The law and the lady : a novel

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XXVII. Mr. Dexter at Home ....

Chapter I. The Bride's Mistake

' For after this manner in the old time the holy women afco, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands ; even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord ; whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.'

Concluding the Marriage Service of the Church of England In those well-known words, my Uncle Starkweather shut up hia book, and looked at me across the altar rails with a hearty expression of interest on his broad red face. At the same time my aunt, Mrs. Starkweather, standing by my side, tapped me smartly on the shoulder, and said,

' Valeria, you are married ! '

Where were my thoughts 1 What had become of my attention % I was too bewildered to know. I started and looked at my new husband. He seemed to be almost as much bewildered as I was. The same thought had, as I believe, occurred to us both at the same moment. Was it really possible — in spite of his mother's opposition to our marriage— that we were Man and Wife 1 My Aunt Starkweather Bettled the question by a second tap on my shoulder.

' Take his arm ! ' she whispered in the tone of a woman who had lost all patience with me,

I took his ana.

4 Follow your uncle.'

Holding fast by my husband's arm, I followed rny uncle and the curate who had assisted him at the marriage.

The two clergymen led us into the vestry. The church was in one of the dreary quarters of London, situated between the City and the West End ; the day was dull ; the atmosphere was heavy and damp. We were a melancholy little weddingparty, worthy of the dreary neighbourhood and the dull day. No relatives or friends of my husband's were present; his family, as I have already hinted, disapproved of his marriage. Except my uncle and my aunt, no other relations appeared on my side. I had lost both my parents, and I had but few friends. My dear father's faithful old chrk, Benjamin, attended the wedding to 'give me away,' as the phrase is. He had known me from a child, and, in my forlorn position, he was as good as a father to me.

The last ceremony left to be performed was, as usual, the signing of the marriage-register. In the confusion of the moment (and in the absence of any information to guide me) I committed a mistake— ominous, in my Aunt Starkweather's opinion, of evil to come. I signed my married instead of my maiden name.

'What !' cried my uncle, in his loudest and cheeriest tones, 'you have forgotten your own name already] Well! well! let us hope you will never repent parting with it so readily. Try again, Valeria — try again.'

With trembling fingers I struck the pen through my first effort and wrote my maiden name, very badly indeed, as follows :—

When it came to my husband's turn I noticed, with sui

THE BRIDE'S MISTAKE.

prise, that his hand trembled too, and that he produced a very poor specimen of his customary signature : —

My aunt, on being requested to sign, complied under protest. ' A bad beginning ! ' she said, pointing to my first unfortunate signature with the feather-end of her pen. ' I say with my husband — I hope you may not live to regret it.'

Even then, in the days of my ignorance and my innocence, that curious outbreak of my aunt's superstition produced a certain une; s/ sensation in my mind. It was a consolation to me to feel the reassuring pressure of my husband's hand. It was an indescribable relief to hear my uncle's hearty voice wishing me a happy life at parting. The good man had left his north-country Vicarage (my home since the death of my parents) expressly to read the service at my marriage ; and he and my aunt had arranged to return by the mid-day train. He folded me in his great strong arms, and he gave me a kiss which must certainly have been heard by the idlers waiting for the bride and bridegroom outside the church door.

'I wish you health and happiness, my love, with all my heart. You are old enough to choose for yourself, and — no offence, Mr. Woodville, you and I a?e new friends — and I pray God, Valeria, it may turn out that you have chosen well. Our house will be dreary enough without you ; but I don't complain, my dear. On the contrary, if this change in your life makes you happier, I rejoice. Come ! come ! don't cry, or you will set your aunt off — and it's no joke at her time of life. Besides, crying will spoil your beauty. Dry your eyes and look in the glass there, and you will see that 1 am right Good-bye, child — and God bless you ! '

He tucked my aunt under his arm, and hurried out- My heart sank a little, dearly as I loved my husband, when I had seen the last of the true friend and protector of my maiden days.

The parting with old Benjamin came next. 'I wish you well, my dear ; don't forget me,' was all he said. But the old days at home came back on me at those few words. Benjamin always dined with us on Sundays in my father's time, and always brought some little present with him for his master's child. I was very near to ' spoiling my beauty ' (as my uncle had put it) when I offered the old man my cheek to kiss, and heard him sigh to himself, as if he too was not quite hopeful about my future life.

My husband's voice roused me, and turned my mind to Happier thoughts.

' Shall we go, Valeria ? ' he asked.

I stopped him on our way out, to take advantage of my uncle's advice. In other words, to see how I looked in the glass over the vestry fireplace.

What does the glass show me ?

