STIFLED WITH DISHONOUR.
"Now, then," began Peckaby, as Lionel departed, "what's the reason my
tea ain't ready for me."
"Be you a man to ask?" demanded she. "Could I redd up and put on
kettles, and, see to ord'nary work, with my inside turning?"
Peckaby paused for a minute. "I've a good mind to wallop you!"
"Try it," she aggravatingly answered. "You have not kep' your hands off
me yet to be let begin now. Anybody but a brute 'ud comfort a poor woman
in her distress. You'll be sorry for it when I'm gone off to New
Jerusalem."
"Now, look here, Suke," said he, attempting to reason with her. "It's
quite time as you left off this folly; we've had enough on't. What do
you suppose you'd do at Salt Lake? What sort of a life 'ud you lead?"
"A joyful life!" she responded, turning her glance sky-ward. "Brother
Jarrum thinks as the head saint, the prophet hisself, has a favour to
me! Wives is as happy there as the day's long."
Peckaby grinned; the reply amused him much. "You poor ignorant creatur,"
cried he, "you have got your head up in a mad-house; and that's about
it. You know Mary Green?"
"Well?" answered she, looking surprised at this _divertissement_.
"And you know Nancy from Verner's Pride as is gone off," he continued,
"and you know half a dozen more nice young girls about here, which you
can just set on and think of. How 'ud you like to see me marry the whole
of 'em, and bring 'em home here? Would the house hold the tantrums you'd
go into, d'ye think?"
"You hold your senseless tongue, Peckaby! A man 'ud better try and bring
home more nor one wife here! The law 'ud be on to him."
"In course it would," returned Peckaby! "And the law knowed what it was
about when it made itself into the law. A place with more nor one wife
in it 'ud be compairable to nothing but that blazing place you've heerd
on as is under our feet, or the Salt Lake City."
"For shame, you wicked man!"
"There ain't no shame, in saying that; it's truth," composedly answered
Peckaby. "Brother Jarrum said, didn't he, as the wives had a parlour
a-piece. Why do they? 'Cause they be obleeged to be kep' apart, for fear
o' damaging each other, a-tearing and biting and scratching, and
a-pulling of eyes out. A nice figure you'd cut among 'em! You'd be
a-wishing yourself home again afore you'd tried it for a day. Don't you
be a fool, Susan Peckaby."
"Don't you!" retorted she. "I wonder you ain't afraid o' some judgment
falling on you. Lies is sure to come home to people."
"Just take your thoughts back to the time as we had the shop here, and
plenty o' custom in it. One day you saw me just a-kissing of a girl in
that there corner--leastways you fancied as you saw me," corrected
Peckaby, coughing down his slip. "Well, d'ye recollect the scrimmage?
Didn't you go a'most mad, never keeping' your tongue quiet for a week,
and the place hardly holding of ye? How 'ud you like to have eight or
ten more of 'em, my married wives, like you be, brought in here?"
"You _are_ a fool, Peckaby. The cases is different."
"Where's the difference?" asked Peckaby. "The men be men, out there; and
the women be women. I might pertend as I'd had visions and revelations
sent to me, and dress myself up in a black coat and a white
neck-an-kecher, and suchlike paycock's plumes--I might tar and feather
myself if I pleased, if it come to that--and give out as I was a prophit
and a Latter Day Saint; but where 'ud be the difference, I want to know?
I should just be as good and as bad a man as I be now, only a bit more
of a hypocrite. Saints and prophits, indeed! You just come to your
senses, Susan Peckaby."
"I haven't lost 'em yet," answered she, looking inclined to beat him.
"You have lost 'em; to suppose as a life, out with them reptiles, could
be anything but just what I telled you--a hell. It can't be otherways.
It's again human female natur. If you went angry mad with jealousy, just
at fancying you see a innocent kiss give upon a girl's face, how 'ud you
do, I ask, when it come to wives? Tales runs as them 'saints' have got
any number a-piece, from four or five, up to seventy. If you don't come
to your senses, Mrs. Peckaby, you'll get a walloping, to bring you to
'em; and that's about it. You be the laughing-stock o' the place as it
is."
