The Accident.
It was a fine night, though not unusually light, for there was no
moon, and the heavens looked a little misty, as they do sometimes
following on a hot August day.
The nine o'clock train dashed into Guild, received its waiting
passengers, and dashed on again.
Amidst others, the Miss Jupps and their brother entered it, having
finished their day's visit to Mrs. Chester. They took their seats in
the middle compartment of a first-class carriage, and happened to have
it to themselves. The young ladies sat with their backs to the engine,
he with his face to it.
"The Lakes would have had a pleasant day had they come," remarked
Louisa. "You may rely upon it her objection lay in its being Sunday.
Perhaps she is growing religious."
"What an awful lookout for Lake!" spoke up Mr. Jupp, from his corner.
"Oliver!" reproved the young ladies.
"She'll stop his liberty and his cigars," persisted Mr. Oliver: "there
are no such martinets under the sun as your religious wives. Talking
about cigars, would it affect your bonnets, girls, if I lighted one
now?"
They screamed out together. They would not have their loves of new
bonnets poisoned and blackened with cigar smoke; they'd never be fit
to go on again. "And you must not smoke in these carriages," added
Louisa: "we are near Coombe Dalton station, and the guard would see
you."
"Pretty wives you'll make when you are married," remarked Oliver.
"Afraid of cigar smoke!"
The caution, or the bonnets, caused Oliver Jupp to keep his cigar-case
in his pocket. Coombe Dalton station, an insignificant one, was about
midway between Guild and Katterley. The train did not stop at it.
Oliver leaned from the window to take a survey of the route.
"We are close to it," said he; "yonder are the lights. Halloa! what's
the red light flashing up and down for? That ought to be a green."
"If a red light is waving in the green's place, there must be danger,"
said Rose, quickly. "Red is the danger signal."
"There's no danger. If the light indicated danger the train would come
to a standstill; it is going on at the same speed."
Scarcely had the words quitted Oliver Jupp's mouth when--they scarcely
knew what occurred. There was a shriek from the whistle, a shock; and
a shriek, not from the whistle, but from human beings in their terror.
The train came to a standstill and they with it: they and their
carriage were not hurt or inconvenienced; the carriages behind them
were not hurt, nor the carriages immediately before them, but the
foremost carriages---- What had happened?
Unstopped, and dashing on in its speed and recklessness, the engine
had dashed into some obstruction on the line, a little past Coombe
Dalton station. It ran up a bank, gave a dance, and was forced back on
the line, falling sideways, and the three foremost carriages, next to
the break van, were dragged with it. The two first, third-class ones,
were greatly injured; the third, a second class, less so. Oliver Jupp,
with other male passengers, was speedily out of his carriage, running
forward to see what assistance he could render to those, his ill-fated
fellow-creatures, some of whom were groaning in the death agony.
What a scene it was! The dark night; the hissing engine, mad
instrument of death, but harmless now; the torches brought forward
from the station to throw light upon the calamity; the figures, some
dead, some dying, lying in the midst of the wreck; the scalded, the
wounded, the bleeding; the silent and the still, the moaning and the
helpless, the shrieking and the terrified! Not here, gratuitously to
harrow feelings and sympathies, will the worst details be given; and,
adding no little to the distress and confusion prevailing, was the
uncontrollable alarm of the uninjured passengers, escaping from their
carriages and running hither and thither, uncertain where to go or
what to do. Katterley (as well as other stations) was telegraphed to
for medical assistance.
Meanwhile Robert Lake and his wife had spent an exceedingly sober day.
With the passing of the chance of danger, Clara's opinion experienced
a sort of revulsion; and she began to think--not so much of how
foolish she had been, but of how foolish she must appear in the eyes
of her practical husband She said nothing; it was the wisest plan; and
he had not alluded to it in any way. Quietly the day dragged on, and
they sat down to supper in the evening; the dinner hour on Sunday
being two o'clock.
It was at this juncture that Mary Jupp burst in without any ceremony
whatever, neither bonnet on her head nor shawl on her shoulders. The
news of the accident had spread like wildfire and penetrated to the
house of the Jupps. Of course it had lost nothing in carrying; and
Mary Jupp fully believed she should never see her sisters or brother
again alive.
"Oh, Mr. Lake!--and you to be sitting here quietly at supper! Have you
not heard the news?"
They rose up: they saw the state of alarm and agitation she was in.
Clara caught the infection, and looked as frightened as her impromptu
visitor. Mr. Lake was calm, cool; man in general is so.
"What news?" he asked. "What is it?"
"There has been an awful accident to the train at Coombe Dalton. No
particulars positively known, that we can learn, but people are saying
half the train's killed and the other half wounded."
"Sit down, sit down," said Mr. Lake, taking her trembling hands. "What
train? How did the news come?"
"Why, our train!" returned the excited girl, bursting into tears. "The
train that Oliver and Louisa and Rose must be in. Oh, Mrs. Lake! was
it true that you had a presentiment of evil happening to it?--was that
really your reason for declining to go?"
Clara, deathly pale, had sought the eyes of her husband She was
overwhelmed with astonishment and dismay; with a feeling that she
could not describe and had never yet experienced. Had they really
escaped danger, accident, perhaps death, from that strangely vivid
dream of warning? Her faculties seemed bewildered.
"How has the news reached Katterley?" repeated Mr. Lake, drowning the
words about the dream, for he was conscious that a thoughtless slip of
his had given the clue to Miss Jupp.
"By telegraph," she answered; "and one of the porters ran up to our
house to tell it, knowing Oliver and the girls went to Guild this
morning and took return tickets. The station here is already besieged
by a crowd. Poor papa is pushing his way through it."
Mr. Lake caught up his hat, when at the same moment who should come in
but Oliver Jupp. Mary seized upon him with a cry.
"Now don't smother me," cried he to her. "First of all, we are all
right; you see I am, and Rose and Louy are safe and well inside Coombe
Dalton Station. My father sent me in to tell you; he said you were
here; and he is gone home to reassure them."
"But, Jupp, how did you get to Katterley?" questioned Mr. Lake.
"I came on a stray engine. I thought they would all be in fits
together at home, and I took the opportunity offered, of coming on to
stop the alarm. The first person who laid hold of me at the station
was the poor old governor, pretty nearly in a fit himself. It's an
awful accident, though."
"How was it?" "Are many hurt?" "Did the boiler really burst?"
"If you all reiterate questions at me at once, how am I to answer?
Very few are hurt, comparatively speaking. The engine went into
something, a truck or trucks I believe, and there was a smash. The two
first carriages, both third-class, are--nowhere, and the passengers I
won't tell you about, Lake, before these two girls, for it would spoil
their night's rest. The next carriage, a second-class, was damaged,
and its inmates are bruised, but not much, I think."
"And what of the rest of the train?" breathlessly inquired Clara.
"Nothing. The carriages came to a standstill on the line, and we got
out of them."
"Are you sure there is no first-class carriage injured?" she
continued.
"Certain. So to speak, there has been no accident to the rest of the
train, beyond the delay and fright."
