"Now just you put that back where you took it from, Mr Impudence, or
I'll tell your master."
"There you are, then, my dear; that's as near the spot as I can
recollect," said the person addressed, giving Jane Barker a hearty smack
on her rosy cheek, such a liberty being a little excusable on a
wedding-day.
"Take your arm from round me, then; you can tell me without that, I'm
sure," said Jane, shrinking back into the rectory kitchen.
"No, I can't; and how do I know but what perhaps, after I've been loving
you with all my might, and saving up so as we may be married, there
mayn't come a foreign lover, a currier, or something of that sort, and
cut me out?"
"Don't be a fool, John!" exclaimed Jane, "and do adone there. I do
declare--and serve you right, too! Such impudence!"
There was the sound of a smart slap received upon his cheek by John
Gurdon, from the sole of one of the Rector's very broad old slippers, a
weapon held in Jane's hand at the moment; and now she stood arranging
her ruffled plumes, and gazing very defiantly at the red-cheeked
gentleman before her.
"Well, that's pretty, certainly," he said, half in anger. "What are you
doing with that shoe?"
"It's to slap the other side of your face with, if you're saucy," cried
Jane, "now then; and if you're not, it's to give to cook to throw after
the carriage when we go, for luck, you know; and it's bad enough we need
it, I'm sure, for I never saw such a set-out. There's young missus
looking that stony and dreadful and never speaking, it quite frightens
me. I wouldn't care if she would only cry; but she won't. But do tell
me."
"Well, you won't let me," said John Gurdon. "I didn't see it all; but
them two nearly come to a fight, when Miss Lee jumped forward and held
Mr Norton, and master carried her ladyship--you mustn't say `young
missus' now--on to the Rectory. Regular row and confusion, you know. I
do wish they'd be off. All the company's gone; and there's that
beautiful breakfast going a-begging, and all because two people want the
same woman. Just as if there weren't plenty of women in the world ready
to jump at a husband! I never see such fools!"
"Didn't you, Mr Greatgrand?" exclaimed Jane, firing up. "You're a
nasty, unfeeling good-for-nothing--there! You're worse than that Mr
Norton himself, shamming dead all these years on purpose to come back
and break that poor dear angel's heart. There, it's no use; I hate you!
that I do; and if I'm to sit in that rumble with you, hour after hour, I
shall be ill, that I shall, so now. Keep your hands to yourself, for I
have done with you quite. There, go and answer that bell."
Jane flounced out of the kitchen, and John Gurdon, who was at the
Rectory, to help wait at the wedding-breakfast, hurried into the hall,
for there had come the loud ringing of a bell, succeeded by a clamour of
voices.
"I tell you I will see her!" exclaimed Philip Norton, angrily, as he
stood in the hall, with Ada clinging to his arm.
"Come in here, pray!--for Heaven's sake, come in here, Norton," cried
the Rector, opening the drawing-room door. "This is not seemly--we are
all grieved; but do not insult my child."
"Insult, old man!" exclaimed Norton angrily, as he followed him into the
room; and then he uttered a cry of rage, for, unwittingly, the Rector
had asked him into the very room where, angry and mortified, his
newly-wedded wife up-stairs with her mother, Sir Murray Gernon was
striding up and down.
In a moment the young men had each other by the throat, and stood
glaring into each other's eyes, heedless that Ada and the Rector clung
to first one and then the other, in a vain attempt to separate them.
"Murray! for my child's sake!" exclaimed the Rector.
"Philip! oh, for Heaven's sake, stop this madness!" whispered Ada.
Sir Murray Gernon cooled down in an instant, though still retaining his
grasp.
"I am quite calm, Mr Elstree," he said; "but this man must leave the
house at once."
"Calm!" shouted Philip Norton, mad almost with rage. "Thief! robber!
you have stolen her from me. She is mine--my wife--sworn to be mine;
and you, amongst you, have made her false to her vows."
"Mr Norton," said Sir Murray, "are you a gentleman?"
"How dare you--you dog--ask me that?"
"Leave this house, then; and I will meet you at any future time, should
you, in your cooler moments, wish it. I did intend to leave for the
Continent this afternoon; but I will stay. I pity you--upon my soul, I
do--but you must know that no one is to blame. You are, or ought to be,
aware that the _Gazette_ published your death nearly four years ago, and
that you have been truly mourned for. No one has been faithless, but
your memory has been respected as well as cherished. You have come in a
strange and mad way; but we are ready to overlook all that, as due to
the excitement and bitterness of your feelings. I now ask you, as a
gentleman, for the sake of her parents, for your own sake--for the sake
of _my wife_--to leave here quietly, and to try to look calmly upon the
present state of affairs. I have done."
