It was not very often the Rector found time to visit his sister. They
saw each other constantly at the Rectory, at church, in the village
street, in all sorts of places, almost every day; but his visits were
few, especially such a visit as the present. He paused at the further
end of the garden and called over the hedge to Mab, to know if her
mother was alone. ‘I have got some business to talk over,’ Mr. Plowden
said. ‘Take the trouble, will you, Mab, to see that no one comes in to
disturb us.’
Mab thought it curious that, thus for two days within a week, her mother
should have private business with Uncle James; but she said nothing
except a ready assent to what he asked of her. ‘I’ll come towards the
gate,’ she said; ‘I’ve got some things to put in on that border, and if
any one comes that I can’t send away, you will hear me talking with
them, Uncle James.’ She walked through the garden with him, so to speak,
she on one side of the hedge, he on the other. ‘Fancy who turned up
yesterday,’ she said; ‘a cousin whom, of course, I never saw before--a
Lord William like my father; but fortunately they called him Lord Will.’
‘Lord William!’ cried the Rector, ‘a Pakenham--a son of the Marquis! Did
he come to see you, or--for--for anything special?’
‘I don’t know what he wanted,’ said Mab. ‘To see us, I suppose. The
funny thing is, he is like me. From this you may imagine he is not a
beautiful young man, Uncle James.’
‘I don’t know why I should imagine that; I like your looks very well, my
dear.’
‘Thank you, Uncle James,’ said Mab, with a laugh. ‘He is staying at the
Hall, and I think he said that he would come back this morning, so, of
course, if he comes I cannot send him away.’
‘I understand,’ said the Rector, with a countenance somewhat troubled.
And he went into the little drawing-room, where Lady William rose up to
meet him looking a little anxious. ‘You, James!’ she said. ‘I did not
expect, especially at this hour, to see you.’
‘I can’t see why you should not have expected me, Emily; our last
interview was serious enough,’ he said, shutting the door carefully
behind him: and then he went across the room to the window, which was
open. Being so nearly on a level with the garden it would, of course,
have been easy enough for any one to hear from outside whatever
conversation was going on within.
‘You frighten me with these precautions, James.’
‘There is nothing to be frightened about. You may imagine I have been
thinking a great deal of what you told me the other day.’
‘Yes: and I heard Mab tell you the new incident.’
‘The appearance of the cousin? What is the signification of that, I
wonder? But let us take the other, which is more important, first. Did
you know my father kept a diary, Emily?’
‘I have seen him making little notes in various little books: but it is
so long ago.’
‘And you were not here, of course, when we came into the Rectory. I
found a quantity of these little books in the study, little calendars
and almanacs, and so forth. I didn’t pay much attention to them--that
is, I looked into one or two and they didn’t seem interesting. Queer,
when people might really make such a record important, and they put in
the merest trifles instead.’
‘“Chronicle small beer,”’ she said, with a faint smile; but she was pale
with an interest much deeper than any record of public events could have
commanded.
‘Eh?’ said the Rector, who was not literary; ‘but I thought it might be
just possible--so I have been making a hunt through them, and I came
upon something that might--that must help us.’
‘Thank God!’ she said, clasping her hands instinctively together.
‘We must not be too sanguine: and yet, of course, a dead man’s diary is
evidence itself in a way.’
‘Tell me,’ she cried, with excitement, ‘tell me what papa said.’
‘Nearly twenty years ago,’ said the Rector, with a little emotion. ‘It’s
like hearing the old man talk--with abrupt sentences, don’t you
know--just as he spoke.’
‘What does he say? What does he say, James?’
‘This is the one, I think; no, it’s the next--no. I hope I haven’t
brought the wrong ones after all.’
Lady William sat very quietly with her hands on her knee, only her
fingers, which clasped and unclasped each other, showing a little the
excitement of the suspense in which she was, as he drew forth one little
book after another from the ample pockets of his coat. At last the right
one was found, and then a minute or two elapsed before the Rector with
his spectacles could find the entry of which he was in search. Lady
William made no attempt to snatch it from his hand. She sat quite still
with a self-enforced patience which was belied by the glitter in her
eyes.
‘Here it is at last--October 23rd. Would that be the date?’
She bowed her head quickly, and her brother began to divine that she
could not speak. He gave her a keen look, and then returned to the book.
‘“October 23rd.--Very agitating and extraordinary night. Em. came home
after midnight accompanied by woman M., and Lord W. Extraordinary
explanations. Marriage immediately or not at all. Leaving England. Gave
consent.” Is that right?’
