Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  “But was it wilfully done?” persisted Lucy, forgetting the rebuff in her anxious curiosity.

  “That question had better be asked of Mr. Stephen Grey: perhaps he can answer it. No; of course it was not wilfully done.”

  “And, Mr. Carlton, please tell me, have they found out whose face that was upon the stairs?”

  A sudden shade arose to the face of Mr. Carlton, discernible even by Lucy. The child thought it looked like dread.

  “That was all nonsense,” said he. “There was no face there.”

  “The captain says Misser Doctor go up,” interrupted the black servant, coming in with his broken English. And Mr. Carlton departed.

  Captain Chesney was a prisoner still, as to his legs; they were raised on the rest. A table was on one side of him, bearing various, articles that he might want, and his stick was at hand on the other.

  “What are you back again for?” he asked with some abruptness.

  “I have a petition to make to you, Captain Chesney,” began the surgeon, as he took, uninvited, a chair opposite the invalid; and perhaps for the first time in his life Mr. Carlton may have been conscious of a nervousness of manner quite foreign to him. “I have been hoping to speak to you for many weeks, and the time has at length come when I trust I may do so without great presumption. Before I enter upon my immediate subject, you will allow me a word of explanation as to who I am. My father is a medical man in London, in extensive practice; I am his only child, and expect at his death to inherit a considerable fortune. I think — I fear — that death will not be long delayed, and then I shall be what may be called a rich man.”

  “Sir,” interrupted the plain-spoken sailor, “wherefore tell me this? Were your father Chancellor of the Exchequer, and could endow you with the country’s revenues, it would be no business of mine.”

  A flush rose to the brow of Mr. Carlton.

  “Permit me a moment yet, Captain Chesney, while I speak of myself. I am well established here; am getting into extensive practice — for the Greys are going down; and down they will go, after that fatal mistake of Mr. Stephen’s. In a little time, sir, I expect to be netting a thousand a year.”

  “But what is it all to me?” wondered the captain. “I’m sure you’re welcome to it.”

  “Even had I only that in prospect, it would not be so bad an income; but when my father’s money is added to it, I shall hold my own with any one in Wennock. Captain Chesney, I want one to share this with me. I want you to give her to me. Your daughter.”

  Mr. Carlton spoke in a low tone of emotion, and it maybe doubted whether the captain heard him aright. Certain it is that he made no reply, but stared at Mr. Carlton as if he had become moon-struck.

  “I speak of Miss Laura Chesney,” continued the surgeon. “Oh, sir, give her to me! I will be a loving husband to her. She shall want for nothing to make her happy that the most anxious care and tenderness can bestow.”

  Captain Chesney wondered whether he himself had gone mad, or whether Mr. Carlton had done so. He had a firm conviction that it must be one or the other. He no more believed it within the range of possibility that any common country practitioner should presume to aspire to an alliance with the aristocratic family of Chesney, than that he, the captain, should dare to aspire to one of the royal princesses. His stick trembled ominously, but did not as yet come down.

  “WHAT did you say, sir?” he demanded, with set teeth.

  “Sir, I love your daughter; I love Laura Chesney as I have never yet loved, and never shall love another. Will you suffer me to make her my wife?”

  Down came the stick in all its thunder, and out roared the captain’s voice as an accompaniment, shouting for Pompey. The black servant flew up, as if impelled by something behind him.

  “Was massa ill?”

  “Ill!” chafed the captain, “He is!” he added, pointing the stick at Mr. Carlton. “He’s mad, Pompey; gone stark staring mad: you’ve shut me up here with a mad fellow. Get him out of the house, somehow.”

  The bewildered Pompey stood in confusion. He knew his choleric master said anything that came uppermost, and he glanced at the calm face, the still, self-possessed bearing of Mr. Carlton; certainly he looked like anything but a madman.

  Mr. Carlton rose, his manner haughty, his voice cold. “Captain Chesney, I am a gentleman; and my proposal to you at least required courtesy. Have the kindness to favour me with an intelligible answer.”