As Sir Murray ceased speaking he suffered his hand to fall from Norton's
throat, and stood calmly facing him, gazing into the other's fierce,
wild eyes unblenched, while, as if the calm words of reason had forced
themselves to his heart, he, too, allowed his hands to fall, and as the
fierce rage seemed to fade out of his countenance, a strange shiver
passed through his frame, and he looked in a pitiful, pleading way from
face to face, as if seeking comfort, before speaking, in a cracked,
hollow voice:
"Too late!--too late! But no, not yet! You," he exclaimed, turning to
Sir Murray, "you will be generous. You will waive this claim. See
here!" he cried excitedly, as with outstretched hands he pleaded to the
husband: "I was cut down, as you know, in hard fight, and I woke to find
myself a prisoner amongst the hill tribes; and ever since, for what has
seemed a life-time, I have been held a slave, a captive--beaten,
starved, ill-used in every conceivable way; but look here!" he cried,
tearing from his breast a little leather purse, and opening it. "See
here!" he cried, taking out a few dry flower-stalks: "her flowers, given
me when, young and ardent, we plighted troth--forget-me-nots; true
blue--and we swore to live one for the other. Man! man! those few
withered blossoms have been life to me when, cut and bruised, I could
have gladly lain down beneath the hot Indian sun and gasped out my last
breath. I believe my captors tried to kill me with ill-usage; but I
said I would not die--I would live to look once more upon her face, even
though it were to breathe my last at her feet. And now--now, after
hardships that would make your blood run cold, I escape, and reach home,
what do I find? Her, worse than dead--worse than dead! But no! it
cannot be so. You, sir--I ask you humbly--I ask you as a supplicant--
forgive my mad words, and tell me that you waive your claim. You will
be generous towards us; the law will do the rest. You, sir," he cried,
turning to the Rector, "plead with me. I am no beggar. I come back to
find myself rich. Help me, for poor Marion's sake! Do not condemn her
to a life that must be only such a captivity as mine! Am I right? You
will both be generous, and this horrid dream of despair is at an end!"
He advanced a step nearer to Sir Murray; but the latter turned from him.
"Speak to him, sir," he said to the Rector. "It will be better that I
should go."
Sir Murray's head was bent as he left the room, not daring to trust
himself to gaze again upon the wild, appealing face turned towards him;
while, as the door closed, Philip Norton turned to the Rector, who, poor
man, stood wringing his hands, hardly knowing what to do or say. But
the next moment, with a groan of despair, Philip Norton let his head
drop upon his breast, for he read his sentence in the old man's eyes.
But again, with an effort, he roused himself, and caught Ada's hands in
his, sending a wild thrill through the poor girl's frame, as she averted
her head, and listened, with beating heart, to his words.
"You turn from me too," he said, bitterly; and he did not retract his
words, though Ada started as if stung, and met his gaze, her face
breathing, in every lineament, love and sympathy, though he could not
read it then. "You know, young as you were then, how I loved her.
Plead for me. Ask her to come to me, if but for a minute. But, no--
no--no!" he cried, despairingly, "it is too late! I thought to have
gained heaven, and the door is shut in my face. Too late--too late!"
and then, with the same hopeless, groping, half-blind look in his
countenance, he reeled towards the door, seeing nothing, hearing
nothing, but, mad with grief, striving blindly to leave the house, his
hopes crushed, his life seeming blotted out by the blackness of despair.
He passed into the hall, and there stood for a minute; but only to
mutter to himself: "Weak--weak--broken--too late!"
There was no one in the hall, and he passed out on to the lawn, making
his way towards the little wicket-gate which led into the churchyard,
and, passing through, he stumbled over grave after grave, till unseen,
with a deep groan, he fell heavily, to lie, with his face buried in his
hands, weeping like a child, the strength of his nature crushed out of
him by the terrible blow he had received, and for hours after he heard,
felt, saw, nothing external.
Meanwhile, struggling hard with herself, Ada Lee had watched Philip as
he staggered from the room, the tears welling down her cheeks, and a
strange, wild feeling mingled with the compassion she felt for his
sufferings. It was only by a violent effort that she restrained herself
from running to his side, as she saw his blind, hopeless exit; but, as
she heard the door close, the place seemed to swim round, and then,
overcome by the excitement of the past hour, she threw out her hands and
would have fallen, had not her uncle caught her in his arms.
Two hours later, cold, pale, and without a word in reply to her parents'
farewell, Marion, Lady Gernon, took her place in her husband's carriage.
"It is still your wish, then?" said Sir Murray to the Rector, as he
stood upon the doorstep.
"Yes, yes!--for Heaven's sake, yes! Go, by all means."
"Give him that note, then, should he make inquiry?" said Sir Murray. "I
have your word for that?"
"Yes--yes; indeed you have," said the Rector; "but I have known Philip
Norton from a boy. He was my pupil; and when calm, I have no doubt I
shall have some influence with him. That and time will do the rest.
Heaven bless you! be gentle with her. Marion, my child, good-bye!"
The wheels grated loudly over the gravel; but the heart-broken man,
lying prone in the churchyard, heard them not; and five minutes after,
when the old Rector had seen the carriage disappear at a turn of the
road, he turned to encounter the agitated countenance of Ada Lee.
Book 1, Chapter VI.