by Ellen Wood
That same evening he took his way to the house. Mildred, it should be observed, was equally at cross-purposes. She hastened to speak to Lucy the day of Mrs. Arkell’s visit, asking her if she had heard that Travice was engaged to Miss Fauntleroy; and Lucy answered after the manner of a reticent, self-possessed maiden, and made light of the thing, and was altogether a little hypocrite.
“Known that! O dear, yes! for some time,” she said. “It would be a very good thing for Travice.”
And so Mildred put aside any slight romance she had carved out for them, as wholly emanating from her imagination; but the sore feeling — that Lucy was despised by the mother, perhaps by the son — clung to her still.
She was sitting alone when Travice entered. He spoke for some time on indifferent subjects — of the news of the town; of her journey to London; of her future plans. They were to depart on the morrow.
“Where’s Lucy?” he suddenly asked; and there was a restlessness in his manner throughout the interview that Mildred had never observed before.
“She is gone to spend the evening with Mrs. Palmer. I declined. Visiting seems quite out of my way now.”
“I should have thought it would just now be out of Lucy’s,” spoke Travice, in a glow of resentment.
“Ordinary visiting would be,” returned Miss Arkell, speaking with unnecessary coldness, and conscious of it. “Mrs. Palmer was here this afternoon; and, seeing how ill Lucy looked, she insisted on taking her home for an hour or two. Lucy will see no one there, except the family.”
“What makes her look ill?”
Miss Arkell raised her eyes at the tone. “She is not really ill in body, I trust; but the loss of her father has been a bitter grief to her, and it is telling upon her spirits and looks. He was all she had in the world; for I — comparatively speaking — am a stranger.”
There was a pause. Travice was leaning idly against the mantel-piece, in his favourite position, twirling the seals about that hung to his chain, his whole manner bespeaking indifference and almost contemptuous unconcern. Had anyone been there who knew him better than Mildred did, they could have told that it was only done to cover his real agitation. Mildred stole a glance at the fine young man, and thought that if he resembled his father in person, he scarcely resembled him in courtesy.
“Does Lucy really mean to have that precious fool of a Tom Palmer?” he abruptly asked.
Miss Arkell felt indignant. She wondered how he dared to speak in that way; and she answered sharply.
“Tom Palmer is a most superior young man. I have not perceived that he has any thing of the fool about him, and I don’t think many others have. Whenever he marries, he will make an excellent husband. Why should you wish to set me against him? Let me urge you not to interfere with Lucy’s affairs, Travice; she is under my protection now.”
Oh, if Mildred could but have read Travice Arkell’s heart that night! — if she had but read Lucy’s! How different things might have been! Travice moved to shake hands with her.
“I must wish you good evening,” he said. “I hope you and Lucy will have a pleasant journey to-morrow. We shall see you both again some time, I suppose.”
He went out with the cold words upon his lips. He went out with the conviction, that Lucy was to marry Tom Palmer, irrevocably seated on his heart. And Travice Arkell thought the world was a miserable world, no longer worth living in.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE TABLES TURNED.
Mildred had to go back for a time to Lady Dewsbury’s. That lady’s house and effects now lapsed to Sir Edward; but Sir Edward was abroad with his wife and children, and he begged Miss Arkell to remain in it, its mistress, until they could return. This was convenient for Mildred’s plans. It afforded a change of scene for Lucy; and it gave the opportunity and time for the house in Westerbury to be renovated; in which she intended now to take up her abode. The house was Mildred’s now: it came to her on the death of her brother, their father having so settled it; but for this settlement, poor Peter had disposed of it in his necessities long ago.
Charlotte Arkell married, and departed with her husband, Captain Anderson, for India, taking Sophy with her. The paying over her marriage portion of a thousand pounds — a very poor portion beside what she once might have expected — further crippled the resources of Mr. Arkell; and things seemed to be coming to a crisis.
And Travice? Travice succumbed. Hardly caring what became of him, he allowed himself to be baited — badgered — by his mother into offering himself to one of the “great brazen milkmaids.” From the hour of Lucy’s departure from the city, she let him have no peace, no rest.
