I. M. V.
Lord Mount Severn, wondering greatly what the urgent summons could be
for, lost no time in obeying it, and was at East Lynne the following
morning early. Mr. Carlyle had his carriage at the station--his close
carriage--and shut up in that he made the communication to the earl as
they drove to East Lynne.
The earl could with difficulty believe it. Never had he been so utterly
astonished. At first he really could not understand the tale.
“Did she--did she--come back to your house to die?” he blundered. “You
never took her in? I don’t understand.”
Mr. Carlyle explained further; and the earl at length understood. But he
did not recover his perplexed astonishment.
“What a mad act to come back here. Madame Vine! How on earth did she
escape detection?”
“She did escape it,” said Mr. Carlyle. “The strange likeness Madame Vine
possessed to my first wife did often strike me as being marvelous, but I
never suspected the truth. It was a likeness, and not a likeness, for
every part of her face and form was changed except her eyes, and those I
never saw but through those disguising glasses.”
The earl wiped his hot face. The news had ruffled him no measured
degree. He felt angry with Isabel, dead though she was, and thankful
that Mrs. Carlyle was away.
“Will you see her?” whispered Mr. Carlyle as they entered the house.
“Yes.”
They went up to the death-chamber, Mr. Carlyle procuring the key. It was
the only time that he entered it. Very peaceful she looked now, her pale
features so composed under her white cap and hands. Miss Carlyle and
Joyce had done all that was necessary; nobody else had been suffered to
approach her. Lord Mount Severn leaned over her, tracing the former
looks of Isabel; and the likeness grew upon him in a wonderful degree.
“What did she die of?” he asked.
“She said a broken heart.”
“Ah!” said the earl. “The wonder is that it did not break before. Poor
thing! Poor Isabel!” he added, touching her hand, “how she marred her
own happiness! Carlyle, I suppose this is your wedding ring?”
Mr. Carlyle cast his eyes upon the ring. “Very probably.”
“To think of her never having discarded it!” remarked the earl,
releasing the cold hand. “Well, I can hardly believe the tale now.”
He turned and quitted the room as he spoke. Mr. Carlyle looked
steadfastly at the dead face for a minute or two, his fingers touching
the forehead; but what his thoughts or feelings may have been, none can
tell. Then he replaced the sheet over her face, and followed the earl.
They descended in silence to the breakfast-room. Miss Carlyle was seated
at the table waiting for them. “Where could all your eyes have been?”
exclaimed the earl to her, after a few sentences, referring to the event
just passed.
“Just where yours would have been,” replied Miss Corny, with a touch of
her old temper. “You saw Madame Vine as well as we did.”
“But not continuously. Only two or three times in all. And I do not
remember ever to have seen her without her bonnet and veil. That Carlyle
should not have recognized her is almost beyond belief.”
“It seems so, to speak of it,” said Miss Corny; “but facts are facts.
She was young and gay, active, when she left here, upright as a dart,
her dark hair drawn from her open brow, and flowing on her neck, her
cheeks like crimson paint, her face altogether beautiful. Madame Vine
arrived here a pale, stooping woman, lame of one leg, shorter than Lady
Isabel--and her figure stuffed out under those sacks of jackets. Not a
bit, scarcely, of her forehead to be seen, for gray velvet and gray
bands of hair; her head smothered under a close cap, large, blue, double
spectacles hiding the eyes and their sides, and the throat tied up; the
chin partially. The mouth was entirely altered in its character, and
that upward scar, always so conspicuous, made it almost ugly. Then she
had lost some of her front teeth, you know, and she lisped when she
spoke. Take her for all in all,” summed up Miss Carlyle, “she looked no
more like Isabel who went away from here than I look like Adam. Just get
your dearest friend damaged and disguised as she was, my lord, and see
if you’d recognize him.”
The observation came home to Lord Mount Severn. A gentleman whom he knew
well, had been so altered by a fearful accident, that little resemblance
could be traced to his former self. In fact, his own family could not
recognize him: and he used an artificial disguise. It was a case in
point; and--reader--I assure you it was a true one.
“It was the disguise that we ought to have suspected,” quietly observed
Mr. Carlyle. “The likeness was not sufficiently striking to cause
suspicion.”
