MISS FAUNTLEROY LOVED AT LAST.
But Travice Arkell did not die. The lethargy that was thought to be
death proved to be only the exhaustion of spent nature. When the first
faint indications of his awaking from it appeared, the physicians said
it was possible that he might recover. He lay for some days in a
critical state, hopes and fears about equally balancing, and then he
began to get visibly stronger.
"I have been nearly dead, have I not?" he asked one day of his father,
who was sitting by the bed.
"But you are better now, Travice. You will get well. Thank God!"
"Yes, the danger's over. I feel that, myself. Dear father! how troubled
you have been!"
"Travice, I could hardly have borne to lose you," he murmured, leaning
over him. "And--_thus_."
"I shall soon be well again; soon be strong. Be stronger, I hope," and
Travice faintly pressed the hand in which his lay, "to go through the
duties that lie before me, than I was previously."
Mr. Arkell sighed from the very depths of his heart. If his son could
but have looked forward to arise to a life of peace, instead of pain!
Mildred was with the invalid often. Mrs. Dundyke, who, concerned at the
imminent danger of one in whom she had always considered that she held a
right, had hastened to Westerbury when the news was sent to her,
likewise used to go and sit with him. But not Lucy. It was instinctively
felt by all that the sight of Lucy could only bring the future more
palpably before him. It might have been so different!
Mrs. Dundyke saw Mr. Arkell in private.
"Is there _no_ escape for him?" she asked; "no escape from this marriage
with Miss Fauntleroy? I would give all I am worth to effect it."
"And I would give my life," was the agitated answer. "There is none.
Honour must be kept before all things. Travice himself knows there is
none; neither would he accept any, were it offered out of the line of
strict honour."
"It is a life's sacrifice," said Mrs. Dundyke. "It is sacrificing both
him and Lucy."
"Had I possessed but the faintest idea of the sacrifice it really was,
even for him, it should never have been contemplated, no matter what the
cost," was Mr. Arkell's answer.
"And there was no need of it. If you had but known that! My fortune is a
large one now, and the greater portion of it I intended for Travice."
"Betsey!"
"I intended it for no one else. Perhaps I ought to have been more open
in expressing my intentions; but you know how I have been held aloof by
Charlotte. And I did not suppose that Travice was in necessity of any
sort. If he marries Miss Fauntleroy, the half of what I die possessed of
will be his; the other half will go to Lucy Arkell. Were it possible
that he could marry Lucy, they'd not wait for my death to be placed
above the frowns of the world."
"Oh Betsey, how generous you are! But there is no escape for him," added
Mr. Arkell, with a groan at the bitter fact. "He cannot desert Miss
Fauntleroy."
It was indisputably true. And that buxom bride-elect herself seemed to
have no idea that anybody wanted to be off the bargain, for her visits
to the house were frequent, and her spirits were unusually high.
You all know the old rhyme about a certain gentleman's penitence when he
was sick; though it may not be deemed the perfection of good manners to
quote it here. It was a very apt illustration of the feelings of Mrs.
Arkell. While her son lay sick unto death, she would have married him to
Lucy Arkell; but no sooner was the danger of death removed, and he
advancing towards convalescence, than the old pride--avarice--love of
rule--call it what you will--resumed sway within her; and she had almost
been ready to say again that a mouldy grave would be preferable for him,
rather than desertion of Miss Fauntleroy. In fine, the old state of
things was obtaining sway, both as to Mrs. Arkell's opinions and to the
course of events.
"When can I see him?" asked Miss Fauntleroy one day.
Not the first time, this, that she had put the question, and it a little
puzzled Mrs. Arkell to answer it. It was only natural and proper,
considering the relation in which each stood to the other, that Miss
Fauntleroy should see him; but Mrs. Arkell had positively not dared to
hint at such a visit to her son.
"Travice sits up now, does he not?" continued the young lady.
"Yes, he has sat up a little in the afternoon these two days past. We
call it sitting up, Barbara, but, in point of fact, he lies the whole
time on the sofa. He is not strong enough to sit up."