One day — and it was the last feather in the scale, the little balance necessary to weigh it down — Mr. Arkell summoned his son to a private interview. It was only what Travice had been expecting.
“Travice, what is your objection to Miss Fauntleroy?”
“I can’t bear the sight of her,” returned Travice, curling his lips contemptuously. “Can you, sir?”
Mr. Arkell smiled. “There are some who would call her a fine woman, Travice: she is one.”
“A fine vulgar woman,” corrected Travice, with a marked stress upon the word. “I always had an instinctive dread of vulgar people myself. I certainly never could have believed I should voluntarily ally myself with one.”
“Never marry for looks, my boy,” said Mr. Arkell in an eager whisper. “Some, who have done so before you, have awoke to find they had made a cruel mistake.”
“Most likely, sir, if they married for looks alone.”
Mr. Arkell glanced keenly at his son. “Travice, have I your full confidence? I wish you would give it me.”
“In what way?” inquired Travice. “Why do you ask that?”
“Am I right in suspecting that you have cherished a different attachment?”
The tell-tale blood dyed Travice Arkell’s brow. Mr. Arkell little needed other answer.
“My boy, let there be no secrets between us. You know that your welfare and happiness — your happiness, Travice — lie nearest to my heart. Have you learnt to love Lucy Arkell?”
“Yes,” said Travice; and there was a whole world of pain in the simple answer.
“I thought so. I thought I saw the signs of it a long while ago; but, Travice, it would never do.”
“You would object to her?”
“Object to her! — to Lucy! — to Peter’s child! No. She is one of the sweetest girls living; I am not sure but I love her more than I do my own: and I wish she could be my real daughter and your wife. But it cannot be, Travice. There are impediments in the way, on her side and on yours; and your own sense must tell you this as well as I can.”
He could not gainsay it. The impediments were all too present to Travice every hour of his life.
“You cannot take a portionless wife. Lucy has nothing now, or in prospect, beyond any little trifle that may come to her hereafter at Mildred’s death; but I don’t suppose Mildred can have saved much. It is said, too, that Lucy is likely to marry Tom Palmer.”
“I know she is,” bitterly acquiesced Travice.
“Lucy, then, for both these reasons, is out of the question. Have you not realized to your own mind the fact that she is?”
“Oh yes.”
“Then, Travice, the matter resolves itself into a very small compass. It stands alone; it has no extraneous drawbacks; it can rest upon its own merits or demerits. Will you, or will you not, marry Miss Fauntleroy?”
Travice remained silent.
“It will be well for me that you should, for the temporary use of money that would then be yours would save us, as you know, from a ruinous loss; but, Travice, I would not, for the wealth of worlds, put that consideration against your happiness; but there is another consideration that I cannot put away from me, and that is, that the marriage will make you independent. For your sake, I should like to see you marry Miss Fauntleroy.”
“She — —”
“Wait one moment while I tell you why I speak. I
do not think you are doing quite the right thing by Miss Fauntleroy, in thus, as it were, trifling with her. She expects you to propose to her, and you are keeping her in suspense unwarrantably long. You should either make her an offer, or let it be unmistakably known that there exists no such intention on your part. It would be a good thing in all ways, if you can only make up your mind to it; but do as you please: I do not urge you either way.”
“I may as well do it,” muttered Travice to himself. “She has chosen another, and it little matters what becomes of me: look which way I will, there’s nothing but darkness. As well go through life with Bab Fauntleroy at my side, like an incubus, as go through it without her.”
And Travice Arkell — as if he feared his resolution might desert him — went out forthwith and offered himself to Miss Fauntleroy. Never, surely, did any similar proposal betray so much hauteur, so much indifference, so little courtesy in the offering. Barbara happened to be alone; she was sitting in a white muslin dress, looking as big as a house, and waiting in state for any visitors who might call. He spoke out immediately. She probably knew, he said, that he was a sort of bankrupt in self, purse, and heart; little worth the acceptance of any one; but if she would like to take him, such as he was, he would try and do his duty by her.
