Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  Barbara stood at the drawing-room window watching for him. Not in her was the dark shade; her dress was a marvel of vanity and prettiness, and she had chosen to place on her fair hair a dainty headdress of lace — as if her hair required any such ornament! She waltzed up to Mr. Carlyle when he entered, and saucily held up her face, the light of love dancing in her bright blue eyes.

  “What do you want?” he provokingly asked, putting his hands behind him, and letting her stand there.

  “Oh, well — if you won’t say good-evening to me, I have a great mind to say you should not kiss me for a week, Archibald.”

  He laughed. “Who would be punished by that?” whispered he.

  Barbara pouted her pretty lips, and the tears positively came into her eyes. “Which is as much as to say it would be no punishment to you. Archibald, don’t you care for me?”

  He threw his arms around her and clasped her to his heart, taking plenty of kisses then. “You know whether I care not,” he fondly whispered.

  But now, will you believe that that unfortunate Lady Isabel had been a witness to this? Well, it was only what his greeting to her had once been. Her pale face flushed scarlet, and she glided out of the room again as softly as she had entered it. They had not seen her. Mr. Carlyle drew his wife to the window, and stood there, his arms round her waist.

  “Barbara, what should you say to living in London for a few months out of the twelve?”

  “London? I am very happy where I am. Why should you ask me that? You are not going to live in London?”

  “I am not sure of that. I think I am for a portion of the year. I have had an offer made me this afternoon, Barbara.”

  She looked at him, wondering what he meant — wondering whether he was serious. An offer? What sort of an offer? Of what nature could it be?

  He smiled at her perplexity. “Should you like to see M. P. attached to my name? West Lynne wants me to become its member.”

  A pause to take in the news; a sudden rush of color, and then she gleefully clasped her hands round his arm, her eyes sparkling with pleasure.

  “Oh, Archibald, how glad I am! I knew how you were appreciated, and you will be appreciated more and more. This is right; it was not well for you to remain what you are for life — a private individual, a country lawyer.”

  “I am perfectly contented with my lot, Barbara,” he seriously said. “I am too busy to be otherwise.”

  “I know that; were you but a laboring man, toiling daily for the bread you eat, you would be contented, feeling that you were fulfilling your appointed duty to the utmost,” she impulsively said; “but, Archibald, can you not still be a busy man at West Lynne, although you do become its representative?”

  “If I could not, I should never accept the honor, Barbara. For some few months of the year I must of necessity be in town; but Dill is an efficient substitute, and I can run down for a week or so between times. Part of Saturday, Sunday, and part of Monday, I can always pass here, if I please. Of course these changes have their drawbacks, as well as their advantages.”

  “Where would be the drawbacks in this?” she interrupted.

  “Well,” smiled Mr. Carlyle, “in the first place, I suppose you could not always be with me.”

  Her hands fell — her color faded. “Oh, Archibald!”

  “If I do become their member, I must go up to town as soon as elected, and I don’t think it will do for my little wife to be quitting her home to travel about just now.”

  Barbara’s face wore a very blank look. She could not dissent from Mr. Carlyle’s reasoning.

  “And you must remain in London to the end of the session, while I am here! Separated! Archibald,” she passionately added, while the tears gushed into her eyes. “I could not live without you.”

  “Then what is to be done? Must I decline it?”

  “Decline it! Oh, of course not! I know we are looking on the dark side of things. I can go very well with you for a month — perhaps two.”

  “You think so?”

  “I am sure so. And, mind you must not encourage mamma to talk me out of it. Archibald,” she continued, resting her head upon his breast, her sweet face turned up beseechingly to his, “you would rather have me with you, would you not?”

  He bent his own down upon it. “What do you think about it, my darling?”

  Once more — an opportune moment for her to enter — Lady Isabel. Barbara heard her this time, and sprang away from her husband. Mr. Carlyle turned round at the movement, and saw Madame Vine. She came forward, her lips ashy, her voice subdued.

