Lady William had gone across the lawn, not to the usual door which
admitted into what may be called the private part of the Rectory, but to
the little parish door where people came who wanted the Rector on parish
business. This was always open, always accessible, though I don’t know
that the parishioners used it very much. It was at least an excellent
thing for them to have their clergyman always within reach, and suited
the Rector’s theory of his duty, which was a great matter, even if it
were not of very much practical use. Miss Grey trotted in by it with her
parish books, and the curate came, when something occurred about which
it was necessary to consult his chief. He did not, Mr. Plowden thought,
consult his chief nearly as much as would have been appropriate and
desirable--being a young man who liked his own way, and considered that
the elder generation did not always understand.
The Rector, however, was much surprised when the door sounded with the
familiar little click which he knew so well, and his sister presently
appeared in his study. He had expected one or other of the two
functionaries above named, or perhaps the churchwarden, or the treasurer
of the schools, who was a troublesome person with nothing to do, and
consequently an endless number of things to suggest. When he saw Lady
William his heart--which you may say ought to have been sufficiently
experienced to take things quietly--gave a jump. Experience does not
make us indifferent in certain cases, and the Rector was as easily
disturbed on one subject as if he had no experience at all. It flashed
into his mind that his sister, who was not much in the habit of
consulting him, must have something to say about Jim.
‘Emily!’ he said, with great surprise: and then, with a little attempt
at a lighter tone, which was not very successful, ‘What, have you fallen
into parish business, too?’
‘No,’ she replied, with a quickly drawn breath, which the Rector, as a
man accustomed to have to do with people in trouble, knew must mean
excitement, or anxiety, or distress. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I want to consult
you, James: but it is entirely about my own private business.’
The Rector drew a long breath. He was not glad--oh no!--to think that
his sister was in trouble: but nothing that affected her could be so
serious, he felt, as if it had been something about Jim. He drew forward
a chair near himself for her. He had always been both fond and proud of
Emily. Perhaps the fact that she was Lady William (though he knew the
marriage had not been a success) added a little to the feeling that she
was a being by herself, not to be compared with any one else. But still,
a great deal of it was very genuine, and meant a conviction that he knew
nobody comparable to Emily. He was pleased that she should consult him
on her own affairs, of which, generally, she said very little. She had
thrown away almost all her own money upon Reginald--provided only that
she did not mean to tell him that scapegrace was coming back to trouble
his respectable connections again! Thus the same idea that had disturbed
his wife occurred to the Rector, both terrors, no doubt, arising from
the fact that neither could imagine what Lady William could wish to
consult the Rector about.
‘My affairs,’ she said, with a faint smile, as she got her breath,
‘haven’t for a long time been very troublesome to my family, James. I
hope they are not entering now into a new stage.’
‘A new stage?’ he said, and the Rector’s middle-aged heart actually took
a jump again. What could it all mean? Good heavens!--Emily’s affairs in
a new stage! What could she be going to do? It could not be about any
change in her life that she was going to consult him. Change in her
life! That was what people said when somebody was going to marry. He
looked at his sister with sudden alarm. Emily marry! Vague things he had
heard said of Leo Swinford and jests about Lady William’s attractions,
started up in his mind. It rarely happens, I think, that a man likes his
sister (if she is not dependent upon him) to compromise her dignity by a
second marriage. He did not like to think that Emily might intend to
come down from her pedestal and show herself a mere common person, like
the rest.
‘What do you mean by a new stage?’ he said, with a pucker in his brow.
‘You are very well as you are, and occupy a very good position, and all
that. I don’t see what need there is for a new stage.’
‘Nor I,’ she said; ‘and I hope you will continue of the same opinion
when I tell you. I knew,’ she continued, with a little hot colour
flushing across her face, ‘that the coming of the Swinfords would upset
all our tranquillity. I was sure of it. She is a woman of evil omen
wherever she appears.’
‘Yet you were once very fond of her, if I remember right.’
‘When I was a girl, and she petted me, and made much of me--I was going
to say for her own ends; but I hope it was not for her own ends from the
beginning--that would be too diabolical.’
‘What ends could she have had that were to be promoted by you?’ said the
Rector, with a smile. He was sufficiently used to these preposterous
notions women so often have of their own importance, prompting them to
think the attention of other people, who probably never thought of them,
is fixed upon them, and that intentions of various kinds are formed
respecting them, without the least foundation in fact. Thus his own wife
was in the habit of thinking that her girls were watched and followed;
that their movements and their dresses were the subject of constant
remark, when in all probability nobody even knew that they were there.