Mr. Lake looked at his wife and smiled. "So you would not have been
one of the injured, Clary, had you been in the train."
She shook her head. "We have not the full particulars yet. Oliver may
be deceived."
"It is exactly as I tell you, Mrs. Lake," said Oliver Jupp. "There is
no further damage."
"Are you going back to Coombe Dalton?"
"Yes, as soon as I can. But I thought it well to come on and let you
know the best and worst. Lake, will you go with me?"
"Of course," he answered.
The two young men went out together. Mary Jupp ran home, and Clara
waited the return of her husband.
It was long past midnight when he came in. They sat up talking over
the accident; the details which he had learnt, and seen. Oliver Jupp
had been quite correct in his limit of the damage. Mrs. Chester
(taking up the suggested notion that Clara Lake had stayed away
because it was Sunday) had sent a very pressing invitation for her and
her husband to come on the following day, Monday, with the two elder
Miss Jupps. Mr. Lake delivered it to her.
"Will you go, Clara?"
"Will _they_ go?" she rejoined. "Will they venture?"
"Venture!"
"After this accident?"
"I do not see why they should not. An accident two days running would
be something remarkable. What about your dream?"
"Oh, I will go, Robert. Yes. The dream has done its office and I shall
be ever thankful for it."
She spoke the last words reverently. Mr. Lake looked at her with
surprise.
"Clara, don't encourage that fancy of yours," he gravely said, his
voice taking almost a stern tone. "To be superstitious at all argues a
want of common sense; but to be _foolishly_ superstitious is a great
deal worse. No reasonable being, wife of mine, would indulge _that_."
"What do you call being foolishly superstitious?"
"The remark you have just made--that the dream had done its office,
and you should ever feel thankful for it--is an illustration. Had you
gone to Guild this morning, you know quite well that we were not to
have returned until Tuesday, therefore should not have been in the
train to-night."
"Something might have occurred to cause us to return," she
interrupted.
"Granted--for the sake of the argument. We should have travelled in a
first-class carriage, as you know; and there is no first-class
carriage injured."
He paused and looked at her. She could not deny anything he said, and
kept silence.
"Therefore, what possible bearing that dream could have had upon the
accident, or where could be the utility of the warning, which, as you
declare, it conveyed to you, not to go to Guild, I cannot see."
Neither, it must be confessed, did Clara herself see it; but she did
not lose her faith in the dream. Rather believed in it all the more
firmly, in what her husband would have called a manner void of all
reason.
The dream, as she looked at it and expressed it, had "done its work;"
and she anticipated the excursion on the morrow with renewed pleasure,
springing from a sense of relief.
Alas, alas! Poor short-sighted mortals that we are! The working out of
the ill, shadowed forth, was only just beginning.
The morning rose brilliantly; rather too much so, taken in conjunction
with the heat; and the day, as it wore on, promised to be one of the
hottest on record.
Katterley station was in a bustle not often experienced at the quiet
little place. People, idlers and others, crowded it, bent on a journey
of curiosity to Coombe Dalton. The deaths from the accident now
numbered several, and excitement was rife. Report came that the real
cause of the calamity was giving rise to dispute: on the one hand it
was said that the driver of the train had dashed through Coombe Dalton
station, regardless of the warning red light, held up as a signal that
he should stop; on the other it was maintained that no red light had
so been held.
The twelve o'clock train came steaming into the Katterley station,
where it would stay its accustomed three minutes, and those going by
it looked alive. A very few passengers got out; a vast many rushed up
to take their places. People were flocking to Coombe Dalton _en
messe_; and would be flocking there until public curiosity was sated.
A porter held open the door of a first-class carriage for a party who
were struggling on to the platform, one running before another; it
consisted of two gentlemen, three ladies, and a maid-servant. The
porter knew them well and touched his cap; Mr. and Mrs. Lake, Oliver
Jupp, and his two eldest sisters.
"Let us have the compartment to ourselves, if you can manage it,
Johnson," said Oliver in an undertone. "The day is too hot for
crowding."
"Very well, sir," replied the man. "I dare say I can contrive it."
"But now whereabouts _is_ this carriage?" called out one of the
ladies, in a hasty and rather shrieking voice, as she looked to the
right and left; "because, if it's not just in the middle, I won't get
in. I'll never put myself towards either end of a train again as long
as I live."
"Step in, step in," cried Oliver to her. "You are all right."
"Make haste, miss," added the porter. "The time's up."
"Of course it's up," repeated the young lady, who was no other than
Mary Ann Jupp; "and I wonder it wasn't up before we reached it. This
comes of putting off things till the last moment. I told you all the
clocks were slow and we should be late. If there's one thing I hate
more than another, it's the being obliged to rush up and catch a train
at the last moment! No time to choose your carriage--no time to see or
do anything; they may put you in the guard's van if they please, and
you not know it until you are off. I dare say we have come without our
tickets now. Has anybody thought of them?"
In reply, Oliver Jupp held up the six bits of cardboard for his
sister's satisfaction, and the party settled themselves in their
seats; the maid-servant, who was Mrs. Lake's, entering last.
"Why, Elizabeth, is that you?" exclaimed Miss Jupp. "I declare I never
saw you."
"Didn't you, miss?" replied the girl, who was very tall and thin. "I
walked behind you from our house."
"I thought it better to bring Elizabeth," interposed Clara Lake, who
was looking unusually lovely in her summer dress--white muslin with a
blue sprig upon it. "Mrs. Chester's servants will be glad of help with
so many of us to wait upon."
"Mrs. Chester is the best manager of a house I ever saw," cried the
Miss Jupps in a breath. They wore alpaca gowns of very light green,
and hats trimmed with velvet. "Fancy!" added Margaret, "only two
servants, and one of those you may almost call a nurse, for the
children require plenty of attending to, and yet things seem to go on
smoothly. I can't think how she contrives it."
"Trust to Mrs. Chester for contriving," said Mr. Lake. "She has to do
it. Besides, you forget Anna."
The carriage held eight. Elizabeth sat at the farther end, the seat
next to her and the seat opposite to her being empty. She kept her
head close to the open window, looking out. Railway travelling was
rare in her experience. The rest chatted eagerly, giving themselves up
to the pleasure of the moment. Something was said about the previous
day's sojourn at Guild.
"I hear it was a delightful party," Mrs. Lake remarked to Oliver Jupp.
"We wanted you and Lake to complete it," he answered. "It was too bad,
Mrs. Lake, to declare off, after having promised to go. There was an
uncommon nice girl spending the day there. She's to be there again
today, I fancy."
"Who was that?" inquired Mr. Lake, briskly, who had a propensity for
liking "nice girls."
"Don't know who she was, or anything about her," replied Oliver. "Your
sister called her Lydia, and I did the same."
"It was a Miss Clapperton," interrupted Margaret Jupp. "Louisa and
Rose were telling me about her this morning; they took an immense
fancy to her."
