"And in my blindness I believed him," said the girl, caressing him with
tears of exquisite affection, "to be so different. And having him beside
me day by day, so mindful of me always, never dreamed of this!"
"The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha," said poor Caleb.
"He's gone!"
"Nothing is gone," she answered. "Dearest father, no! Everything is
here--in you. The father that I loved so well; the father that I never
loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom I first began to
reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me,--all are here
in you. Nothing is dead to me. The soul of all that was most dear to me
is here--here, with the worn face, and the grey head. And I am NOT
blind, father, any longer!"
Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during this discourse, upon
the father and daughter; but looking, now, towards the little Hay-maker
in the Moorish meadow, she saw that the clock was within a few minutes
of striking, and fell, immediately, into a nervous and excited state.
"Father!" said Bertha, hesitating. "Mary!"
"Yes, my dear," returned Caleb. "Here she is."
"There is no change in _her_. You never told me anything of _her_ that
was not true?"
"I should have done it, my dear, I'm afraid," returned Caleb, "if I
could have made her better than she was. But I must have changed her for
the worse, if I had changed her at all. Nothing could improve her,
Bertha."
Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked the question, her
delight and pride in the reply, and her renewed embrace of Dot, were
charming to behold.
"More changes than you think for may happen, though, my dear," said Dot.
"Changes for the better, I mean; changes for great joy to some of us.
You mustn't let them startle you too much, if any such should ever
happen, and affect you. Are those wheels upon the road? You've a quick
ear, Bertha. Are they wheels?"
"Yes. Coming very fast."
"I--I--I know you have a quick ear," said Dot, placing her hand upon her
heart, and evidently talking on as fast as she could, to hide its
palpitating state, "because I have noticed it often, and because you
were so quick to find out that strange step last night. Though why you
should have said, as I very well recollect you did say, Bertha, 'Whose
step is that?' and why you should have taken any greater observation of
it than of any other step, I don't know. Though, as I said just now,
there are great changes in the world: great changes: and we can't do
better than prepare ourselves to be surprised at hardly anything."
Caleb wondered what this meant; perceiving that she spoke to him, no
less than to his daughter. He saw her, with astonishment, so fluttered
and distressed that she could scarcely breathe; and holding to a chair,
to save herself from falling.
"They are wheels indeed!" she panted. "Coming nearer! Nearer! Very
close! And now you hear them stopping at the garden-gate! And now you
hear a step outside the door--the same step, Bertha, is it not?--and
now----!"
She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and running up to
Caleb, put her hands upon his eyes, as a young man rushed into the room,
and, flinging away his hat into the air, came sweeping down upon them.
"Is it over?" cried Dot.
"Yes!"
"Happily over?"
"Yes!"
"Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever hear the like of
it before?" cried Dot.
"If my boy in the Golden South Americas was alive----!" said Caleb,
trembling.
"He is alive!" shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his eyes, and
clapping them in ecstasy. "Look at him! See where he stands before you,
healthy and strong! Your own dear son. Your own dear living, loving
brother, Bertha!"
All honour to the little creature for her transports! All honour to her
tears and laughter, when the three were locked in one another's arms!
All honour to the heartiness with which she met the sunburnt
sailor-fellow, with his dark streaming hair, half-way, and never turned
her rosy little mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it freely, and to
press her to his bounding heart!
And honour to the Cuckoo too--why not?--for bursting out of the
trap-door in the Moorish Palace like a housebreaker, and hiccoughing
twelve times on the assembled company, as if he had got drunk for joy!
The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, to find himself
in such good company.
"Look, John!" said Caleb, exultingly, "look here! My own boy from the
Golden South Americas! My own son! Him that you fitted out, and sent
away yourself! Him that you were always such a friend to!"
The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, recoiling, as some
feature in his face awakened a remembrance of the Deaf Man in the Cart,
said:
"Edward! Was it you?"
"Now tell him all!" cried Dot. "Tell him all, Edward; and don't spare
me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever again."
"I was the man," said Edward.
"And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your old friend?"
rejoined the Carrier. "There was a frank boy once--how many years is it,
Caleb, since we heard that he was dead, and had it proved, we
thought?--who never would have done that."
"There was a generous friend of mine once; more a father to me than a
friend," said Edward; "who never would have judged me, or any other man,
unheard. You were he. So I am certain you will hear me now."
The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away from
him, replied, "Well! that's but fair. I will."
"You must know that when I left here a boy," said Edward, "I was in
love, and my love was returned. She was a very young girl, who perhaps
(you may tell me) didn't know her own mind. But I knew mine, and I had a
passion for her."
