by Ellen Wood
“What shall you try, do you think?”
“I cannot tell. I should like to get something abroad; I should like to go to India. I do not suppose I have any real chance of getting an appointment there; but stopping in Deerham will certainly not bring it to me: that, or anything else.”
Lucy’s lips had parted. “You will not think of going to India now!” she breathlessly exclaimed.
“Indeed I do think of it, Lucy.”
“So far off as that!”
The words were uttered with a strange sound of pain. Lionel passed his hand over his brow, the action betokening pain quite as great as Lucy’s tone. Lucy rose from her seat and stood near him, her thoughtful face upturned.
“What is left for me in England?” he resumed. “What am I here? A man without home, fortune, hope. I have worse than no prospects. The ceremony at which we have been assisting this day seems to have brought the bare facts more palpably before me in all their naked truth. Other men can have a home, can form social ties to bless it. I cannot.”
“But why?” asked Lucy, her lips trembling.
“Why! Can you ask it, Lucy? There are moments — and they are all too frequent — when a fond vision comes over me of what my future might be; of the new ties I might form, and find the happiness in, that — that I did not find in the last. The vision, I say, comes all too frequently for my peace of mind, when I realise the fact that it can never be realised.”
Lucy stood, her hands tightly clasped before her, a world of sadness in her fair, young face. One less entirely single-hearted, less true than Lucy Tempest, might have professed to ignore the drift of his words. Had Lucy, since Mrs. Verner’s death, cast a thought to the possibility of certain happy relations arising between her and Lionel — those social ties he now spoke of? No, not intentionally. If any such dreams did lurk in her heart unbidden, there she let them lie, in entire abeyance. Lionel Verner had never spoken a word to her, or dropped a hint that he contemplated such; his intercourse with her had been free and open, just as it was with Decima. She was quite content; to be with him, to see him daily, was enough of happiness for her, without looking to the future.
“The farther I get away from England the better,” he resumed. “India, from old associations, naturally suggests itself, but I care not whither I go. You threw out a suggestion once, Lucy, that Colonel Tempest might be able to help me to something there, by which I may get a living. Should I have found no success in London by the time he arrives, it is my intention to ask him the favour. He will be home in a few weeks now.”
“And you talk of leaving Deerham immediately!” cried Lucy. “Where’s the necessity? You should wait until he comes.”
“I have waited too long, as it is. Deerham will be glad to get rid of me. It may hold a jubilee the day it hears I have shipped myself off for India. I wonder if I shall ever come back? Probably not. I and old friends may never meet again on this side heaven.”
He had been affecting to speak lightly, jokingly, toying at the same time with some trifle on the mantel-piece. But as he turned his eyes on Lucy at the conclusion of his sentence, he saw that the tears were falling on her cheeks. The words, the ideas they conjured up, had jarred painfully on every fibre of her heart. Lionel’s light mood was gone.
“Lucy,” he whispered, bending to her, his tone changing to one of passionate earnestness, “I dare not stay here longer. There are moments when I am tempted to forget my position, to forget honour, and speak words that — that — I ought not to speak. Even now, as I look down upon you, my heart is throbbing, my veins are tingling; but I must not touch you with my finger, or tell you of my impassioned love. All I can do is to carry it away with me, and battle with it alone.”
Her face had grown white with emotion. She raised her wet eyes yearningly to his; but she still spoke the simple truth, unvarnished, the great agony that was lying at her heart.
“How shall I live on, with you away? It will be more lonely than I can bear.”
“Don’t, child!” he said in a wailing tone of entreaty. “The temptation from my own heart is all too present to me. Don’t you tempt me. Strong man though I am, there are things that I cannot bear.”
He leaned on the mantel-piece, shading his face with his hand. Lucy stood in silence, striving to suppress her emotion from breaking forth.