  “I’ll be shot if you get any other answer from me. You are mad, sir; nobody but a fool or a madman would dream of such a thing as you have now been proposing, Do you know, sir, that my daughter is a CHESNEY?”

  “And I am a Carlton. If the names were to be picked out in the Heralds’ College, the one might prove equal, if not superior to the other.”

  “Why — goodness bless my soul!” retorted the amazed captain. “You — you are a common apothecary, sir — a dispenser of medicine! and you would aspire to a union with the Chesneys?”

  “I am a member of the Royal College of Surgeons,” angrily repeated Mr. Carlton, who was beginning to lose his temper.

  “If you were the whole College of Surgeons rolled into one, — their head, their tail, and their middle, — you wouldn’t dare to glance at my daughter, had you any sense of propriety within you. Do you mean to show this gentleman out, you rascal!” added the inflamed captain, menacing with his stick the head of the unhappy Pompey.

  “Door open, Misser Doctor,” cried Pompey. But Mr. Carlton motioned him away with a gesture of the hand.

  “Captain Chesney, I have told you that I love your daughter; I have told you that my prospects are sufficiently assured to justify me in marrying. Once more I ask you — will you give her to me?”

  “No, by Jove!” raved the captain, “I’d see your coffin walk first. Here — stop — listen to me; I’d rather see her in her coffin, than disgraced by contact with you. You wed Laura Chesney? Never, never.”

  “What if I tell you that her hopes — her life, I may almost say — are bound up in me?” cried Mr. Carlton in a low tone.

  “What if I tell you that you are a bad and a wicked man?” shrieked the captain. “How dare you take advantage of your being called into my house professionally, to cast your covetous eye on any of my family? Was that gentlemanly, sir? was it the act of a man of honour? You confounded old idiot, standing there with your great goggle eyes, what possesses you to disobey me? Haven’t I ordered you to show this — this person — to the door!”

  The last two sentences, as the reader may divine, were addressed to the bewildered Pompey. Mr. Carlton’s face wore a resolute expression just then. He took it with him, and stood before Captain Chesney, folding his arms.

  “It is said in Scripture, that a woman shall leave father and mother, and cleave unto her husband. I would ask you a question, Captain Chesney. By what right, her affections being engaged, and my means suitable, do you deny me your daughter?”

  “The right of power, sir,” was the sarcastic retort. “And, now that I have answered your question, allow me to ask you one. By what right did you seek her affections? You came into my house with one ostensible object, and clandestinely availed yourself of your footing in it to pursue another! Sir, you had no right to do this, and I tell you that you are a sneak and a coward. Begone, Mr. Surgeon. Send me up your bill, when you get home, and never attempt to put your foot inside my door again, or to cast a thought to Miss Laura Chesney.”

  “That is easier said than done, Captain Chesney,” concluded Mr. Carlton, but he did not turn to leave.

  “Now, you black villain! the door, I say; and both of you may thank your stars that I am this day powerless, or your skins might learn what it is to beard a quarter-deck captain.”

  But Mr. Carlton was already out, and Pompey also. A good thing that they were, for the stick of the roused captain came flying through the air after them; whether meant for one or the other, or both, the sender best knew. It struck the door-post and fell clattering to the fl
oor, adding another dent to the gold top, which already had so many dents in it — as the meek Pompey could testify.

  Leaning against the door, shivering and sick, was Lucy Chesney. The noise in the chamber had attracted her notice, and she ran up, but stopped at the entrance, too terrified to enter. She touched the arm of Mr. Carlton.

  “Oh, tell me what has happened? I heard Laura’s name. What has she done?”

  Mr. Carlton shook off her hand, and moved forward, buried in thought. Before he had descended more than a stair or two, his recollection apparently came to him, and he went back to the child.

  “Don’t be alarmed, my dear; it is nothing to tremble at. I made a proposition to Captain Chesney, and he forgot his good manners in answering it. It will be all right. Mind, I tell you that it will, and you may tell Laura so, from me. Forgive my having passed you rudely, Lucy; at that moment I was not myself.”

