MR. WYNNE IS A WIDOWER.
The first opportunity that Madeline could find she ventured a visit
to the Holts. It was a lovely June morning as she walked up to the
front entrance of the sequestered Farm. She found Harry--_her_ Harry,
a pretty little fellow with fair soft hair and surprised dark eyes,
sitting alone upon the doorstep, and nursing a pointer pup. It was
useless for her to ask in her most winning manner--
“Harry dear, don’t you know me? Darling, I am your own mother; your own
mummy!”
Harry simply frowned and shook his curls, and clutched the puppy
tightly in his clasp as if he meant to throttle it.
Presently Mrs. Holt came upon the scene, with turned-up sleeves, and
stout bare arms, fresh from the dairy. She was exceedingly civil, and
exceedingly cool; invited Miss West into the little parlour, dusted a
chair for her, and did her best to soften the rigidity and hauteur of
little Harry’s aspect.
After some conversation about his double teeth, the weather, and Nice,
she said--
“Suppose you and he just go round the garden, ma’am, and make friends.
I’ll leave you to yourselves, whilst I go and see after the dinner.”
“But pray don’t get anything extra for _me_, Mrs. Holt,” implored
Madeline. “Just what you have yourselves. I shall be very angry if you
make a stranger of me.”
Mrs. Holt muttered some incoherent reply, and went away saying to
herself--
“Not make a stranger of you! and what else? Not make any difference for
you! I’m thinking you’d look very glum if I were to set you down to
beans and bacon, my grand young London madame. Dear me, but she _is_
changed! She cannot stir without a sound of rustling; and the price of
one of her rings would build a new barn!”
Meanwhile, Harry and his mother went round the garden as desired,
hand-in-hand. He could talk very plainly for his age, and trotted along
by her side, considerably thawed in manner. This process was due to
a lovely ball she had unexpectedly produced, a gay picture-book, and
a packet of candy. He chattered away in a most friendly style, and
showed her the pigeons, the bees, and where the lark was buried--in
fact, all what he considered the lions of the place; and every moment
unfolded to his delighted companion some additional marvel and charm.
By the time that one-o’clock dinner was ready, the couple were on
excellent terms, and he had even gone so far as to kiss her, and to
put his little holland-clad arms round her neck of his own accord. The
sensation was extremely pleasant.
After dinner--_not_ consisting of beans and bacon--Mrs. Holt and her
guest had a long _tête-à-tête_. The condition of Harry’s health was
first disposed of, then the state of his wardrobe came under discussion.
“I should tell you, ma’am, since you ask, that all the lovely frocks
and pelisses you sent from France are just laying there. Mr. Wynne
won’t allow him to wear one of them, nor anything you gave him.”
“And why not, pray?” demanded the young lady with considerably
heightened colour.
“He told me quite serious, one day,” said Mrs. Holt, now speaking with
ill-suppressed satisfaction, “that what he had worn and _was_ wearing,
as you gave him, he might wear out; but no new things were to be
accepted, as you had nothing to do with the child now. So I put them
all by, just as they came, in the front room wardrobe, and there they
are.”
“What does he mean?” asked Madeline, in a sharp key.
“I’m sure, ma’am, _you_ know better than I do; he said as he had no
objection to your seeing the child, now and then, but that was all. I
expect Mr. Wynne can be real stiff and determined,” smoothing out her
apron with an air of solemn disapproval, not of him, but of her visitor.
Madeline said nothing, but she felt a good deal. Mrs. Holt, from her
manner more than from her words, sat in judgment upon her. She, this
wife of a common farmer, actually dared to criticise the beautiful and
admired and spoiled Miss West.
“You see, ma’am,” she continued, “you are, and you are not, the
child’s mother. He does not recognize you as that--I mean the child
himself--you have kept away too long. In course you can’t be in two
places at once, nor be both Miss West and Mrs. Wynne. ’Tisn’t my wish,
nor my own doing, as I have taken your place with the child. He is
main fond of me. And then, poor Mr. Wynne, he felt your leaving him at
first, no doubt of that; but he is getting over it now; men haven’t as
much feeling as we _think_.”
Madeline listened with a guilty conscience, every word went home to her
with as much force as a blow. She had chosen her line, and she must
stick to single blessedness. There was to be no going back, at any rate
at present.