Lady William moved impatiently in her chair. ‘If you find it in the
book, it must be right.’
‘Ah, well, that is true, no doubt. Then comes another--“25th.--Emily
married. Old Gepps. Gave her away. They left train, Paris.”’
‘Is that all?’
‘It is all. I suppose old Gepps is the man who performed the ceremony.
Did you ever hear my father speak of any one of that name? Do you
remember the man?’
‘I recollect an old man with a white beard. I think I have a vague
recollection even of the name.’
‘It is most extraordinary,’ cried the Rector, getting up from his chair,
‘that on an occasion of such importance you should not have remembered
both place and name!’
‘Ah! it was just because it was an occasion of such importance, and
everything so dreadful and so strange.’
‘Emily, I have hesitated to ask you: why in heaven’s name were you
married like that? What was the cause?’
She pointed towards the book with a hand that trembled. ‘Papa has put it
down there.’
‘He has put down the fact, but no explanation. The explanation
apparently was given to him, but not recorded. But you--why should you
not tell me? A sudden marriage like that, in such headlong haste--why
was it? What did it mean?’
Lady William was silent for some time, clasping her fingers and
unclasping them, gazing into the vacant air. At last she said: ‘James,
you will think me too great a fool if I say that I did not know, at the
time.’
‘Emily,’ he said, with a tone so sharp and keen that it went through her
like a knife, ‘it is a long time since, and I have a right to know. Was
it--was it through any fault of yours?’
She turned her eyes to him with a look of the utmost amazement. ‘Fault
of mine!’ she said. ‘What could that have had to do with it--any fault
of mine?’
She was a mature woman, and was supposed to know the world; but Mab
herself could not have given him a more limpid look, could not have
received his questions with more surprise. The Rector, quite confused,
stepped back a pace, and said, ‘I beg your pardon,’ with a humility
which was entirely out of his habits. He had grown quite pale, and
glanced at her with a sort of fright, terrified lest perhaps it might
dawn upon her what he meant.
‘I was bewildered,’ she said. ‘I was taken altogether by surprise. It
was the romance that dazzled me--what seemed the romance--and all that
they told me: that he had to leave England, must go, would be in danger
of I know not what, yet would not go without me. And poor papa thought
of--oh the folly, the pettiness of it!--the title, perhaps, and what he
thought the connection. My poor father thought a great deal of
connection.’ She smiled a little sadly, looking back with a sort of
tenderness upon the weakness and folly of a time so long past. Then she
drew herself up unconsciously, holding her head high. ‘I discovered the
real meaning, but not till after. It was very bitter and terrible; but
after all it is Mab’s father of whom we are speaking. James, let us
return to the question of most importance. What is gained by this I
don’t see. I don’t understand things of that kind.’
It was very conciliating and satisfactory to Mr. Plowden that she did
not understand. ‘It gives a clue,’ he said. ‘We must look up Gepps. He
must have been a friend of my father’s, and he must, of course, be in
the “Clergy List.” I have been looking up what old ones I have, but I
cannot find him. I have not got that year, but it can be got, it can be
got. He was an old man, you say, and he must have died, I suppose, but
he cannot have taken his church and his registers with him. We must
ascertain what was his church.’
‘It was a little old-fashioned place, very dingy, with heavy pews; a
small place with an old-fashioned pulpit and canopy. I remember the
look of it--and the clergyman, an old man, with a white beard.’
‘In the City, most likely?’
Lady William shook her head. ‘I knew nothing of the City--nor anywhere
except the parks and the streets round about that in which the Swinfords
had a house. We went seldom, very seldom, to town in those days; I
never, except with them.’
‘It must have been in the City,’ said Mr. Plowden. ‘What you describe
settles the question. Well, then, I think now, Emily, there need be very
little difficulty. Gepps must be in the “Clergy List.” If he is living,
so much the better; he may have retired somewhere. But at all events the
register must exist. I will go up to town to-morrow, and find the list
for ‘sixty-five, and after that it will be plain sailing. All the same,
how my father and you, but especially my father, could be such a fool!’