"Clapperton?--Clapperton?" repeated Mr. Lake. "Oh, I know; a fresh
family who have come lately to Guild. Penelope said she was getting
intimate with them. You shall not pick out nice girls for me, Jupp, if
you call her one. I saw her once: a young Gorgon in spectacles, with
prominent eyes."
"That's Nancy Clapperton, the near-sighted one," corrected Mary Jupp,
who was one of those ladies who like to put the world to rights. "It
was her sister who was there yesterday, and she is a charming girl.
Louy and Rose both say so."
"I hope she'll be there today, then," said Mr. Lake.
"She is to be there; but don't you and Oliver quarrel over her. He
monopolized her yesterday, I hear."
"We'll go snacks," said Mr. Lake. "Or else draw lots: which shall it
be, Jupp? When does the old Indian Begum make her entry?"
"For shame, Mr. Lake! You do turn everything and everybody into
ridicule," exclaimed Margaret. "I'm sure I think she will be a
delightful acquisition; so pleasant for your sister to have a
visitor."
"Well, when does she come? Nobody says she won't be an
acquisition--for those who can stand Begums. I knew one once, and she
was awful. She had gold teeth."
Margaret Jupp turned to Clara.
"Why don't you keep your husband in better order? He is incorrigible."
"I fear he is," was the answer, given with a gay smile.
"Very strange!" cried Mr. Lake. "I can't get an answer to
my question: I think it's somebody else that's incorrigible.
When--does--the--Begum--arrive? I hope that's plain enough."
"Mrs. Chester was talking of her yesterday to me," interposed Oliver
Jupp. "The Begum is expected to make her entrance on Wednesday or
Thursday."
"When the house shall have been cleared of us sinful people," added
Mr. Lake. "We are not good enough for an Indian Begum. What do you
know of this one?"
"As good as nothing," answered Margaret Jupp. "That is, of late years.
Papa and mamma used to know old Mr. and Mrs. Finch. He was a lawyer
somewhere in London, and Angeline was the daughter."
"Angeline!"
"That's her name. Isn't it a fine one?"
"Very," said Mr. Lake. "The baptismal people must have foreseen she
was destined to be a Begum."
The arrival at Coombe Dalton interrupted the conversation. Slackening
its speed, the train came to a standstill. They inquired of a porter
how long it stayed, and understood him to say "ten" minutes. So they
got out, and heard almost immediately the train puff on again. The man
had said "two." Looking at each other in consternation, a laugh
ensued. The next train came up at three o'clock, and they could only
wait.
Plenty of time now to examine the scene of the accident. They were not
the only spectators. The battered engine, the _débris_ of the
carriages were there still--not on the line, but drawn away from it.
"In shunting some trucks on to the other line, one of them broke down,
and could not be got off before our train came up," explained Oliver
Jupp. "The engine ran into it, and--we were done for."
"But how dreadfully careless of the people at the station to allow
your engine to run into it!" exclaimed Margaret. "They ought to have
signalled your train to stop."
"They did signal it," interrupted a strange voice at her elbow, and
Margaret turned to see the stationmaster, who was known to her brother
and Mr. Lake. "The red lights were exhibited at the station, and a
switchman waved the red signal light up and down, all to no purpose.
You observe that post," he added, pointing to an iron post or pillar
close to them, for he perceived she looked as if she scarcely
understood him: "that is the night signal-post. When the line is
clear, a green light is exhibited on it, as a notice that the trains
may pass; but when it is not clear, a red light is substituted, and no
train must proceed when the red light is there. Not only was the red
light shown there last night, but the switchman, alarmed at the
train's coming on so quickly, seized it, and waved it to enforce
attention. The driver took no notice, and came dashing on to
destruction."
"Was he killed?" inquired one of the bystanders, a knot of whom had
gathered round.
"No," replied the stationmaster; "and his escape is regarded as next
door to a miracle. He was flung from the engine, lay motionless, and
was carried off for dead; but it appears he was only stunned, and is
nearly well this morning. He'll have to stand his trial, of course;
and a good thing for him if they don't bring it in 'Wilful
Murder'--for that's what some of these careless engine-drivers will
come to one day."
The official spoke with a good deal of acrimony. If the blame did not
lie with the driver, it lay with _him_, and some hot dispute had been
going on already that morning.
"Does the driver deny that the red light was up?" asked Mr. Lake.
"He denies it, and stands to it," said the aggrieved stationmaster.
"He says the green lights were up as usual. The man's a fool."
"He had taken something to obscure his vision, possibly?"
"Well, no. I don't think he had done that. He is a sober man. It is a
case of carelessness: nothing else. They go driving on, full pelt,
never looking at the signals. On these quiet lines of rail, where
there's not much traffic, the danger signal is not exhibited for weeks
together. They get accustomed to see the other, and it becomes to them
so much a matter of course that it must be there, that they forget to
look at it at all. That, in my opinion, must have been the cause of
last night's work, and I see no other possible way of accounting for
it."
He turned back to the station as he spoke, and a gentleman, who had
drawn near, held out his hand to greet the Lakes and the Jupps. It was
Colonel West, an acquaintance who resided at Coombe Dalton.
"Oh, colonel," exclaimed one of the young ladies, "what a shocking
accident this has been!"
"Ay, it has. Seven picked up dead, and four more gone this morning;
besides legs, and arms, and backs broken. It is awful to think of."
"And all from one man's recklessness!" added Mr. Lake, with more
severity, more feeling, than he generally suffered himself to display.
"As the stationmaster says, they'll not be brought to their senses,
these drivers, until some of them are convicted of wilful murder. I
hope the man who drove the train last night will get his deserts."
The spectators generally, including Oliver Jupp, had strolled off in
the wake of the stationmaster, he being the one from whom most news
was to be expected, and their curiosity was craving for it. Colonel
West, a keen, sensible man of fifty, brought himself to an anchor
before Mr. Lake, touching him on the waistcoat to command attention.
"Let me disabuse your mind, at any rate. I hear they are putting the
blame on the driver; but he does not deserve it, and they must be
doing it to screen themselves. I know nothing of the man; I never saw
him in my life until this morning; but I shall stand between him and
injustice."
"In what way? what do you mean?" Mr. Lake inquired.
"They say at the station here that they exhibited the danger signal,
red, and that the train dashed on regardless of it," said Colonel
West. "I went to the inn this morning where some of the wounded are
lying, and there I found the driver--as they told me he was--on a
mattress on the floor. 'How did this happen?' I said to him. 'I don't
know how it happened, sir,' he replied; 'but I declare there was no
red signal up to stop me; the green light was up as usual.' That was
the first I had heard about the red light," continued the colonel;
"but I find the man said true, and that the whole blame is laid upon
him. Now it happens that I was in my garden last night when the smash
came, just over on the other side of the line, and I can bear the
man's assertion out. It was the green light that was up, and not the
red."
"Shameful!" exclaimed Mr. Lake, rising up at once against the
injustice in his impulsive way. "I hope, colonel, you will stand by
the man."
"You may be sure of that. I'd transport a reckless driver for life, if
I could, but I would never see an innocent man falsely accused."