He was surprised, however, that his sister Emily should share this view.
‘We need not discuss that,’ she said. ‘James, I want to ask you--do you
think it is my duty by Mab to seek further acquaintance with her
father’s family? We are exceedingly well as we are. The allowance they
make is not large, but it is enough, and there is something settled on
Mab when I die. They have done their duty, if not very liberally, yet
they have done it. And I don’t want any more from them. Mab is quite
contented, she likes her home better than anything; and though she is a
very dear girl, and my hope and comfort, I don’t know if she is fitted
to shine in--what people call the great world. I might get them, of
course, to bring her out in a way more fitting, perhaps--to take her to
Court, and all that----’
‘I don’t see,’ said the Rector, ‘that that would do her much good.’ Men
ought not, to be sure, to be touched by any of those motives, which are
entirely feminine; but it did certainly flash across the Rector’s mind
that his own girls had none of these advantages, had never gone to Court
or anything of the kind, and yet could not be said to be any the worse.
‘No, that is just what I think. She is quite satisfied as she is: to go
out with her Pakenham cousins, probably to their annoyance and against
their will, and to be taken to places where she knew nobody, would be
no pleasure to my little girl. She is such a thoroughly reasonable,
sensible, understanding child. I am so glad that you agree with me on
that point, James.’
While she was speaking the Rector began to think that perhaps all was
not said in that hasty opinion of his, and that a man consulted by his
nearest relation should not be moved by any little trifling
feeling--like that which might be legitimate enough in a mother, about
his own girls. And he said, ‘Stop a little, Emily. You’re still quite a
young woman, but life is uncertain. Perhaps, you know, if anything were
to happen to you:--as long as you are there, that is all right, of
course--but she would be very forlorn, poor little thing, if she were
left----’
‘There would be you and Jane, James. You would both be very kind to
her.’ But Lady William was a little startled by what he said. It is
startling to all, however little objection we may have to that
catastrophe, even however desirable it may be, to be spoken to abruptly
of our own death.
‘Both my wife and I are older than you are, and we could introduce her
to nobody in--well, in her father’s rank of life. If she married it
would probably be a curate--the Marquis of Portcullis’s niece!’
‘Oh, if it were no worse than a curate!’ said Lady William, with a
laugh. The laugh was a little strained, and under her eyes there was a
hot, red colour which did not consort with laughter. She grew suddenly
very grave, and added hurriedly, ‘That was not exactly all. James, in
case of the--risk of which you were speaking, do you think as Mrs.
Swinford does----’
‘What, Emily?’ He was frightened when he saw the excitement that seemed
to come over her.
‘Well! That the family would have a right to--examine into--and have all
the papers about--my marriage, and her birth, and all that.’
It was of Lady William’s marriage alone that Mrs. Swinford had spoken,
but it made it a little easier to state it so.
‘Oh!’ said the Rector, startled. ‘Well,’ he added, ‘I suppose it’s a
very good thing to have your papers all in order, and saves trouble
afterwards. It is so seldom that people take the trouble to do it. I am
sure I don’t know anything about my own marriage certificate, though I
furnish them to other people. Have you got them all?’
Lady William’s face blanched out of its momentarily high colour. ‘I have
got none of them,’ she said, in a faint voice.
‘Well, there is no particular harm in that. I don’t know who has--not
me, I am sure. What does your friend want you to do--send these things
to the Marquis? What does the Marquis want with Mab’s baptismal
certificate? My dear Emily, I suppose that woman, being partly French,
thinks that you should always have your _papiers_ in order? There could
not be greater nonsense.’
‘Do you really think so? I did myself. Why should there ever be any
question? Nobody asks you, as you say, for your marriage certificate,
James.’
‘No,’ said the Rector; but he added, looking at the question from a
purely professional point of view, ‘of course, you can get that sort of
thing, when it’s wanted, at a moment’s, at least, at a day’s notice.
Where were you married, Emily?’
She was evidently not prepared for this question, and came to herself
with a little start. The colour forsook her cheeks. She clasped her
hands together nervously. ‘Oh James, that is what gives it its sting. I
don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Is that dreadful? Is it dangerous? Might it throw a doubt? My father
went with me, that is the only thing--to London somewhere.’
‘I knew you were not married at home,’ said Mr. Plowden, rising up and
placing himself in front of the fireplace. ‘I knew there was something
queer about it. In the name of wonder, Emily, why, if my father went
with you, didn’t he have you married at home? He can’t, in that case,
have disapproved.’
‘I don’t think he disapproved.’
