But he did not quite know Frederick Walcheren. Perhaps, also, he did
not how know cunning Love makes a man. The younger man had assumed his
overcoat and hat, and gone forth at the hall door, as if he had but one
intention--to seek the railway station, since his brougham had returned
to town. But, once clear of the scrutiny of the servants, he skirted
the house on the left side, and passed from the front garden to the
back, which is easily done in most suburban houses. This brought him
on to a large lawn, from which the interior of the lighted ballroom
might be easily seen through the open windows. Also, by turning the
other corner of the mansion, he could, by pressing his face against
the glass, see if the picture gallery was occupied or not, though he
remained himself unseen. The windows of this room were also thrown
open, and Frederick waited at one of them until he saw the white-robed
figure of Jenny Crampton steal in, and glance furtively around as if in
search of him.
‘Jenny, Jenny,’ he called softly, lest she should be followed by the
friend of the family, ‘Jenny, my love, come here, to this window.’
‘What is this?’ cried the girl as she perceived him; ‘why are you here?
Is anything wrong?’
‘Nothing is wrong whilst you love me,’ said Frederick, ‘but we are
watched, darling, so I have pretended to go home again. Have you the
pluck to join me in the garden? There are any number of arbours here
where we can talk undisturbed.’
‘Pluck,’ cried Jenny, jumping on the window sill, ‘of course I have.
Pluck enough to follow you over a precipice, if you wish me to do so.’
‘You angel. I will ask you to take no more dangerous leap than into my
arms. But were you seen? Did anyone follow you? We must not have an
open row.’
‘No, no one even saw me leave the ballroom, for I was at the buffet
with Captain Rawson, when number five dance struck up, so I told him to
go and find his partner and leave mine to seek me out. And as soon as
his back was turned I slipped out here.’
‘You dear girl! Give me your hand, then, and jump out; there is a
lovely seat under that acacia tree--but what will you say if your
mother asks where you have been?’
‘That I have been strolling in the garden with my partner. She will
think it was Captain Rawson; but she will not ask. She is used to my
vagaries, and lets me do just as I choose.’
‘But, darling, they won’t let you do that any longer, I’m afraid. I’ve
had a lecture as well as you, Jenny. Mr Hindes followed me to the
picture gallery just now, by your father’s request, and made me promise
I would give up all pretensions to your hand, and leave off visiting at
your house.’
‘And do you mean to keep your promise?’ inquired the girl, pouting.
‘Not unless you tell me to do so, Jenny; I love you too much for that.
I only did it to prevent a row, for if Mr Crampton carried his threat
of taking you away from Hampstead into execution, I might find it very
difficult to have any communication with you again.’
‘But what is the good of my staying here if I am never to see you,
Fred?’ asked Jenny.
‘That depends upon yourself, my darling; you can’t do it from your
father’s house, that’s certain.’
‘Who’s from, then?’ said Jenny.
‘From mine, sweetheart! Don’t think me very bold, but, if you love me
as you say, you will marry me whether your parents give their consent
or not.’
‘So I will, if you will only tell me how, Fred.’
‘We must elope together, dearest; heaps of husbands and wives have done
it before us, and been none the worse. Your father says that if you
marry without his consent, he will leave you none of his money; that is
a thing you must take into serious consideration, before you give me
your answer. I have enough for both of us, still, you would be a richer
woman if you remained your father’s heiress; his fortune cannot be less
than ten thousand a year, whilst mine is only two thousand.’
‘What do I care for money in comparison with you, Fred?’ whispered
Jenny.
‘That’s my own true girl,’ he answered, folding her closely to him,
‘and once you have made up your mind to marry me without your father’s
consent, the rest is easy enough. Tell me to get a licence, and to give
notice at the nearest registrar’s office to my place, and you have only
to arrange how you can join me, so as to give us a few hours’ start of
Mr Crampton, and I will have you out of his reach and power before the
day is over.’
‘To join you, dearest, is easily managed,’ replied the girl. ‘I must
take a few things with me, you know, Fred! To run away in the clothes
I stand up in, would be altogether too romantic for the nineteenth
century. But I can send a box to my dressmaker’s, under pretence of
wanting some dresses altered--no one interferes with my dress at
home--and then, when you let me know which day I am to be in town, I
will drive myself over, as if to go shopping; tell Brunell to put the
cobs up for a few hours, and call for me at Madame Costello’s at 5
o’clock, and _apres ça, le deluge_!’
