by Ellen Wood
Jan was imperturbable — he had seen too much of Master Cheese for any display to affect him — but Lionel laughed heartily as they left the gentleman and the alcove. How well he looked — Lionel! The indented line of pain had gone from his brow: he was as a man at rest within.
“Jan, I feel truly glad at the news sent to us a day or two ago!” he exclaimed, pressing his brother’s arm. “I always feared you would not marry. I never thought you would marry one so desirable as Mary Elmsley.”
“I don’t think I’d have had anybody else,” answered Jan. “I like her; always did like her; and if she has taken a fancy to me, and doesn’t mind putting up with a husband that’s called out at all hours, why — it’s all right.”
“You will not give up your profession, Jan?”
“Give up my profession?” echoed Jan, in surprise, staring with all his eyes at Lionel. “What should I do that for?”
“When Mary shall be Lady Mary Verner, she may be for wishing it.”
“No, she won’t,” answered Jan. “She knows her wishing it would be of no use. She marries my profession as much as she marries me. It is all settled. Lord Elmsley makes it a point that I take my degree, and I don’t mind doing that to please him. I shall be a hard-working doctor always, and Mary knows it.”
“Have you taken Belvedere House?”
“I intend to take it. Mary likes it, and I can afford it, with her income joined to mine. If she is a lady, she’s not a fine one,” added Jan, “and I shall be just as quiet and comfortable as I have been in the old place. She says she’ll see to the housekeeping and to my shirts, and—”
Jan stopped. They had come up with Lady Verner, and Mary Elmsley. Lionel spoke laughingly.
“So Jan is appreciated at last!”
Lady Verner lifted her hands with a deprecatory movement. “It took me three whole days before I would believe it,” she gravely said. “Even now, there are times when I think Mary must be playing with him.”
Lady Mary shook her head with a blush and a smile. Lionel took her on his arm, and walked away with her.
“You cannot think how happy it has made me and Lucy. We never thought Jan was, or could be, appreciated.”
“He was by me. He is worth — shall I tell it you, Lionel? — more than all the rest of Deerham put together. Yourself included.”
“I will indorse the assertion,” answered Lionel. “I am glad you are going to have him.”
“I would have had him, had he asked me, years ago,” candidly avowed Lady Mary.
“I was inquiring of Jan, whether you would not wish him to give up his profession. He was half offended with me for suggesting it.”
“If Jan could ever be the one to lead an idle, useless life, I think half my love for him would die out,” was her warm answer. “It was Jan’s practical industry, his way of always doing the right in straightforward simplicity, that I believe first won me to like him. This world was made to work in; the next for rest — as I look upon it, Lionel. I shall be prouder of being wife to the surgeon Jan Verner, than I should be had I married a duke’s eldest son.”
“He is to take his degree, he says.”
“I believe so: but he will practise generally all the same — just as he does now. Not that I care that he should become Dr. Verner; it is papa.”
“If he — Why, who can they be?”
Lionel Verner’s interrupted sentence and question of surprise were caused by the appearance of some singular-looking forms who were stalking into the grounds. Poor, stooping, miserable, travel-soiled objects, looking fit for nothing but the tramp-house. A murmer of astonishment burst from all present when they were recognised. It was Grind’s lot. Grind and his family, who had gone off with the Mormons, returning now in humility, like dogs with burnt tails.
“Why, Grind, can it be you?” exclaimed Lionel, gazing with pity at the man’s despairing aspect.
He, poor meek Grind, not less meek and civil than of yore, sat down upon a bench and burst into tears. They gathered round him in crowds, while he told his tale. How they had, after innumerable hardships on the road, too long to recite then, after losing some of their party by death, two of his children being amongst them — how they had at length reached the Salt Lake city, so gloriously depicted by Brother Jarrum. And what did they find? Instead of an abode of peace and plenty, of luxury, of immunity from work, they found misery and discomfort. Things were strange to them, and they were strange in turn. He’d describe it all another time, he said; but it was quite enough to tell them what it was, by saying that he resolved to come away if possible, and face again the hardships of the way, though it was only to die in the old land, than he’d stop in it. Brother Jarrum was a awful impostor, so to have led ’em away!
“Wasn’t there no saints?” breathlessly asked Susan Peckaby, who had elbowed herself to the front.
“Saints!” echoed Grind. “Yes, they be saints! A iniketous, bad-doing, sensitive lot. I’d starve on a crust here, sooner nor I’d stop among ‘em. Villains!”
Poor Grind probably substituted the word “sensitive” for another, in his narrow acquaintance with the English language. Susan Peckaby seemed to resent this new view of things. She was habited in the very plum-coloured gown which had been prepared for the start, the white paint having been got out of it by some mysterious process, perhaps by the turpentine suggested by Chuff. It looked tumbled and crinkled, the beauty altogether gone out of it. Her husband, Peckaby, stood behind, grinning.