"You had!" exclaimed the Carrier. "You!"
"Indeed I had," returned the other. "And she returned it. I have ever
since believed she did, and now I am sure she did."
"Heaven help me!" said the Carrier. "This is worse than all."
"Constant to her," said Edward, "and returning, full of hope, after many
hardships and perils, to redeem my part of our old contract, I heard,
twenty miles away, that she was false to me; that she had forgotten me;
and had bestowed herself upon another and a richer man. I had no mind
to reproach her; but I wished to see her, and to prove beyond dispute
that this was true. I hoped she might have been forced into it against
her own desire and recollection. It would be small comfort, but it would
be some, I thought, and on I came. That I might have the truth, the real
truth, observing freely for myself, and judging for myself, without
obstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own influence (if I had
any) before her, on the other, I dressed myself unlike myself--you know
how; and waited on the road--you know where. You had no suspicion of me;
neither had--had she," pointing to Dot, "until I whispered in her ear at
that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me."
"But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had come back," sobbed
Dot, now speaking for herself, as she had burned to do, all through this
narrative; "and when she knew his purpose, she advised him by all means
to keep his secret close; for his old friend John Peerybingle was much
too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice--being a clumsy
man in general," said Dot, half laughing and half crying--"to keep it
for him. And when she--that's me, John," sobbed the little woman--"told
him all, and how his sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she
had at last been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage which the
silly, dear old thing called advantageous; and when she--that's me
again, John--told him they were not yet married (though close upon it),
and that it would be nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there
was no love on her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear
it,--then she--that's me again--said she would go between them, as she
had often done before in old times, John, and would sound his
sweetheart, and be sure that what she--me again, John--said and thought
was right. And it WAS right, John! And they were brought together, John!
And they were married, John, an hour ago! And here's the Bride! And
Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor! And I'm a happy little woman,
May, God bless you!"
She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything to the
purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in her present
transports. There never were congratulations so endearing and delicious
as those she lavished on herself and on the Bride.
Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest Carrier had stood
confounded. Flying, now, towards her, Dot stretched out her hand to stop
him, and retreated as before.
"No, John, no! Hear all! Don't love me any more, John, till you've heard
every word I have to say. It was wrong to have a secret from you, John.
I'm very sorry. I didn't think it any harm, till I came and sat down by
you on the little stool last night. But when I knew, by what was written
in your face, that you had seen me walking in the gallery with Edward,
and when I knew what you thought, I felt how giddy and how wrong it was.
But oh, dear John, how could you, could you think so?"
Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle would have caught
her in his arms. But no; she wouldn't let him.
"Don't love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time yet! When I was
sad about this intended marriage, dear, it was because I remembered May
and Edward such young lovers; and knew that her heart was far away from
Tackleton. You believe that, now, don't you, John?"
John was going to make another rush at this appeal; but she stopped him
again.
"No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I sometimes do,
John, and call you clumsy and a dear old goose, and names of that sort,
it's because I love you, John, so well, and take such pleasure in your
ways, and wouldn't see you altered in the least respect to have you made
a king to-morrow."
"Hooroar!" said Caleb with unusual vigour. "My opinion!"
"And when I speak of people being middle-aged and steady, John, and
pretend that we are a humdrum couple, going on in a jog-trot sort of
way, it's only because I'm such a silly little thing, John, that I like,
sometimes, to act as a kind of Play with Baby, and all that: and make
believe."
She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But she was very
nearly too late.
"No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you please, John! What
I want most to tell you, I have kept to the last. My dear, good,
generous John, when we were talking the other night about the Cricket, I
had it on my lips to say, that at first I did not love you quite so
dearly as I do now; when I first came home here, I was half afraid that
I mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as I hoped and prayed I
might--being so very young, John! But, dear John, every day and hour I
loved you more and more. And if I could have loved you better than I do,
the noble words I heard you say this morning would have made me. But I
can't. All the affection that I had (it was a great deal, John) I gave
you, as you well deserve, long, long ago, and I have no more left to
give. Now, my dear husband, take me to your heart again! That's my home,
John; and never, never think of sending me to any other!"
You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious little
woman in the arms of a third party as you would have felt if you had
seen Dot run into the Carrier's embrace. It was the most complete,
unmitigated, soul-fraught little piece of earnestness that ever you
beheld in all your days.
You may be sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect rapture; and you
may be sure Dot was likewise; and you may be sure they all were,
inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and, wishing to
include her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations,
handed round the Baby to everybody in succession, as if it were
something to drink.
But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside the door; and
somebody exclaimed that Gruff and Tackleton was coming back. Speedily
that worthy gentleman appeared, looking warm and flustered.
