The bird was sitting in his cage
And heard what he did say;
He jumped upon the window sill,
“‘Tis time I was away.”
Ballad.
“There is a young lady in the drawing-room, ma’am,” said the maid,
looking rather puzzled and uncertain, on the return of the party from
the review.
“A stranger? How could you let her in?” said John.
At that moment a face appeared at the top of the stairs, a face set
in the rich golden auburn that all knew so well, and half way up, Mrs.
Brownlow was clasped by a pair of arms, and there was a cry, “Mother
Carey, Mother Carey, I’m come home!”
“Elvira! my dear child! When--how did you come?”
“From the station, in a cab. I made her let me in, but I thought you
were never coming back. Where’s Allen?”
“Allen will come in by-and-by,” said the astonished Mother Carey, who
had been dragged into the drawing-room, where Elvira embraced Babie, and
grasped the hands of the others.
“Oh, it is so nice,” she cried, then nestling back to Mother Carey.
“But where did you come from? Are you alone?”
“Yes, quite alone, Janet would not come with me after all.”
“Janet, my dear! Where is she?”
“Oh, not here--at Saratoga, or at New York. I thought she was coming
with me, but when the steamer sailed she was not there, only there was
a note pinned to my berth. I meant to have brought it, but it got lost
somehow.”
“Where did you see her?”
“At the photographer’s at Saratoga. I should never have come if she had
not helped me, but she said she knew you would take me home, and she
wrote and took my passage and all. She said if I did not find you, Mr.
Wakefield would know where you were, but I did so want to get home to
you! Please, may I take off my things; I don’t want to be such a fright
when Allen comes in.”
It was all very mysterious, but Elvira must be much altered indeed if
her narrative did not come out in an utterly complicated and detached
manner. She was altered certainly, for she clung most affectionately to
Mother Carey and Barbara, when they took her upstairs. She had a little
travelling-bag with her; the rest of her luggage would be sent from the
station, she supposed, for she had taken no heed to it. She did so want
to get home.
“I did feel so hungry for you, Mother Carey. Mother, Janet said you
would forgive me, and I thought if you were ever so angry, it would be
true, and that would be nicer than Lisette, and, indeed, it was not so
much my doing as Lisette’s.”
Whatever “it” was, Mother Carey had no hesitation in replying that she
had no doubt it was Lisette’s fault.
“You see,” continued Elvira, “I never meant anything but to plague Allen
a little at first. You know he had always been so tiresome and jealous,
and always teased me when I wanted any fun--at least I thought so, and
I did want to have my swing before he called me engaged to him again. I
told Jock so, but then Lisette and Lady Flora, and old Lady Clanmacnalty
went on telling me that you knew the money was mine all the time, and
that it was only an accident that it came out before I was married.”
“Oh, Elvira, you could not have thought anything so wicked,” cried
Babie.
“They all went on so, and made so sure,” said Elvira, hanging her head,
“and I never did know the real way the will was found till Janet told
me. Babie, if you had heard Lady Clanmacnalty clear her throat when
people talked about the will being found, you would have believed she
knew better than anyone.”
So it was. The girl, weak in character, and far from sensible, full of
self-importance, and puffed up with her inheritance, had been easily
blinded and involved in the web that the artful Lisette had managed to
draw round her. She had been totally alienated from her old friends,
and by force of reiteration had been brought to think them guilty
of defrauding her. In truth, she was kept in a whirl of gaiety and
amusement, with little power of realizing her situation, till the breach
had grown too wide for the feeble will of a helpless being like her to
cross it. Though she had flirted extensively, she had never felt capable
of accepting any one of her suitors, and in these refusals she had
been assisted by Lisette, who wanted to secure her for her brother, but
thanks to warnings from Mr. Wakefield, and her husband’s sense of duty,
durst not do so before she was of age.
