by Ellen Wood
Then began the fun. The polite attentions to Mr. Lake, as curate, had been remarkable; to Mr. Lake, as Rector, they were unique. Mrs. Topcroft’s door was besieged with notes and parcels. The notes contained invitations to teas and dinners, the parcels small offerings to himself. A person about to set up housekeeping naturally wants all kinds of articles; and the ladies of St. Matthew’s were eager to supply contributions. Slippers fell to a discount, purses and silk watch-guards ditto. More useful things replaced them. Ornamental baskets for the mantelpiece, little match-boxes done in various devices, card-racks hastily painted, serviette rings composed of coloured beads, pincushions and scent-mats for the dressing-table, with lots more things that I can’t remember. These were all got up on the spur of the moment; more elaborate presents, that might take weeks to complete, were put in hand. In vain Mr. Lake entreated them not to do these things; not to send anything; not to trouble themselves about him, assuring them it made him most uncomfortable; that he preferred not to receive presents of any kind: and he said it so emphatically, they might see he was in earnest. All the same. He might as well have talked to the moon. The ladies laughed, and worked on.
“Mrs. Topcroft, I think you had better refuse to take the parcels in,” he said to her one day, when a huge packet had arrived, which proved to be a market-basket, sent conjointly by three old maiden sisters. “I don’t wish to be rude, or do anything that would hurt kind people’s feelings: but, upon my word, I should like to send all the things back again with thanks.”
“They would put them into the empty Rectory if I did not take them in,” returned Mrs. Topcroft. “The only way to stop it is to talk to the ladies yourself. Senseless girls!”
Mr. Lake did talk — as well, and as impressively as he knew how. It made not the slightest impression; and the small presents flocked in as before. Mrs. Jonas did not brew a “blessed great jug of camomile-tea,” as did one of the admirers of Mr. Weller, the elder; but she did brew some “ginger-cordial,” from a valued receipt of her late husband, the colonel, and sent it, corked up in two ornamental bottles, with her best regards. The other widow, Mrs. Herriker, was embroidering a magnificent table-cover, working against time.
We had the felicity of tasting the ginger-cordial. Mrs. Jonas gave a small “at home,” and brought out a bottle of it as we were leaving. Cattledon sniffed at her liqueur-glass surreptitiously before drinking it.
“The chief ingredient in that stuff is rum,” she avowed to me as we walked home, stretching up her neck in displeasure. “Pine-apple rum! My nose could not be mistaken.”
“The cordial was very good,” I answered. “Rum’s not a bad thing, Miss Cattledon.”
“Not at all bad, Johnny,” laughed Miss Deveen. “An old sailor-uncle of mine, who had been round the world and back again more times than he could count, looked upon it as the panacea for all earthly ills.”
“Any way, before I would lay myself out to catch Mr. Lake, as that widow woman does, and as some others are doing, I would hide my head for ever,” retorted Cattledon. And, to give her her due, though she did look upon the parson as safe to fall to her own lot, she did not fish for him. No presents, large or small, went out from her hands.
That week we dined in Upper Brook Street. Miss Deveen, Mr. Brandon, the new Rector, and I; and two strange ladies whom we did not previously know. Mr. Brandon took Anne in to dinner; she put me on her left hand at table, and told me she and Sir Robert hoped I should often go to see them at Bellwood.
“My husband has taken such a fancy to you, Johnny,” she whispered. “He does rather take likes and dislikes to people — just as I know you do. He says he took a great liking to me the first time he ever spoke to me. Do you remember it, Johnny? — you were present. We were kneeling in the parlour at Maythorn Bank. You were deep in that child’s book of mine, ‘Les contes de ma bonne,’ and I had those cuttings of plants, which I had brought from France, spread out on newspapers on the carpet, when Sir Robert came in at the glass-doors. That was the first time he spoke to me; but he had seen me at Timberdale Church the previous day. Papa and I and you walked over there: and a very hot day it was, I remember.”
