by Ellen Wood
There was a fearful rumpus. The discovery came through Mrs. Dewsbury’s bursting one night into the study in search of a book, when the children had left it, and she supposed it empty. Mr. Peter Arkell stood there with his arm round Lucy’s waist, and both her hands gathered and held in his. For the first minute or so, Mrs. Dewsbury did not believe her own eyes. Lucy stood in painful distress, the damask colour glowing on her transparent cheek, and the explanation, as of right it would, fell to Peter.
These shy, timid, awkward-mannered men in every-day life, are sometimes the most collected in situations of actual embarrassment. It was so with Peter Arkell. In a calm, quiet way he turned to Mrs. Dewsbury, and told her the straightforward truth: that he and Miss Cheveley were attached to each other, and he had asked her to be his wife.
Mrs. Dewsbury was an excitable woman. She went back to the dining-room, shrieking like one in hysterics, and told the news. It aroused Colonel Dewsbury from his wine; and it was not a light thing in a general way that could do that, for the colonel was fond of it.
Then ensued the scene. Colonel and Mrs. Dewsbury heaped vituperation on the head of the tutor, asking what he could expect to come to for thus abusing confidence? Poor Peter, far more composed in that moment than he was in every-day matters, said honestly that he had not intended to abuse it; nothing would ever have been farther from his thoughts; but the mutual love had come to them both unawares, and been betrayed to each other without thought of the consequences.
All the abuse ever spoken would not avail to undo the past. Of course nothing was left now but to dismiss Mr. Peter Arkell summarily from his tutorship, and order Miss Cheveley never to hold intercourse by word or look with him again. This might have mended matters in a degree had Miss Cheveley acquiesced, and carried the mandate out; but, encouraged no doubt secretly by Mr. Peter, she timidly declined to do so — said, in fact, she would not. Colonel and Mrs. Dewsbury were rampant as two chained lions, who long to get loose and tear somebody to pieces.
For Mr. Peter Arkell was not to be got at. The law did not sanction his imprisonment; and society would not countenance the colonel in beating or killing him. Neither could Mrs. Dewsbury lock up Miss Lucy Cheveley, as was the mode observed to refractory damsels in what is called the good old time.
The next scene in the play was their marriage. Lucy, finding that she could never hope to obtain the consent of her protectors to it, walked quietly to church from their house one fine morning, met Peter there, and was married without consent. Peter had made his arrangements for the event in a more sensible manner than one so incapable would have been supposed likely to do. The friends who had occupied his house vacated it previously to oblige him; he had it papered and painted, and put into thoroughly nice order, spending about a hundred pounds in new furniture, and took Lucy home to it. Never did a more charming wife enter on possession of a home; and Westerbury, which of course made everybody’s affairs its own, in the usual manner, was taken with a sudden fit of envy at the good fortune of Peter Arkell, when it had recovered its astonishment at Miss Cheveley’s folly. One of her order marry poor Peter Arkell, the banker’s clerk! The world must be coming to an end.
Colonel and Mrs. Dewsbury almost wished it was coming to an end, for the bride and bridegroom at any rate, in their furious anger. The colonel went to the bank, and coolly requested it to discharge Peter Arkell from its service. The bank politely declined, saying that Mr. Peter Arkell had done nothing to offend it, or of which it could take cognizance. Colonel Dewsbury threatened to withdraw his account, and carry it off forthwith to a sort of patent company bank, recently opened in the town. The bank listened with equanimity; it would be sorry of course, and hoped the colonel would think better of it; but, if he insisted, his balance (he never kept more than a couple of hundred pounds there) should then be handed to him. The colonel growled, and went out with a bang. He next wrote to Lady Dewsbury a peremptory letter, almost requiring her to discharge Miss Arkell from her service. Lady Dewsbury wrote word back that Mildred had become too valuable to her to be parted with; and that if Peter Arkell was like his sister in goodness, Lucy Cheveley had not chosen amiss.