"Why, what the Devil's this, John Peerybingle?" said Tackleton. "There's
some mistake. I appointed Mrs. Tackleton to meet me at the church, and
I'll swear I passed her on the road, on her way here. Oh! here she is! I
beg your pardon, sir; I haven't the pleasure of knowing you; but, if you
can do me the favour to spare this young lady, she has rather a
particular engagement this morning."
"But I can't spare her," returned Edward. "I couldn't think of it."
"What do you mean, you vagabond?" said Tackleton.
"I mean that, as I can make allowance for your being vexed," returned
the other with a smile, "I am as deaf to harsh discourse this morning as
I was to all discourse last night."
The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the start he gave!
"I am sorry, sir," said Edward, holding out May's left hand, and
especially the third finger, "that the young lady can't accompany you to
church; but, as she has been there once this morning, perhaps you'll
excuse her."
Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a little piece of
silver paper, apparently containing a ring, from his waistcoat pocket.
"Miss Slowboy," said Tackleton, "will you have the kindness to throw
that in the fire? Thankee."
"It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, that prevented
my wife from keeping her appointment with you, I assure you," said
Edward.
"Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge that I revealed it
to him faithfully; and that I told him, many times, I never could forget
it," said May, blushing.
"Oh, certainly!" said Tackleton. "Oh, to be sure! Oh, it's all right,
it's quite correct! Mrs. Edward Plummer, I infer?"
"That's the name," returned the bridegroom.
"Ah! I shouldn't have known you, sir," said Tackleton, scrutinising his
face narrowly, and making a low bow. "I give you joy, sir!"
"Thankee."
"Mrs. Peerybingle," said Tackleton, turning suddenly to where she stood
with her husband; "I'm sorry. You haven't done me a very great kindness,
but, upon my life, I am sorry. You are better than I thought you. John
Peerybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; that's enough. It's quite
correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and perfectly satisfactory. Good
morning!"
With these words he carried it off, and carried himself off too: merely
stopping at the door to take the flowers and favours from his horse's
head, and to kick that animal once in the ribs, as a means of informing
him that there was a screw loose in his arrangements.
Of course, it became a serious duty now to make such a day of it as
should mark these events for a high Feast and Festival in the
Peerybingle Calendar for evermore. Accordingly, Dot went to work to
produce such an entertainment as should reflect undying honour on the
house and on every one concerned; and, in a very short space of time,
she was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the Carrier's
coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him to give him a kiss.
That good fellow washed the greens, and peeled the turnips, and broke
the plates, and upset iron pots full of cold water on the fire, and made
himself useful in all sorts of ways: while a couple of professional
assistants, hastily called in from somewhere in the neighbourhood, as on
a point of life or death, ran against each other in all the doorways and
round all the corners, and everybody tumbled over Tilly Slowboy and the
Baby, everywhere. Tilly never came out in such force before. Her
ubiquity was the theme of general admiration. She was a stumbling-block
in the passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the
kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at
five-and-twenty minutes to three. The Baby's head was, as it were, a
test and touchstone for every description of matter, animal, vegetable,
and mineral. Nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at some time
or other, into close acquaintance with it.
Then there was a great Expedition set on foot to go and find out Mrs.
Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that excellent gentlewoman; and
to bring her back, by force, if needful, to be happy and forgiving. And
when the Expedition first discovered her, she would listen to no terms
at all, but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever she should
have lived to see the day! and couldn't be got to say anything else,
except "Now carry me to the grave": which seemed absurd, on account of
her not being dead, or anything at all like it. After a time she lapsed
into a state of dreadful calmness, and observed that, when that
unfortunate train of circumstances had occurred in the Indigo Trade, she
had foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole life, to every
species of insult and contumely; and that she was glad to find it was
the case; and begged they wouldn't trouble themselves about her,--for
what was she?--oh dear! a nobody!--but would forget that such a being
lived, and would take their course in life without her. From this
bitterly sarcastic mood she passed into an angry one, in which she gave
vent to the remarkable expression that the worm would turn if trodden
on; and, after that, she yielded to a soft regret, and said, if they had
only given her their confidence, what might she not have had it in her
power to suggest! Taking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the
Expedition embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves on, and was on
her way to John Peerybingle's in a state of unimpeachable gentility;
with a paper parcel at her side containing a cap of state, almost as
tall, and quite as stiff, as a mitre.
Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come in another little
chaise; and they were behind their time; and fears were entertained; and
there was much looking out for them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding
always would look in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and,
being apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of looking
where she pleased. At last they came; a chubby little couple, jogging
along in a snug and comfortable little way that quite belonged to the
Dot family; and Dot and her mother, side by side, were wonderful to see.