“In the old days — very long ago, they seem now, to look back upon — I had the opportunity of assuring my life’s happiness,” he continued in a low, steady tone. “I did not do it; I let it slip from me, foolishly, wilfully; of my now free act. But, Lucy — believe me or not as you like — I loved the one I rejected, more than the one I took. Before the sound of my marriage bells had yet rung out on my ears, the terrible conviction was within me that I loved that other better than all created things. You may judge, then, what my punishment has been.”
She raised her eyes to his face, but he did not see them, did not look at her. He continued —
“It was the one great mistake of my life; made by myself alone. I cannot plead the excuse which so many are able to plead for life’s mistakes — that I was drawn into it. I made it deliberately, as may be said; of my own will. It is but just, therefore, that I should expiate it. How I have suffered in the expiation, Heaven alone knows. It is true that I bound myself in a moment of delirium, of passion; giving myself no time for thought. But I have never looked upon that fact as an excuse; for a man who has come to the years I had should hold his feelings under his own control. Yes; I missed that opportunity, and the chance went by for life.”
“For life?” repeated Lucy, with streaming eyes. It was too terribly real a moment for any attempt at concealment. A little reticence, in her maiden modesty; but of concealment, none.
“I am a poor man now, Lucy,” he explained; “worse than without prospects, if you knew all. And I do not know why you should not know all,” he added after a pause: “I am in debt. Such a man cannot marry.”
The words were spoken quietly, temperately; their tone proving how hopeless could be any appeal against them, whether from him, from her, or from without. It was perfectly true: Lionel Verner’s position placed him beyond the reach of social ties.
Little more was said. It was a topic which Lucy could not urge or gainsay; and Lionel did not see fit to continue it. He may have felt that it was dangerous ground, even for the man of honour that he strove to be. He held out his hand to Lucy.
“Will you forgive me?” he softly whispered.
Her sobs choked her. She strove to speak, as she crept closer to him, and put out her hands in answer; but the words would not come. She lifted her face to glance at his.
“Not a night passes but I pray God to forgive me,” he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion, as he pressed her hands between his, “to forgive the sorrow I have brought upon you. Oh, Lucy! forgive — forgive me!”
“Yes, yes,” was all her answer, her sobs impeding her utterance, her tears blinding her. Lionel kept the hands strained to him; he looked down on the upturned face, and read its love there; he kept his own bent, with its mingled expression of tenderness and pain; but he did not take from it a single caress. What right had he? Verily, if he had not shown control over himself once in his life, he was showing it now.
He released one of his hands and laid it gently upon her head for a minute, his lips moving silently. Then he let her go. It was over.
She sat down on the low stool again on the opposite side the hearth, and buried her face and her anguish. Lionel buried his face, his elbow on the mantel-piece, his hand uplifted. He never looked at her again, or spoke; she never raised her head; and when the company began to arrive, and came in, the silence was still unbroken.
And, as they talked and laughed that night, fulfilling the usages of society amidst the guests, how little did any one present suspect the scene which had taken place but a short while before! How many of the smiling faces we meet in society cover aching hearts!
CHAPTER LXXXIX.
&
nbsp; MASTER CHEESE BLOWN UP.
There were other houses in Deerham that night, not quite so full of sociability as was Lady Verner’s. For one, may be instanced that of the Misses West. They sat at the table in the general sitting-room, hard at work, a lamp between them, for the gas-burners above were high for sewing, and their eyes were no longer so keen as they had been. Miss Deborah was “turning” a table-cloth; Miss Amilly was darning sundry holes in a pillow-case. Their stock of household linen was in great need of being replaced by new; but, not having the requisite money to spare, they were doing their best to renovate the old.
A slight — they could not help feeling it as such — had been put upon them that day, in not having been invited to Decima Verner’s wedding. The sisters-in-law of Lionel Verner, connected closely with Jan, they had expected the invitation. But it had not come. Lionel had pressed his mother to give it; Jan, in his straightforward way, when he had found it was not forthcoming, said, “Why don’t you invite them! They’d do nobody any harm.” Lady Verner, however had positively declined: the Wests had never been acquaintances of hers, she said. They felt the slight, poor ladies, but they felt it quite humbly and meekly; not complaining; not venturing even to say to each other that they might have been asked. They only sat a little more silent than usual over their work that evening, doing more, and talking less.