Having nothing to do with themselves, they strolled into the village,
such as it was, the colonel with them. At the door of the small inn,
whose floors had been put into requisition the previous night, on the
green bench running under the windows, sat the driver of the engine,
his head tied up with a white cloth and his arm in a sling. Colonel
West introduced him: "Cooper, the driver." Cooper was a man of
notoriety that day.
"Why, Cooper!" cried Mr. Lake in surprise the moment he saw the
patient, "was it you who drove the engine last night?"
"Yes, sir, it was me," replied Cooper, standing up to answer, but
sinking back at once from giddiness. "And I can only say I wish it had
been somebody else, if they are going to persist in accusing me of
causing the accident wilfully."
Mr. Lake knew him well. He was a young man, a native of Katterley, of
very humble origin, but of good natural intelligence and exemplary
character. It was only about a month that he had been promoted to be a
driver; before that he was a stoker. "I need not have speculated on
whether the driver was overcome by strong liquor, had I known who it
was," said Mr. Lake.
"He tells me he never drinks," interposed Colonel West.
"Never, sir," said Cooper. "Water, and tea, and coffee, and those sort
of things but nothing stronger. I had a brother, sir, who drank
himself to death before he was twenty, and it was a warning for me.
This gentleman and these ladies knew him."
Mr. Lake nodded acquiescence. "So they say the red light was up, do
they, Cooper, and you would not see it?"
"I hear they are saying so at the station, sir; but it's very wrong.
There was no other light up but the one that is generally up, the
green. Should I have gone steaming on, risking death to myself and my
passengers, if the danger light had been up? No, sir, it's not
likely."
"Did you look at the signal light?" inquired Mary Jupp, who was always
practical. "Perhaps you--you _might_, you know, Cooper--have passed it
without looking just for once."
"I did look, miss; and I couldn't have been off seeing it last night,
for it was being swung about like anything. 'What's up now,' I said to
myself, 'that they are swinging the lamp about like that?' and I
thought whoever it was doing it, must have had a drop too much."
"But don't you think you might from that very fact have suspected
danger?" questioned Mr. Lake.
"No, sir, not from the green lamp. If they had wanted to warn me of
danger, they should have swung the red. Any way, I'd rather have given
my own life than it should have happened when I was driver."
"Cooper, I saw the green light swung as well as you; and I shall be
happy to bear my testimony in your favour at the proper time and
place," said Colonel West. "It is quite a providential thing that I
happened to be in my garden at the time."
"Thank you, sir," said the man, earnestly, the tears of relief and
emotion rising to his eyes.
Whiling away the time in the best way they could, they got back to the
station a few minutes before the train for Guild was expected. The
accident was the topic of conversation still.
"I have seen the driver," remarked Mr. Lake to the stationmaster. "I
know him well, a sober, steady man. He persists still that the red
signal was not exhibited; that it was the green."
"Oh, he does, does he?" returned the stationmaster. "He had better
prove it. Of course, when they are at their wit's end for an excuse,
they invent anything, probable or improbable."
"Cooper is not a man to invent. I am sure he is truthful."
"Let him wait till the inquest," was the significant reply.
The train came in, and they were taken on to Guild station. From
thence they found their way to Mrs. Chester's, losing Oliver Jupp on
the road.
"You disagreeable, tiresome things! what brings you here at this late
hour?" was the greeting of Mrs. Chester, as she stood at the door, in
no amiable mood, to receive her guests. "You knew we were to have
dined at three o'clock, and taken dessert and tea on the lawn, I have
been obliged to order the dinner to be put back."
"It was the train's fault," said Mr. Lake. "It deposited us halfway
and left us."
"Of course you must put in your nonsense, Robert, or it wouldn't be
you," retorted Mrs. Chester, who could be objectionably cross when put
out, especially to him. "Come along with me, girls, and take your
things off. Dinner will be on the table in twenty minutes."
She led the way to the staircase with scant ceremony. Mr. Lake touched
her arm.
"A moment, Penelope, just to answer me a question. Is Lydia Clapperton
here today?"
"Yes," was Mrs. Chester's answer, delivered impatiently. "Why?"
"Where is she?"
"In the garden, I think--or perhaps with the children. What do you
want to know for?"
"Only to get the start of Oliver. He monopolized her yesterday, I
hear."
"Where _is_ Oliver?" demanded Mrs. Chester, suddenly remembering that
he had not come.
"Oh! he went into the town to buy cigars, or something of the sort,"
responded Mr. Lake, as he turned to the garden, glad perhaps to get
out of the reach of his sister's anger. That something besides their
late arrival had put out Mrs. Chester was self-evident.
Across lawns, over flower-beds, behind trees, went Robert Lake, in
search of the beauty that to him was as yet a vision--Lydia
Clapperton. Good chance--or ill chance, just as the reader may
deem--took him to a small summer-house at the end of a shady
shrubbery, and in it he discerned a lady sitting; young and pretty, he
decided in the semi-light. The lattice was trellised with the green
leaves of summer flowers; roses and clematis clustered at the door.
He thought, looking at her in the subdued shade, that she must be four
or five-and-twenty. Her dress was young--young for daylight. A rich
black silk with a low body and short sleeves, edged by a ruche of
white crape, a jet chain on her white neck, and jet bracelets. She had
very decided aquiline features, thin and compressed lips. Her eyes
were such that would have been called beautiful or hideous, according
to the taste or fancy of the spectator: they were large, bold, and
intensely black. Her hair _was_ beautiful: a smooth purple black, very
luxuriant, and disposed in an attractive manner round the head.
Mr. Lake took a private view through the interstices of the green
stalks across the lattice.
"It is Lydia Clapperton," he said to himself; "and a fine girl!"
"There she is!" he began aloud, in his free and somewhat saucy
manner--a manner that women like, when displayed by an attractive
man--as he bared his head to enter the summer-house, and held out his
hand with an _abandon_ of all ceremony.
That she was surprised into the putting forth her hand in return, was
indisputable. She had been intently bending over some fancy-work,
netting; and she lifted her head with a start at the greeting, and let
fall the work.
Mr. Lake took her hand; she looked up at him and saw a gay fascinating
man, gentlemanly in the midst of his freedom. Drawing back her hand
she sat down again, perfectly self-possessed.
"I told Mrs. Chester I should come and look for you," he said, in
explanation. "I have the pleasure of knowing your sister, so we need
not wait for a formal introduction."
"And you?" cried the lady, looking puzzled.
"You have heard, no doubt, of Mrs. Chester's brother, the scapegrace.
She never gives me too good a word. I am out of her books again,
through keeping her and the dinner waiting."
It happened that the young lady had never heard of Mr. Lake, as a
scapegrace or otherwise. She did not say so, and went on with her
netting work.
"Mrs. Chester has been wondering at the non-arrival of some friends
she was expecting."
"And fuming at it too," returned Mr. Lake, with a light laugh. "We had
an adventure. Getting out at Coombe Dalton in the supposition that
there was plenty of time, the train went on without us. I am really
sorry, though, for it has delayed your dinner."