"Then I'm sure I may see him. It might not have been proper, I suppose,
to pay him a visit in bed," she added, laughing loudly; "but there can't
be any impropriety now. I want to see him, Mrs. Arkell; I want it very
particularly."
"Of course, Barbara; I can understand that you do. I should, in your
place. The only consideration is, whether it may not agitate him too
much."
"Not it," said Barbara. "I wish you'd go and ask him when I may come. I
suppose he is up now?"
Mrs. Arkell had no ready plea for refusal, and she went upstairs there
and then. Travice was lying on the sofa, exhausted with the exertion of
getting to it.
"My dear, I think you look better," Mrs. Arkell began, not altogether
relishing her task; and she gently pushed the bits of brown hair, now
beginning to grow again, from the damp, white forehead. "Do you feel
so?"
He drew her fingers for a moment into his, and held them there. He was
always ready to respond to his mother's little tokens of affection. She
had opposed him in the matter of Lucy Arkell, but he was ever generous,
ever just, and he blamed circumstances more than he blamed her.
"I feel a great deal better than I did a week ago. I shall get on now."
Mrs. Arkell paused. "Some one wants to see you, Travice."
The hectic came into his white face as she spoke--a wild rush of
crimson. Was it possible that he thought she spoke of Lucy? The idea
occurred, to Mrs. Arkell.
"My dear, it is Barbara. She has asked to see you a great many times.
She is downstairs now."
Travice raised his thin hand, and laid it for a moment over his face,
over his closed eyes. Was he praying for help in his pain?--for strength
to go through what must be gone through--his duty in the future; and to
do it bravely?
"Travice, my dear, but for this illness she would now have been your
wife. It is only natural that she should wish to come and see you."
"Yes, of course," he said, removing his hand, and speaking very calmly;
"I have been expecting that she would."
"When shall she come up? Now?"
He did not speak for a moment.
"Not now; not to-day; the getting up seemed to tire me more than it has
done yet. Tell her so from me. Perhaps she will take the trouble to call
again to-morrow, and come up then."
The message was carried to Miss Fauntleroy, and she did not fail in the
appointment. Mrs. Arkell took her upstairs without notice to her son;
possibly she feared some excuse again. The sofa was drawn near the fire
as before, and Travice lay on it; had he been apprised of the visit, he
might have tried to sit up to receive her.
She was very big as usual, and very grand. A rich watered lilac silk
dress, looped up above a scarlet petticoat; a velvet something on her
arms and shoulders, of which I really don't know the name, covered with
glittering jet trimmings; and a spangled bonnet with fancy feathers. As
she sailed into the room, her petticoats, that might have covered the
dome of St. Paul's, knocked over a little brass stand and kettle, some
careless attendant having left them on the carpet, near the wall. There
was no damage, except noise, for the kettle was empty.
"That's my crinoline!" cried the hearty, good-humoured girl. "Never
mind; there's worse misfortunes at sea."
"No, Travice, you had better not rise," interposed Mrs. Arkell, for he
was struggling into a sitting position. "Barbara will excuse it; she
knows how weak you are."
"And I'll not allow you to rise, that's more," said Barbara, laying her
hand upon him. "I am not come to make you worse, but to make you
better--if I can."
Mrs. Arkell, not altogether easy yet upon the feelings of Travice as to
the visit, anxious, as we all are with anything on our consciences, to
get away, invited Barbara to a chair, and hastened from the room.
Travice tried to receive her as he ought, and put out his hand with a
wan smile.
"How are you, Barbara?"
There was no reply, except that the thin hand was taken between both of
hers. He looked up, and saw that her eyes were swimming in tears. A
moment's struggle, and they came forth, with a burst.
"There! it's of no good. What a fool I am!"
Just a minute or two's indulgence to the burst, and it was over. Miss
Fauntleroy rubbed away the traces, and her broad face wore its smiles
again. She drew a chair close, and sat down in front of him.
"I was not prepared to see you look like this, Travice. How dreadfully
it has pulled you down!"