  Six months now had she been at East Lynne, and had hitherto escaped detection. Time and familiarity render us accustomed to most things — to danger among the rest; and she had almost ceased to fear recognition, living — so far as that point went — far more peaceably than she had done at first. She and the children were upon the best of terms. She had greatly endeared herself to them; she loved them, and they loved her — perhaps nature was asserting her own hidden claims.

  She felt very anxious about William. He seemed to grow weaker, and she determined to make her fears known to Mr. Carlyle.

  She quitted the parlor. She had heard Mr. Carlyle come in. Crossing the hall, she tapped softly at the drawing-room door, and then as softly entered. It was the moment of Mr. Carlyle’s loud greeting to his wife. They stood together heedless of her.

  Gliding out again, she paced the hall, her hands pressed upon her beating heart. How dared that heart rise up in sharp rebellion at these witnessed tokens of love? Was Barbara not his wife? Had she not a legal claim to all his tenderness? Who was she that she should resent them in her jealousy? What, though they had once been hers, hers only, had she not signed and sealed her own forfeit of them, and so made room for Barbara?

  Back to the gray parlor, there she stood, her elbow on the mantelpiece, her eyes hidden by her hand. Thus she remained for some minutes, and Lucy thought how sad she looked.

  But Lucy felt hungry, and was casting longing glances to the tea-table. She wondered how long her governess meant to keep it waiting. “Madame Vine,” cried she presently, “don’t you know that tea is ready?”

  This caused Madame Vine to raise her eyes. They fell on the pale boy at her feet. She made no immediate answer, only placed her hand on Lucy’s shoulder.

  “Oh, Lucy dear, I — I have many sorrows to bear.”

  “The tea will warm you, and there is some nice jam,” was Miss Lucy’s offered consolation.

  “Their greeting, tender as it may be, is surely over by this time,” thought Lady Isabel, an expression something like mockery curving her lips. “I will venture again.”

  Only to see him with his wife’s face on his breast, and his lips bent upon it. But they had heard her this time, and she had to advance, in spite of her spirit of misery and her whitened features.

  “Would you be so good sir, as to come and look at William?” she asked in a low tone, of Mr. Carlyle.

  “Certainly.”

  “What for?” interjected Barbara.

  “He looks very ill. I do not like his looks. I am fearing whether he can be worse than we have thought.”

  They went to the gray parlor, all three of them. Mr. Carlyle was in first, and had taken a long, silent look at William before the others entered.

  “What is he doing on the floor?” exclaimed Barbara, in her astonishment. “He should not lie on the floor, Madame Vine.”

  “He lays himself down there at the dusk hour, and I cannot get him up again. I try to persuade him to use the sofa, but it is of no use.”

  “The floor will not hurt him,” said Mr. Carlyle. This was the dark shade: his boy’s failing health.

  William opened his eyes. “Who’s that — papa?”

  “Don’t you feel well, William?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m very well; but I am tired.”

  “Why do you lie down here?”

  “I like lying here. Papa, that pretty white rabbit of mine is dead.”


  “Indeed. Suppose you get up and tell me all about it.”

  “I don’t know about it myself yet,” said William, softly rising. “The gardener told Lucy when she was out just now: I did not go; I was tired. He said—”

  “What has tired you?” interrupted Mr. Carlyle, taking hold of the boy’s hand.

  “Oh, nothing. I am always tired.”

  “Do you tell Mr. Wainwright that you are tired?”

  “No. Why should I tell him? I wish he would not order me to take that nasty medicine, that cod liver oil.”

  “But it is to make you strong, my boy.”

  “It makes me sick. I always feel sick after it, papa. Madame Vine says I ought to have cream. That would be nice.”

  “Cream?” repeated Mr. Carlyle, turning his eyes on Madame Vine.

  “I have known cream to do a great deal of good in a case like William’s,” she observed. “I believe that no better medicine can be given; that it has in fact no substitute.”

  “It can be tried,” said Mr. Carlyle.