"Oh that is nothing," was the answer, spoken in a spirit of
politeness. "I would rather not dine at all than dine alone."
Mr. Lake sat down on the bench, took up her scissors, and seemed
inclined to make himself at home. She glanced at his bright blue eyes,
dancing with light gaiety and with admiration of her fair self.
"I think nothing is more pleasant than a country-house filled with
visitors," she observed, tying a sudden break in the silk of her work,
and holding out her hand for the scissors to cut the ends off.
"When they can do as they like," added Mr. Lake. "We shall remain
until tomorrow night or Wednesday morning, I believe, and must make
the most of it. And you--do you remain long?"
"My stay is quite uncertain."
"At least I hope you will be here until Wednesday. After that there'll
be nothing to stay for; all the pleasure and the freedom must end;
liberty will be replaced by restraint."
His tone had become serious. She paused again in her work, and lifted
her eyes to speak.
"What restraint?"
"Mrs. Chester has sold her liberty to a Begum. Surely you must have
heard of it! An old Indian Begum, who is coming to stay here, and
takes possession the middle of the week. We must all be upon our good
behaviour before her. No fun to go on then."
"An Indian Begum!" uttered the young lady, staring at him.
"Nothing less formidable, I assure you. She is expected to make the
journey from town on an elephant. I shall draw a sketch of her after
dinner for private circulation: shawls, fans, woolly hair, and
propriety. She's a widow; the relict of a Sir George Ellis; we must
not so much as whisper before her."
The lady laughed.
"Mrs. Chester has laid down rules for our conduct," he went on, in a
rattling sort of fashion. "The last time I was at Guild she saw me
snatch a kiss from a pretty girl who was staying with her; and a few
days ago she appeared at my house with an inquiry of what I supposed
my Lady Ellis would think of such conduct. You have no conception what
a nightmare this Begum is to me--this old relict of a K.C.B."
"Really I don't wonder. Shawls, fans, woolly hair, and, an elephant!
Old and ugly! Did you say ugly?"
"As if a Begum could be anything else! Not that her ugliness or
beauty could affect one; but her interfering with the liberty of a
fellow--that does it."
"But--according to your version--it is Mrs. Chester who seems to be
interfering; not the Begum."
"It is all the same; excepting that, for Mrs. Chester we should not
care, and for the Begum, I suppose, we must. I did think of getting a
few days' fishing here this charming weather, but that's over now. I
shall never stand that Begum--twirling one's thumbs before her; and
speaking in measured monosyllables."
The young lady bent over her netting; she had made a long stitch.
Glancing up, she saw those attractive eyes fastened on her. "Mrs.
Chester seems to wish to keep you in order," she remarked, bending
them again.
"She does. It is her vocation. I listen to her pretty dutifully, and
when her back's turned have a good laugh over it. Allow me to try and
get that knot undone for you; it is giving you trouble."
"Why, what do you know about netting?" she asked, gaily.
"A great deal. I netted a boy's fishing-net once. Those long stitches
are the very plague."
"A fishing-net!" she laughed. "Well, perhaps you did; but what do you
think you could do to this fine silk: you, with your man's fingers?"
"I can try, so as to save the trouble to you." He bent as he spoke,
and attempted gently to draw the work from her. She kept it tight. It
really looked as though they had no objection, either of them, to
lapse into a flirtation, when at that moment voices were heard, and
Mr. Lake looked up. Passing across the shrubbery, by an intersecting
walk, was Oliver Jupp, with a young lady by his side. She turned her
head, and stood still for a moment, calling out to Mrs. Chester's
children, who were behind, so that Mr. Lake had a view of her face.
"Who the deuce has Jupp picked up now?" murmured Mr. Lake, in a
half-whisper. "She's an uncommon pretty girl." The lady also looked at
them, letting her netting fall on her lap.
"Do you know who that young lady is?" he asked.
She disengaged the string from her foot, got up, and looked from the
door. Mrs. Chester's children ran across the shrubbery with fleet feet
and noisy tongues, and the sound of their voices faded away in the
distance.
"It is a Miss Clapperton. Mrs. Chester introduced her to me by that
name. Lydia Clapperton, I think, she called her."
Mr. Lake stared in his surprise. "_That_ Lydia Clapperton!"
"Mrs. Chester certainly called her so."
"Why, then--who are you?"
"I? Oh, I am the Indian Begum; but I did not come on an elephant."
His pulses stood still for a moment. But he thought she was playing a
joke upon him.
"You are not--you cannot be--Lady Ellis!"
"I am indeed. The old relict of Colonel Sir George Ellis, K.C.B."
Never in all his life had Robert Lake been so taken to, never had he
felt more thoroughly confused and ashamed. The hot crimson mounted to
his temples. Lady Ellis had sat down again, and was quietly going on
with her work.
"I humbly beg your pardon, Lady Ellis," he said, standing before her
as shamefaced as any convicted schoolboy. "I cannot expect you to
accord it to me, but I most sincerely beg it."
"I think I must accord it to you," she answered, in a pretty
tantalizing sort of manner. "Your offence was not against _me_, but
against some fabled monster of your fancy. You shall sketch her still
after dinner for private circulation."
The sound of a gong as she spoke gave notice that dinner was ready.
Mr. Lake held out his hand with hesitation.
"Will you ratify your pardon, Lady Ellis? Will you promise to forget
as well as forgive? I shall never forget or forgive myself."
She frankly put her hand into his as she rose. "I have forgiven; I
will promise to forget. But then, you know, you must not convert me
into a nightmare."
"You a nightmare!" he impulsively cried, some of his old lightness
returning to him. "If you are, it will be one of a different kind: a
nightmare of attraction," he gallantly added, as he offered her his
arm. "What did you think of me? Did you take me for a wild animal just
arrived from the savage islands?"
"No," said Lady Ellis; "that is what you took the Begum for. I found
you were under a mistake as soon as you spoke of my sister. I have no
sister. But what about your intention of fishing here? I am sorry that
I should frustrate it."
He bit his lip; he could not conceal his annoyance. "I thought you
promised to forget," he softly whispered.
"And so I will."
"When did you arrive?"
"Only an hour or so ago. Just in time to dress for dinner."
Leaving Lady Ellis in the drawing-room, he ran upstairs in search of
his wife, and found her in the chamber which had been assigned them--a
pleasant room, looking towards the lawn. She was at work: making a
doll's frock for Fanny Chester.
"How hot you look!" she exclaimed, as her husband entered. "Your face
is crimson."
"My brain is also," he replied. "What do you think?--Lady Ellis is
here."
"Mrs. Chester told us so. She had a note from her this morning, and
she herself arrived at two o'clock."
"Clary, I called her the Begum to her face."
"Oh!"
"I don't know what else I didn't call her: old and ugly, and a
nightmare; and said she was coming on an elephant. In short, I did
nothing but ridicule her. You see, I took her for that Lydia
Clapperton."