She was gazing at his face as she spoke. Her entrance had not called up
anything of colour or emotion to illumine it. The transparent skin was
drawn over the delicate features, and the refinement, always
characterizing it, was more conspicuous than it had ever been. No two
faces, perhaps, could present a greater contrast than his did, with the
broad, vulgar, hearty, and in a sense, handsome one of hers.
"Yes, it has pulled me down. At one period there was little chance of my
life, I believe. But they no doubt told you all at the time. I daresay
you knew more of the different stages of the danger than I did."
"And what was it that brought it on?" asked Miss Fauntleroy, untying her
bonnet, and throwing back the strings. "Brain fever is not a common
disorder; it does not go about in the air!"
There was a slight trace of colour now on the thin cheeks, and she
noticed it. Travice faintly shook his head to disclaim any knowledge on
his own part.
"It is not very often that we know how these illnesses are brought on.
My chief concern now"--and he looked up at her with a smile--"must be to
find out how I can best throw it off."
"I have been very anxious for some days to see you," she resumed, after
a pause. "Do you know what I have come to say?"
"No," he said, rather languidly.
"But I'll tell you first what I heard. When you were lying in that awful
state between life and death--and it _is_ an awful state, Travice, the
danger of passing, without warning, to the presence of one's Maker--I
heard that it was _I_ who had brought on the fever."
His whole face was flushed now--a consciousness of the past had risen up
so vividly within him. "_You!_" he uttered. "What do you mean?"
"Ah! Travice, I see how it has been. I know all. You have tried to like
me, and you cannot. Be still, be calm; I do not reproach you even in
thought. You loved Lucy Arkell long before anybody thought of me, in
connection with you; and I declare I honour the constancy of your heart
in keeping true to her. Now, if you are not tranquil I shall get my ears
boxed by your doctors, and I'll not come and see you again."
"But----"
"You just be quiet. I'm going to do the talking, and you the listening.
There, I'll hold your hands in mine, as some old, prudent spirit might,
to keep you still--a sister, say. That's all I shall ever be to you,
Travice."
His chest was beginning to heave with emotion.
"I have a great mind to run away, and leave you to fancy you are going
to be tied to me after all! _Pray_ calm yourself. Oh! Travice, why did
you not tell me the truth--that you had no shadow of liking for me; that
your love for another was stronger than death? I should have been a
little mortified at first, but not for long. It is not your fault; you
did all you could; and it has nearly killed you----"
"Who has been telling you this?" he interrupted.
"Never mind. Perhaps somebody, perhaps nobody. It's the town's talk, and
that's enough. Do you think I could be so wicked and selfish a woman as
to hold you to your engagement, knowing this? No! Never shall it be said
of Barbara Fauntleroy, in this or in aught else, that she secured her
own happiness at the expense of anybody else's."
"But Barbara----"
"Don't 'Barbara' me, but listen," she interrupted playfully, laying her
finger on his lips. "At present you hate me, and I don't say that your
heart may not have cause; but I want to turn that hatred into love. If I
can't get it as a wife, Travice, I may as a friend. I like you very
much, and I can't afford to lose you quite. Heaven knows in what way I
might have lost you, had we been married; or what would have been the
ending."
He lay looking at her, not altogether comprehending the words, in his
weakness.
"You shall marry Lucy as soon as you are strong enough; and a little
bird has whispered me a secret that I fancy you don't know yet--that
you'll have plenty and plenty of money, more than I should have brought
you. We'll have a jolly wedding; and I'll be bridesmaid, if she'll let
me."
Barbara had talked till her eyes were running down with tears. His
lashes began to glisten.
"I couldn't do it, Barbara," he whispered; "I couldn't do it."
"Perhaps not; but I can, and shall. Listen, you difficult old fellow,
and set your mind and your conscience at rest. Before that great and
good Being, who has spared you through this death-sickness, and has
spared _me_, perhaps, a life of unhappiness, I solemnly swear that I
will not marry you! I don't think I have much pride, but I've some; and
I am above stooping to accept a man that all the world knows hates me
like poison. I'd not have you now, Travice, though there were no Lucy
Arkell in the world. A pretty figure I should cut on our wedding day, if
I did hold you to your bargain! The town might follow us to church with
a serenade of marrowbones and cleavers, as they do the butchers. I'll
not leave you until you tell me all is at an end between us--on your
side as on mine."