He swung out at the door, and took his way towards the nearest
public-house, intending to solace himself with a pint of ale, in lieu of
tea, of which he saw no chance. Mrs. Peckaby burst into a flood of
tears, and apostrophised the expected white donkey in moving terms: that
he would forthwith appear and bear her off from Peckaby and trouble, to
the triumphs and delights of New Jerusalem.
Lionel, meanwhile, went to Roy's dwelling. Roy, he found, was not in it.
Mrs. Roy was; and, by the appearance of the laid-out tea-table, she was
probably expecting Roy to enter. Mrs. Roy sat doing nothing, her arms
hung listlessly down, her head also; sunk apparently in that sad state
of mind--whatever may have been its cause--which was now habitual to
her. By the start with which she sprang from her chair, as Lionel Verner
appeared at the open door, it may be inferred that she took him for her
husband. Surely nobody else could have put her in such tremor.
"Roy's not in, sir," she said, dropping a curtsey, in answer to Lionel's
inquiry. "May be, he'll not be long. It's his time for coming home, but
there's no dependence on him."
Lionel glanced round. He saw that the woman was alone, and he deemed it
a good opportunity to ask her about what had been mentioned to him, two
or three hours previously, by the Vicar of Deerham. Closing the door,
and advancing towards her, he began.
"I want to say a word to you, Mrs. Roy. What were your grounds for
stating to Mr. Bourne that Mr. Frederick Massingbird was with Rachel
Frost at the Willow Pool the evening of her death?"
Mrs. Roy gave a low shriek of terror, and flung her apron over her face.
Lionel ungallantly drew it down again. Her countenance was turning livid
as death.
"You will have the goodness to answer me, Mrs. Roy."
"It were just a dream sir," she said, the words issuing in unequal jerks
from her trembling lips, "I have been pretty nigh crazed lately. What
with them Mormons, and the uncertainty of fixing what to do--whether to
believe 'em or not--and Roy's crabbed temper, which grows upon him, and
other fears and troubles, I've been a-nigh crazed. It were just a dream
as I had, and nothing more; and I be vexed to my heart that I should
have made such a fool of myself, as to go and say what I did to Mr.
Bourne."
One word above all others, caught the attention of Lionel in the answer.
It was "fears." He bent towards her, lowering his voice.
"What are these fears that seem to pursue you? You appear to me to have
been perpetually under the influence of fear since that night. Terrified
you were then; terrified you remain. What is the cause?"
The woman trembled excessively.
"Roy keeps me in fear, sir. He's for ever a-threatening. He'll shake me,
or he'll pinch me, or he'll do for me, he says. I'm in fear of him
always."
"That is an evasive answer," remarked Lionel. "Why should you fear to
confide in me? You have never known me to take an advantage to anybody's
injury. The past is past. That unfortunate night's work appears now to
belong wholly to the past. Nevertheless, if you can throw any light
upon it, it is your duty to do so. I will keep the secret."
"I didn't know a thing, sir, about the night's work. I didn't," she
sobbed.
"Hush!" said Lionel. "I felt sure at the time that you did know
something, had you chosen to speak. I feel more sure of it now."
"No, I don't, sir; not if you pulled me in pieces for it. I had a horrid
dream, and I went straight off, like a fool, to Mr. Bourne and told it,
and--and--that was all, sir."
She was flinging her apron up again to hide her countenance, when, with
a faint cry, she let it fall, sprung from her seat, and stood before
Lionel.
"For the love of heaven, sir, say nothing to _him_!" she uttered, and
disappeared within an inner door. The sight of Roy, entering, explained
the enigma; she must have seen him from the window. Roy took off his cap
by way of salute.
"I hope I see you well, sir, after your journey."
"Quite well. Roy, some papers have been left at Verner's Pride for my
inspection, regarding the dispute in Farmer Hartright's lease. I do not
understand them. They bear your signature, not Mrs. Verner's. How is
that?"
Roy stopped a while--to collect his thoughts, possibly. "I suppose I
signed it for her, sir."