“Villains, them saints was, was they?” said he.
“They was villains,” emphatically answered Grind.
“And the saintesses?” continued Peckaby— “What of them?”
“The less said about ’em the better, them saintesses,” responded Grind. “We should give ’em another name over here, we should. I had to leave my eldest girl behind me,” he added, lifting his face in a pitying appeal to Mr. Verner’s. “She warn’t but fifteen, and one of them men took her, and she’s his thirteenth wife.”
“I say, Grind,” put in the sharp voice of Mrs. Duff, “what’s become of Nancy, as lived up here?”
“She died on the road,” he answered. “She married Brother Jarrum in New York—”
“Married Brother Jarrum in New York!” interrupted Polly Dawson tartly. “You are asleep, Grind. It was Mary Green as married him. Leastways, news, that she did, come back to us here.”
“He married ’em both,” answered Grind. “The consekence of which was, that the two took to quarrelling perpetual. It was nothing but snarling and fighting everlasting. Nancy again Mary, and Mary again her. We hadn’t nothing else with ’em all the way to the Salt Lake city, and Nancy, she got ill. Some said ’twas pining; some said ’twas a in’ard complaint as took her; some said ’twas the hardships killed her — the cold, and the fatigue, and the bad food, and the starvation. Anyhow, Nancy died.”
“And what became of Mary?” rather more meekly inquired Mrs. Peckaby.
“She’s Jarrum’s wife still. He have got about six of ‘em, he have. They be saints, they be!”
“They bain’t as bad off as the saintesses,” interrupted Mrs. Grind. “They has their own way, the saints, and the saintesses don’t. Regular cowed down the saintesses be; they daredn’t say as their right hand’s their own. That poor sick lady as went with us, Miss Kitty Baynton — and none on us thought she’d live to get there, but she did, and one of the saints chose her. She come to us just afore we got away, and she said she wanted to write a letter to her mother to tell her how unhappy she was, fit to die with it. But she knowed the letter could never be got to her in England, cause letters ain’t allowed to leave the city, and she must stop in misery for her life, she said; for she couldn’t never undertake the journey back again; even if she could get clear away; it would kill her. But she’d like her mother to know how them Mormons deceived with their tales, and what sort of a place New Jerusalem was.”
Grind turned again to Lionel.
“It is just blas
phemy, sir, for them to say what they do; calling it the holy city, and the New Jerusalem. Couldn’t they be stopped at it, and from deluding poor ignorant people here with their tales?”
“The only way of stopping it is for people to take their tales for what they are worth,” said Lionel.
Grind gave a groan. “People is credilous, sir, when they think they are going to better theirselves. Sir,” he added, with a yearning, pleading look, “could I have a bit of work again upon the old estate, just to keep us from starving? I shan’t hanker after much now; to live here upon the soil will be enough, after having been at that Salt Lake city. It’s a day’s wonder, and ‘ud take a day to tell, the way we stole away from it, and how we at last got home.”
“You shall have work, Grind, as much as you can do,” quietly answered Lionel. “Work, and a home, and, I hope, plenty. If you will go there,” — pointing to the tables— “with your wife and children, you will find something to eat and drink.”
Grind clasped his hands together in an attitude of thankfulness, tears streaming down his face. They had walked from Liverpool.
“What about the ducks, Grind?” called out one of the Dawsons. “Did you get ’em in abundance?”
Grind turned his haggard face round.
“I never see a single duck the whole time I stopped there. If ducks was there, we didn’t see ‘em.”
“And what about the white donkeys, Grind?” added Peckaby. “Be they in plenty?”
Grind was ignorant of the white donkey story, and took the question literally. “I never see none,” he repeated. “There’s nothing white there but the great Salt Lake, which strikes the eyes with blindness—”
“Won’t I treat you to a basting!”
The emphatic remark, coming from Mrs. Duff, caused a divertisement, especially agreeable to Susan Peckaby. The unhappy Dan, by some unexplainable cause, had torn the sleeve of his new jacket to ribbons. He sheltered himself from wrath behind Chuff the blacksmith, and the company began to pour in a stream towards the tables.
The sun had sunk in the west when Verner’s Pride was left in quiet; the gratified feasters, Master Cheese included, having wended their way home. Lionel was with his wife at the window of her dressing-room, where he had formerly stood with Sibylla. The rosy hue of the sky played upon Lucy’s face. Lionel watched it as he stood with his arm round her. Lifting her eyes suddenly, she saw how grave his looked, as they were bent upon her.
“What are you thinking of, Lionel?”
“Of you, my darling. Standing with you here in our own home, feeling that you are mine at last; that nothing, save the hand of Death, can part us, I can scarcely yet believe in my great happiness.”