"It is not right, Barbara. It is not right that I should treat you so."
"I'll not leave you until you tell me all is at an end."
"I _can't_ tell it you."
"I'll not leave you until you tell me all is at an end," she
persistently repeated. "No, not if I have to stop in the room all the
blessed night, as your real sister might. What do I care for their fads
and their punctilios? Here I'll stop."
He looked up in her face with a smile. It had more of _love_ in it than
Barbara had ever seen expressed to her from him. She bent down and
kissed his lips.
"There! that's an earnest of our new friendship. Not that I shall be
giving you kisses in future, or expect any from you. Lucy might not like
it, you know, or you either. I don't say _I_ should, for I may be
marrying on my own score. We might have been an estranged man and wife,
Travice, wishing each other dead and buried and perhaps not gone to
heaven, every day of our lives. We will be two firm friends. You don't
reject _me_, you know; _I_ reject you, and you can't help yourself."
"We will be friends always, Barbara," he said, from the depths of his
inmost heart, as he held her warm hand on his breast. "I am beginning to
love you as one already."
"There's a darling fellow! Yes, I should call you so though Lucy were
present. Oh, Travice! it's best as it is! A little bit of smart to get
over--and that's what I have been doing the past week or so--and we
begin on a truer basis. I never was suited to you, and that's the truth.
But we can be the best friends living. It won't spoil my appetite,
Travice; I'm not of that flimsy temperament. Fancy _me_ getting
brain-fever through being crossed in love!"
She laughed out loud at the thought--a ringing, merry laugh. It put
Travice at ease on the score of the "smart."
"And now I'm going into the manufactory to tell Mr. Arkell that you and
I are _two_. If he asks for the cause, perhaps I shall whisper to him
that I've found out you won't suit me and I prefer to look out for
somebody that will; and when Mrs. Arkell asks it me, 'We've split,
ma'am--split' I shall tell her. Travice! Travice! did you really think I
could stand, knowing it, in the way of anybody's life's happiness?"
He drew her face down to his. He kissed it as he had never kissed it
before.
"Friends for life! Firm, warm friends for life, you and I and Lucy! God
bless you, Barbara!"
"Mind! I stand out for a jolly ball at the wedding! Lizzie and I mean to
dance all night. Fancy us!" she added, with a laugh that rang through
the room, "the two forlorn damsels that were to have been brides
ourselves! Never mind; we shan't die for the lack of husbands, if we
choose to accept them. But it's to be hoped our second ventures will
turn out more substantial than our first."
And Travice Arkell, nearly overcome with emotion and weakness, closed
his eyes and folded his hands as she went laughing from the room, his
lips faintly moving.
"What can I do unto God for all the benefits that He hath done unto me?"
It was during this illness of Travice Arkell's that a circumstance took
place which caused some slight degree of excitement in Westerbury.
Edward Blissett Hughes, who had gone away from the town between twenty
and thirty years before, and of whom nobody had heard much, if any,
tidings of since, suddenly made his appearance in it again. His return
might not have given rise to much comment, but for the very prominent
manner in which his name had been brought forward in connexion with the
assize cause; and perhaps no one was more surprised than Mr. Hughes
himself when he found how noted he had become.
It matters not to tell how the slim working man of three or
four-and-thirty, came back a round, comfortable, portly gentleman of
sixty, with a smart, portly wife, and well to do in the world. Well to
do?--nay, wealthy. Or how he had but come for a transitory visit to his
native place, and would soon be gone again. All that matters not to us;
and his return needed not to have been mentioned at all, but that he
explained one or two points in the past history, which had never been
made quite clear to Westerbury.
One of the first persons to go to see him was William Arkell; and it was
from that gentleman Mr. Hughes first learnt the details of the dispute
and the assize trial.