Mrs. Lake's face turned red in its turn. She was of a refined,
deeply-sensitive temperament, ever considerate of the feelings of
others.
"What apology can you possibly offer, Robert? How can you make your
peace?"
"I have made it already. She seems thoroughly good-natured, and saw
the thing as it was--a misapprehension altogether. I'd rather have
given a hundred pounds, though, than it should have happened. Why
couldn't Penelope open her mouth and tell me she had come and was in
the garden?"
He was splashing away at the water, having turned up his cuffs and his
wristbands to wash his hands, evidently not on very good terms with
himself. His wife put the doll's frock into her little ornamental
basket and stood up to wait, watching him brush his hair. Then they
were ready to go down.
"Clara."
"What?" she asked, turning round to him.
"Don't speak of this to any one, my darling. It really has annoyed me.
I do not suppose Lady Ellis will."
"Of course I will not." And he bent his hot face over his wife's, and
kissed it by way of thanks. "What is she like?" asked Clara.
"Young, and very good-looking."
A knock at the door. Mr. Lake opened it. There stood a fair girl of
fifteen or sixteen, with soft brown eyes and a pale gentle face. Her
hair, of a bright chestnut-brown, was worn plain, and her voice and
manners were remarkably sweet and gentle. It was Anna Chester, Mrs.
Chester's step-daughter. There was a sort of patient weary look about
the girl, as if she had long had to do battle with care; her black
merino dress, rather shabby, was only relieved by a bit of quilled
white net round the throat, and plain stitched linen bands at the
wrists.
"Mrs. Chester sent me to tell you that dinner is being taken in."
"We are ready for it. Here, Anna, wait a moment," added Mr. Lake,
drawing her in and shutting the door. "What brings that Lady Ellis
here? I thought she was not to come until Wednesday or Thursday."
"Neither was she," answered Anna. "It put us out very much this
morning when we got her letter, because things were not ready. But we
did the best we could."
"That accounts for Penelope's sharpness," remarked Mr. Lake. "But she
could not have come from Cheltenham this morning, Anna!"
"No, from London. She left Cheltenham on Saturday, she told, us, and
wrote from London yesterday."
"Now then, you people!" called out Mrs. Chester's voice from the foot
of the stairs.
"Come along, Anna," said Mr. Lake.
"Oh, I am not going to dine with you," was the girl's answer. "There
would be nobody to see that things went on properly, and to wash the
forks and spoons."
For Mrs. Chester had not sufficient forks and spoons to serve for all
her courses without washing. The dinner was made more elaborate than
it need have been, in honour of the first appearance of Lady Ellis at
table. Anna Chester spoke cheerfully, with patient meekness, as if it
were her province to be put upon; and Robert Lake muttered an angry
word in his wife's ear about Mrs. Chester's selfishness.
In the corridor they encountered Mary and Margaret Jupp, and all
descended together. The party was going into the dining-room; Mrs.
Chester had momentarily disappeared; Oliver was laughing with Lydia
Clapperton; Mr. Lake went up to him and claimed to be introduced; the
Miss Jupps seized upon Lady Ellis with greetings and reminiscences of
old times; and altogether there was some confusion. Clara Lake,
naturally retiring, slipped into the dining-room behind the rest, and
took her seat unobtrusively by the side of Fanny Chester. So that it
happened she was not introduced to Lady Ellis. That Indian widow,
casting her roving eyes around, heard her called "Clara" once or twice
by Mrs. Chester, and took her for the governess. A young curate in a
straight coat down to his heels, made the tenth at table.
"Mamma said I was to dine here," whispered Fanny, confidentially to
Mrs. Lake, "or else there would have been an odd number."
Mr. Lake took the foot of the table, and had Lady Ellis on his right.
They talked together a great deal. Altogether it was a very social
dinner, plenty of laughing. Anna Chester washed up spoons and forks
outside the door, kept the little boys in order, and saw to things
generally.
Dinner over, they went on the lawn, where a table was set out with
wine and fruit and cakes. But none of them seemed inclined to sit down
to it at first; preferring to disperse in groups, and flit about
amidst the walks and flowers. Oliver Jupp appropriated Lydia
Clapperton, and Mr. Lake was perfectly content that it should be so.
For himself he was everywhere; now with Mary Jupp; now with Margaret;
now with his sister; and now, and now, and now with Lady Ellis.
Chiefly with her: and she by no means objected to the companionship.
In short it was a delightful, unceremonious, laisser-aller sort of
gathering, with Mrs. Chester seated in her weeds to play propriety,
whilst her young boys, left to themselves, got into as much mischief
as they possibly could.
"And so you found yourself restless at Cheltenham?" remarked Mr. Lake,
as he and Lady Ellis emerged once more in the open ground from some
one of the many side walks.
"I get restless everywhere. India suited me best. It may be different,
perhaps, when once I settle down."
"I never saw Cheltenham. It is a charming place, according to report."
"At this season it is nothing but heat and dust. I did intend to stay
there until the middle of this week; but I couldn't do it. I could
not, Mr. Lake. So I went up to London on Saturday night, and wrote
word to your sister that she must expect me on Monday."
They were crossing the lawn. Seated now near Mrs. Chester, at the
table, was Clara Lake, who had been beguiled indoors by Fanny Chester
to the doll's frock. That important work being accomplished, Clara had
come out again. Lady Ellis--her black lace shawl draped artistically
round her shoulders, and her very brilliant black eyes darting their
glances here and there, fixed their light upon Clara.
"Who _is_ that young lady, Mr. Lake?"
He looked surprised, and then smiled. "Don't you know?"
"I don't know who she is. I know that she is one of the very boldest
girls I ever saw."
"_She_ bold!" returned Mr. Lake, in marked astonishment, while a flush
darkened his cheek. "You are mistaken, Lady Ellis."
"Bold; and unseemly bold," repeated Lady Ellis. "I speak of that young
lady who is now sitting by Mrs. Chester. Some of them called her
'Clara' at dinner. I thought she might be the governess, but she seems
to take too much upon herself for that."
"I understand of whom you speak. But why do you call her bold?"
Lady Ellis was silent for a moment, and then lifted her head. "When we
have lived in India, have travelled--in short, have rubbed off the
reserve and rusticity which experience of the world only can effect,
we like to speak out our opinion, and call things by their right
names. Half an hour ago you were with her in that walk, talking to
her; she held your arm, and she suddenly clasped her other hand over
it, and kept it there, turning her face up to yours with what looked
very like ardent admiration. It struck me as being not--not seemly."
Mr. Lake coughed down a laugh. "She has a legal right to look in my
face as ardently as she pleases: and you may fully believe me when I
assure you that from her you will never witness aught unseemly. That
young lady is my wife."
"Your--wife!" echoed Lady Ellis, taken utterly by surprise.
"My own wife." His saucy blue eyes gazed into those amazed black ones,
enjoying their confusion with an exceedingly saucy expression. Lady
Ellis burst into a laugh.