  He quitted the house, turned out at the gate, and there came face to face with the Miss Chesneys. Something that they intended to take to the town with them had been forgotten, and they were returning for it. Mr. Carlton stood before them and raised his hat. Jane wondered at his presumption in stopping them.

  “Can I speak a word with you apart?” he suddenly demanded of Laura.

  She blushed violently, but after a moment’s indecision would have stepped aside with him, had not Jane interposed.

  “You can have nothing to say in private to Miss Laura Chesney that may not be said in public, Mr. Carlton. I must beg her to decline your request.”

  In direct defiance to her sister, Laura could not grant it. Mr. Carlton saw she could not, and his resolution was taken. He addressed Laura, allowing Miss Chesney to hear, but taking no more notice of her than if she was not by.

  “I have been speaking to Captain Chesney. I have been asking him to allow me to address you, and he received my proposals as if they were an insult. He would not hear me make them, or listen to any explanation; he treated me as I should think no gentleman was ever treated before. Laura, I can now only depend upon you.”

  She stood before him, her whole face glowing; frightened, but happy.

  “But Rome was not built in a day,” added Mr. Carlton. “Ill as Captain Chesney has this day received me, I forgive him for your sake, and hope the time may come when he will be induced to listen to us. We must both strive to subdue his prejudices.”

  Jane moved a step forward. She knew what her own course would be, had the proposition been made to her, and she had little doubt it must have been her father’s.

  “Has my father forbidden you the house, sir?”

  “He has. But, as I say, I and your sister must hope to subdue his prejudices. Miss Chesney,” he added, seizing her unwilling hand, “ do not you be against us. I cannot give up Laura.”

  “You say I against us,’” returned Jane. “In making use of those words it would almost lead to a belief that my sister has an understanding with you in this matter. Is it so?”

  “It is,” replied Mr. Carlton in a deep tone; “the understanding of love. Miss Chesney, it is no child’s affection that she and I entertain for each other; it is not one that can be readily put aside, even at the will of Captain Chesney. Will you aid us to overcome his opposition?”

  “No,” said Jane in a low but firm tone. “I am deeply grieved, deeply shocked, to hear you say this. What you are thinking of can never be.”

  “I see,” said Mr. Carlton in cold accents: “you share Captain Chesney’s prejudices against me. Miss Chesney — allow me to say it — they may yet be conquered. I tell you, I tell Laura in your presence, that I will do all I can to subdue them; I will do all I can to win her, for mine she shall be. My darling” — and his voice changed to tenderness—” only be true to me! It is all I ask. I am not to be admitted again to your house; but I shall see you elsewhere, though it be but a chance meeting, such as this. Good morning, Miss Chesney.”

  He passed on towards the town, and a conviction of future trouble arose in Jane Chesney’s heart as she gazed after him. But she never guessed how bitter that trouble was to be.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  THE FACE AGAIN.

  A CONFLICT was going on in the mind of Laura Chesney. Two passions, bad and good, were at work there, each striving for the mastery.

  Should it be obedience or disobedience? Should she bear on in the straight line of duty, and be obedient to her father, to all the notions of right in which she had been reared; or should she quit her home in defiance, quit it clandestinely, to become the wife of Mr. Carlton? Reader! It has indeed come to this, — grievous as it is to have to write it of a well-trained gentlewoman.

  On the day that Mr. Carlton had asked for Laura, Captain Chesney commanded her before him. He did not spare her. Every reproach that the case seemed to demand was lavished upon her by the indignant captain; and he finally forbade her ever to give another thought to Mr. Carlton. The abuse he heaped upon the unconscious surgeon would have been something grand if spoken upon the boards of a theatre; it simply made Laura rebellious. He told her that, except in his professional capacity, he disliked Mr. Carlton, and that nothing in the world would ever induce him to admit the man to his family. And this he confirmed with sundry unnecessary words.

  Laura retired, apparently acquiescent. Not to him did she dare show disobedience, and the captain concluded that the affair was settled and over. Whether Laura’s rebellious feelings would have subsided afterwards into duty had she been left alone, it is impossible to say; but Mr. Carlton took every possible occasion of fostering them.