Elvira’s one wish had been to visit San Ildefonso again. She had a
strong yearning towards the lovely island home which she gilded in
recollection with all the trails of glory that shine round the objects
of our childish affections. Lisette always promised to take her, but
found excuses for delay in the refitting of the yacht, while she kept
the party wandering over Europe in the resorts of second-rate English
residents. No doubt she wished to make the most of the enjoyments she
could obtain, as Elvira’s chaperon and guardian, before resigning her
even to her brother. At last the gambling habits into which her husband
fell, for lack, poor man, of any other employment, had alarmed her, and
she permitted her party to embark in the yacht where Gilbert Gould acted
as captain.
They reached the island. It had become a coaling station. The bay where
she remembered exquisite groves coming down to the white beach, was
a wharf, ringing with the discordant shouts of negroes and cries of
sailors. The old nurse was dead, and fictitious foster brothers and
sisters were constantly turning up with extravagant claims.
“Oh, I longed never to have come,” said Elvira; “and then I began to get
homesick, but they would not let me come!”
No doubt Lisette had feared the revival of the Brownlow influence if
her charge were once in England, for she had raised every obstacle to
a return. Poor Gould and his niece had both looked forward to Elvira’s
coming of age as necessarily bringing them to England, but her uncle’s
health had suffered from the dissipation he had found his only resource.
Liquor had become his consolation in the life to which he was condemned,
and in the hotel life of America was only too easily attainable.
His death deprived Elvira of the last barrier to the attempts of an
unscrupulous woman, who was determined not to let her escape. Elvira’s
longing to return home made her spread her toils closer. She kept
her moving from one fashionable resort to another, still attended by
Gilbert, who was beginning to grow impatient to secure his prize.
“How I hated it,” said Elvira. “I knew she was false and cruel by that
time, but it was just like being in a trap between them. I loathed them
more and more, but I couldn’t get away.”
Nurtured as she had been, she was helpless and ignorant about the
commonest affairs of life, and the sight of American independence never
inspired her with the idea of breaking the bondage in which she was
spellbound. Still, she shrank back with instinctive horror from every
advance of Gilbert’s, and at last, to pique her, Lisette brought forward
the intelligence that Allen Brownlow was married.
The effect must have surprised them, for Elvira turned on her aunt in
one of those fits of passion which sometimes seized her, accused her
vehemently of having poisoned the happiness of her life, and taken her
from the only man she could ever love. She said and threatened all
sorts of desperate things; and then the poor child, exhausted by her own
violence, collapsed, and let herself be cowed and terrified in her turn
by her aunt’s vulgar sneers and cold determination.
Yet still she held out against the marriage. “I told them it would
be wicked,” she said. “And when I went to Church, all the Psalms and
everything said it would be wicked. Then Lisette said it was wicked to
love a married man, and I said I didn’t know, I couldn’t help it, but it
would be more wicked to vow I would love a man whom I hated, and should
hate more every day of my life. Then they said I might have a civil
marriage, and not vow anything at all, and I told them that would seem
to me no better than not being married at all. Oh! I was very very
miserable!”
“Had you no one to consult or help you, my poor child?”
“They watched me so, and whenever I was making friends with any nice
American girl, they always rattled me off somewhere else. I never did
understand before what people meant when they talked about God being
their only Friend, but I knew it then, for I had none at all, none else.
And I did not think He would help me, for now I knew I had been hard,
and horrid and nasty, and cruel to you and Allen, the only people who
ever cared for me for myself, and not for my horrid, horrid money,
though I was the nastiest little wretch. Oh! Mother Carey, I did know it
then, and I got quite sick with longing for one honest kiss--or even one
honest scolding of yours. I used to cry all Church-time, and they used
to try not to let me go--and I felt just like the children of Israel in
Egypt, as if I had got into heavy bondage, and the land of captivity.
O do speak, and let me hear your voice once more! Your arm is so
comfortable.”
Still it seemed that Elvira had resisted till another attempt was made.
While she was at a boarding-house on the Hudson a large picnic party was
arranged, in which, after American fashion, gentlemen took ladies “to
ride” in their traps to and from the place of rendezvous. In returning,
of course it had been as easy as possible for her chaperon to contrive
that she should be left alone with no cavalier but Gilbert Gould, and he
of course pretended to lose his way, drove on till night-fall, and then
judgmatically met with an accident, which hurt nobody; but which he
declared made the carriage incapable of proceeding.