“But she turned the house from that scent as soon as she came into it,”
struck in Miss Corny, “telling of the ‘neuralgic pains’ that affected
her head and face, rendering the guarding them from exposure necessary.
Remember, Lord Mount Severn, that the Ducies had been with her in
Germany, and had never suspected her. Remember also another thing, that,
however great a likeness we may have detected, we could not and did not
speak of it, one to another. Lady Isabel’s name is never so much as
whispered among us.”
“True: all true,” nodded the earl. And they sat themselves down to
breakfast.
On the Friday, the following letter was dispatched to Mrs. Carlyle.
“MY DEAREST--I find I shall not be able to get to you on Saturday
afternoon, as I promised, but will leave here by the late train that
night. Mind you don’t sit up for me. Lord Mount Severn is here for a few
days; he sends his regards to you.
“And now, Barbara, prepare for news that will prove a shock. Madame Vine
is dead. She grew rapidly worse, they tell me, after our departure, and
died on Wednesday night. I am glad you were away.
“Love from the children. Lucy and Archie are still at Cornelia’s; Arthur
wearing out Sarah’s legs in the nursery.
“Ever yours, my dearest,
“ARCHIBALD CARLYLE.”
Of course, as Madame Vine, the governess, died at Mr. Carlyle’s house,
he could not, in courtesy, do less than follow her to the grave. So
decided West Lynne, when they found which way the wind was going to
blow. Lord Mount Severn followed also, to keep him company, being on a
visit to him, and very polite, indeed, of his lordship to do it--
condescending, also! West Lynne remembered another funeral at which
those two had been the only mourners--that of the earl. By some curious
coincidence the French governess was buried close to the earl’s grave.
As good there as anywhere else, quoth West Lynne. There happened to be a
vacant spot of ground.
The funeral took place on a Sunday morning. A plain, respectable
funeral. A hearse and pair, and mourning coach and pair, with a chariot
for the Rev. Mr. Little. No pall-bearers or mutes, or anything of that
show-off kind; and no plumes on the horses, only on the hearse. West
Lynne looked on with approbation, and conjectured that the governess had
left sufficient money to bury herself; but, of course, that was Mr.
Carlyle’s affair, not West Lynne’s. Quiet enough lay she in her last
resting-place.
They left her in it, the earl and Mr. Carlyle, and entered the mourning-
coach, to be conveyed back again to East Lynne.
“Just a little stone of white marble, two feet high by a foot and a half
broad,” remarked the earl, on their road, pursuing a topic they were
speaking upon. “With the initials ‘I. V.’ and the date of the year.
Nothing more. What do you think?”
“I. M. V.,” corrected Mr. Carlyle.
“Yes.”
At this moment the bells of another church, not St. Jude’s, broke out in
a joyous peal, and the earl inclined his ear to listen.
“What can they be ringing for?” he cried.
They were ringing for a wedding. Afy Hallijohn, by the help of two
clergymen and six bridesmaids, of which you may be sure Joyce was not
one, had just been converted into Mrs. Joe Jiffin. When Afy took a thing
into her head, she somehow contrived to carry it through, and to bend
even clergymen and bridesmaids to her will. Mr. Jiffin was blest at
last.
In the afternoon the earl left East Lynne, and somewhat later Barbara
arrived at it. Wilson scarcely gave her mistress time to step into the
house before her, and she very nearly left the baby in the fly.
Curiously anxious was Wilson to hear all particulars as to whatever
could have took off that French governess. Mr. Carlyle was much
surprised at their arrival.
“How could I stay away, Archibald, even until Monday, after the news you
sent me?” said Barbara. “What did she die of? It must have been awfully
sudden.”
“I suppose so,” was his dreamy answer. He was debating a question with
himself, one he had thought over a good deal since Wednesday night.
Should he, or should he not, tell his wife? He would have preferred not
to tell her; and, were the secret confined to his own breast, he would
decidedly not have done so. But it was known to three others--to Miss
Carlyle, to lord Mount Severn, and to Joyce. All trustworthy and of good
intention; but it was impossible for Mr. Carlyle to make sure that not
one of them would ever, through any chance and unpremeditated word, let
the secret come to the knowledge of Mrs. Carlyle. That would not do, if
she must hear it at all, she must hear it from him, and at once. He took
his course.