  “Pray give your orders, Madame Vine, for anything you think may be beneficial to him,” Mrs. Carlyle added. “You have had more experience with children than I. Joyce—”

  “What does Wainwright say?” interrupted Mr. Carlyle, speaking to his wife, in his low tone.

  “I do not always see him when he comes, Archibald. Madame Vine does, I believe.”

  “Oh, dear!” cried Lucy, “can’t we have tea? I want some bread and jam.”

  Mr. Carlyle turned round, smiled and nodded at her. “Patience is good for little girls, Miss Lucy. Would you like some bread and jam, my boy?”

  William shook his head. “I can’t eat jam. I am only thirsty.”

  Mr. Carlyle cast a long and intent look at him, and then left the room. Lady Isabel followed him, her thoughts full of her ailing child.

  “Do you think him very ill, sir?” she whispered.

  “I think he looks so. What does Mr. Wainwright say?”

  “He says nothing to me. I have not inquired his true condition. Until to-night it did not come to me that there was any apprehension.”

  “Does he look so much worse to-night?”

  “Not any worse than customary. Latterly he had looked just like this in the evening. It was a remark of Hannah’s that roused my alarm: she thinks he is on the road to death. What can we do to save him?”

  She clasped her hands as she spoke, in the intensity of her emotion. She almost forgot, as they stood there together talking of the welfare of the child, their child, that he was no longer her husband. Almost, not quite, utterly impossible would it be for her wholly to forget the dreadful present. Neither he nor the child could again belong to her in this world.

  A strange rising of the throat in her wild despair, a meek courtesy, as she turned from him, his last words ringing in her ears: “I shall call in further advice for him, Madame Vine.”

  William was clinging round Mrs. Carlyle, in a coaxing attitude, when she re-entered the gray parlor. “I know what I could eat, mamma, if you’d let me have it,” cried he, in answer to her remonstrance that he must eat something.

  “What could you eat?”

  “Some cheese.”

  “Cheese! Cheese with tea!” laughed Mrs. Carlyle.

  “For the last week or two he has fancied strange things, the effect of a diseased appetite,” exclaimed Madame Vine; “but if I allow them to be brought in he barely tastes them.”

  “I am sure, mamma, I could eat some cheese now,” said William.

  “You may have it,” answered Mrs. Carlyle.

  As she turned to leave the room, the impatient knock and ring of a visitor was heard. Barbara wondered who could be arriving at that, their dinner hour. Sailing majestically into the hall, her lips compressed, her aspect threatening, came Miss Carlyle.

  Now it turned out that Miss Corny had been standing at her own window, grimly eyeing the ill doings of the street, from the fine housemaid opposite, who was enjoying a flirting interview with the baker, to the ragged urchins, pitch-polling in the gutter and the dust. And there she caught sight of the string, justices and others, who came flowing out of the office of Mr. Carlyle. So many of them were they that Miss Corny involuntarily thought of a conjuror flinging flowers out of a hat — the faster they come, the more it seems there are to come. “What on earth is up?” cried Miss Corny, pressing her nose flat against the pane, that she might see better.

  They filed off, some one way, some another. Miss Carlyle’s curiosity was keener than her appetite, for she stayed on the watch, although just informed that her dinner was served. Presently Mr. Carlyle appeared and she knocked at the window with her knuckles. He did not hear it; he had turned off at a quick pace toward home. Miss Corny’s temper rose.

  The clerks came out next, one after another; and the last was Mr. Dill. He was less hurried than Mr. Carlyle had been, and heard Miss Corny’s signal.

  “What in the name of wonder, did all that stream of people want at the office?” began she, when Mr. Dill had entered in obedience to it.

  “That was the deputation, Miss Cornelia.”

  “What deputation?”

  “The deputation to Mr. Archibald. They want him to become their new member.”

  “Member of what?” cried she, not guessing at the actual meaning.

  “Of parliament, Miss Corny; to replace Mr. Attley. The gentlemen came to solicit him to be put in nomination.”

  “Solicit a donkey!” irascibly uttered Miss Corny, for the tidings did not meet her approbation. “Did Archibald turn them out again?”