This conviction made her reckless, and she rushed with eagerness into
the full tide of London gaiety with a passionate desire to escape
from the past, to get away from the clamouring of a still articulate
conscience, to annihilate memory by some great and effective action,
and to be happy! But memory was not so easily stifled, and now that
Laurence had disappeared from her life--such is the contrariness of
humanity--she wished him back. At times, at races, at Hurlingham, in
great assemblies, at the theatre, or in the Row, she searched the
crowds for him in vain. Mrs. Leach, who was her constant companion and
self-elected chaperon, reading her young friend by the light of her own
memories, noticed that she was not like other girls, content and happy
with her company and surroundings. There was a restlessness in her
manner; she seemed to be continually looking for some one--some one who
never came, who was never to be seen.
Madeline preferred Lady Rachel’s, or Mrs. Lorimer’s company to the
splendid widow’s society, and made futile efforts to shake off her
shackles--efforts which were vain.
Yes, among all Madeline’s social successes, in the midst of her
most dazzling triumphs, she ever cast a glance around in search of
Laurence. Surely, if he went to see her in the full blaze of her
triumph, he would think twice ere he permanently renounced such
a treasure! She felt hot and angry when she thought of him, but
nevertheless she longed to see him once more--odious, unreasonable,
and tyrannical as he was. Surely he did not mean to abandon her in
reality. That idea had no place in her mind when she was abroad. There
everything and everybody seemed different. It was easy, in a strange
country, far away from Laurence and Harry, to drop a misty cloud over
the past, and to feel as if she really _was_ Miss West. But here in
London, where she had lived as a married woman, and had struggled--and
oh, what a struggle!--with the awful question of how to support a
household on nothing, the idea was unnatural--nay, it went further, it
was improper. She would perhaps write to him some day, and hold out the
olive branch; but not yet, and meanwhile she must see him.
Mr. West was still extremely uneasy about himself. He found the heat,
and dust, and noise of London trying to his health, he declared; and,
much to the disgust of Mrs. Leach and other interested friends, he
announced that the middle of July would not find him in England. He was
going to Carlsbad, to Switzerland, and to winter abroad--probably at
Biarritz.
Ere she was thus carried off, Madeline resolved to see Laurence. She
prevailed upon Lady Rachel to take her to the Temple church. She was
aware that he went there every Sunday, and Lady Rachel, little guessing
the reason of her friend’s sudden enthusiasm for the venerable
edifice, and anxiety to hear a certain well-known preacher, procured
two tickets for benchers’ seats, and occupied them the ensuing sabbath.
These seats were roomy and elevated, and commanded an excellent view
of the whole centre of the church where the members of the various
inns sat. They came in gradually, not in legal garb, as Madeline had
half expected, but in their usual dress; and she strained her eyes so
eagerly that her sharp little friend nudged her and said, “For whom are
you looking, Maddie?”
“Oh, no one,” colouring. “It is such a very interesting old place. I
like staring about. What crowds of people who cannot get seats, and
have to stand!”
At this juncture the organ pealed out, and every one stood up as the
choir filed in, and just immediately afterwards, Lady Rachel exclaimed
in an excited whisper, “There’s Mr. Wynne--look!”
Of course Madeline never moved her eyes from him; they followed him,
as he found a seat at the end of a pew, luckily well within her view.
He could not see her, but she could study him, especially when she
knelt down, with her two hands shielding either side of her face, from
watchful Lady Rachel.
He looked well, a little grave perhaps, a little worn; no doubt he
was working hard. He did not stare about as did others, nor cast a
single glance at the radiant figure in the benchers’ seats. At times
he seemed preoccupied and buried in thought, but he gave his undivided
attention to the sermon, to which he listened with folded arms and a
critical air, as if he were weighing every word of it in his mind, and
as though it were a summing up of evidence being laid before a jury
of which he was a member. There was no abstracted air about him, his
mind was on the alert, he had cast the past or future aside, and was
absorbed in the present.
The sermon concluded, crowds flocked through the ancient doorway,
and scattered outside. Lady Rachel still lingered, and looked about
eagerly, ere taking her departure westward, and then she exclaimed, in
a disgusted voice--
“I wanted to have asked Mr. Wynne to lunch, if I had seen him to speak
to,” shaking out her parasol and opening it with a jerk of annoyance.
“But there he goes, marched off by that girl in the green and blue
frock--the very sight of it turns me cold! And do you see the old papa
rushing after them, and accosting him with rapture? The way in which
girls throw themselves at men’s heads nowadays, is abominable. However,
it’s a mistake for these bold creatures to imagine that men will marry
them. They either take a wife from the stage or music-hall, or some
quiet little country mouse. As for Mr. Wynne, he is a widower, and
I believe his wife was a perfect _horror_--so he will not be caught
again! Ah, here’s a hansom! Now, my dear girl, get in, get in. These
dry sermons make me frightfully thirsty. I am dying for my lunch.”