After walking what Elvira fancied half the night, shelter was found in
a hospitable farmhouse, where the people were wakened with difficulty.
They took care of the benighted wanderers, and the farmer drove them
back to the hotel the next morning in his own waggon. They were received
by Mrs. Gould with great demonstrations both of affection, pity and
dismay, and she declared that the affair had been so shocking and
compromising that it was impossible to stay where they were. She made
Elvira take her meals in her room rather than face the boarding-house
company, paid the bills (all of course with Elvira’s money) and carried
her off to the Saratoga Springs, having taken good care not to allow
her a minute’s conversation with anyone who would have told her that the
freedom of American manners would make an adventure like hers be thought
of no consequence at all.
The poor girl herself was assured by Mrs. Gould that this “unhappy
escapade” left her no alternative but a marriage with Gilbert. She would
otherwise never be able to show her face again, for even if the affair
were hushed up, reports would fly, and Mrs. Lisette took care they
should fly, by ominous shakes of the head, and whispered confidences
such as made the steadier portion of the Saratoga community avoid her,
and brought her insolent attention from fast young men. It was this, and
a cold “What can you expect?’” from Lisette that finally broke down
her defences, and made her permit the Goulds to make known that she was
engaged to Gilbert.
Had they seized their prey at that moment of shame and despair, they
would have secured it, but their vanity or their self-esteem made
them wish to wash off the mire they had cast, or to conceal it by such
magnificence at the wedding as should outdo Fifth Avenue. The English
heiress must have a wedding-dress that would figure in the papers, and,
even in the States, be fabulously splendid. It must come from Paris, and
it must be waited for. All the bridesmaids were to have splendid pearl
lockets containing coloured miniature photograph portraits of the
beautiful bride, who for her part was utterly broken-hearted. “I thought
God had forgotten me, because I deserved it; and I only hoped I might
die, for I knew what the sailors said of Gilbert.”
Listless and indifferent, she let her tyrants do what they would with
her, and it was in Gilbert’s company that she first saw Janet at the
photographer’s. Fortunately he had never seen Miss Brownlow, and Elvira
had grown much too cautious to betray recognition; but the vigilance had
been relaxed since the avowal of the engagement, and the colouring of
the photographs from the life, was a process so wearisome, that no one
cared to attend the sitter, and Elvira could go and come, alone and
unquestioned.
So it was that she threw herself upon Janet. Whatever had been their
relations in their girlhood, each was to the other the remnant of the
old home and of better days, and in their stolen interviews they met
like sisters. Janet knew as little as Elvira did of her own family,
rather less indeed, but she declared Mrs. Gould’s horror about the
expedition with Gilbert to have been pure dissimulation, and soon
enabled Elvira to prove to herself that it had been a concerted trick.
In America it would go for nothing. Even in England, so mere an accident
(even if it had really been an accident) would not tell against her. But
then, Elvira hopelessly said Allen was married!
Again Janet was incredulous, and when she found that Elvira had never
seen the letter in which Kate Gould was supposed to have sent the
information, and knew it only upon Lisette’s assertion, she declared it
to be probably a fabrication. Why not telegraph? So in Elvira’s name
and at her expense, but with the address given to Janet’s abode, the
telegram was sent to Mr. Wakefield’s office, and in a few hours the
reply had come back: “Allen Brownlow not married, nor likely to be.”
There was no doubt now of the web of falsehood that had entangled the
poor girl; but she would probably have been too inert and helpless
to break through it, save for her energetic cousin, who nerved her to
escape from the life of utter misery that lay before her. What was to
hinder her from setting off by the train, and going at once home to
England by the steamer? There was no doubt that Mrs. Brownlow would
forgive and welcome her, or even if that hope failed her, Mr. Wakefield
was bound to take care of her. She had a house of her own standing empty
for her, and the owner of £40,000 a year need never be at a loss.