Lucy had been married about a fortnight, and was sitting one evening in all her fragile loveliness, the red light of the setting sun flickering through the elm trees on her damask cheeks, when a tall elegant woman entered. This was Mrs. St. John, whose family had been intimate with the Cheveleys. The St. Johns inhabited that old building in Westerbury called the Palmery, of which mention has been made, but they had been away from it for the past two years. Mrs. St. John had just returned to hear the scandal caused by the recent disobedient marriage.
Though all the world abandoned Lucy, Mrs. St. John would not. She had not so many years been a wife herself, having married the widower, Mr. St. John, who was more than double her age, and had a grown-up son. Lucy started up, with many blushes, at Mrs. St. John’s entrance; and she told the story of herself and Peter very simply, when questioned.
“Well, Lucy, I wish you happy,” Mrs. St. John said; “but it is not the marriage you should have made.”
“Perhaps not. I suppose not. For Mr. Arkell’s family is of course inferior to mine — —”
“Inferior! Mr. Arkell’s family!” interrupted Mrs. St. John, all her aristocratic prejudices offended at the words. “What do you mean, Lucy? Mr. Arkell is of no family! They are tradespeople — manufacturers. We don’t speak of that class as ‘a family.’ You are of our order; and I can tell you, the Cheveleys have had the best blood in their veins. It is a very sad descent for you; little less — my dear, I cannot help speaking — than degradation for life.”
“If I had good family,” spoke Lucy, “what else had I?”
“Beauty!” was Mrs. St. John’s involuntary answer, as she gazed at the wondrously lustrous brown eyes, the bright exquisite features.
“Beauty!” echoed Lucy, in surprise. “Oh, Mrs. St. John! you forget.”
“Forget what, Lucy.”
“That I am deformed.”
The word was spoken in a painful whisper, and the sensitive complexion grew carmine with the sense of shame. It is ever so. Where any defect of person exists, none can feel it as does its possessor; it is to the mind one ever-present agony of humiliation. Lucy Cheveley’s spine was not straight; of fragile make and constitution, she had “grown aside,” as the familiar saying runs; but at this early period of her life it was not so apparent to a beholder (unless the defect was known and searched for) as it afterwards became.
“You are not very much so, Lucy,” was Mrs. St. John’s answer. “And your face compensates for it.”
Lucy shook her head. “You say so from kindness, I am sure. Do you know,” she resumed, her voice again becoming almost inaudible, “I once heard Mrs. Dewsbury joking with Sir Edward about me. He was down for a week about a year ago, and she was telling him he ought to get married and settle down to a steady life. He answered that he could get nobody to have him, and Mrs. Dewsbury — of course you know it was only a jesting conversation on both sides — said, ‘There’s Lucy Cheveley, would she do for you?’ ‘She,’ he exclaimed; ‘she’s deformed!’ Mrs. St. John, will you believe that for a long while after I felt sick at having to go out, or to cross a room?”
“Yes, I can believe it,” said Mrs. St. John, sadly, for she was not unacquainted with this sensitive phase in human misfortune. “Well, Lucy, you cannot be convinced, I dare say, that your figure is not unsightly, so we will let that pass. But I do not understand yet, how you came to marry Peter Arkell.”
Lucy laughed and blushed.
“Ah! I see; you loved him. And yet, few, save you, would find Peter Arkell so lovable a man.”
“If you only knew his worth, Mrs. St. John!”
“I dare say. But as a knight-errant he is not attractive. Of course, the chief consideration now, is — the thing being irrevocably done, and you here — what sort of a home will he be able to keep for you.”
“I have no fear o
n that score; and I am one to be satisfied with so little. Colonel Dewsbury discharged him, but he soon found an evening engagement that is as good. He intends to go to Oxford when he can accomplish it, and afterwards take orders. When he is a clergyman, perhaps my friends, including you, Mrs. St. John, will admit that his wife can then claim to be in the position of a gentlewoman.”
“But, meanwhile you must live.”
Lucy smiled. “If you knew how entirely I trust and may trust to Peter, you would have no fear. We shall spend but little; we have begun on the most economical plan, and shall continue it. We keep but one servant — —”
“But one servant!” echoed Mrs. St. John. “For you!”