Robert Carr had been more _malin_--as the French would express it--than
people gave him credit for. That few hours' journey of his to London,
three days previous to the flight, had been taken for one sole
purpose--the procuring of a marriage licence. Edward Hughes, vexed at
the free tone that the comments of the town were assuming in reference
to his young sister, made a tardy interference, and gave Robert Carr his
choice--the breaking off the acquaintance, or a marriage. Robert Carr
chose the latter alternative, stipulating that it should be kept a close
secret; and he ran up to town for the licence. Whether he really meant
to use it, or whether he only bought it to appease in a degree the
aroused precautions of the brother, cannot be told. That he certainly
did not intend to make use of it so soon, Edward Hughes freely
acknowledged now. The hasty marriage, the flight following upon it, grew
out of that last quarrel with his father. From the dispute at
dinner-time, Robert went straight to the Hughes's house, saw Martha Ann,
got her consent, and then sought the brother at his workshop, as Edward
Hughes still phrased it, and arranged the plans with him for the
following morning. Sophia Hughes was of necessity made a party to the
scheme, but she was not told of it until night; and Mary they did not
tell at all, not daring to trust her. Brother and sister bound
themselves to secrecy, for the sake of the fortune that Robert Carr
would assuredly lose if the marriage became known; and they suffered the
taint to fall on their sister's name, content to know that it was
undeserved, and to look forward to the time when all should be cleared
up by the reconciliation between father and son, or by the death of Mr.
Carr. They were anxious for the marriage, so far beyond anything they
could have expected, and, consequently, did not stand at a little
sacrifice. Human nature is the same all the world over, and ambition is
inherent in it. Robert Carr, on his part, risked something--the chance
that, with all their precautions, the fact of the marriage might become
known. That it did not, the event proved, as you know; but circumstances
at that moment especially favoured them. The rector of St. James the
Less was ill; the Reverend Mr. Bell was Robert Carr's firm friend and
kept the secret, and there was no clerk. They stole into the church one
by one on the winter's morning. Mr. Bell was there before daylight, got
it open, and waited for them. The moment Mary Hughes was out of the
house, at half-past seven, in pursuance of her engagement at Mrs.
Arkell's, Martha Ann was so enveloped in cloaks and shawls that she
could not have been readily recognised, had anybody met her, and sent
off alone to the church. Her brother and sister followed by degrees.
Robert Carr was already there; and as soon as the clock struck eight,
the service was performed. One circumstance, quite a little romance in
itself, Mr. Hughes mentioned now; and but for a fortunate help in the
time of need, the marriage might, after all, not have been completed.
Robert Carr had forgotten the ring. Not only Robert, but all of them.
That important essential had never once occurred to their thoughts, and
none had been bought. The service was arrested midway for the want of
it. A few moments' consternation, and then Sophia Hughes came to the
rescue. She had been in the habit of wearing her mother's wedding-ring
since her death, and she took it from her finger, and the service was
completed with it. The party stole away from the church by degrees, one
by one, as they had gone to it, and escaped observation. Few people were
abroad that dark, dull morning; and the church stood in a lonely,
unfrequented part. The getting away afterwards in Mr. Arkell's carriage
was easy.
"Ah," said Mr. Arkell now to the brother, "I did not forgive Robert Carr
that trick he played upon me for a long while, it so vexed my father. He
thought the worst, you know; and for your sister's sake, could not
forgive Robert Carr. Had he known of the marriage, it would have been a
different thing."
"No one knew of it--not a soul," said Mr. Hughes. "Had we told one, we
might as well have told all. I and Sophia knew that we could keep our
own counsel; but we could not answer beyond ourselves--not even for
Mary."
"Could you not trust her?"
"Trust her!" echoed Mr. Hughes. "Her tongue was like a sieve: it let out
everything. She missed mother's ring off Sophia's finger. Sophia said
she had lost it--she didn't know what else to say--and before two days
were out, the town-crier came to ask if she'd not like it cried. Mary
had talked of the loss high and low."
"Did she never know that there had been a marriage?" asked Mr. Arkell.
"Quite at the last, when she had but a day or two left of life. Sophia
told her then; she had grieved much over Martha Ann, and was grieving
still. Sophia told her, and it sent her easy to her grave. Soon after
she died, Sophia married Jem Pycroft, and they came out to me. She's
dead now. So that there's only me left out of the four of us," added the
returned traveller, after a pause.