The offer was really couched in those terms; and he did not take shame to himself as he spoke them. Travice Arkell could not be a hypocrite: he knew that the girl was aware of the state of things and of his indifference; he believed she saw through his love for Lucy; and he hated her with a sort of resentful hatred for having fixed her liking and her hopes upon him. He had been an indulged son all his life — a sort of fortune’s pet — and the turn that things had taken was an awful blow.
“Will she say she’ll have me?” he thought as he concluded. “I don’t believe any other woman would.” But Barbara Fauntleroy did say she would have him; and she put out her hand to him in her hearty good-natured way, and told him she thought they should get on very well together when once they had “shaken down.” Travice touched the hand; he shook it in a gingerly manner, and then dropped it; but he never kissed her — he never said a warmer word than “thank you.” Perhaps Miss Fauntleroy did not look for it: sentiment is little understood by these matter-of-fact, unrefined natures, with their loud voices, and their demonstrative temperaments. Travice would have to kiss her some time, he supposed; but he was content to put off the evil until that time came.
“How odd that you should have come and made me an offer this morning, Mr. Travice,” she said, with a laugh. “Lizzie has just had one.”
“Has she?” languidly returned Travice. His mind was so absorbed in the thought just mentioned, that he had no idea whether the lady meant an offer or a kiss that her sister had received, and he did not trouble himself to ask. It was quite the same to Travice Arkell.
“It’s from Ben Carr,” proceeded Miss Fauntleroy. “He came over here this morning, bringing a great big nosegay from their hot-house, and he made Liz an offer. Liz was taken all of a heap; and I think, but for me, she’d have said yes then.”
“I dare say she would,” returned Travice, and then wished the words recalled. They and their haughty tone had certainly been prompted by the remembrance of the “yes,” just said to him by another.
“Liz came flying into the next room to me, asking what she should do; he was very pressing, she said, and wanted her answer then. I’m certain she’d have given it, Mr. Travice, if I had not been there to stop her. I went into the room with her to Ben Carr, and I said, ‘Mr. Ben, Liz won’t say anything decided now, but she’ll think of it for a few days; if you’ll look in on Saturday, she’ll give you her answer, yes or no.’ Ben Carr stared at me angry enough; but Liz backed up what I had said, and he had to take it.”
“Does she mean to accept him?” asked Travice.
“Well, she’s on the waver. She does not dislike him, and she does not particularly like him. He’s too old for her; he’s twenty years older than Liz; but it’s her first offer, and young women are apt to think when they get that, they had better accept it, lest they may never get another.”
“Your sister need not fear that. Her money will get her offers, if nothing else does.”
He spoke in the impulse of the moment; but it occurred to him instantly that it was not generous to say it.
“Perhaps so,” said Miss Fauntleroy. “But Lizzie and I have always dreaded that. We would like to be married for ourselves, not for our money. Sometimes we say in joke to one another we wish we could bury it, or could have passed ourselves off to the world as being poor until the day after we were married, and then surprised our husbands by the news, and made them a present of the money.”
She spoke the truth; Travice knew she did. Whatever were the failings of the Miss Fauntleroys, genuine good nature was with both a pre-eminent virtue.
“Ben Carr is not the choice I should make,” remarked Travice. “Of course, it’s no business of mine.”
“Nor I. I don’t much like Ben Carr. Liz thinks him handsome. Well, she has got till Saturday to make up her mind — thanks to me.”
Travice rose, and gingerly touched the hand again. The thought struck him again that he ought to kiss her; that he ought to put an engagement-ring on one of those fair and substantial fingers; ought to do many other things. But he went out, and did none of them.
“I’ll not deceive her,” he said to himself, as he walked down the street, more intensely wretched than he had ever in his life felt. “I’ll not play the hypocrite; I couldn’t do it if it were to save myself from hanging. She shall see my feeling for her exactly as it is, and then she’ll not reproach me afterwards with coldness. It is impossible that I can ever like her; it seems to me now impossible that I can ever endure her; but if she does marry me in the face of such evident feelings, I’ll do my best for her. Duty she shall have, but there’ll be no love.”