‘A deluge of love, my darling--a life of happiness, during which I
shall have but one thought--one aspiration--how I can best repay my
darling angel for the sacrifice she has made for me. And, perhaps,
after a time, your parents will come round. I cannot believe but that
they will forgive our temerity in the end, and all will be merry as a
marriage bell.’
‘Oh! poor mamma has nothing to do with it, Fred. I honestly believe she
would let me marry a crossing-sweeper if I had set my heart upon it. I
never remember her saying “No” to me since I was a baby. It is papa who
is making all the fuss, and he is as obstinate as a pig. He thinks it
is a sign of his own religion, to kick up such a dust about your being
a Catholic, but I say he only proves he is no Christian by it. What
can it signify if one is a Protestant or a Catholic? I am sure, for my
own part, I would as soon be one as the other, and preferably neither.
If you wish me to become a Catholic, Fred, I will to please you, but I
hope you won’t expect me to go to church and hear sermons, for if there
is one thing beyond another for which I long to get married, it is to
have my liberty in such matters. Papa and mamma have sickened me of
church-going. Aunt Clem, too, who is so very pious, has a face long
enough to turn the milk sour. It is not encouraging to a girl to go and
do likewise.’
Frederick Walcheren laughed as he kissed the speaker.
‘My darling!’ he answered, ‘I daresay your people have warned you that
I am not a particularly good young man, but I can boast of one merit--I
have never pretended to be better than I am. My cousin, Philip, and his
great friend, Father Tasker, consider me a lost soul, but they cannot
say that I am a dishonest one. They have heard some rumour--how, Heaven
only knows--that I am very _épris_ in a certain quarter, and put in an
appearance at my rooms this afternoon to learn if it was true that I
contemplated matrimony. You may take your oath that I did not gratify
their curiosity. They want to get me into the church, so that they may
grab my money. They’ve been trying it on for years, but this fish won’t
bite!’
‘But, Fred, darling, would anything on earth ever make you go into the
church?’ inquired Jenny, rather anxiously.
‘Nothing on earth,’ he replied, quickly; but, after a slight pause,
he added, ‘at least only _one_ thing, and that is too dreadful to
contemplate. If you were taken from me, my treasure--if anything
happened to you and I were left alone--I should be mad enough for
anything--even to go into a monastery, and sacrifice every farthing I
possess. What good would money be to me without my love?’
He pressed her closely to him as he spoke, and the two young faces
were laid against each other, and the two young forms seemed to melt
for a moment into one. But in another moment Jenny had sprung up to a
standing position.
‘I must go, dear Fred,’ she exclaimed, ‘or they will miss me, and Mr
Hindes may be sent to find out where I am. Good-bye, good-bye, my
darling. How soon do you think I shall have your letter?’
‘The day after to-morrow, love! To-morrow morning I shall be in
Doctors’ Commons for the licence, and will wire you simply, “All right,
Costello.” Then, should the telegram fall into other hands, it will
be thought to come from the dressmaker. On receipt of this, you must
drive over on the following day to Madame Costello’s, and leave your
box there, and as soon as you have dismissed Brunell and the trap, I
will take you to the registrar’s office, and, when the knot is securely
tied, we will pick up the box and be off to Dover. Will that suit your
ladyship? Brunell will call for you at Costello’s at five o’clock, and,
after waiting about for a considerable time, will return to Hampstead
and give the alarm. By which time my wife and I will be enjoying our
dinner at the Castle Warden, and laughing over the adventures of our
wedding-day.’
‘Oh, Fred, it seems too good to come true,’ said the girl, with a
slight shiver.
‘Nonsense, my dearest. It will come true, sure enough. But you are
cold, my pretty Jenny. I have been a selfish brute to keep you out
here so long. Let me take you back to the picture gallery. Or is it
wiser you should go alone? Good-night, then, and God bless you. Give me
one kiss, and don’t forget to meet me the day after you receive that
wire!’
‘As if I _could_ forget,’ replied the girl reproachfully, as she raised
her face for her lover’s embrace, and, with his assistance, re-entered
the picture gallery, and walked slowly back to the ballroom, to tell
her mother she had such a terrible fit of neuralgia, she would rather
return home at once.
