by Ellen Wood
“Who’s that coming out?” he asked, crossly, alluding to some figure descending the steps of his house — for his sight was not what it used to be.
“It is Mr. Hamlyn,” said Hubert.
“Oh — Hamlyn! He seems to be always coming in. I don’t like that man somehow, Hubert. Wonder what he’s lagging in the neighbourhood for?”
Hubert Monk had an idea that he could have told. But he did not want to draw down an explosion on his own head. Mr. Hamlyn came to meet them with friendly smiles and hand-shakes. Hubert liked him; liked him very much.
Not only had Mr. Hamlyn prolonged his stay beyond the “day or two” he had originally come for, but he evinced no intention of leaving. When Mr. Peveril and his wife departed for the south, he made a proposal to remain at Peacock’s Range for a time as their tenant. And when the astonished couple asked his reasons, he answered that he should like to get a few runs with the hounds.
II
The November days glided by. The end of the month was approaching, and still Philip Hamlyn stayed on, and was a very frequent visitor at Leet Hall. Little doubt that Miss Monk was his attraction, and the parish began to say so without reticence.
The parish was right. One fine, frosty morning Mr. Hamlyn sought an interview with Captain Monk and laid before him his proposals for Eliza.
One might have thought by the tempestuous words showered down upon him in answer that he had proposed to smother her. Reproaches, hot and fast, were poured forth upon the suitor’s unlucky head.
“Why, you are a stranger!” stormed the Captain; “you have not known her a month! How dare you? It’s not commonly decent.”
Mr. Hamlyn quietly answered that he had known her long enough to love her, and went on to say that he came of a good family, had plenty of money, and could make a liberal settlement upon her.
“That you never will,” said Captain Monk. “I should not like you for my son-in-law,” he continued candidly, calming down from his burst of passion to the bounds of reason. “But there can be no question of it in any way. Eliza is to become Lady Rivers.”
Mr. Hamlyn opened his eyes in astonishment. “Lady Rivers!” he echoed. “Do you speak of Sir Thomas Rivers? — that old man!”
“No, I do not, sir. Sir Thomas Rivers has one foot in the grave. I speak of his eldest son. He wants her, and he shall have her.”
“Pardon me, Captain, I — I do not think Miss Monk can know anything of this. I am sure she did not last night. I come to you with her full consent and approbation.”
“I care nothing about that. My daughter is aware that any attempt to oppose her will to mine would be utterly futile. Young Tom Rivers has written to me to ask for her; I have accepted him, and I choose that she shall accept him. She’ll like it herself, too; it will be a good match.”
“Young Tom Rivers is next door to a simpleton: he is not half-baked,” retorted Mr. Hamlyn, his own temper getting up: “if I may judge by what I’ve seen of him in the field.”
“Tom Rivers is a favourite everywhere, let me tell you, sir. Eliza would not refuse him for you.”
“Perhaps, Captain Monk, you will converse with her upon this point?”
“I intend to give her my orders — if that’s what you mean,” returned the Captain. “And now, sir, I think our discussion may terminate.”
Mr. Hamlyn saw no use in prolonging it for the present. Captain Monk bowed him out of the house and called his daughter into the room.
“Eliza,” he began, scorning to beat about the bush, “I have received an offer of marriage for you.”
Miss Eliza blushed a little, not much: few things could make her do that now. Once our blushes have been wasted, as hers were on Robert Grame, their vivid freshness has faded for ever and aye. “The song has left the bird.”
“And I have accepted it,” continued Captain Monk. “He would like the wedding to be early in the year, so you may get your rattle-traps in order for it. Tell your aunt I will give her a blank cheque for the cost, and she may fill it in.”
“Thank you, papa.”
“There’s the letter; you can read it” — pushing one across the table to her. “It came by special messenger last night, and I have sent my answer this morning.”
Eliza Monk glanced at the contents, which were written on rose-coloured paper. For a moment she looked puzzled.
“Why, papa, this is from Tom Rivers! You cannot suppose I would marry him! A silly boy, younger than I am! Tom Rivers is the greatest goose I know.”