"Well, I suppose I must beg your pardon now. We all seem to be letting
ourselves in for mistakes and blunders. I thought she was a young
girl, and I did not know you were married."
"She does look young," he answered, his eyes following his wife's
pretty figure, as she went towards the house with Mrs. Chester;
"nevertheless she has been my wife these three years."
"You must have married early. Is it wise, think you, of a man to do
so?"
"Wise?--In what respect?"
"Repentance might come. Men scarcely know their own minds before
thirty."
"A great many of us risk it."
They sat down at the dessert-table, and Mr. Lake helped her to some
wine and fruit. One of the little boys ran up and clamoured for good
things in the absence of his mother. Lady Ellis privately thought that
children did not improve the social relations of the world.
Mrs. Chester had taken Clara to look at what she called the domestic
arrangements, which in reality meant the kitchens and back premises in
general. Encountering Miss Jupp as they went, she turned to accompany
them.
"Had you come at the time you ought, I should have shown you over the
house before dinner," grumbled Mrs. Chester, who could not forget the
upsetting of her plans.
"Of course we were very sorry," spoke Mary Jupp. "It is so tiresome to
put back one's dinner after it is at the fire. I should have been more
cross than you, Mrs. Chester."
"What with one thing and another, I have been cross enough today,"
confessed Mrs. Chester, giving a jerk to her widow's cap, which never
kept on two minutes together, wanting strings. "First of all, this
morning, came Lady Ellis's letter to upset me, and with nothing ready
for her!"
"Why did she come today?"
"Some whim, I suppose. It was a courteous letter of excuse--hoping I
should pardon her, and begging me not to treat her as a stranger. How
very handsome she is!"
"Her features are handsome," rejoined Mary Jupp; "but their
expression's bad."
"Bad!" cried Mrs. Chester.
"I think so. There's nothing good or kind in them; and she's eaten up
alive with vanity. You must take care of your husband, Clara, for she
seems to covet his admiration."
Clara Lake, who was in advance, looked back and laughed merrily.
"How can you put such notions in her head?" spoke Mrs. Chester,
severely. "Robert Lake's manners with women are in the highest degree
absurd; but there's no need for his wife to be reminded of it to her
face."
"I don't mind being reminded of it, Mrs. Chester. It means nothing."
"Of course it does not. I only hope Lady Ellis will not take offence
at him. What age is she, I wonder--five-and-twenty?"
"Five-and-thirty, if she's a day!" spoke Mary Ann Jupp, in her strong
decision. "She is made-up, you know--cosmetics and that, and dresses
to look young. But just look quietly at her when the sun is on her
face."
"But she cannot be that age."
"I think she is. I will ask mamma when I get home: she knows."
The subject dropped. Mrs. Chester took them round the house, and in at
the back door, showing one thing, explaining another. The larder and
the dairy were first entered.
"That is what was once the dairy," observed Mrs. Chester. "Of course,
I want nothing of the sort, not possessing cows. It will do to keep
herbs and pots and pans in. This is the kitchen," she continued,
turning into a large, convenient room on the right of the boarded
passage.
"Why, it is like print!" exclaimed Mary Jupp, in her hasty way.
"There's not a speck of dirt about it; everything is in its place. How
in the world have they got it into this order so soon after dinner?"
"This is the best kitchen," explained Mrs. Chester; "they cook in the
other. Don't you see that there's no fire? We shall use this in
winter, but while the weather is so hot, I like the cooking done as
far from the sitting-rooms as possible. Farm-houses generally have two
kitchens, you know. The other is in the yard. You can come and see
it."
They went out of the room, but Clara did not. She stood rooted to the
spot, like one in a trance, rather than a living, breathing woman. She
glanced here, she glanced there; at the doors, the large window, the
fireplace; at the furniture, and position of everything. Her breathing
came softly; she pressed her brow to make sure she was awake.
Mrs. Chester and Mary Jupp came back, and she had not stirred: her
cheek was pale, her hands were clasped, she looked very like a statue.
Mrs. Chester began explaining where the several doors led to: one down
to the cellar, one to the coal-house, one to the dairy, and one to a
china closet; four in all, besides the entrance door. Both of them
were too busy to notice her.
"Are you coming, Clara?" asked Miss Jupp, as they went out.
"Directly," she replied, speaking quietly. "Mary, I wish you would
find my husband, and tell him I want him here for a minute."
"You want to show him what a model place it is," cried Mrs. Chester,
complacently. "Do so, Clara. _He_ will never have such a kitchen in
his house."
Mary Jupp delivered the message to Mr. Lake, who was still at the
table, and peeling a pear for Lady Ellis. The objectionable boy had
disappeared. He came away when he had finished his job, leaving the
two ladies together. Mrs. Chester had hastened in dire wrath after the
other of her mischievous young sons, who was climbing up a prickly
tree, to the detriment of his clothes.
"I had no idea until just now that Mr. Lake was a married man,"
observed Lady Ellis to Mary Jupp, as she leisurely eat her pear.
"No! Then whom did you suppose Mrs. Lake was?"
"I did not suppose anything about it; I did not know she was Mrs.
Lake. Have they been married long?"
"About three years."
"Ah, yes; I think he said so. Any children?"
"There was one. A beautiful little child; but it died. Do you not
think her very lovely? It is so sweet a face!"
Lady Ellis shrugged her shoulders. "She has no style. And she seems as
much wrapt up in her husband as though they had been married
yesterday."
"Why should she not be?" bluntly asked Miss Jupp. "I only hope when I
am married--if ever that's to be--that I and my husband shall be as
happy and united as they are."
"As _she_ is," spoke Lady Ellis. "I would not answer for him."
Mary Jupp felt cross. It occurred to her that somebody might have been
whispering tales about Mr. Lake's nonsensical flirtation with her
sister Rose: and purely innocent nonsense, on both sides, she knew
that to be. "Young Lake is one of those men who cannot live without
flirtation," she observed, "who admire every woman they meet, and take
care to let her know it. His wife can afford to laugh at it, knowing
that his love is exclusively hers."
Lady Ellis drew down the corners of her mouth and coughed a little
cough of mocking disbelief; for which Mary Jupp, upright and
high-principled, could have scolded her for an hour.
"So very old-fashioned, those notions, my dear Miss Jupp. Love!"
"Old-fashioned, are they?" fired Mary.
"A woman hazards more than she perhaps bargains for, when she ties
herself, for better or for worse, to one of these attractive men: but
of course she must put up with the consequences."
"What consequences?" exclaimed Mary Jupp, feeling herself puzzled by
the speech altogether.
"The seeing herself a neglected wife: the seeing others preferred
before her--as she must inevitably do when her own short reign is
over."
"Had you to experience that?" sharply asked Mary Jupp, intending the
question as a sting.
"I!" equably returned Lady Ellis. "My husband had nothing attractive
about him, and was as old as Adam. I spoke of the wives of fascinating
men: others may humdrum on to their graves, and be at peace."
"I don't see what there is to fascinate in young Lake. He is
light-headed and careless, if that means fascination."
