned his fierce moustache and his eyes on Miss
Helena.
“Thirty thousand pounds and von handsome girls!” cogitated he, for he
prided himself upon his English. “It is just what I have been seeking
after.”
He found the rumor touching her fortune to be correct, and from that
time was seldom apart from the Crosbys. They were as pleased to have his
society as he was to be in theirs, for was he not the Count von
Stalkenberg? And the other visitors at Stalkenberg looking on with envy,
would have given their ears to be honored with a like intimacy.
One day there thundered down in a vehicle the old Baron von Stalkenberg.
The old chief had come to pay a visit of ceremony to the Crosbys. And
the host of the Ludwig Bad, as he appeared himself to marshal this
chieftain to their saloon, bowed his body low with every step.
“Room there, room there, for the mighty Baron von Stalkenberg.”
The mighty baron had come to invite them to a feast at his castle, where
no feast had ever been made so grand before as this would be; and Otto
had carte blanche to engage other distinguished sojourners at
Stalkenberg, English, French, and natives, who had been civil to him.
Mrs. Crosby’s head was turned.
And now, I ask you, knowing as you do our national notions, was it not
enough to turn it? You will not, then, be surprised to hear that when,
some days subsequent to the feast, the Count Otto von Stalkenberg laid
his proposals at Helena’s feet, they were not rejected.
Helena Crosby rushed into her governess’s room.
“Madam! Madam! Only think. I am going to be married!”
Madam lifted her pale, sad face--a very sad and pale face was hers.
“Indeed!” she gently uttered.
“And my studies are to be over from to-day, Mamma says so.”
“You are over young to marry, Helena.”
“Now don’t you bring up that, madam. It is just what papa is harping
upon,” returned Miss Helena.
“It is to Count Otto?” And it may be remarked that the governess’s
English was perfect, although the young lady addressed her as “Madam.”
“Count Otto, of course. As if I would marry anybody else!”
Look at the governess, reader, and see whether you know her. You will
say “No.” But you do, for it is Lady Isabel Vane. But how strangely she
is altered! Yes, the railway accident did that for her, and what the
accident left undone, grief and remorse accomplished. She limps as she
walks, and slightly stoops, taken from her former height. A scar extends
from her chin above her mouth, completely changing the character of the
lower part of her face; some of her teeth are missing, so that she
speaks with a lisp, and the sober bands of her gray hair--it is nearly
silver--are confined under a large and close cap. She herself tries to
make the change greater, so that all chance of being recognized may be
at an end, and for that reason she wears disfiguring spectacles, and a
broad band of gray velvet, coming down low upon her forehead. Her dress,
too, is equally disfiguring. Never is she seen in one that fits her
person, but in those frightful “loose jackets,” which must surely have
been invented by somebody envious of a pretty shape. As to her bonnet,
it would put to shame those masquerade things tilted on to the back of
the head, for it actually shaded her face; and she was never seen out
without a thick veil. She was pretty easy upon the score of being
recognized now; for Mrs. Ducie and her daughters had been sojourning at
Stalkenberg, and they did not know her in the least. Who could know her?
What resemblance was there between that gray, broken-down woman, with
her disfiguring marks, and the once loved Lady Isabel, with her bright
color, her beauty, her dark flowing curls, and her agile figure? Mr.
Carlyle himself could not have told her. But she was good-looking still,
in spite of it all, gentle and interesting; and people wondered to see
that gray hair in one yet young.
She had been with the Crosbys going on for two years. After her recovery
from the railway accident, she removed to a quiet town in the vicinity;
they were living there, and she became daily governess to Helena. The
Crosbys were given to understand that she was English, but the widow of
a Frenchman--she was obliged to offer some plausible account. There were
no references; but she so won upon their esteem as the daily governess,
that they soon took her into the house. Had Lady Isabel surmised that
they would be travelling to so conspicuous a spot as an English-
frequented German watering-place, she might have hesitated to accept the
engagement. However, it had been of service to her, the meeting with
Mrs. Ducie proving that she was altered beyond chance of recognition.
She could go anywhere now.
But now, about her state of mind? I don’t know how to describe it; the
vain yearning, the inward fever, the restless longing for what might not
be. Longing for what? For her children. Let the mother, be she a
duchess, or be she an apple-woman at a stand, be separated for awhile
from her little children; let her answer how she yearns for them. She
may be away on a tour of pleasure for a few weeks; the longing to see
their little faces again, to hear their prattling tongues, to feel their
soft kisses, is kept under; and there may be frequent messages, “The
children’s dear love to mamma;” but as the weeks lengthen out, the
desire to see them again becomes almost irrepressible. What must it have
been then, for Lady Isabel, who had endured this longing for years? Talk
of the mal du pays, which is said to attack the Swiss when exiled from
their country--that is as nothing compared to the heartsickness which
clung to Lady Isabel. She had passionately loved her children; she had
been anxious for their welfare in all ways; and not the least she had to
endure now was the thought that she had abandoned them to be trained by
strangers. Would they be trained to goodness, to morality, to religion?
Careless as she herself had once been upon these points, she had learnt
better now. Would Isabel grow up to indifference, to--perhaps do as she
had done? Lady Isabel flung her hands before her eyes and groaned in
anguish.
It happened that Mrs. Latimer, a lady living at West Lynne, betook
herself about that time to Stalkenberg, and with her, three parts maid
and one part companion, went Afy Hallijohn. Not that Afy was admitted to
the society of Mrs. Latimer, to sit with her or dine with her, nothing
of that; but she did enjoy more privileges than most ladies’ maids do,
and Afy, who was never backward at setting off her own consequence, gave
out that she was “companion.” Mrs. Latimer was an easy woman, fond of
Afy, and Afy had made her own tale good to her respecting the ill-
natured reports at the time of the murder, so that Mrs. Latimer looked
upon her as one to be compassionated.
Mrs. Latimer and Mrs. Crosby, whose apartments in the hotel joined,
struck up a violent friendship, the one for the other. Ere the former
had been a week at the Ludwig, they had sworn something like eternal
sisterhood--as both had probably done for others fifty times before.