“That Sir Robert should take a liking to you, Anne, was only a matter of course; other people have done the same,” I said, calling her “Anne” unconsciously, my thoughts back in the past. “But I don’t understand why he should take a liking to me.”
“Don’t you?” she returned. “I can tell you that he has taken it — a wonderful liking. Why, Johnny, if my little baby-girl were twenty years older, you would only need to ask and have her. I’m not sure but he’d offer her to you without asking.”
We both laughed so, she and I, that Sir Robert looked down the table, inquiring what our mirth was. Anne answered that she would not forget to tell him later.
“So mind, Johnny, that you come to Bellwood as often as you please whenever you are staying at Crabb Cot. Robert and I would both like it.”
And perhaps I may as well mention here that, although the business which had brought Mr. Brandon to London was concluded, he did not go home. When that event would take place, or how long it would be, appeared to be hidden in the archives of the future. For a certain matter had arisen to detain him.
Mr. Brandon had a nephew in town, a young medical student, of whom you once heard him say that he was “going to the bad.” By what we learnt now, the young fellow appeared to have gone to it; and Mr. Brandon’s prolonged stay was connected with this.
“I shall see you into a train at Paddington, Johnny,” he said to me, “and you must make your way home alone. For all I know, I may be kept here for weeks.”
But Miss Deveen would not hear of this. “Mr. Brandon remains on for his own business, Johnny, and you shall remain for my pleasure,” she said to me in her warm manner. “I had meant to ask Mr. Brandon to leave you behind him.”
And that is how I was enabled to see the play played out between the ladies and the new Rector. I did wonder which of them would win the prize; I would not have betted upon Cattledon. It also caused me to see something of another play that was being played in London just then; not a comedy but a tragedy. A fatal tragedy, which I may tell of sometime.
All unexpectedly a most distressing rumour set in; and though none knew whence it arose, a conviction of its truth took the parish by storm. Mr. Lake was about to be married! Distressing it was, and no mistake: for each individual lady had good cause to know that she was not the chosen bride, being unpleasantly conscious that Mr. Lake had not asked her to be.
Green-eyed jealousy seized upon the community. They were ready to rend one another’s veils. The young ladies vowed it must be one or other of those two designing widows; Mrs. Jonas and Mrs. Herriker, on their parts, decided it was one of those minxes of girls. What with lady-like innuendos pitched at each other personally, and sharp hints levelled apparently at the air, all of which provoked retort, the true state of the case disclosed itself pretty clearly to the public — that neither widows nor maidens were being thought of by Mr. Lake.
And yet — that the parson had marriage in view seemed to be certain; the way in which he was furnishing his house proved it. No end of things were going into it — at least, if vigilant eyes might be believed — that could be of no use to a bachelor-parson. There must be a lady in the case — and Mr. Lake had not a sister.
With this apparent proof of what was in the wind, and with the conviction that not one of themselves had been solicited to share his hearth and home — as the widow Herriker poetically put it — the world was at a nonplus; though polite hostilities were not much less freely exchanged. Suddenly the general ill-feeling ceased. One and all metaphorically shook hands and made common cause together. A frightful conviction had set in — it must be Emma Topcroft.
Miss Cattledon was the first to scent the fox. Cattledon herself. She — but I had better tell it in order.
It was Monday morning, and we were at breakfast: Cattledon pouring out the coffee, and taking anxi
ous glances upwards through the open window between whiles. What could be seen of the sky was blue enough, but clouds, some dark, some light, were passing rapidly over it.
“Are you fearing it will rain, Miss Cattledon?”
“I am, Johnny Ludlow. I thought,” she added, turning to Miss Deveen, “of going after that chair this morning, if you have no objection, and do not want me.”
“Go by all means,” returned Miss Deveen. “It is time the chair went, Jemima, if it is to go at all. Take Johnny with you: he would like the expedition. As for myself, I have letters to write that will occupy me the whole morning.”