  “He gave them no direct answer, ma’am. He will consider of it between now and to-morrow morning.”

  “Consider of it!” shrieked she. “Why, he’d never, never be such a flat as to comply. He go into parliament! What next?”

  “Why should he not, Miss Corny? I’m sure I should be proud to see him there.”

  Miss Corny gave a sniff. “You are proud of things more odd than even John Dill. Remember that fine shirt front! What has become of it? Is it laid up in lavender?”

  “Not exactly in lavender, Miss Corny. It lies in the drawer; for I have never liked to put it on since, after what you said.”

  “Why don’t you sell it at half-price, and buy a couple of good useful ones with the money?” returned she, tartly. “Better that than keep the foppish thing as a witness of your folly. Perhaps he’ll be buying embroidered fronts next, if he goes into that idle, do-nothing House of Commons. I’d rather enter myself for six months at the treadmill.”

  “Oh, Miss Corny! I don’t think you have well considered it. It’s a great honor, and worthy of him. He will be elevated above us all, as it were, and he deserves to be.”

  “Elevate him on a weathercock!” raged Miss Corny. “There, you may go. I’ve heard quite enough.”

  Brushing past the old gentleman, leaving him to depart or not, as he might please, Miss Carlyle strode upstairs, flung on her shawl and bonnet, and strode down again. Her servant looked considerably surprised, and addressed her as she crossed the hall.

  “Your dinner, ma’am?” he ventured to say.

  “What’s my dinner to you?” returned Miss Corny, in her wrath. “You have had yours.”

  Away she strode. And thus it happened that she was at East Lynne almost as soon as Mr. Carlyle.

  “Where’s Archibald?” began she, without ceremony, the moment she saw Barbara.

  “He is here. Is anything the matter?”

  Mr. Carlyle, hearing the voice, came out and she pounced upon him with her tongue.

  “What’s this about your becoming the new member for West Lynne?”

  “West Lynne wishes it,” said Mr. Carlyle. “Sit down, Cornelia.”

  “Sit down yourself,” retorted she, keeping on her feet. “I want my question answered. Of course you will decline?”

  “On the contrary, I have made up my mind to accept.”

  Miss Corny untied the strings of her bonnet, and
flung them behind her.

  “Have you counted the cost?” she asked, and there was something quite sepulchral in her solemn tone.

  “I have given it consideration, Cornelia; both as regards money and time. The expenses are not worth naming, should there be no opposition. And if there is any—”

  “Ay!” groaned Miss Corny. “If there is?”

  “Well? I am not without a few hundred to spare for the playing,” he said, turning upon her the good-humored light of his fine countenance.

  Miss Carlyle emitted some dismal groans.

  “That ever I should have lived to see this day! To hear money talked of as though it were dirt. And what’s to become of your business?” she sharply added. “Is that to be let run to rack and ruin, while you are kicking up your heels in that wicked London, under plea of being at the House night after night?”

  “Cornelia,” he gravely said, “were I dead, Dill could carry on the business just as well as it is being carried on now. I might go into a foreign country for seven years and come back to find the business as flourishing as ever, for Dill could keep it together. And even were the business to drop off — though I tell you it will not do so — I am independent of it.”

  Miss Carlyle faced tartly round upon Barbara.

  “Have you been setting him on to this?”

  “I think he had made up his mind before he spoke to me. But,” added Barbara, in her truth, “I urged him to accept it.”

  “Oh, you did! Nicely moped and miserable you’ll be here, if he goes to London for months on the stretch. You did not think of that, perhaps.”

  “But he would not leave me here,” said Barbara, her eyelashes becoming wet at the thought, as she unconsciously moved to her husband’s side. “He would take me with him.”

  Miss Carlyle made a pause, and looked at them alternately.

  “Is that decided?” she asked.

  “Of course it is,” laughed Mr. Carlyle, willing to joke the subject and his sister into good-humor. “Would you wish to separate man and wife, Cornelia?”