Mr and Mrs Hindes, who were seated near Mrs Crampton, were all
solicitude for her assumed indisposition, and Mr Hindes suggested
taking her for a turn in the fresh air to see if the change from the
heated ballroom would relieve her. Mrs Hindes, a tall, slight woman,
with dark eyes and hair, and a graceful figure, who was really attached
to Jenny, inquired with whom she had been dancing the last set, as she
had looked for her in vain.
‘I have not been dancing at all,’ replied Jenny, boldly; ‘I have been
sitting in the picture gallery with Lord Craven, but my head gets worse
instead of better. Come along, mother, the carriage must be waiting for
us by this time, and I am tired to death. I want to get to bed.’
‘Certainly, my love,’ replied Mrs Crampton, with her usual lamb-like
acquiescence to all her daughter’s demands; ‘perhaps Mr Hindes will be
good enough to see us to the carriage.’
And Henry Hindes, who was convinced that Miss Crampton’s neuralgia was
due to Mr Walcheren’s defalcation, smiled inwardly, and conducted the
ladies to their barouche, with much satisfaction that he had conducted
the business he had taken on himself so successfully.
When Jenny Crampton reached home and found herself in the seclusion of
her bedroom, she did not give way to any access of nervous agitation,
or feel any trepidation at the thoughts of the important step which
she had taken on herself. That might be all very well for a damsel of
romance of a hundred years ago, but it is not the way the young women
of the present day manage their affairs. They are too strong-minded,
to cry and shake and faint over the deeds they have put their sign and
seal to. Jenny had made an appeal to become the wife of Mr Walcheren
in a fair way, and her request had been denied her, for what she
considered a frivolous objection. She knew there was no chance of
altering her father’s decision, and having always been given her own
way since a child, she determined to take it now. She regretted having
to be married privately, but she saw no wrong in it. Her parents might
be sorry when they heard of it, but they had brought it on themselves.
She was not going to keep Frederick waiting for an indefinite period,
and perhaps lose him altogether, because her father did not like Roman
Catholics as well as he did Protestants. _She_ didn’t object to his
religion, and she was the principal party concerned, so the young lady
looked out the dresses she wished to take with her, and made her maid
Ellen pack them in the box to take to the dressmaker’s, and, when the
key was in her own hands, she unlocked it again and added the articles
of linen and jewellery that she needed, and managed the whole affair as
coolly as if she had been preparing for elopements all her life. On the
Friday--it was on a Thursday that she received the wire to tell her all
was right, and it was on a Friday that her ill-regulated marriage took
place--she dressed herself in her most becoming tailor-made costume,
and drove gaily off to town, with a wave of her hand and a crack of her
whip as a last adieu to the mother and aunt who loved her devotedly.
She had promised them privately that she would be back to luncheon,
unless her cousins, the Burtons, were at home again (which she did not
anticipate), and pressed her to stay the afternoon.
‘But, Jenny, love!’ expostulated her mother, ‘don’t stay later than
two, even if they do! Pray be home before papa comes back from the
city. Remember how very particular he is about your driving in town by
yourself, and I’m afraid he may blame me, if he finds I have let you go
with only Brunell.’
‘My dear mother, as if Brunell were not a better protection for me than
fifty fat old men like papa. Now, don’t worry, there’s a good creature,
for I shall be back long before dinner time, but you know what Costello
is, and how difficult it is to get away from her. And perhaps I sha’n’t
go to the Burtons at all. So keep up your pecker, and don’t expect me
till you see me. Good-bye,’ and with a flourish she was off.
She drove rapidly to Kensington, and, on arrival, directed her groom to
put up the cobs and get himself some dinner, and call for her at Mrs
Burton’s house in Cromwell Road at five o’clock. The man touched his
hat, the box was lifted out, and Miss Jenny entered the dressmaker’s
abode.
‘Madame Costello,’ she commenced, ‘this is a box of things belonging
to my cousin, Miss Burton, which I am just going to take to her in
Cromwell Road. I have brought it here first that you may take out the
canvas dress you made for me, and which is just a trifle tight under
the arms. No, I have no time to have it fitted on, thank you. Tell the
dressmaker to let it out half an inch under both sleeves. That will be
quite sufficient.’
And, unlocking the box, the little diplomatist took out an old dress,
which she had laid at the top, and locked the rest of its contents up
again. Frederick Walcheren was waiting for her round the corner, she
had spied him as she drove up to the door.