Had she enough money accessible to pay for a first-class passage? Yes,
amply even for two. She had always been so passive and incapable of all
matters of arrangement, that Mrs. Gould had never thought it worth while
to keep watch over her possession of “the nerves and sinews of war,”
being indeed unwilling to rouse her attention to the fact that she was
paying the by no means moderate expenses of both her tyrants.
Janet found out all about the hours, secured--as Elvira thought--two
first-class berths, met her when she crept like a guilty thing out of
the hotel at New York, took her to the station, went with her to an
outfitter to be supplied with necessaries for the voyage, for she had
been obliged to abandon everything but a few valuables in her handbag,
and saw her safely on board, introduced her to some kind friendly
English people, then on some excuse of seeing the steward, left her, as
Elvira found, to make the voyage alone!
It turned out that Janet had spoken to the gentleman of this party,
and explained that her young cousin was going home alone, asking him to
protect her on landing; and that she had come to London with them and
been there put into a cab, giving the old address to Collingwood Street,
where with much difficulty she had prevailed on the maid to let her in
to await the return of the family.
Nothing so connected as this history came to the ears of Mrs. Brownlow
or her children. That evening they only heard fragments, much more that
was utterly irrelevant, and much that was inexplicable, all interspersed
with inquiries and caresses and intent listening for Allen. Elvira might
not have acquired brains, but she had gained in sweetness and affection.
The face had lost its soulless, painted-doll expression, and she was
evidently happy beyond all measure to be among those she could love and
trust, sitting on a footstool by Mrs. Brownlow’s knee, leaning against
her, and now and then murmuring: “O Mother Carey, how I have longed for
you!”
She was not free from the fear that Lisette and Gilbert could still “do
something to her,” but the Johns made large assurances of defence, and
Mr. Wakefield was to be called in the next day. It must be confessed
that everybody rather enjoyed the notion of the pair left at Saratoga
with all their hotel bills to pay, and the wedding-dress on their hands,
but Elvira knew they had enough to clear them for the week, and only
hoped it was not enough to enable them to follow her.
Fragments of all this came out in the course of the evening. Allen did
not come home to dinner, and the other young men left the coast clear
for confidences, which were uttered in the intervals of listening, till
after all her excitement, her landing and her journey, Elvira was so
tired out that she had actually dropped asleep, with her head on
Mother Carey’s knee, when his soft weary step came up the stairs, and
perceiving, as he entered, that there was a hush over the room, he
did not speak. Babie looked up from her work with an amused smile of
infinite congratulation. There was a glance from his mother. Then, as
Babie put it, the Prince saw the Sleeping Beauty, and, with a strange
long half-strangled gasp and clasped hands, went down on one knee. At
that very moment Elvira stirred, opened her eyes, put her hand over
them, bewildered, as if thinking herself dreaming, then with a sort of
shriek of joy, flung herself towards him, as he held out his arms with
“My darling.”
“O Allen, can you forgive me? And oh! do marry me before they can come
after me!”
So much Mother Carey and Babie heard before they could remove themselves
from the scene, which they felt ought to be a tete-a-tete. They shut the
lovers in. Babie said, “Undine has found a heart, at least,” and
then they began to piece out the story by conjecture, and they then
discovered how little they had really learnt about Janet. They supposed
that the Hermanns must be living and practising at Saratoga, and in that
case it was no wonder she could not come home, the only strange thing
was Elvira’s expecting it. Besides, why had not Mrs. Gould taken alarm
at the name, and why was her husband never mentioned? Was there no
message from her? Most likely there was, in the note that was lost, and
moreover, Elvira might be improved, but she was Elvira still, and had
room for very little besides herself in her mind’s eye.
They must wait to examine her till these first raptures had subsided,
and in the mean time Caroline wrote a telegram to go as early as
possible to Mr. Wakefield. It showed a guilty conscience that Mrs. Gould
should not have telegraphed to him Elvira’s flight.