"Ah," superciliously remarked Lady Ellis, playing with her jet chain.
They were interrupted by Margaret Jupp, who came up with Mrs. Chester.
The young lady, hearing of the expedition to the kitchens, was not
pleased to have been omitted, so Mrs. Chester was going to do the
honours again.
"I think there's nothing so nice as looking over a house," said
Margaret. "Kitchens have great interest for me."
"I suppose I may not ask to be of the party?" interposed Lady Ellis,
looking at Mrs. Chester.
"Certainly you may: why not?" And they slowly strolled across the lawn
on the expedition.
Meanwhile Mr. Lake, in obedience to the summons, had found his wife in
the large kitchen. She was still standing in the middle of the floor,
just as though she had been glued to it.
"Did you want me, Clara?"
"Do come here," she whispered, in quite an awestruck tone. And Mr.
Lake, wondering a little, stepped up and stood beside her. Clara,
touching his arm, pointed to different features of the room, turning
about to do it.
"Do you see them, Robert? Do you remember?"
"I have not been in the kitchen before," was his answer, after a
pause, looking curiously at the room and then at her.
"It is the kitchen of my dream!"
"The what?" exclaimed Mr. Lake.
"The kitchen I saw in my dream."
He barely stopped an irreverent laugh. What he saw upon her face
arrested it.
"It is," she whispered, her voice sounding strangely hollow, as though
some great physical change had taken place within. "I described its
features to you that night, and now you may see them. We--we are
standing in the same position!" she burst forth more eagerly, as if
the fact had but that moment occurred to her. "See! I was here, you on
that side me, as you are now; here was the small round dark table
close to us; there is the large window, with the ironing-board
underneath it; there, to the left, are the dresser and the shelves,
and even the very plates and dishes upon them--"
"Of the precise willow pattern," put in Mr. Lake.
"There, behind us, is the fireplace; and around are the several doors,
in the very self-same places that I saw them," she continued, too
eager to notice or heed the mocking interruption. "I told, you it
looked like a farm-house kitchen, large and bleak: you may see that it
does, now."
"I shall begin to think that you are dreaming still," he returned.
"I wish I was! I wish I had never seen in reality the kitchen of that
dream. I did not at the first moment recognise it. When I came in with
Mrs. Chester and Mary Jupp, the place struck me as being familiar, and
I was just going to say to them, 'I must have been here before,' when
my dream flashed upon me, like a chill. I felt awestruck--sick; I
feel so yet."
"This beats spirit-rapping," said Mr. Lake. "Let us lay hold of the
table, and see whether it won't turn."
"_Why_ will you turn it into mockery?" she resumed, her tone one of
sharp pain. "You know that dream seemed to foretel my death."
"I declare to goodness, Clara, you will make me angry!" was his
retort, his voice changing to severity. "What has come over you these
last few days?"
"That dream has come over me," she replied, with a shiver. "I thought
it was done with; done with by the accident of last night; and now the
sight of this kitchen has renewed it in all its horror. If you could,
only for one minute, feel as I am feeling, you would not wonder at
me."
Her state of mind appeared to him most unaccountable: not foolish;
that was not the word; far worse than foolish--obstinate and
unreasonable. Never in his life had he spoken so sharply to her as he
spoke now. Perhaps his recent intercourse with that equable woman of
the world, Sir George's relict, had given him new ideas. "I should be
sorry to feel it, even for a minute; I should be ashamed to do so: and
I feel ashamed for you. What did you want with me?"
"To show you the kitchen. To tell you this."
He gave vent to an impatient word, and turned angrily to the door.
She, her heart bursting, went forward to the window. Just so had it
been in the dream; just so had they seemed to part, he going to the
door and she to the window; just so had been her sharp conviction of
coming evil. Mr. Lake looked back at her; she had laid her head
against the wall near the window: her hands drooped down; in her whole
air there was an utter agony of abandonment. His better nature
returned to him, and he walked across the kitchen. As he drew her face
from the wall he saw that it was white, and the tears were running
down her cheeks.
"Clara," he exclaimed, as he took her to himself, "must I treat you
and soothe you as I would a child?"
"No, treat me as your wife," she passionately answered, breaking into
a storm of sobs.
He suffered her to sob for a few moments, until the paroxysm had spent
itself, and then spoke; in a tone of remonstrance, it is true, but
with deep tenderness. "Is it possible that you can allow a foolish
superstition, a dream, to cause this wild grief?"
"It is not the dream that is causing the _grief_. You are causing
that: you never so spoke to me: when I said it might foretel my death,
you turned my words into ridicule. It is as if you do not care whether
I live or die."
"Clara, you know better. What can I do for you? How can I soothe you?"
"Do not speak to me in that tone again."
"My dearest, I will do anything you wish in reason; you know I will,
but you must not ask me to put faith in a dream. And if my voice
sounded harsh--why, it would vex any man to find his wife so foolish."
"Well, well, it shall pass; I will not vex you with it again. If any
ill does come, it must; and if not--"
"If not, you will acknowledge what a silly child you have been," he
interrupted, kissing the scalding tears from her face.
"Silly, and superstitious, if you will," she whispered, "but not a
child. I think I am less a child at heart than many who are older.
Robert, if you ever grew unkind to me, I should die."
"That I never shall, my darling."
Standing outside the half-open door, taking a leisurely survey through
the chink, was Lady Ellis, having come noiselessly along the passage
matting; not purposely to deceive, she was not aware there was
anything to see, but her footsteps were soft, her movements had mostly
something cat-like about them. She saw his face bent on his wife's,
and heard his kisses, all but heard his sweet words; heard quite
enough to imagine them. An ugly look of envy, or something akin to it,
rose momentarily to her pale features. Legitimate love such as this
had never been hers. Mr. Lake was what she had called him, an
attractive man. He had that day paid her attentions, said sentimental
nothings to her in a low voice; and there are some women who would
fain keep such men to themselves, whether they may have wives or not;
nay, their having a wife is only an inducement the more. Was Lady
Ellis one?
The smile changed its character for that of mockery. It flashed into
my lady's mind that this little domestic scene was one of
reconciliation after dispute, and that the dispute must have had its
natural rise in those recent attentions paid to herself. The voices of
Mrs. Chester and Margaret Jupp were heard approaching, and she made
her safe way back to them.
"Let it pass, let it pass, Clara," Mr. Lake said hastily to his wife,
hearing the voices also. "My dear, there is no _reason_ in your fear.
What harm do you suppose can arise from your visit here? There is no
chance of a breakdown again as we go home."
"It is just that--that I cannot see any probability of harm. But I
gave you my word just now to say no more about the matter, and I will
keep it."
"Come and walk in the air, it will do you good. Your eyes are as red
as if you had been crying for a day, Clara."
Lady Ellis pushed the door open and came in, followed by the others.
Mrs. Chester began expatiating upon the conveniences of the kitchen,
its closets and cupboards, and Mr. Lake and his wife slipped away. My
lady, looking from the window, saw him pass it towards the kitchen
garden, his wife upon his arm.