Lucy raised her hand, and drew his face down to hers. “I can,” she whispered. “It is very real.”
“Ay, yes! it is real,” he said, his tone one of almost painful intensity. “God be thanked! But we waited. Lucy, how we waited for it!”
LORD OAKBURN’S DAUGHTERS
Published in 1864, this novel relates the sensational story of Jane, Laura and Lucy – the daughters of the younger son of the Earl of Oakburn. But what is the connection between their various love affairs and the mysterious death of the woman who calls herself Mrs Crane?
Lord Oakburn’s Daughters is another of Wood’s sensational novels and was well-received at the time of its original publication, when the popularity of that genre was at its height.
Title page of the first edition
CONTENTS
PART THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CHAPTER XL.
PART THE SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER. XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
An illustration form the novel
PART THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
THE ARRIVAL.
A SMALL country town in the heart of England was the scene some few years ago of a sad tragedy. I must ask my readers to bear with me while I relate it. These crimes, having their rise in the evil passions of our nature, are not the most pleasant for the pen to record; but it cannot be denied that they do undoubtedly bear for many of us an interest amounting almost to fascination. I think the following account of what took place will bear such an interest for you.
South Wennock, the name of this place, was little more than a branch or offshoot of Great Wennock, a town of some importance, situated at two miles’ distance from it. The lines of rail from London and from other places, meeting at Great Wennock, did not extend themselves to South Wennock; consequently any railway travellers arriving at the larger town, had to complete their journey by the omnibus if they wished to go on to the smaller.
The two miles of road the omnibus had to traverse were about the worst to be met with in a civilized country. When it, the omnibus, had jolted its way over this road, it made its entrance to South Wennock in the very centre of the town. South Wennock might be said to consist of one long, straggling street, called High Street. Much building had been recently added to both ends of this old street. At the one end, the new buildings, chiefly terraces and semi-detached houses, had been named Palace Street, from the fact that the road led to the country palace of the bishop of the diocese. The new buildings at the other end of High Street were called the Rise, from the circumstance that the ground rose there gradually for a considerable distance; and these were chiefly detached villas, some small, some large.
On the afternoon of Friday, the 10th of March, 1848, the railway omnibus, a cramped vehicle, constructed to hold six, came jolting along its route as usual. South Wennock lay stretched out in a line across it in front, for the road was at a right angle with the town, and could the omnibus have dashed on without reference to houses, and similar slight obstructions, it would have cut the town in two, leaving part of High Street and the Rise to its right, the other part and Palace Street to its left.
The omnibus was not given to dashing, however. It drove into High Street by the accustomed opening, turned short round to the left, and pulled up a few yards further at its usual halting-place, the Red Lion Inn. Mrs. Fitch, the landlady, an active, buxom dame, with a fixed colour in her cheeks and a bustling, genial manner, came hastening out to receive the guests it might have brought.
It had brought only a young lady and a trunk: and the moment Mrs. Fitch cast her eyes on the lady’s face, she thought it the most beautiful she had ever looked upon.
“Your servant, miss. Do you please to stay here?”
“For a short time, while you give me a glass of wine and a biscuit,” was the reply of the traveller: and the tone, accent, and manner were unmistakably those of a gentlewoman. “I shall be glad of the refreshment, for I feel exhausted. The shaking of the omnibus has been terrible.”
She was getting out as she spoke, and something in her appearance more particularly attracted the attention of Mrs. Fitch, as the landlady helped her down the high and awkward steps, and marshalled her indoors.
“Dear ma’am, I beg your pardon! It does shake, that omnibus — and you not in a condition to bear it! And perhaps you have come far besides, too! You shall have something in a minute. I declare I took you for a young unmarried lady.”
“If you happen to have any cold meat, I should prefer a sandwich to the biscuit,” was all the reply given by the traveller.
She sat down in the landlady’s cushioned chair, for it was to her own parlour Mrs. Fitch had conducted her, untied her bonnet, and threw back the strings. The bonnet was of straw, trimmed with white ribbons, and her dress and mantle were of dark silk. Never was bonnet thrown back from a more lovely face, with its delicate bloom and its exquisitely refined features.
“Can you tell me whether there are any lodgings to be had in South Wennock?” she inquired, when the landlady came in again with the sandwiches and wine.
“Lodgings?” returned Mrs. Fitch. “Well, now, they are not over-plentiful here; this is but a small place, you see, ma’am — not but what it’s a deal larger than it used to be,” continued the landlady, as she stroked her chin in deliberation. “There’s Widow Gould’s. I know her rooms were empty a week ago, for she was up here asking me if I couldn’t hear of anybody wanting such.
You’d be comfortable there, ma’am, if she’s not let. She’s a quiet, decent body. Shall I send and inquire?”