"And Martha Ann's eldest son became a clergyman, you say; and he died! I
should like to see the other two children she left. Do they live in
Rotterdam?"
"I am not sure; but you would no doubt hear of them there. They sold off
Marmaduke Carr's property when they came into it, after the trial. It's
not to be wondered at: they had no pleasant associations connected with
Westerbury."
Edward Hughes burst into a laugh. "What a blow it must have been for
stingy John Carr!"
"It was that," said Mr. Arkell. "He is always pleading poverty; but
there's no doubt he has been saving money ever since the old squire died
and he came into possession. That can't be far short of twenty years
now."
"Twenty years! How time flies in this world, sir!" was the concluding
remark of Mr. Hughes.
There was no drawback thrown in the way of _this_ marriage of Travice
Arkell's, by himself, or by anybody else; and the day for it was fixed
as soon as he became convalescent. Mrs. Arkell had to reconcile herself
to it in the best way she could; and if she found it a pill to swallow,
it was at least a gilded one: Mrs. Dundyke's money would go to him and
Lucy--and there was Miss Arkell's as well. They would be placed above
the frowns of the world the hour they married, and Travice could turn
amateur astronomer at will.
On the day before that appointed for the ceremony, Lucy, in passing
through the cloisters with Mrs. Dundyke, from some errand in the town,
stopped as she came to that gravestone in the cloisters. She bent her
head over it, for she could hardly read the inscription--what with the
growing dusk, and what with her blinding tears.
"Oh, Aunt Betsey"--she had caught the name from Travice--"if he had but
lived! If he could but be with us to-morrow!"
Aunt Betsey touched with her gentle finger the sorrowing face. "He is
better off, Lucy."
"Yes, I know. But in times of joy it seems hard to remember it. I
wonder--I hope it is not wrong to wonder it--whether he and mamma are
always with me in spirit? I have grown to think so."
"The thinking it will not do you harm, Lucy."
"Oh, was it not a cruel thing, Aunt Betsey, for that boy Lewis to throw
him down! He was forgiven by everybody at the time; but in my heart--I
won't say it. But for that, Henry might be alive now. They left the
college school afterwards. Did you know that?"
"The Lewises? Yes; I think I heard it."
"A reaction set in for Henry after he died, and the boys grew shy and
cool to the two Lewises. In fact, they were sent to Coventry. They did
not like it, and they left. The eldest went up to be in some office in
London, and the youngest has gone to a private school."
"It is strange that the two great _inflicted_ evils in your family and
in mine, should have come from the Carrs!" exclaimed Mrs. Dundyke. "But,
my dear, do not let us get into a sorrowful train of thought to-day.
And, all the sorrow we can give, cannot bring back to us those who are
gone."
"I wish you could have seen him!" murmured Lucy. "He was so beautiful!
he----"
"Here are people coming, my dear."
Lucy turned away, drying her eyes. A clerical dignitary and a young lady
were advancing through the cloisters. As they met, the young lady bowed
to Lucy, and the gentleman raised his shovel hat--not so much as to
acquaintances, as because they were ladies passing through his
cloisters.
"Who are they?" whispered Mrs. Dundyke, when the echo of their footsteps
had died away.
"The dean and Miss Beauclerc. Aunt Betsey, she knew Henry so well! She
came to see him in his coffin."
They were at Mr. Arkell's house, in the evening--Lucy, her aunt, and
Mrs. Dundyke. The breakfast in the morning was to be given in it, Miss
Arkell's house being small, and the carriages would drive there direct
from St. James-the-Less. Mrs. Arkell, gracious now beyond everything,
had sent for them to spend the last evening, and see the already
laid-out table in the large drawing-room. She could not spare Travice
that last evening, she said.
Oh, how it all came home to Mildred! _She_ had gone to that house the
evening before a wedding in the years gone by, taken to it perforce,
because she dared make no plea of refusal. She had seen the laid-out
table in the drawing-room then, just as she was looking down upon it
now.