Lady William made no reply. To have her mind so thrown back upon that
wonderful tragic moment of her life: to think of herself, the bewildered
romantic girl, with all the wonderful tales poured into her ear by the
flatterer by her side--that flatterer who was not the silent, disturbed
bridegroom who himself said so little to explain the hot haste, the
desperation of the strange wedding--was of itself painful enough and
exciting. She had herself broached the subject to her brother when the
question opened up by Mrs. Swinford had burst upon her, but she had not
then entered into it so fully as now, and her mind was shaken by all
those recollections. She seemed to see the shabby old church already,
even so long ago, an anachronism among churches, with its heavy pulpit
and pews and small round-headed windows, and the old clergyman with his
white beard, and the complete absence of all those prettinesses with
which a girl’s imagination surrounds her bridal--prettinesses, however,
made up for by the thrilling romance which, when the moment came, had
begun to yield a little to the natural pain of the position. She
remembered with what a start of alarm she had found herself consigned to
the husband of whom she knew so little, who was so little like the
romantic hero of such a marriage, and who--as she only began to see when
the step was irrevocable--showed so little of any sentiment for her
which could justify the impetuous impatience of the proceedings. She
remembered the awful sensation in her mind when she looked back from the
window of the railway carriage upon her father’s smiling, complacent old
face, enchanted by the consciousness that his daughter was now Lady
William, sister-in-law to the Marquis of Portcullis, and on the mocking
smile and exaggerated courtesies of Artémise: and felt everything she
loved sliding from her, and nothing left to her but the saturnine
countenance opposite--the almost strange man, who if he loved her hotly
had, as yet at least, shown no signs of it to herself. She did not hear
her brother’s voice speaking to her in the heat and hurry of her
thoughts. Oh, what recollections were these! So much more real than
anything that occurred to her now, so much more potent in their terror
and excitement than anything that could happen. She had known nothing in
all her experience, read nothing, so tragical and terrible as the
feelings of that poor little bride of nineteen, as she woke up from her
romantic dream, and saw her father’s foolish old face so fresh and
ruddy, so innocent and unconscious, just before it finally dropped out
of sight to be seen no more. Perhaps it was her brother’s question,
though she was scarcely aware that she heard it, how could my father be
such a fool? that gave the impression of foolishness, of strange,
cheerful imbecility to her last view of that rosy old face.
‘I repeat, Emily,’ said the Rector, with a little heat, ‘how could my
father be such a fool? A girl of your age, of course, could not be
expected to think of such things--but my father!--And I suppose he knew
that the man you married was not--a model of every virtue.’
‘He was Mab’s father, James, and he was at least quite honourable, so
far as I was concerned; he took no advantage--in respect to me.’
‘He could scarcely have been such a brute as that,’ the Rector said.
‘Well, I’ll go, Emily. To-morrow I’ll go to town and see if I can bring
back all the papers square. Hush, what is that? Who is Mab talking to?
We’ve done our talk, however, and it’s no matter being interrupted now.’
‘Good morning, Lord William,’ Mab’s voice was heard saying, perhaps a
little louder than was necessary, to give her uncle the warning she had
promised.
Lady William started violently at the sound of the name. She put her
hand upon her breast where her heart had begun to beat loudly. ‘All
those old recollections have upset my nerves,’ she said, with a little
piteous smile. ‘Forgive me, James; it is the young man that Mab told you
of, the cousin with the same name.’
‘Poor Emily!’ he said, taking her hand in both of his. ‘You have, I
fear, no pleasant memories connected with it: but why, then, in the name
of heaven, or the other place perhaps----’
‘The other place,’ she said, bursting into a faint hysterical laugh.
‘But wait a moment, the boy is coming in.’
‘I thought you were going away this morning,’ said Mab, evidently
leading the way into the house. ‘You need not think of shaking hands,
for I am always muddy when I am working in the garden. Yes, I do a great
deal of work in the garden--indeed, I’m the gardener. Patty’s father
gives me a hand for the heavier things, but do you imagine I would trust
any one else with my flowers? Ah, it’s a little too early, but if you
came here in June, then you should see! It’s not very big, to be sure.
Mr. Leo has a great deal more space at the Hall, and I don’t know how
many men, but----’ Mab said, ending abruptly with a little grimace
(which, of course, could not be seen indoors) which said more than
words.
‘I daresay it’s great fun working in the garden,’ said Lord Will, with a
very serious face.
‘A garden is no fun at all when you don’t work in it,’ said Mab, ‘and,
so far as I’ve seen, most other things are just the same. They become
fun if you take an interest in them, and not in any other way.’
‘But then Miss Mab was always a philosopher,’ said Leo’s voice, with the
faint sound in it that was not English.
‘Oh, Swinford’s there, too,’ said the Rector to his sister inside.
‘Don’t you think, Emily, you have him a little too often here?’
‘The other is staying with him,’ Lady William said, which was no doubt a
subterfuge: but then it was very evident that she had no time to say any
more.