"Then you did what you had no authority to do. You never received power
to sign from Mrs. Verner."
"Mrs. Verner must have give me power, sir, if I _have_ signed. I don't
recollect signing anything. Sometimes, when she was ill, or unwilling to
be disturbed, she'd say, 'Roy, do this,' or, 'Roy, do the other.' She--"
"Mrs. Verner never gave you authority to sign," impressively repeated
Lionel. "She is gone, and therefore cannot be referred to; but you know
as well as I do, that she never did give you such authority. Come to
Verner's Pride to-morrow morning at ten, and see these papers."
Roy signified his obedience, and Lionel departed. He bent his steps
towards home, taking the field way; all the bitter experiences of the
day rising up within his mind. Ah! try as he would, he could not deceive
himself; he could not banish or drown the one ever-present thought. The
singular information imparted by Mr. Bourne; the serio-comic tribulation
of Mrs. Peckaby, waiting for her white donkey; the mysterious behaviour
of Dinah Roy, in which there was undoubtedly more than met the ear; all
these could not cover for a moment the one burning fact--Lucy's love,
and his own dishonour. In vain Lionel flung off his hat, heedless of any
second sun-stroke, and pushed his hair from his heated brow. It was of
no use; as he had felt when he went out from the presence of Lucy, so he
felt now--_stifled_ with dishonour.
Sibylla was at a table, writing notes, when he reached home. Several
were on it, already written, and in their envelopes. She looked up at
him.
"Oh, Lionel, what a while you have been out! I thought you were never
coming home."
He leaned down and kissed her. Although his conscience had revealed to
him, that day, that he loved another better, _she_ should never feel the
difference. Nay, the very knowledge that it was so would render him all
the more careful to give her marks of love.
"I have been to my mother's, and to one or two more places. What are you
so busy over, dear?"
"I am writing invitations," said Sibylla.
"Invitations! Before people have called upon you?"
"They can call all the same. I have been asking Mary Tynn how many beds
she can, by dint of screwing, afford. I am going to fill them all. I
shall ask them for a month. How grave you look, Lionel!"
"In this first early sojourn together in our own house, Sibylla, I think
we shall be happier alone."
"Oh, no, we should not. I love visitors. We shall be together all the
same, Lionel."
"My little wife," he said, "if you cared for me as I care for you, you
would not feel the want of visitors just now."
And there was no sophistry in this speech. He had come to the conviction
that Lucy ought to have been his wife, but he did care for Sibylla very
much. The prospect of a house full of guests at the present moment,
appeared most displeasing to him, if only as a matter of taste.
"Put it off for a few weeks, Sibylla."
Sibylla pouted. "It is of no use preaching, Lionel. If you are to be a
preaching husband, I shall be sorry I married you. Fred was never that."
Lionel's face turned blood-red. Sibylla put up her hand, and drew it
carelessly down.
"You must let me have my own way for this once," she coaxingly said.
"What's the use of my bringing all those loves of things from Paris, if
we are to live in a dungeon, and nobody's to see them? I must invite
them, Lionel."
"Very well," he answered, yielding the point. Yielding it the more
readily from the consciousness above spoken of.
"There's my dear Lionel! I knew you would never turn tyrant. And now I
want something else."
"What's that?" asked Lionel.
"A cheque."
"A cheque? I gave you one this morning, Sibylla."
"Oh! but the one you gave me is for housekeeping--for Mary Tynn, and all
that. I want one for myself. I am not going to have my expenses come out
of the housekeeping."
Lionel sat down to write one, a good-natured smile on his face. "I'm
sure I don't know what you will find to spend it in, after all the
finery you bought in Paris," he said, in a joking tone. "How much shall
I fill it in for?"
"As much as you will," replied Sibylla, too eagerly. "Couldn't you give
it me in blank, and let me fill it in?"
He made no answer. He drew it for L100, and gave it her.
"Will that do, my dear?"
She drew his face down again caressingly. But, in spite of the kisses
left upon his lips, Lionel had awoke to the conviction, firm and
undoubted, that his wife did not love him.