Miss Cattledon wished to buy an easy-chair that would be comfortable for an aged invalid: her sick aunt at Chelmsford. But, as Miss Cattledon’s purse was not as large as her merits, she meant to get a second-hand chair: which are often just as good as new. Dr. Galliard, who knew all about invalid-chairs and everything else, advised her to go to a certain shop in Oxford Street, where they sold most kinds of furniture, old and new. So we agreed to go this same morning. Cattledon, however, would not miss the morning service; trust her for that.
“It might do you no harm to attend for once, Johnny Ludlow.”
Thus admonished, I went over with her, and reaped the benefit of the young deacon’s ministry. Mr. Lake did not make his appearance at all: quite an unusual omission. I don’t think it pleased Cattledon.
“We had better start at once, Johnny Ludlow,” she said to me as we came out; and her tone might have turned the very sweetest of cream to curds and whey. “Look at those clouds! I believe it is going to rain.”
So we made our way to an omnibus, then on the point of starting, got in, and were set down at the shop in Oxford Street. Cattledon described what she wanted; and the young man invited us to walk upstairs.
Dodging our way dexterously through the things that crowded the shop, and up the narrow staircase, we reached a room that seemed, at first sight, big enough to hold half the furniture in London.
“This way, ma’am,” said the young man who had marshalled us up. “Invalid-chairs,” he called out, turning us over to another young man, who came forward — and shot downstairs again himself.
Cattledon picked her way in and out amidst the things, I following. Half-way down the room she stopped to admire a tall, inlaid cabinet, that looked very beautiful.
“I never come to these places without longing to be rich,” she whispered to me with a sigh, as she walked on. “One of the pleasantest interludes in life, Johnny Ludlow, must be to have a good house to furnish and plenty of money to —— Dear me!”
The extreme surprise of the exclamation following the break off, caused me to look round. We were passing a side opening, or wing of the room; a wing that seemed to be filled with bedsteads and bedding. Critically examining one of the largest of these identical bedsteads stood the Reverend William Lake and Emma Topcroft.
So entranced was Cattledon that she never moved hand or foot, simply stood still and gazed. They, absorbed in their business, did not see us. The parson seemed to be trying the strength of the iron, shaking it with his hand; Emma was poking and patting at the mattress.
“Good Heavens!” faintly ejaculated Cattledon; and she looked as if about to faint.
“The washhand-stands are round this way, and the chests of drawers also,” was called out at this juncture from some unknown region, and I knew the voice to be Mrs. Topcroft’s. “You had better come if you have fixed upon the beds. The double stands look extremely convenient.”
Cattledon turned back the way she had come, and stalked along, her head in the air. Straight down the stairs went she, without vouchsafing a word to the wondering attendant.
“But, madam, is there not anything I can show you?” he inquired, arresting her.
“No, young man, not anything. I made a mistake in coming here.”
The young man looked at the other young man down in the shop, and tapped his finger on his forehead suggestively. They thought her crazy.
“Barefaced effrontery!” I heard her ejaculate to herself: and I knew she did not allude to the young men. But never a word to me spoke she.
Peering about, on this side the street and on that, she espied another furniture shop, and went into it. Here she found the chair she wanted; paid for it, and gave directions for it to be sent to Chelmsford.
That what we had witnessed could have but one meaning — the speedy marriage of Mr. Lake with Emma Topcroft — Cattledon looked upon as a dead certainty. Had an astrologer who foretells the future come forth to read the story differently, Cattledon would have turned a deaf ear. Mrs. Jonas happened to be sitting with Miss Deveen when we arrived home; and Cattledon, in the fulness of her outraged heart, let out what she had seen. She had felt so sure of Mr. Lake!
Naturally, as Mrs. Jonas agreed, it could have but one meaning. She took it up accordingly, and hastened forth to tell it. Ere the sun went down, it was known from one end of the parish to the other that Emma Topcroft was to be Mrs. Lake.
“A crafty, wicked hussy!” cried a chorus of tongues. “She, with that other woman, her mother, to teach her, has cast her spells over the poor weak man, and he has been unable to escape!”
