EXPELLED.
The next morning, leaving Madeline at the station to follow by a
later train, Mr. Wynne called at Harperton, in order to have a little
explanation. The maid’s face (she was an old maid) looked portentously
solemn as she opened the door; and--oh! ominous objects!--two
good-sized basket trunks, and a bonnet-box, stood waiting in the hall.
As he glanced at them in passing, some one came out through a door just
behind him, and said, in a biting tone--
“Dear me! I am surprised to see Mr. Wynne under the circumstances;
but, as he is here, perhaps he can give an address for Miss West’s
boxes?”
“May I ask what you mean, Miss Selina?” he said, turning to confront
her the instant the drawing-room door was closed.
“I mean,” she replied, flushing to a dull brick colour, “that after her
escapade of last evening, Miss West never enters this house again--a
young lady who stayed out all night!” she concluded with a wild,
dramatic gesture.
“But, you know, that was not her fault, Miss Selina. We waited exactly
where you told us--at the bottom of the steps--and so missed the train.
I could not get a cab, though I did my utmost, the snow was too deep.
I left Miss West at the Railway Hotel and brought her from there this
morning. She----”
“Oh,” interrupted his listener, throwing up both hands, “pray spare me
the details! It is nothing to me whom she was with, or where she went.
We have quite done with her. It was a planned thing between you, no
doubt.”
“Miss Selina,” cried Mr. Wynne, “your sex protects you! A man dared not
say what you have permitted yourself to utter, and do not in your own
heart believe. Am I to understand that because, through waiting for
you, by your own express direction, Miss West lost her only train home
last night, and was obliged to remain in Riverside, you would blast her
reputation, and thrust her out of doors?”
“You are!” she returned, defiantly, looking him full in the face with
her cold, cruel, little eyes.
“And may I ask what is to become of the young lady?” he inquired, with
a forced calmness that was ominous enough.
“Nay,” shrugging her shoulders, “that is a matter between her and you.”
Then she added, with an evil smile, “She need not refer to us for a
character.”
“Perhaps your mother will be more lenient,” he said, making a great
effort to restrain his temper. “Remember that Miss West has no home and
no friends. Can I see Mrs. Harper?”
“I am speaking for my mother,” she answered sharply. “She refuses to
see the girl, or allow her inside our door. There is no use in your
persisting--it is waste of time. We are not rich, but, at any rate,”
choking with excitement, “we have always been respectable!”
“I am delighted to hear it,” he replied, making a low, ironical bow;
“and as there is nothing further to be said, I will wish you good
morning.”
“Good morning!” replied Miss Selina, ringing the bell, and curtseying
simultaneously. “You will be pleased to remove Miss West’s boxes
at once, and inform her that letters from her will be returned
unopened”--thereby securing the last shot, and the last word. And Mr.
Wynne walked out of the house in a bewildered and confused state of
mind, outwardly cool, but in reality at boiling point.
He had not proceeded far when he met Madeline coming towards him, with
a terrified and expectant face. Now was the moment for action. His
senses were stung to alertness, his mind cleared of misgivings; he made
a desperate resolve. She was thrust out homeless and alone in the wide,
wide world! She should share his home, such as it was; it was better
than none. She should, an she would, be his wife--and rich in love if
in nothing else. Prudence had hitherto sealed his lips--for her sake
chiefly. Now that she had no resources, no place open to receive her,
he could and would speak.
The first thing he did was to hail a cab, and despatch the man straight
back to Harperton for Miss West’s luggage, desiring him to bring it to
the station.
“Why, what does it mean? Are they so very angry?” she asked with
blanched cheeks. “Oh, you don’t mean that they are sending me away?”
For she noticed that Mr. Wynne looked unusually pale and grave.
“Come down here with me,” leading her into some public gardens that
they were passing, “and I will tell you all about it.”