They were so like each other.
Then Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with May's mother; and
May's mother always stood on her gentility; and Dot's mother never stood
on anything but her active little feet. And old Dot--so to call Dot's
father, I forgot it wasn't his right name, but never mind--took
liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think a cap but
so much starch and muslin, and didn't defer himself at all to the Indigo
Trade, but said there was no help for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding's
summing up, was a good-natured kind of man--but coarse, my dear.
I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honours in her wedding-gown, my
benison on her bright face! for any money. No! nor the good Carrier, so
jovial and so ruddy, at the bottom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh
sailor-fellow, and his handsome wife. Nor any one among them. To have
missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as stout a meal
as man need eat; and to have missed the overflowing cups in which they
drank The Wedding Day would have been the greatest miss of all.
After dinner Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling Bowl. As I'm a
living man, hoping to keep so for a year or two, he sang it through.
And, by-the-bye, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, just as he
finished the last verse.
There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering in, without
saying with your leave, or by your leave, with something heavy on his
head. Setting this down in the middle of the table, symmetrically in the
centre of the nuts and apples, he said:
"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and, as he hasn't got no use for the cake
himself, p'raps you'll eat it."
And, with those words, he walked off.
There was some surprise among the company, as you may imagine. Mrs.
Fielding, being a lady of infinite discernment, suggested that the cake
was poisoned, and related a narrative of a cake which, within her
knowledge, had turned a seminary for young ladies blue. But she was
overruled by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May with much ceremony
and rejoicing.
I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came another tap at the
door, and the same man appeared again, having under his arm a vast
brown-paper parcel.
"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys for the Babby.
They ain't ugly."
After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again.
The whole party would have experienced great difficulty in finding words
for their astonishment, even if they had had ample time to seek them.
But they had none at all; for the messenger had scarcely shut the door
behind him, when there came another tap, and Tackleton himself walked
in.
"Mrs. Peerybingle!" said the toy merchant, hat in hand, "I'm sorry. I'm
more sorry than I was this morning. I have had time to think of it. John
Peerybingle! I am sour by disposition; but I can't help being sweetened,
more or less, by coming face to face with such a man as you. Caleb! This
unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last night, of which I
have found the thread. I blush to think how easily I might have bound
you and your daughter to me, and what a miserable idiot I was when I
took her for one! Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely
to-night. I have not so much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have scared
them all away. Be gracious to me: let me join this happy party!"
He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a fellow. What _had_
he been doing with himself all his life, never to have known before his
great capacity of being jovial? Or what had the Fairies been doing with
him, to have effected such a change?
"John! you won't send me home this evening, will you?" whispered Dot.
He had been very near it, though.
There wanted but one living creature to make the party complete; and, in
the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very thirsty with hard running,
and engaged in hopeless endeavours to squeeze his head into a narrow
pitcher. He had gone with the cart to its journey's end, very much
disgusted with the absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to
the Deputy. After lingering about the stable for some little time,
vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the mutinous act of
returning on his own account, he had walked into the taproom, and laid
himself down before the fire. But, suddenly yielding to the conviction
that the Deputy was a humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up
again, turned tail, and come home.
There was a dance in the evening. With which general mention of that
recreation, I should have left it alone, if I had not some reason to
suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon
figure. It was formed in an odd way; in this way.
Edward, that sailor-fellow--a good free dashing sort of fellow he
was--had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, and
mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his
head to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for Bertha's harp
was there, and she such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. Dot (sly
little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing days were
over; I think because the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked
sitting by him best. Mrs. Fielding had no choice, of course, but to say
_her_ dancing days were over, after that; and everybody said the same,
except May; May was ready.
So, May and Edward get up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and
Bertha plays her liveliest tune.
Well! if you'll believe me, they had not been dancing five minutes, when
suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes Dot round the waist,
dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite
wonderfully. Tackleton no sooner sees this than he skims across to Mrs.
Fielding, takes her round the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner
sees this than up he is, all alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot into the middle
of the dance, and is foremost there. Caleb no sooner sees this than he
clutches Tilly Slowboy by both hands, and goes off at score; Miss
Slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other
couples, and effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only
principle of footing it.
Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; and
how the kettle hums!
* * * * *
But what is this? Even as I listen to them blithely, and turn towards
Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very pleasant to me, she
and the rest have vanished into air, and I am left alone. A Cricket
sings upon the Hearth; a broken child's toy lies upon the ground: and
nothing else remains.