‘Then why, _why_ weren’t you married at home? My father went with you,
and you don’t know? What a very queer business! And who went with you
beside my father?’
‘Old Meredith, do you remember, who used to be my nurse--and a lady. But
Meredith is dead, and papa is dead--and the other----’
‘This grows rather funny,’ said the Rector. ‘I mean it isn’t funny at
all. So there is nobody living who was there, and you don’t know where
it was? Does your friend, Mrs. Swinford, know these circumstances,
Emily, and does she want to frighten you? It would be like her amiable
temper.’
‘James, tell me, is there any real reason to fear?’
‘Oh, dear, no. Of course not; the only thing is to find the place. Of
course, it must be on the register. What a queer thing not to know the
church you were married in! I thought a woman always remembered that,
whatever she forgot.’
‘I was a frightened girl,’ said Lady William. ‘I didn’t know what they
were going to do with me. I was sent down from the Hall at midnight, as
I thought in disgrace--though I could not tell for what. There was a
great tumult in the house. Mr. Swinford, who was so quiet, in the midst
of it all; and then my husband came down here with me, and my father was
called up to speak to him and then it was all like a flash of lightning.
I was taken up to London two days after, and there I was married. It was
a little old church, in a district which I didn’t know.’
‘How is it I never heard anything of this before?’
‘How can I tell?’ she said. ‘I was taken away, frightened, not knowing
what had happened. Oh, I suppose that I was not unwilling: I did not
understand it: but my father was there--and he liked it, James. He said
it was a great match for me, and, though it was so hurried, I was not to
mind. After, I understood better--but at the time not at all.’
‘It must have been by special license,’ said the Rector; ‘but why in the
name of wonder didn’t my father have it here?--Why---- But I suppose
it’s no use saying why and why. There must have been reasons----’ He
looked at his sister fixedly, yet avoiding her eye.
But Lady William neither met nor avoided his look. She sat before him,
pale, with an air of deep and melancholy recollection. ‘Oh, there were
reasons,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘It was years before I found
them out. I would rather not enter into them even now--reasons which for
a time made life odious to me. It had not been very happy before. Don’t
let us speak of that.’
‘They were reasons--which Mrs. Swinford knew!’
‘Don’t speak of her to me,’ said Lady William. ‘I was a fool to go near
her, to see her again. Knew! ah, indeed she knew--indeed she knew! She
was my patroness, my kind friend. My father thought it such a fine thing
for me to be at the Hall. Oh, James, why should a girl be allowed to
live when she has no mother? She ought to be put away in her mother’s
coffin, and not enter helpless into the world.’
‘In my opinion fathers are some good,’ said the Rector, with severity.
And then a few hot tears fell from his sister’s eyes. ‘Poor papa!’ she
said. Mr. Plowden added nothing to this phrase. They remained silent,
both thinking of the parent who had not indeed been very wise, but
always kind. After a while Lady William resumed: ‘He approved: if he had
not approved--I should never---- But what could I do against my father?
And Miss Mansfield told me I should be ungrateful to the friend who had
made such a match for me.’
‘Who was Miss Mansfield, Emily?’
‘The lady I told you of--a cousin of Mrs. Swinford’s, who was with me
that day.’
‘And is she dead, too?’
‘I think not. No; Leo Swinford said something of her the other day--that
she had been here.’
‘Then she must be found, Emily.’
Lady William gave him a startled look. ‘Do you think, then, James, after
all, it is necessary to go into all that again--to rake up everything?
Oh! when I think of it--the hurry, the strangers, the unknown place,
which looked as if there was shame in it----’
‘My dear Emily, it is only the hurry and the unknown place that make it
important. As soon as you know where to write to find the marriage in
the register it does not matter, you can let it rest. But now that I
know--even if Mrs. Swinford had never said a word--I shall not rest till
I find it out.’
‘Then I wish,’ she said, with returning spirit, ‘that I had said nothing
to you on the subject, James.’
‘Don’t say that. To whom should you go but to your brother? And be sure
I’ll find it out, Emily. I don’t like to say a word that will hurt you.
I am afraid you have been the victim of some plot or other, my poor
girl.’
She did not answer for a moment, then she said: ‘I cannot have been
without blame myself. I was pleased with the promotion, I suppose, and
with the romance, and all that. Romance! it seemed so strange to be
carried away, to be married almost in spite of myself; and I suppose the
name---- It is all very vague and dreadful, though at the time I was
dazzled, and it sounded like something in a story. I wonder, rather,
that you do not despise your sister, James.’
‘Poor Emily!’ he said, patting her shoulder with his hand.