  He did not want opportunity. Laura — careless, wilful, reprehensible Laura — had yielded to his persuasions of meeting him in secret. Evening after evening, at the twilight hour, unless unavoidably kept away by the exigencies of patients, was Mr. Carlton in the dark grove of trees that skirted Captain Chesney’s house; and Laura found no difficulty in joining him. The captain and Miss Chesney would as soon have suspected her of stealing out to meet a charged cannon as a gentleman, and Laura’s movements were free and unwatched.

  But it was not possible that this state of things could continue. Laura had not been reared to deceit, and she did feel ashamed of herself. She felt also something else — a fear of detection. Each evening, as she glided tremblingly into that grove, she protested with tears to Mr. Carlton that it must be the last: that she dared not come again. And suppose she made it the last, he answered, what then? were they to bid each other adieu for ever?

  Ah, poor Laura Chesney’s heart was only too much inclined to open to the specious argument he breathed into it — that there was only one way of ending satisfactorily the present unhappy state of things; that of flying with him. It took but a few days to accomplish — to convince her that it would be best for them in every way, and induce her to promise to consent. So long as she was Miss Laura Chesney, Captain Chesney’s obstinacy would continue, he argued; but when once they were married, he would be easily brought to forgiveness. Mr. Carlton believed this when he said it. He believed that these loud, hot-tempered men, who were so fond of raging out, never bore malice long. Perhaps as a rule he was right, but to all rules there are exceptional cases. With many tears, with many sighs, with many qualms of self-reproach, Laura yielded her consent, and Mr. Carlton laid his plans, and communicated them to her. But for his having been forbidden the house, Laura might never have ventured upon the step; but to continue to steal out in fear and trembling to see him, she dared not; and to live without seeing him would have been the bitterest fate of all.

  In the few days that had elapsed since the rupture between her father and lover, Laura Chesney seemed to have lived years. In her after-life, when she glanced back at this time, she asked herself whether it was indeed possible that only those few days, a fortnight at most, had passed over her head, during which she was making up her mind to leave her home with Mr. Carlton. Only a few days! to deliberate upon a step that must decide the destiny of her whole life!

  But we must hast
en on.

  It was about a month subsequent to the death of Mrs. Crane, and the moon’s rays were again gladdening the earth. The rays were weak and watery. Dark clouds passed frequently over the face of the sky, and sprinkling showers, threatening heavier rain, fell at intervals.

  Gliding out of her father’s door, by the servants’ entrance, came Laura Chesney. She wore a black silk dress, the mourning for Lady Oakburn, and a black shawl was thrown over her head and shoulders. She stepped swiftly down the narrow path which led from this entrance to the foot of the garden, and plunged in among the trees there. It was between eight and nine o’clock, and, but for this watery moon, it would have been quite dark. Laura was later than she had wished to be. Captain Chesney was about again now, and it had pleased him to keep tea waiting on the table, before he allowed Jane to make it. Laura sat in a fever of impatience. Was Mr. Carlton waiting for her? — and would he go away? Taking one cup of tea hastily, Laura declined more, and, saying she had a headache, quitted the room.

  Unheeding of rain which began to fall, Laura plunged into the trees. Leaning against the trunk of one thicker than the rest, stood Mr. Carlton. Laura, who was in a state of continuous terror during these interviews, flew to him for shelter.

  “Oh, Lewis, I feared you would be gone! I thought I should never get away to-night. Papa was reading the newspaper, and Jane would not make tea unless he told her. I dared not come away until it was made, because they would have been calling me to it.”

  “Only one night more, Laura, and then it will be over,” was his soothing answer.

  At least, he had meant it to soothe her. But the step she was about to take seemed to come before Laura then in all its naked and appalling sternness.

  “I don’t know that I can do it,” she murmured, with a shiver. “It is an awful thing. Do you mind me, Lewis? — an awful thing.”

  “What is?” asked Mr. Carlton.