“How dare you say so, Eliza?”
“Well, he is. Look at his note! Pink paper and a fancy edge!”
“Stuff! Rivers is young and inexperienced, but he’ll grow older — he is a very nice young fellow, and a capital fox-hunter. You’d be master and mistress too — and that would suit your book, I take it. I want to have you settled near me, Eliza — you are all I have left, or soon will be.”
“But, papa — —”
Captain Monk raised his hand for silence.
“You sent that man Hamlyn to me with a proposal for you. Eliza; you know that would not do. Hamlyn’s property lies in the West Indies, his home too, for all I know. He attempted to tell me that he would not take you out there against my consent; but I know better, and what such ante-nuptial promises are worth. It might end in your living there.”
“No, no.”
“What do you say ‘no, no’ for, like a parrot? Circumstances might compel you. I do not like the man, besides.”
“But why, papa?”
“I don’t know; I have never liked him from the first. There! that’s enough. You must be my Lady Rivers. Poor old Tom is on his last legs.”
“Papa, I never will be.”
“Listen, Eliza. I had one trouble with Katherine; I will not have another with you. She defied me; she left my home rebelliously to enter upon one of her own setting-up: what came of it? Did luck attend her? Do you be more wise.”
“Father,” she said, moving a step forward with head uplifted; and the resolute, haughty look which rendered their faces so much alike was very conspicuous on hers, “do not let us oppose each other. Perhaps we can each give way a little? I have promised to be the wife of Philip Hamlyn, and that promise I will fulfil. You wish me to live near you: well, he can take a place in this neighbourhood and settle down in it; and on my part, I will promise you not to leave this country. He may have to go from time to time to the West Indies; I will remain at home.”
Captain Monk looked steadily at her before he answered. He marked the stern, uncompromising expression, the strong will in the dark eyes and in every feature, which no power, not even his, might unbend. He thought of his elder daughter, now lying in her grave; he thought of his son, so soon to be lying beside her; he did not care to be bereft of all his children, and for once in his hard life he attempted to conciliate.
“Hark to me, Eliza. Give up Hamlyn — I have said I don’t like the man; give up Tom Rivers also, as you will. Remain at home with me until a better suitor shall present himself, and Leet Hall and its broad lands shall be yours.”
She looked up in surprise. Leet Hall had always hitherto gone in the male line; and, failing Hubert, it would be, or ought to be, Harry Carradyne’s. Though she knew not that any steps had already been taken in that direction.
“Leet Hall?” she exclaimed.
“Leet Hall and its broad lands,” repeated the Captain impatiently. “Give up Mr. Hamlyn and it shall all be yours.”
She remained for some moments in deep thought, her head bent, revolving the offer. She was fond of pomp and power, as her father had ever been, and the temptation to rule as sole domineering mistress in her girlhood’s home was great. But at that very instant the tall fine form of Philip Hamlyn passed across a pathway in the distance, and she turned from the temptation for ever. What little capability of loving had been left to her after the advent of Robert Grame was given to Mr. Hamlyn.
“I cannot give him up,” she said in low tones.
“What moonshine, Eliza! You are not a love-sick girl now.”
The colour dyed her face painfully. Did her father suspect aught of the past; of where her love had been given — and rejected? The suspicion only added fuel to the fire.
“I cannot give up Mr. Hamlyn,” she reiterated.
“Then you will never inherit Leet Hall. No, nor aught else of mine.”
“As you please, sir, about that.”
“You set me at defiance, then!”
“I don’t wish to do so, father; but I shall marry Mr. Hamlyn.”
“At defiance,” repeated the Captain, as she moved to escape from his presence; “Katherine secretly, you openly. Better that I had never had children. Look here, Eliza: let this matter remain in abeyance for six or twelve months, things resting as they are. By that time you may have come to your senses; or I (yes, I see you are ready to retort it) to mine. If not — well, we shall only then be where we are.”
“And that we should be,” returned Eliza, doggedly. “Time will never change either of us.”
“But events may. Let it be so, child. Stay where you are for the present, in your maiden home.”