The servant came in with the supper-tray, and laid it on the table. “Is the cold pork to come in?” asked she. “I have not brought it. I thought, perhaps, you’d not care to have it in to-night, ma’am, as Mr. Jan’s out.”
Miss Deborah cast her eyes on the tray. There was a handsome piece of cheese, and a large glass of fresh celery. A rapid calculation passed through her mind that the cold pork, if not cut for supper, would make a dinner the following day, with an apple or a jam pudding.
“No, Martha, this will do for to-night,” she answered. “Call Master Cheese, and then draw the ale.”
“It’s a wonder he waits to be called,” was Martha’s comment, as she went out. “He is generally in afore the tray, whatever the meals may be, he is.”
She went out at the side door, and entered the surgery. Nobody was in it except the surgery-boy. The boy was asleep, with his head and arms on the counter, and the gas flared away over him. A hissing and fizzing from Jan’s room, similar to the sounds Lucy Tempest heard when she invaded the surgery the night of the ball at Deerham Hall, saluted Martha’s ears. She went round the counter, tried the door, found it fastened, and shook the handle.
“Who’s there?” called out Master Cheese from the other side.
“It’s me,” said Martha “Supper’s ready.”
“Very well. I’ll be in directly,” responded Master Cheese.
“I say!” called out Martha wrathfully, rattling the handle again, “if you are making a mess of that room, as you do sometimes, I won’t have it. I’ll complain to Mr. Jan. There! Messing the floor and places with your powder and stuff! It would take two servants to clear up after you.”
“You go to Bath,” was the satisfactory recommendation of Master Cheese.
Martha called out another wrathful warning, and withdrew. Master Cheese came forth, locked the door, took out the key, went indoors, and sat down to supper.
Sat down in angry consternation. He threw his eager glances to every point of the table, and could not see upon it what he was longing to see — what he had been expecting all the evening to see — for the terrible event of its not being there had never so much as crossed his imagination. The dinner had consisted of a loin of pork with the crackling on, and apple sauce — a dish so beloved by Master Cheese, that he never thought of it without a watering of the mouth. It had been nothing like half eaten at dinner, neither the pork nor the sauce. Jan was at the wedding-breakfast, and the Misses West, in Master Cheese’s estimation, ate like two sparrows: of course he had looked to be regaled with it at supper. Miss West cut him a large piece of cheese, and Miss Amilly handed him the glass of celery.
Now Master Cheese had no great liking for that vulgar edible which bore his name, and which used to form the staple of so many good, old-fashioned suppers. To cheese, in the abstract, he could certainly have borne no forcible objection, since he was wont to steal into the larder, between breakfast and dinner, and help himself — as Martha would grumblingly complain — to “pounds” of it. The state of the case was just this: the young gentleman liked cheese well enough when he could get nothing better. Cheese, however, as a substitute for cold loin of pork, with “crackling” and apple sauce, was hardly to be borne, and Master Cheese sat in dumbfounded dismay, heaving great sighs and casting his eyes upon his plate.
“I feel quite faint,” said he.
“What makes you feel faint?” asked Miss Deb.
“Well, I suppose it is for want of my supper,” he returned. “Is — is there no meat to-night, Miss Deb?”
“Not any,” she answered decisively. She had the pleasure of knowing Master Cheese well.
Master Cheese paused. “There was nearly the whole joint left at dinner,” said he in a tone of remonstrance.
“There was a good deal of it left, and that’s the reason it’s not coming in,” replied Miss Deb. “It will be sufficient for to-morrow’s dinner with a pudding, I’m sure it will not hurt you to sup upon cheese for one night.”
With all his propensity for bonne chère, Master Cheese was really of a modest nature, and would not go the length of demanding luxuries, if denied them by Miss Deb. He was fain to content himself with the cheese and celery, eating so much of it that it may be a question whether the withholding of the cold pork had been a gain in point of economy.