When at last Mrs. Brownlow held that the interview must come to an end,
and with preliminary warning opened the door, there they were, with
clasped hands, such as Elvira had never endured since she was a mere
child! Allen looking almost too blissful for this world, and Elvira with
eyes glistening with tears as she cried, “O Mother Carey, you never told
me how altered he was, I never knew how horrible I had been till I saw
how ill he looks! What can we do for him?”
“You are doing everything, my darling,” said Allen.
“He of course thinks her as irresponsible as if she had been hanging
up by the hair all this time in a giant’s larder,” whispered Babie to
Armine.
But Elvira was really unhappy about the worn, faded air that made Allen
look much older than his twenty-nine years warranted. The poor girl’s
nerves proved to have been much disturbed; she besought Barbara to sleep
with her, and was haunted by fears of pursuit and capture, and Gilbert
claiming her after all. She kept on starting, clutching at Babie, and
requiring to be soothed till far on into the night, and then she slept
so soundly that no one had the heart to wake her. Indeed it was her
first real peaceful repose since her flight had been planned, nor did
she come down till half-past ten, just when Mr. Wakefield drove up to
the door, and Jock had taken pity on Allen, and set forth to undertake
Sir Samuel for the day. Mr. Wakefield was the less surprised at
the sight of the young lady, having been somewhat prepared by her
telegraphic inquiry about Allen, which he had not communicated to the
Brownlows for fear of raising false expectations.
There was a great consultation. Elvira was not in the least shy, and
only wanted to be safely Mrs. Allen Brownlow before the Goulds should
arrive, as she expected, in the next steamer to pursue her vi et armis.
If it had depended on her, she would have sent Allen for a special
licence, and been married in her travelling dress that very day. Mr.
Wakefield, solicitor as he was, was quite ready for speed. He had always
viewed the marriage with Allen Brownlow as a simple act of restitution,
and the trust made settlements needless. Still he did not apprehend any
danger from the Goulds, when he found that Elvira had never written
a note to Gilbert in her life. Nay, he thought that if they even
threatened any annoyance, they had given cause enough to have a
prosecution for conspiracy held over them in wholesome terror.
And considering all the circumstances, Mrs. Brownlow and Allen were
alike determined against undignified haste. Miss Menella ought to be
married from among her own kindred, and from her own house; but this was
not easy to manage; for poor Mary Whiteside and her husband, though very
worthy, were not exactly the people to enact parents in such a house
as Belforest; and Mrs. Brownlow could see why she herself should not,
though Elvira could not think why she objected. At last the idea was
started that the fittest persons were Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield. The latter
was a thorough lady, pleasant and sensible. The only doubt was whether
so very quiet a person could be asked to undertake such an affair, and
her husband took leave, that he might consult her and see whether she
could bring herself to be mother for the nonce to the wild heiress, of
whom his family were wont to talk with horrified compassion.
When he was gone, it was possible to come to the examination upon Janet
for which Mother Carey had been so anxious. How was she looking?
“Oh! so old, and worn and thin. I never should have guessed it was
Janet, if I had not caught her eye, and then I knew her eyebrows and
nose, because they are just like Allen’s,--and her voice sounded so
like home that I was ready to cry, only I did not dare, as Gilbert was
there.”
“I wonder they did not take alarm at her name.”
“I don’t imagine they ever heard it.”
“Not when she was living there? Was not her husband practising?”
“Her husband! Oh no, I never heard any thing about him. I thought you
knew I found her at the photographer’s?”
“Met her as a sitter?”
“Oh dear, no! I thought you understood. It was she that was doing my
picture. She finishes up all his miniature photographs.”
“My dear Elvira, do you really mean that my poor Janet is supporting
herself in that way?”
“Yes, indeed I do; that was why I made sure she would have come home
with me. I was so dreadfully disappointed when I found only her note.”
“And are you sure you have quite lost it?”
“Yes, I turned out every corner of my bag this morning to look for it.
I am so sorry, but I was so ill and so wretched, that I could not take
care of anything. I just wonder how I lived through the voyage, all
alone.”