"Lucy's destiny is happier!" she unconsciously murmured.
"Did you speak, Mildred?"
She raised her eyes to the questioner by her side, William Arkell. She
had not observed that he was there.
"I?--Yes; I say Lucy's will be a happy destiny."
"Very happy," he assented, glancing at a group at the end, who were
engaged in a hot and laughing dispute, as to the placing of the guests,
Travice maintaining his own opinion against Aunt Betsey and Lucy.
Travice looked very well now. His hair was long again; his face,
delicate still--but it was in the nature of its features to be so--had
resumed its hue of health. Lucy was radiant in smiles and blue ribbons,
under the light of the chandelier.
"I begin to think that destinies are more equally apportioned than we
are willing to imagine; that where there are fewer flowers there are
fewer thorns," Mr. Arkell observed in a low tone. "There is a better
life, Mildred, awaiting us hereafter."
"Ah, yes. Where there shall be neither neglect, nor disappointment, nor
pain; where----"
"Here you are!" broke out a loud, hearty, laughing voice upon their
ears. "I knew it was where I should find you. Lucy, I have been to your
house after you. Take my load off me, Travice."
Need you be told that the voice was Barbara Fauntleroy's? She came
staggering in under the load: a something held out before her, nearly as
tall as herself.
A beautiful epergne for the centre of the table, of solid silver.
Travice was taking it from her, but awkwardly--he was one of the
incapable ones, like poor Peter Arkell. Miss Fauntleroy rated him and
pushed him away, and lifted it on the table herself, with her strong
hands.
"It's our present to you two, mine and Lizzie's. You'll accept it, won't
you, Lucy?"
Kindness invariably touched the chord of Lucy Arkell's feelings, perhaps
because she had not been in the way of having a great deal of it shown
to her in her past life. The tears were in her earnest eyes, as she
gently took the hands of Miss Fauntleroy.
"I cannot thank you as I ought. I----"
"Thank me, child! It's not so much to thank me for. Doesn't it look well
on the table, though? Mrs. Arkell must allow it to stand there for the
breakfast."
"For that, _and for all else_," whispered Lucy, with marked emotion,
retaining the hands in her warm clasp. "You must let us show our
gratitude to you always, Barbara."
Barbara Fauntleroy bent her full red lips on Lucy's fair forehead. "Our
bargain--his and mine--was, that we were all three to be firm and fast
friends through life, you know. Lucy, there's nobody in the world wishes
you happier than I do. Jolly good luck to you both!"
"Thank you, Barbara," said Travice, who was standing by.
"And now, who'll come and release Lizzie?" resumed Miss Fauntleroy. "We
shall have her rampant. She's in a fly at the door, and can't get out of
it."
"Not get out of it!" repeated Mr. Arkell.
"Not a bit of it. It's filled with flower-pots from our hot-house. We
thought perhaps you'd not have enough for the rooms, so we've brought a
load. But Lizzie got into the fly first, you see, to pack them for
bringing steadily, and she can't get out till they are out. I took care
of the epergne, and Lizzie of the pots."
With a general laugh, everybody rushed to get to the imprisoned Lizzie.
Lucy lingered a moment, ostensibly looking at the epergne, really drying
her tears away. Travice came back to her.
He took her in his arms; he kissed the tears from her cheeks; he
whispered words of the sweetest tenderness, asking what her grief was.
"Not grief, Travice--joy. I was thinking of the past. What would have
become of us but for her generosity?"
"But for her generosity, Lucy, I should have been her husband now. I
should never have held my darling in my arms. Yes, she was generous! God
bless her always! I'll never hate anybody again, Lucy."
Lucy glanced up shyly at him, a smile parting her lips at the last
words. And she put her hand within the arm of him who was soon to be her
husband, as they went out in the wake of the rest, to rescue the
flower-pots and Miss Lizzie Fauntleroy.
* * * * *
And Mr. St. John and the dean's daughter? Ah! not in this place can
their after-history be given. But you may hear it sometime.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Mildred Arkell, (Vol 3 of 3), by Ellen Wood