The gardens were miserably wintry. Snow lay on the ground, a couple of
boys were snowballing, some starving red-wings fluttered across the
path, a granite-grey sky lowered overhead. Surely it was the last place
on God’s earth in which to relate a love tale; and the girl herself,
what a picture of misery! Oh! thought the young man, if Mrs. Wolferton
had but been at home--but, alas! she was abroad--she would have been
a true friend to this poor forlorn child. Madeline was, of course,
wearing her evening dress, such as it was--at any rate, it was thin. A
shabby little plush opera cloak barely covered her perishing neck and
arms. Over this was drawn a meagre black cape. On her head she wore a
sunburnt sailor hat; in her frozen, mittened hand she held a fan; her
face was pinched with cold, and white with anxiety. No lovely lady-fair
was here to woo this bleak January forenoon. And what of ambition--the
stern, jealous mistress to whom he was pledged?
“They are very angry, senselessly angry,” began the young man. “They
won’t take you back again, and have actually packed your boxes ready
for removal. However, when one door shuts, another opens. There is a
home ready for you, Madeline. Can you guess where it is?”
She gazed at Mr. Wynne, and stood perfectly still and very white, with
her thin, sensitive lips tightly pressed together, and made no reply.
“You know that it is my home,” he continued eagerly. “I need not tell
you that I love you, and so well do I love you, that until now I have
never dared even to whisper my love. I am poor, I have my way to make
as yet, it may be a life of struggling poverty. Can you share it--will
you venture, Madeline?”
The girl stepped back a pace, and suddenly sat down upon an iron garden
bench, still silent, and covered her face with her mittened hands.
“Will you not answer me!” he pleaded. He dared not remove her hands,
or offer her a caress. The snowballing had ceased; the present scene
in real life attracted the two boys, who had drawn near. The lady was
sick, or looked like it.
“You do not mean it,” she faltered. “I know you are very, very kind,
but I cannot accept your pity, for that is what it comes to.”
“I solemnly declare to you that it is not,” he rejoined with emphasis;
“but even if it were, have you not heard that pity is akin to love?”
“It is utterly impossible,” she said slowly. “You are speaking out of
the goodness of your heart, on the impulse of the moment. This time
yesterday, tell me honestly,” raising her lovely eyes to his, “had you
any intention of--of--of this?”
“To be truthful, then, I had not.”
“There, you see, that is enough. There is your answer,” with a quick
little gesture.
“No, no, hear me out. It was on your account that I held my tongue. If
I had had a decent income I would have spoken to you long ago; but I
felt that I had no right to remove you from Mrs. Harper’s care without
having a comfortable home to offer you. I meant to work very hard and
to return next year. Now all has been changed. Circumstances alter
cases. I ask you now, Madeline, will you be afraid to begin with me at
the bottom of the ladder--something tells me that I shall reach the
top?”
“I shall only be a dead weight and a burden,” she replied in a broken
voice. She was relenting. Her own heart was an eloquent advocate for
Mr. Wynne.
“What will your relations say when they hear that you wish to marry a
portionless girl, a--beggar?” she murmured tremulously.
“They will say nothing that can affect us. I am independent. I have no
claims on them, and they have no right to dictate to me. By the time
they hear the news, we shall, I hope, be married. We have nothing to
wait for, and the sooner you have a home of your own the better. I wish
I had a sister or some near relative that I could take you to, but I
am almost as much alone in the world as you are.”
In the end Mr. Wynne prevailed--was not talking his trade?--and
Madeline West walked out of that wintry white garden his affianced wife.
Rash young man! Rash young woman! One would have thought that they had
the wealth of Crœsus, the full consent and warmest wishes of tribes of
wealthy relations, to look at their faces as they passed through the
gates side by side.
Miss West did not feel the snow soaking through her thin walking shoes.
No, she was treading on air--had thrown all doubts and misgivings
to the winds, and was prepared to make the most of this heaven-sent
period. She was about to enter on a new and happy life, believing that,
although a poor man’s wife, her path would be strewn with roses.
She had about as much practical experience of household cares--the
value of pounds, shillings, and pence--as one of the children in the
third class at Harperton. As for Laurence Wynne, Madeline was his,
Madeline was an angel, young, unspoiled, and unsophisticated, with
modest wishes, and a firm faith in him. Their future was before them!
It was!