“Was there no message? Nothing for me.”
“Yes, I have recollected it now, or some of it. She said she durst not
go home, or ask anything of you, after the way she had offended. Oh! I
wonder how she could send me, for I know I was worse.”
“But what did she say?” said Caroline, too anxious to listen to Elvira’s
own confessions. “Was there nothing for me?”
“Yes.” She said, “Tell her that I have learnt by the bitterest of all
experience the pain I have given her, and the wrong I have done!” Then
there was something about being so utterly past forgiveness that she
could not come to ask it. “Oh, don’t cry so, Mother Carey, we can write
and get her back, and I will send her the passage money.”
“Ah! yes, write!” cried out the mother, starting up. “‘When he was yet
a great way off.’ Ah! why could she not remember that?” But as she sat
down to her table, “You know her address?”
“Yes, certainly, I went to her lodgings once or twice; such a little bit
of a room up so many stairs.”
“And you did not hear how that man, her husband, died?”
“I don’t know whether he is dead,” said this most unsatisfactory
informant. “She does not wear black, nor a cap, and I am almost sure
that he has run away from her, and that is the reason she cannot use her
own name.”
“Elfie!”
“O, I thought you knew! She calls herself Mrs. Harte. She took my
passage in that name, and that must be why my things have never come.
Yes, I asked her why she did not set up for a lady doctor, and she said
it was impossible that she could venture on showing her certificates or
using her name--either his or hers.”
That was in the main all that could be extracted from Elvira, though it
was brought out again and again in all sorts of forms. It was plain that
Janet had been very reticent in all that regarded herself, and Elvira
had only had stolen interviews, very full of her own affairs, and,
besides, had supposed Janet to intend to return with her. Both wrote;
Elfie, to announce her safety, and Caroline, an incoherent, imploring,
forgiving letter, such as only a mother could write, before they went
out to supply Elvira’s lack of garments, and to procure the order
for the sum needed for her passage. Caroline was glad they had gone
independently, for, on their return, Babie reported to her that her
little Ladyship was so wroth with Elfie as to wonder at them for
receiving her so affectionately. It was very forgiving of them, but she
should never forget the way in which poor Allen had been treated.
“I told her,” said Babie, “that was the way she talked about Cecil,
and you should have seen her face. She wonders that Allen has not more
spirit, and indeed, mother, I do rather wish Elfie could have come back
with nothing but her little bag, so that he could have shown it would
have been all the same.”
“A comfortable life they would have had, poor things, in that case,”
laughed her mother, “though I agree that it would have been prettier.
But I don’t trouble myself about that, my dear. You know, in all equity,
Allen ought to have a share in that property. It was only the old man’s
caprice that made it all or none; and Elvira is only doing what is right
and just.”
“And Allen’s love was a real thing, when he was the rich one. So I told
Essie; and besides, Allen would never make any hand of poverty, poor
fellow.”
“I think and hope he will make a much better hand of riches than he
would have done without all he has gone through,” said her mother.
Allen showed the same feeling when he could talk his prospects over
quietly with his mother. These four years had altered him at least as
much for the better as Elfie. He would not now begin in thoughtless
self-indulgence, refined indeed and never vicious, but selfish,
extravagant, and heedless of all but ease, pleasure, and culture. Some
of the enervation of his youth had really worn off, though it had so
long made him morbid, and he had learnt humility by his failures. Above
all, however, his intercourse with Fordham had opened his eyes to a
sense of the duties of wealth and position, such as he had never before
acquired, and the religious habits that had insensibly grown upon him
were tincturing his views of life and responsibility.
It was painful to him to realise that he was returning to wealth and
luxury, indeed, monopolising it,--he the helpless, undeserving, indolent
son, while all the others, and especially his mother, were left to
poverty.
Elfie wanted Mother Carey and all to make their home at Belforest, and
still be one family as of old. Indeed, she hung on Mother Carey even
more than upon Allen, after her long famine from the motherly tenderness
that she had once so little appreciated.