“I did not bring Peter a shilling. I brought him but myself and the few poor clothes I possess, for my bit of a pension ceased at my marriage. You cannot think that I would run him into any expense not absolutely necessary. We have no need of more than one servant, for we shall certainly be free from visitors.”
“How do you know that?”
“Peter has lived too retired a life to entertain any. And there’s no fear that my friends will visit me. I have put myself beyond their pale.”
“I cannot say that you have not. But how you will feel this, Lucy!”
“I shall not feel it. Mrs. St. John, when I chose my position in life as Peter Arkell’s wife, I chose it for all time,” she emphatically added. “Neither now, nor at any future period, shall I regret it. Believe me, I shall be far happier here, in retirement with him, although I have the consciousness of knowing that the world calls me an idiot, than I could have been had I married in what you may call my own sphere. For me there are not two Peter Arkells in the world.”
And Mrs. St. John rose, and took her leave; deeply impressed with the fact, that though there might not be two Peter Arkells in the world, there was a great deal of infatuation. She could not understand how it was possible for one, born as Lucy Cheveley had been, to make such a marriage, and to live under it without repentance.
CHAPTER XIII.
GOING ON FOR LORD MAYOR.
The years rolled on, bringing their changes. Indeed, the first portions of this history are more like a panorama, where you see a scene here, and then go on to another scene there; for we cannot afford to relate these earlier events consecutively.
That good and respected man, Mr. George Arkell, had passed away with the course of time to the place which is waiting to receive us all. His wife followed him within the year. A handsome fortune, independently of the flourishing business at the manufactory, was left to our old friend William; and there was a small legacy to Mildred of a hundred pounds.
William Arkell had taken possession of all: of his father’s place, his father’s position, and his father’s house. No son ever walked more entirely in his father’s steps than did he. He was honoured throughout Westerbury, just as Mr. Arkell had been. His benevolence, his probity, his high character, were universally known and appreciated. And Mrs. William Arkell, now of course, Mrs. Arkell, was a very fine lady, but liked on the whole.
They had three children, Travice, Charlotte, and Sophia Mary. Travice bore a remarkable resemblance to his father, both in looks and disposition; the two girls were more like their mother. They were young yet; but no expense, even now, was spared upon them. Indeed, expense, had Mrs. Arkell had her way, would not have been spared in anything. Show and cost were not to William’s taste; they were to hers: but he restrained it with a firm hand where it was absolutely essential.
Peter had not got to college yet, and Peter had not on the whole prospered. The great blow to him was the having to pay the four hundred pounds for which he had become security for Mr. Fauntleroy the younger. Mr. Fauntleroy the younger’s affairs had come to a crisis; he went away for a time from Westerbury, and Peter was called upon to pay. There’s no doubt that it was the one great blight upon Peter Arkell’s life. He never recovered it. It is true that the money was afterwards refunded to him by degrees; but it seemed to do him no good; the blight had fallen.
He became ill. Whether it was the blow of this, that suddenly shattered his health, or whether illness was inherent in his constitution, Westerbury never fully decided; certain it was, that Peter Arkell became a confirmed invalid, and had to resign his appointment at the bank. But he had excellent teaching, and was paid well; and he brought out a learned book now and then, so that he earned a good living. He had two children, Lucy, and a boy some years younger.
Never since she quitted the place some ten or twelve years before, had Mildred Arkell paid a visit to Westerbury. She was going to do so now. Lady Dewsbury, whose health was better than usual, had gone to stay with her married sister, and Mildred thought she would take the opportunity of going to see her brother Peter, and to make acquaintance with his wife. It is probable that, without that tie, she would never have re-entered her native place. The pain of going now would be great; the pain of meeting William Arkell and his wife little less than it was when she first left it. But she made her mind up, and wrote to Peter to say she was coming.