She shook her head in denial; not a line of her proud face giving way, nor a curve of her decisive lips: and Captain Monk knew that he had pleaded in vain. She would neither give up her marriage nor prolong the period for its celebration.
What could be the secret of her obstinacy? Chiefly the impossibility of tolerating opposition to her own indomitable will. It was her father’s will over again; his might be a very little softening with years and trouble; not much. Had she been in desperate love with Hamlyn one could have understood it, but she was not; at most it was but a passing fancy. What says the poet? I daresay you all know the lines, and I know I have quoted them times and again, they are so true:
“Few hearts have never loved, but fewer still Have felt a second passion. None a third. The first was living fire; the next a thrill; The weary heart can never more be stirred: Rely on it the song has left the bird.”
Very, very true. Her passion for Robert Grame had been as living fire in its wild intensity; it was but the shadow of a thrill that warmed her heart for Philip Hamlyn. Possibly she mistook it in a degree; thought more of it than it was. The feeling of gratification which arises from flattered vanity deceives a woman’s heart sometimes: and Mr. Hamlyn did not conceal his rapturous admiration of her.
She held to her defiant course, and her father held to his. He did not continue to say she should not marry; he had no power for that — and perhaps he did not want her to make a moonlight escapade of it, as Katherine had made. So the preparation for the wedding went on, Eliza herself paying for the rattletraps, as they had been called; Captain Monk avowed that he “washed his hands of it,” and then held his peace.
Whether Mr. Hamlyn and his intended bride considered it best to get the wedding over and done with, lest adverse fate, set afoot by the Captain, should after all circumvent them, it is impossible to say, but the day fixed was a speedy one. And if Captain Monk had deemed it “not decent” in Mr. Hamlyn to propose for a young lady after only a month’s knowledge, what did he think of this? They were to be married on the last day of the year.
Was it fixed upon in defiant mockery? — for, as the reader knows, it had proved an ominous day more than once in the Monk family. But no, defiance had no hand in that, simply adverse fate. The day originally fixed by the happy couple was Christmas Eve: but Mr. Hamlyn, who had to go to London about that time on business connected with his property, found it impossible to get back for the day, or for some days after it. He wrote to Eliza, asking that the day should be put off for a week, if it made no essential difference, and fixed the last day in the year. Eliza wrote word back that she would prefer that day; it gave more time for preparation.
They were to be married in her own church, and by its Vicar. Great marvel existed at the Captain’s permitting this, but he said nothing. Having washed his hands of the affair, he washed them for good: had the bride been one of the laundry-maids in his household he could not have taken less notice. A Miss Wilson was coming from a little distance to be bridesmaid; and the bride and bridegroom would go off from the church door. The question of a breakfast was never mooted: Captain Monk’s equable indifference might not have stood that.
“I shall wish them good luck with all my heart — but I don’t feel altogether sure they’ll have it!” bewailed poor Mrs. Carradyne in private. “Eliza should have agreed to the delay proposed by her father.”
III
Ring, ring, ring, broke forth the chimes on the frosty midday air. Not midnight, you perceive, but midday, for the church clock had just given forth its twelve strokes. Another round of the dial, and the old year would have departed into the womb of the past.
Bowling along the smooth turnpike road which skirted the churchyard on one side came a gig containing a gentleman, a tall, slender, frank-looking young man, with a fair face and the pleasantest blue eyes ever seen. He wore a white top-coat, the fashion then, and was driving rapidly in the direction of Leet Hall; but when the chimes burst forth he pulled up abruptly.
“Why, what in the world — —” he began — and then sat still listening to the sweet strains of “The Bay of Biscay.” The day, though in mid-winter, was bright and beautiful, and the golden sunlight, shining from the dark-blue sky, played on the young man’s golden hair.
“Have they mistaken midday for midnight?” he continued, as the chimes played out their tune and died away on the air. “What’s the meaning of it?”