Of such an amalgamation, however, Mrs. Brownlow would not hear, nor
would she listen to a proposal of settling on her a yearly income,
such as would dispense with economy, and with the manufacture of
“pot-boilers.”
No, she said, she was a perverse woman, and she had never been so happy
as when living on her husband’s earnings. The period of education being
over, she had a full sufficiency, and should only meddle with clay again
for her own pleasure. She was beginning already a set of dining-table
ornaments for a wedding-present, representing the early part of the
story of Undine. Babie knew why, if nobody else did. Perhaps she should
one of these days mould a similar set for Sydney of the crusaders of
Jotapata! Then Allen bethought him of putting into Elvira’s head to beg,
at least, to undertake Armine’s expenses at the theological college for
a year, and to this she consented thankfully. Armine had been thinking
of offering himself as Allen’s successor for a year with Sir Samuel; but
two days’ experience as substitute convinced him that Allen was right
in declaring that my Lady would be the death of him. Lucas could manage
her, and kept her well-behaved and even polite, but Armine was so young
and so deferential that she treated him even worse than she did her
first victim! She had begun by insisting on a quarter’s notice or
the forfeiture of the salary, as long as she thought £25 was of vital
importance to Allen, but as soon as she discovered that the young lady
was a great heiress, she became most unedifyingly civil, called in
great state in Collingwood Street, and went about boasting of having
patronised a sort of prince in disguise.
Meantime Dr. Ruthven’s offer seemed left in abeyance. Colonel Brownlow
had all his son’s scruples, and more than his indignation at Lucas’s
folly in hesitating; and John was so sure that he ought not to accept
the proposal, that he would not stir in the matter, nor mention it
to Sydney. At last Lucas acted on his own responsibility, and had an
interview with Dr. Ruthven, in which he declined the offer for himself,
but made it known that his cousin was not only brother to the beautiful
Lady Fordham who had been met in Collingwood Street, but was engaged
to Lord Fordham’s sister. At which connection the fashionable physician
rubbed his hands with so much glee, that Jock was the more glad not to
have to hunt in couples with him.
The magnificent wedding-dress had been stopped by telegram, just as it
was packed for New York, and was despatched to Belforest. Mrs. Wakefield
undertook the task imposed upon her, and the wedding was to be grand
enough to challenge attention, and not be liable to the accusation of
being done in a corner. It might be called hasty, for only a month would
have passed since Elvira’s arrival, before her wedding-day; but this
was by her own earnest wish. She made it no secret that she should never
cease to be nervous till she was Allen Brownlow’s wife, even though a
letter to her cousins at River Hollow had removed all fear of pursuit
by Mrs. Gould; she seemed bent on remaining at New York, and complained
loudly of “the ungrateful girl,” whose personal belongings she retained
by way of compensation.
It would have been too much to expect that Elvira should be a wise and
clever woman, but she had really learnt to be an affectionate one, and
in the school of adversity had parted with much of her selfish petulance
and arrogance. Allen, whose love had always been blindly tender, more
like a woman’s or a parent’s love than that of an ordinary lover, was
rapturous at the response he at last received. At the same time, he knew
her too well to expect from her intellectual companionship, and would be
quite content with what she could give.
They were both of them chastened and elevated in tone by their five
years’ discipline.
The night before the party went down to Belforest, where they were to
meet the Evelyns, Allen lingered with his mother after all the rest had
gone upstairs.
“Mother,” he said, “I have thought a great deal of that dream of yours.
I hope that the touch of Midas may not be baneful this time.”
“I trust not, my dear; you have had a taste of the stern, rugged nurse.”
“And, mother, I know I failed egregiously where the others rose.”
“But you were rising.”
“Then you will let me do nothing for you, and I feel myself sneaking
into your inheritance, to the exclusion of all the rest, in a backdoor
sort of way.”