Of course it did seem like it. It continued to seem like it as the week went on. Never a day dawned but the parson and Emma went to town by an omnibus, looking at things in this mart, buying in that. It became known that they had chosen the carpets: Brussels for the sitting-rooms, colour green; drugget for the bed-chambers, Turkey pattern: Mrs. Jonas fished it out. How that impudent girl could have the face to go with him upon such errands, the parish could not understand. It’s true Mrs. Topcroft always made one of the party, but what of that?
Could anything be done? Any means devised to arrest the heresy and save him from his dreadful fate? Sitting nose and knees together at one another’s houses, their cherished work all thrown aside, the ladies congregated daily to debate the question. They did not quite see their way clear to warning the parson that Emma was neither more nor less than a Mephistopheles in petticoats. They would have assured herself of the fact with the greatest pleasure had that been of any use. How sly he was, too — quite unworthy of his cloth! While making believe to be a poor man, he must have been putting by a nice nest-egg; else how could he buy all that furniture?
Soon another phase of the affair set in: one that puzzled them exceedingly. It came about through an ebullition of temper.
Mrs. Jonas had occasion to call upon the Rector one afternoon, concerning some trouble that turned up in the parish: she being a district visitor and presiding at the mothers’ meetings. Mr. Lake was not at home. Emma sat in the parlour alone stitching away at new table-cloths and sheets.
“He and mamma went out together after dinner,” said Emma, leaving her work to hand a chair to Mrs. Jonas. “I should not wonder if they are gone to the house. The carpets were to be laid down to-day.”
She looked full at Mrs. Jonas as she said it, never blushing, never faltering. What with the bold avowal, what with the sight of the sheets and the table-linen, and what with the wretched condition of affairs, the disappointment at heart, the discomfort altogether, Mrs. Jonas lost her temper.
“How dare you stand there with a bold face and acknowledge such a thing to me, you unmaidenly girl?” cried the widow, her anger bubbling over as she dashed away the offered chair. “The mischief you are doing poor Mr. Lake is enough, without boasting of it.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Emma, opening her eyes wide, and feeling more inclined to laugh than to cry, for her mood was ever sunny, “what am I doing to him?”
How Mrs. Jonas spoke out all that was in her mind, she could never afterwards recall. Emma Topcroft, gazing and listening, could not remain ignorant of her supposed fault now; and she burst into a fit of laughter. Mrs. Jonas longed to box her ears. She regarded it as the very incarnation of impudence.
“Marry me! Me! Mr. Lake! My goodness! — what can have put such a thing into all your heads?�
�� cried Emma, in a rapture of mirth. “Why, he is forty-five if he’s a day! He wouldn’t think of me: he couldn’t. He came here when I was a little child: he does not look upon me as much else yet. Well, I never!”
And the words came out in so impromptu a fashion, the surprise was so honestly genuine, that Mrs. Jonas saw there must be a mistake somewhere. She took the rejected chair then, her fears relieved, her tones softened, and began casting matters about in her mind; still not seeing any way out of them.
“Is it your mother he is going to marry?” cried she, the lame solution presenting itself to her thoughts, and speaking it out on the spur of the moment. It was Emma’s turn to be vexed now.
“Oh, Mrs. Jonas, how can you!” she cried with spirit. “My poor old mother!” And somehow Mrs. Jonas felt humiliated, and bit her lips in vexation at having spoken at all.
“He evidently is going to be married,” she urged presently, returning to the charge.
“He is not going to marry me,” said Emma, threading her needle. “Or to marry my mother either. I can say no more than that.”
“You have been going to London with him to choose some furniture: bedsteads, and carpets and things,” contended Mrs. Jonas.
“Mamma has gone with him to choose it all: Mr. Lake would have been finely taken in, with his inexperience. As to me, I wanted to go too, and they let me. They said it would be as well that young eyes should see as well as theirs, especially the colours of the carpets and the patterns of the crockery-ware.”
“What a misapprehension it has been!” gasped Mrs. Jonas.
“Quite so — if you mean about me,” agreed Emma. “I like Mr. Lake very much; I respect him above every one in the world; but for anything else — such a notion never entered my head: and I am sure it would not enter his.”