He, Harry Carradyne, was not the only one to ask this. No human being in and about Church Leet, save Captain Monk and they who executed his orders, knew that he had decreed that the chimes should play that day at midday. Why did he do it? What could his motive be? Surely not that they should, by playing (according to Mrs. Carradyne’s theory), inaugurate ill-luck for Eliza! At the moment they began to play she was coming out of church on Mr. Hamlyn’s arm, having left her maiden name behind her.
A few paces more, for he was driving gently on now, and Harry pulled up again, in surprise, as before, for the front of the church was now in view. Lots of spectators, gentle and simple, stood about, and a handsome chariot, with four post-horses and a great coat-of-arms emblazoned on its panels, waited at the church gate.
“It must be a wedding!” decided Harry.
The next moment the chariot was in motion; was soon about to pass him, the bride and bridegroom within it. A very dark but good-looking man, with an air of command in his face, he, but a stranger to Harry; she, Eliza. She wore a grey silk dress, a white bonnet, with orange blossoms and a veil, which was quite the fashionable wedding attire of the day. Her head was turned, nodding its farewells yet to the crowd, and she did not see her cousin as the chariot swept by.
“Dear me!” he exclaimed, mentally. “I wonder who she has married?”
Staying quietly where he was until the spectators should have dispersed, whose way led them mostly in opposite directions, Harry next saw the clerk come out of the church by the small vestry door, lock it and cross over to the stile: which brought him out close to the gig.
“Why, my heart alive!” he exclaimed. “Is it Captain Carradyne?”
“That’s near enough,” said Harry, who knew the title was accorded him by the rustic natives of Church Leet, as he bent down with his sunny smile to shake the old clerk’s hand. “You are hearty as ever, I see, John. And so you have had a wedding here?”
“Ay, sir, there have been one in the church. I was not in my place, though. The Captain, he ordered me to let the church go for once, and to be ready up aloft in the belfry to set the chimes going at midday. As chance had it, the party came out just at the same time; Miss Eliza was a bit late in coming, ye see; so it may be said the chimes rang ’em out. I guess the sound astonished the people above a bit, for nobody knew they were going to play.”
“But how was it all, Cale? Why should the Captain order them to
chime at midday?”
John Cale shook his head. “I can’t tell ye that rightly, Mr. Harry; the Captain, as ye know, sir, never says why he does this or why he does t’other. Young William Threpp, who had to be up there with me, thought he must have ordered ’em to play in mockery — for he hates the marriage like poison.”
“Who is the bridegroom?”
“It’s a Mr. Hamlyn, sir. A gentleman who is pretty nigh as haughty as the Captain himself; but a pleasant-spoken, kindly man, as far as I’ve seen: and a rich one, too.”
“Why did Captain Monk object to him?”
“It’s thought ’twas because he was a stranger to the place and has lived over in the Indies; and he wanted Miss Eliza, so it’s said, to have young Tom Rivers. That’s about it, I b’lieve, Mr. Harry.”
Harry Carradyne drove away thoughtfully. At the foot of the slight ascent leading to Leet Hall, one of the grooms happened to be standing. Harry handed over to him the horse and gig, and went forward on foot.
“Bertie!” he called out. For he had seen Hubert before him, walking at a snail’s pace: the very slightest hill tried him now. The only one left of the wedding-party, for the bridesmaid drove off from the church door. Hubert turned at the call.
“Harry! Why, Harry!”
Hand locked in hand, they sat down on a bench beside the path; face gazing into face. There had always been a likeness between them: in the bright-coloured, waving hair, the blue eyes and the well-favoured features. But Harry’s face was redolent of youth and health; in the other’s might be read approaching death.
“You are very thin, Bertie; thinner even than I expected to see you,” broke from the traveller involuntarily.
“You are looking well, at any rate,” was Hubert’s answer. “And I am so glad you are come: I thought you might have been here a month ago.”
“The voyage was unreasonably long; we had contrary winds almost from port to port. I got on to Worcester yesterday, slept there, and hired a horse and gig to bring me over this morning. What about Eliza’s wedding, Hubert? I was just in time to see her drive away. Cale, with whom I had a word down yonder, says the master does not like it.”