“Are you ill, Archibald?” she asked, noting his face. It wore a pale,
worn sort of look.
“I have something to tell you, Barbara,” he answered, drawing her hand
into his, as they stood together. They were in her dressing-room, where
she was taking off her things. “On the Wednesday evening when I got home
to dinner Joyce told me that she feared Madame Vine was dying, and I
thought it right to see her.”
“Certainly,” returned Barbara. “Quite right.”
“I went into her room, and I found that she was dying. But I found
something else, Barbara. She was not Madame Vine.”
“Not Madame Vine!” echoed Barbara, believing in good truth that her
husband could not know what he was saying.
“It was my former wife, Isabel Vane.”
Barbara’s face flushed crimson, and then grew white as marble; and she
drew her hand unconsciously from Mr. Carlyle’s. He did not appear to
notice the movement, but stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece while
he talked, giving her a rapid summary of the interview and its details.
“She could not stay away from her children, she said, and came back as
Madame Vine. What with the effects of the railroad accident in France,
and those spectacles she wore, and her style of dress, and her gray
hair, she felt secure in not being recognized. I am astonished now that
she was not discovered. Were such a thing related to me I should give no
credence to it.”
Barbara’s heart felt faint with its utter sickness, and she turned her
face from the view of her husband. Her first confused thoughts were as
Mr. Carlyle’s had been--that she had been living in his house with
another wife. “Did you suspect her?” she breathed, in a low tone.
“Barbara! Had I suspected it, should I have allowed it to go on? She
implored my forgiveness for the past, and for having returned here, and
I gave it to her fully. I then went to West Lynne, to telegraph to Mount
Severn, and when I came back she was dead.”
There was a pause. Mr. Carlyle began to perceive that his wife’s face
was hidden from him.
“She said her heart was broken. Barbara, we cannot wonder at it.”
There was no reply. Mr. Carlyle took his arm from the mantelpiece, and
moved so that he could see her countenance: a wan countenance, telling
of pain.
He laid his hand upon her shoulder, and made her look at him. “My
dearest, what is this?”
“Oh, Archibald!” she uttered, clasping her hands together, all her pent
up feelings bursting forth, and the tears streaming from her eyes, “has
this taken your love from me?”
He took both her hands in one of his, he put the other round her waist
and held her there, before him, never speaking, only looking gravely
into her face. Who could look at its sincere truthfulness, at the sweet
expression of his lips, and doubt him? Not Barbara. She allowed the
moment’s excitement to act upon her feelings, and carry her away.
“I had thought my wife possessed entire trust in me.”
“Oh, I do, I do; you know I do. Forgive me, Archibald,” she slowly
whispered.
“I deemed it better to impart this to you, Barbara. Had there been wrong
feeling on my part, I should have left you in ignorance. My darling, I
have told you it in love.”
She was leaning on his breast, sobbing gently, her repentant face turned
towards him. He held her there in his strong protection, his enduring
tenderness.
“My wife! My darling! now and always.”
“It was a foolish feeling to cross my heart, Archibald. It is done with
and gone.”
“Never let it come back, Barbara. Neither need her name be mentioned
again between us. A barred name it has hitherto been; so let it
continue.”
“Anything you will. My earnest wish is to please you; to be worthy of
your esteem and love, Archibald,” she timidly added, her eye-lids
drooping, and her fair cheeks blushing, as she made the confession.
“There has been a feeling in my heart against your children, a sort of
jealous feeling, you can understand, because they were hers; because she
had once been your wife. I knew how wrong it was, and I have tried
earnestly to subdue it. I have, indeed, and I think it is nearly gone,”
her voice sunk. “I constantly pray to be helped to do it; to love them
and care for them as if they were my own. It will come with time.”
“Every good thing will come with time that we may earnestly seek,” said
Mr. Carlyle. “Oh, Barbara, never forget--never forget that the only way
to ensure peace in the end is to strive always to be doing right,
unselfishly under God.”