It was on a windy day that Mildred Arkell — had anybody known her — might have been seen picking her way-through the mud of the streets of London. She went to a private house in the neighbourhood of Hatton Garden, rang one of its bells, and walked upstairs without waiting for it to be answered. Before she reached the third floor, a young woman, with a coarse apron on, and a quantity of soft flaxen hair twisted round her head, which looked like a lady’s head in spite of the accompaniment of the apron, came running down it.
“Oh, Miss Arkell! if you had but sent me word you were coming!”
The tone was a joyous one, mixed somewhat with vexation; and Mildred smiled.
“Why should I send you word, Betsey? If you are busy, you need not mind me.”
On the third floor of this house, in two rooms, Mr. and Mrs. David Dundyke had lived ever since their marriage. David himself had chosen it from the one motive that regulated most actions of his life — economy. The two lower floors of the house were occupied by the offices of a solicitor; the underground kitchen and attic by a woman who kept the house clean; and David had taken these two rooms, and got them very cheap, on condition that he should always sleep at home as a protection to the house. Not having any inducement to sleep out, David acceded readily; and here they had been for several years. It was, in one sense, a convenient arrangement for Betsey, for they kept no servant, and the woman occasionally did cleaning and other rough work for her, receiving a small payment weekly.
Will you believe me when I say that David Dundyke was ambitious? Never a more firmly ambitious man lived than he. There have been men with higher aims in life, but not with more pushing, persevering purpose. He wanted to become a rich man; he wanted to become one of importance in this great commercial city; but the highest ambition of all, the one that filled his thoughts, sleeping and waking, was a higher ambition still — and I hope you will hold your breath with proper deference while you read it — he aspired to become, in time, the Lord Mayor!
He was going on for it. He truly and honestly believed that he was going on for it; slowly, it is true, but not less sure. Rome, as we all know was not built in a day; and even such men as the Duke of Wellington must have had a beginning — a first start in life.
Whatever David Dundyke’s shortcomings might be, in — if you will excuse the word — gentility, he made up for it by a talent for business. Few men have possessed a better one; and his value in the Fenchurch-street tea-house, was fully known and appreciated. This wholesale establishment, which had tea for its basis, was of undoubted respectability. It took a high standing amidst its fellows, and was second in its large dealings to none. It was not one of your advertising, poetry-puffing, here-to-day and gone-to-morrow houses, but a genuine, sound firm, having real dealings with Chaney, as the respected white-haired head of the house was in the habit of designating the Celestial Empire. Mr. Dundyke sometimes presumed to correct the “Chaney,” and hint to his i
ndulgent master and head, that that pronunciation was a little antediluvian, and that nobody now called it anything but “Chinar.”
David Dundyke had gone into this house an errand boy; he had risen to be a junior clerk. He was now not a junior one, but took rank with the first. Steady, taciturn, persevering, and industrious to an extent not often seen, thoroughly trustworthy, and in business dealings of strict honour, perhaps David Dundyke was one who could not fail to prosper, wherever he might have been placed. These qualities, combined with rare business foresight, had brought him into notice, and thence into favour. The faintest possible hint had been dropped to him by the white-haired old man, that perseverance, such as his, had been known to meet its reward in an association with the firm; a share in the business. Whether he meant anything, or whether it was but a casual remark, spoken without intention, David did not know; but he saw from thenceforth that one great ambition, of his, coming nearer and nearer. From that moment it was sure; it fevered his veins, and coloured his dreams; the massive gold chain of the Lord Mayor was ever dancing before his eyes and his brain; to be called “my lord” by the multitude, and to sit in that arm-chair, dispensing justice in the Mansion House, seemed to him a very heaven upon earth. Every movement of his mind had reference to it; every nerve was strained on the hope for it! For that he saved; for that he pinched; for that he turned sixpences into shillings, and shillings into pounds: for he knew that to be elected a Lord Mayor he must first of all be a rich man, and attain to the honour through minor gradations of wealth. He was judged to be a hard griping man by the few acquaintances he possessed, possessing neither sympathy for friends, nor pity for enemies; but he was not hard or griping at heart; it was all done to further this dream of ambition. For money in the abstract he really did not very much care; but as a stepping-stone to civic importance, it was of incalculable value.