Laying down his knife at length, he put back his chair to return to the surgery. Generally he was not in so much haste; he liked to wait until the things were removed, even to the cloth, lest by a speedy departure he might miss some nice little dainty or other, coming in at the tail of the repast. It is true such impromptu arrivals were not common at Miss West’s table, but Master Cheese liked to be on the sure side.
“You are in a hurry,” remarked Miss Amilly, surprised at the unwonted withdrawal.
“Jan’s out,” returned Master Cheese. “Folks may be coming in to the surgery.”
“I wonder if Mr. Jan will be late to-night?” cried Miss Deb.
“Of course he will,” confidently replied Master Cheese. “Who ever heard of a wedding-party breaking up before morning?”
For this reason, probably, Master Cheese returned to the surgery, prepared to “make a night of it” — not altogether in the general acceptation of that term, but at his chemical experiments. It was most rare that he could make sure of Jan’s absence for any length of time. When abroad in pursuance of his professional duties, Jan might be returning at any period; in five minutes or in five hours; there was no knowing; and Master Cheese dared not get his chemical apparatus about, in the uncertainty, Jan having so positively forbidden his recreations in the science. For this night, however, he thought he was safe. Master Cheese’s ideas of a wedding festival consisted of unlimited feasting. He could not have left such a board, if bidden to one, until morning light, and he judged others by himself.
Jan’s bedroom was strewed with vessels of various sorts and sizes from one end of it to the other. In the old days, Dr. West had been a considerable dabbler in experimental chemistry himself. Jan also understood something of it. Master Cheese did not see why he should not. A roaring fire burned in Jan’s grate, and the young gentleman stood before it for a few minutes, previous to resuming his researches, giving his back a roast, and indulging bitter reminiscences touching his deficient supper.
“She’s getting downright mean, is that old Deb!” grumbled he; “especially if Jan happens to be out. Wasn’t it different in West’s time! He knew what was good, he did. Catch her daring to put bread and cheese on the table for supper then. I shall be quite exhausted before the night’s over. Bob!”
Bob, his head still on the counter, partially
woke up at the call — sufficiently so to return a half sound by way of response.
“Bob!” roared Master Cheese again. “Can’t you hear?”
Bob, his eyes blinking and winking, came in, in answer: that is, as far as he could get in, for the litter lying about.
“Bring in the jar of tamarinds.”
“The jar of tamarinds!” repeated Bob. “In here?”
“Yes, in here,” said Master Cheese. “Now, you needn’t stare. All you have got to do is to obey orders.”
Bob disappeared, and presently returned, lugging in a big porcelain jar. He was ordered to “take out the bung, and leave it open.” He did so, setting it in a convenient place on the floor, near Master Cheese, and giving his opinion gratuitously of the condition of the room. “Won’t there be a row when Mr. Jan comes in and finds it like this!”
“The things will be put away long before he comes,” responded Master Cheese. “Mind your own business. And, look here! if anybody comes bothering, Mr. Jan’s out, and Mr. Cheese is out, and they can’t be seen till the morning — unless it’s some desperate case,” added Master Cheese, somewhat qualifying the instructions— “a fellow dying, or anything of that.”
Bob withdrew, to fall asleep in the surgery as before, his head and arms on the counter; and Master Cheese recommenced his studies. Solacing himself first of all with a few mouthfuls of tamarinds, as he intended to do at intervals throughout his labours, he plunged his hands into a mass of incongruous substances — nitre, chlorate of potass, and sulphur being amongst them.
The Misses West, meanwhile, had resumed their work after supper, and they sewed until the clock struck ten. Then they put it away, and drew round the fire for a chat, their feet on the fender. A very short while, and they were surprised by the entrance of Jan.
“My goodness!” exclaimed Miss Amilly. “It’s never you yet, Mr. Jan!”
“Why shouldn’t it be?” returned Jan, drawing forward a chair, and sitting down by them. “Did you fancy I was going to sleep there?”