‘My cousin is waiting to take me on to Cromwell Road,’ she said to
Madame Costello, as she beckoned him to advance. ‘Ah, Fred,’ she
continued, ‘you must call a cab for me, for I have been obliged to send
the trap on to pick up papa, who wishes to join us. Have you one ready?
That’s right. Good-morning, Madame Costello. You needn’t hurry with the
alterations, for I shall not want that dress again just yet.’
And with that Miss Crampton entered the cab and was soon whirling away
to the registrar’s office.
‘I never saw anything more neatly managed in my life,’ was her first
remark. ‘Mamma has reason not to expect me home till five or six. I
told Brunell not to call for me at Cromwell Road till five, so he can’t
be back in Hampstead till six or seven, and by that time--’
‘By that time you will be Mrs Frederick Walcheren past all recall,’
said her lover, joyfully.
But at that the girl seemed suddenly to lose her self-possession for
the first time.
‘Oh! Fred,’ she cried, ‘what am I doing? Oh! do stop and let me out
before it is too late! I was mad to come! It is too wicked! My people
will never forgive me,’ and she struggled to loose herself from his
detaining clasp.
‘Jenny, my dearest,’ he exclaimed, ‘be reasonable, for my sake, do!
It is too late to go back now. I have made every arrangement for our
staying at the Castle Warden Hotel. Besides, would you disappoint me in
so terrible a manner, after having passed your plighted word to be my
wife? I am sure you won’t! What should I do without you, Jenny? What
would you do without me? If we part now, it must be for ever! Don’t
make both our lives unhappy for a little want of courage.’
‘No, no, I must go on, I feel it! I cannot live without you, Fred. I
love you too dearly! Do just as you will with me!’
‘I had a little difficulty with the licence business yesterday,’ he
whispered, as they travelled onwards; ‘they wanted to have the written
consent of your guardians, or my assurance that you were of age, so I
swore you were. It was the only way out of it, my darling, and quite
justifiable, in my eyes, under the circumstances; but I thought I would
put you on your guard in case the registrar put any awkward questions
to you concerning it.’
‘It doesn’t signify,’ replied the girl in a dejected tone. Now that the
goal of her desires was so nearly reached, her high spirits seemed all
to have evaporated, and she was trembling and nervous. ‘I have had to
tell so many lies to manage the business, that one more or less cannot
make much difference.’
‘Jenny, my own girl, what has come over you?’ asked Walcheren in some
alarm. ‘Are you not well? Do you not love me as much as you thought you
did? Your mood is not complimentary, dearest, to the coming ceremony.
If you really repent the step you have taken, say so, and at all costs,
if it breaks my heart, I will get out of the cab and you shall return
to Madame Costello’s. Jenny, do you no longer wish to be my wife?’
But, at that awful alternative, Jenny’s sudden weakness evaporated and
she clung to her lover, as if all her hopes in this world and the next
centred in him.
‘Yes! yes! yes!’ she exclaimed eagerly, ‘you are my life--my all. I
cannot live without you, or away from you. It is only a sudden fear
of the consequences of this step we are taking which terrified me. It
is gone now, dear Frederick, indeed it has. What fear could I have in
becoming your wife. You, whom I love beyond all other things. Only, my
poor parents, my poor, good mother, Fred. How I wish she had said, “God
bless you, Jenny,” as we parted. She has been such a kind mother to me,
and she will miss me so. She will have nothing to occupy her thoughts,
or her hands, poor mother, now I am gone. Do you think I shall ever see
them again, Fred?--my parents, and poor old Aunt Clem. Do you think my
father will keep them from me _all_ my life?’
She spoke so rapidly and excitedly, and she clung to him so tightly,
that Frederick Walcheren feared she was what the lower orders call
‘going off her head,’ and said all he could think of to soothe her.
‘No! no! my darling girl, what can you be thinking of, to ask me such a
silly question? Of course, your father will come round in time. The old
gentleman is too fond and proud of you himself to hold out very long.
It is _I_ on whom he will pour out the vials of his wrath. Come, let me
dry those tears. We are almost at the registrar’s office now, and he
will think I am inveigling you into a marriage against your will if he
sees you crying. Perhaps he will take it for a case of abduction, and
order me to be locked up, until he has found out where you come from,
and if I have carried you off by force. And then there will be the old
gentleman to pay, and no pitch hot.’
Jenny laughed at the expression and let Frederick kiss away her tears,
and in another half hour, they walked out of the registrar’s office
together man and wife.