A very satisfactory state in prospective! Others, however, besides Travice Arkell, have married to enter on the same.
Some few months insensibly passed away in London for Miss Arkell and Lucy, and when they returned to Westerbury the earth was glowing with the tints of autumn. They did not return alone. Mrs. Dundyke, a real widow now beyond dispute, came with them. Poor David Dundyke, never quite himself after his return, never again indulging in the yearning for the civic chair, which had made the day-dream of his industrious life, had died calmly and peacefully, attended to the last by those loving hands that would fain have kept him, shattered though he was. He was lying now in Nunhead Cemetery, from whence he would certainly never be resuscitated as he had been from his supposed grave in Switzerland. Mrs. Dundyke grieved after him still, and Mildred pressed her to go back with them to Westerbury, for a little change. She consented gladly.
But Mrs. Dundyke did not go down in the humble fashion that she had once gone as Betsey Travice. She sent on her carriage and her two men servants. That there was a little natural feeling of retaliation in this, cannot be denied. Charlotte had despised her all her life; but she should at least no longer despise her on the score of poverty. “I shall do it,” she said to Mildred, “and the carriage will be useful to us. It can be kept at an inn, with the horses and coachman; and John will be useful in helping your two maids.”
It was late when they arrived at Westerbury; Miss Arkell did not number herself amid those who like to start upon a journey at daybreak; and Lucy looked twice to see whether the old house was really her home: it was so entirely renovated inside and out, as to create the doubt. Miss Arkell had given her private orders, saying nothing to Lucy, and the change was great. Various embellishments had been added; every part of it put into ornamental repair; a great deal of the furniture had been replaced by new; and, for its size, it was now one of the most charming residences in Westerbury.
“Do you like the change, Lucy?” asked Miss Arkell, when they had gone through the house together, with Mrs. Dundyke.
“Of course I do, Aunt Mildred;” but the
answer was given in a somewhat apathetic tone, as Lucy mostly spoke now. “It must have cost a great deal.”
“Well, is it not the better for it? I may not remain in Westerbury for good, and I could let my house to greater advantage now than I could have done before.”
“That’s true,” listlessly answered Lucy.
“Lucy,” suddenly exclaimed Miss Arkell, “what is it that makes you appear so dispirited? I could account for it after your father’s death; it was only reasonable then; but it seems to me quite unreasonable that it should continue. I begin to think it must be your natural manner.”
Lucy’s heart gave a bound of something like terror at the question. “I was always quiet, aunt,” she said.
None had looked on with more wonder at the expense being lavished on the house than Mrs. Arkell. “So absurd!” she exclaimed, loftily. “But Mildred Arkell was always pretentious, for a lady’s maid.”
William Arkell called to see Mildred the morning after her arrival. Very much surprised indeed, was he, to see also Mrs. Dundyke. He carried the news home to his wife.
“Betsey down here!” she answered. “Why, what has brought her?”
“She told me she had accompanied Mildred for a little change. She is coming in to see you by-and-by, Charlotte.”
“I hope she’s not coming begging!” tartly responded Mrs. Arkell.
“Begging?”
“Yes; begging. It’s a question whether she’s left with enough to live upon. I’m sure we have none to spare, for her or for anybody else; and so I shall plainly tell her if she attempts to ask.”
That they had none to spare, was an indisputable fact. Mrs. Arkell had done all in her power to hurry the marriage on with Miss Fauntleroy, but Travice held back unpardonably. His cheek grew bright with hectic, his whole time was spent in what his mother called “moping;” and he entered but upon rare occasions the house of his bride elect. Mr. Arkell would not urge him by a single word; but, in the delay, he had had to sacrifice another remnant of his property.
The first use that Mrs. Dundyke put her carriage to in Westerbury, was that of going in it to William Arkell’s. Mildred declined to accompany her, and Lucy was obliged to go with her; Lucy, who would have given the whole world not to go. But she could not say so.