“My dear Allen, it can’t be helped, you have honestly loved your Elf
from her infancy, when she had nothing, and she really loved you at the
very worst. Love is so much more than gold, that it really signifies
very little which of you has the money. You and she have both gone
through a good deal, and it depends upon you now whether the possession
becomes a blessing to yourselves and others. Don’t vex about our not
having a share, you know yourself how much happier we all are without
the load, and there will never be any anxiety now. I shall always fall
back on you, if I want anything.”
“That is right,” said Allen, clearing up a good deal as she looked up
brightly in his face. “You promise me.”
“Of course I do,” she said smiling. “I’m not proud.”
“And you did make Armine consent to our paying those expenses of his.
That was good of you, but the boy only does it out of obedience.”
“Yes, he would like a little bit of self-willed penance, but it is much
better for him to submit, bodily and mentally.”
“Elvira has asked me whether we can’t, after all, build the Church and
all the rest which he wanted so much, and give it to him.”
Caroline smiled, she would not vex Allen by saying how this was merely
in the spirit of the story book, endowing everybody with what they
wanted, but she said, “Build by all means, and endow, when you have had
time to see what is needed, and what is good for the people, but not for
Armine’s sake, you know. He had much better serve his apprenticeship and
learn his work somewhere else. He would tell you so himself.”
“I daresay. He would talk of the touch of Midas again. Elvira will be
sadly disappointed. She had some fancy of presenting him to it as soon
as he was ordained!”
“Getting the fairies meantime to build the whole concern in secret? Dear
Elfie, her plans are generous and kind. Tell her, with my love, that her
Church must not be a shrine for Armine, but that perhaps he and it will
be fit for each other in some five years’ time. Meantime, if she wants
to make somebody happy, there’s that excellent hardworking curate of
Eleanor’s, who has done more good in Kenminster than I ever saw done
there before.”
“I don’t see why Kencroft should get all the advantages!”
“Ah! You ungrateful boy! Now if Rob had carried off Elfie, you might
complain!”
At which Allen could not but laugh.
“And now, good night, Mr. Bridegroom; you want your beauty sleep, though
I must say you look considerably younger than you did two months ago.”
The wedding was a bright one, involving no partings, only joy and
gladness, and the sole drawback to the general rejoicings seemed to
be that it was not Mrs. Brownlow herself who was returning to take
possession.
But on that very afternoon came a chill on her heart. Her own letter and
Elvira’s to Janet were returned from America! It was quite probable that
the right address might have been in Elvira’s lost note, and that Janet
might be easily found through the photographer. “But,” said her mother,
“I do not believe she will ever come home unless I go to fetch her.”
“The very thing I was thinking of doing,” said Jock. “Letters will
hardly find her now, and I have not settled to anything. The dear old
Doctor’s legacy will find the means.”
“And I am sure you want the rest of the voyage. I don’t like the looks
of you, my Jockey.”
“I shall be all right when this is over,” said Jock, with an endeavour
at laughing; “but I find I am a greater fool than I thought I was, and I
had much better be out of the way of it all till it is a fait accompli.”
“It” was of course John’s marriage. This was the first time Jock had
seen the lovers together. In spite of vehement talking and laughing,
warm greetings to everyone, and playing at every interval with the
little cousins, Jock could not hide from either of the mothers that
the sight cost him a good deal, all the more because the showing the
Belforest haunts to Sydney had always been a favourite scheme, hitherto
unfulfilled; nor was there any avoiding family consultations, which
resulted in the fixing of the wedding for the middle of September, so
that there might be time for a short tour before they settled down to
John’s work in London.
Mrs. Evelyn begged that Barbara would come to her whilst her mother and
brother were away, Armine would be at his theological college, and there
was nothing to detain Mrs. Brownlow and her son from the journey, to
which both looked forward with absolute pleasure, not only in the hope
of the meeting, but in the being together, and throwing off for a time
the cares of home and gratifying the spirit of enterprise.
Jock had one secret. He had reason to think that Bobus would have a kind
of vacation at the time, and he telegraphed to Japan what their intended
voyage was to be, with a hope he durst not tell, that his favourite
brother would not throw away the opportunity of meeting them in America.