The glass shows a tall and slender young woman of threeand-twenty years of age. She is not at all the sort of person who attracts attention in the street, seeing that she fails to exhibit the popular yellow hair and the popular painted cheeks. Her hair is black ; dressed, in these later days (as it was dressed years since to please her father), in broad ripples drawn back from the forehead, and gathered into a simple knot behind (like the hair of the Venus de' Medici), so as to show the neck beneath. Her complexion is pale : except in moments of violent agitation there is no colour to be seen in her face. Her eyes are of so dark a blue that they are generally mistaken for black. Her eyebrows are well enough

THE BRIDE'S MISTAKE. 5

in form, but they are too dark, and too strongly marked. Her nose just inclines towards the aquiline bend, and is considered a little too large by persons difficult to please in the matter of noses. The mouth, her best feature, is very delicately shaped, and is capable of presenting great varieties of expression. As to the face in general, it is too narrow and too long at the lower part ; too broad and too low in the higher regions of the eyes and the head. The whole picture, as reflected in the glass, represents a woman of some elegance, rather too pale, and rather too sedate and serious in her moments of silence and repose — in short, a person who fails to strike the ordinary observer at first sight • but who gains in general estimation, on a second, and sometimes even on a third, view. As for her dress, it studiously conceals, instead of proclaiming, that she has been married that morning. She wears a grey Cashmere tunic trimmed with grey silk, and having a skirt of the same material and colour beneath it. On her head is a bonnet to match, relieved by a quilling of white muslin, with one deep red rose, as a morsel of positive colour, to complete the effect of the whole dress.

Have I succeeded or failed in describing the picture of myself which I see in the glass 1 It is not for me to say. I have done my best to keep clear of the two vanities — the vanity of depreciating, and the vanity of praising, my own personal appearance. For the rest, well written or badly written, thank Heaven it is done !

And w bom do I see in the glass, standing by my side ?

I see a man who is not quite so tall as I am, and who haa the misfortune of looking older than his years. His forehead is prematurely bald. Hi3 big chestnut-coloured beard and hiu long overhanging moustache are already streaked with grey. He has the colour in his face which my face wants, and the firmness in M3 figure which my figure wants. Ho looks at me with the tenderest and gentlest eyes (of a light brown) that I ever saw in the countenance of a man. His smile is rare and sweet; his manner perfectly quiet and retiring, has yet a latent persuasiveness in it, which is (to women) irresistibly winning. He just halts a little in his walk, from the effect of an injury received in past years, when he was a soldier serving in India, and he carries a thick bamboo cane, with a curious crutch handle (an old favourite), to help himself along whenever he gets on his feet, indoors or out. With this one little drawback (if it is a drawback), there is nothing infirm or old or awkward about him ; his slight limp when he walks has (perhaps to my partial eyes) a certain quaint grace of its own, which is pleasanter to see than the unrestrained activity of other men. And last, and best of all, I love him ! I love him ! I love him ! And there is an end of my portrait of my husband on our wedding-day.

The glass has told me all I want to know. We leave the vestry at last.

The sky, cloudy since the morning, has darkened while we have been in the church, and the rain is beginning to fall heavily. The idlers outside stare at us grimly under their umbrellas, as we pass through their ranks, and hasten into our carriage. No cheering ; no sunshine ; no flowers strewn in our path ; no grand breakfast ; no genial speeches ; no bridesmaids ; no father's or mother's blessing. A dreary wedding— there is no denying it — and (if Aunt Starkweather is right) a bad beginning as well !

A coupe has been reserved for us at the railway station. The attentive porter, on the look-out for his fee, pulls down the blinds over the side windows of the carriage, and shuts out all prying eyes in that way. After what seems to be an interminable delay the train starts. My husband winds his arm round me. ' At last ! ' he whispers, with love in his eyes that no words can utter, and presses me to him gently. My arm steals round his neck ; my eyes answer his eyes.. Oui lips meet in the first long lingering kiss of our married life.

THE BRIDE'S THOUGHTS. J

Oh, what recollections of that journey rise in me as I write ! Let me dry my eyes, and shut up my paper for the day.

Chapter II. The Beide's Thoughts

We had been travelling for a little more than an hour, when a change passed insensibly over us both.

Still sitting close together, with my hand in his, with my head on his shoulder, little by little we fell insensibly into silence. Had we already exhausted the narrow yet eloquent vocabulary of love ] Or had we determined by unexpressed consent, after enjoying the luxury of passion that speaks, to try the deeper and finer rapture of passion that thinks 1 I can hardly determine ; I only know that a time came when under some strange influence our lips were closed towards each other. We travelled along, each of us absorbed in our own reverie. Was he thinking exclusively of me — as I was thinking exclusively of him 1 Be^e the journey's end I had my doubts. At a little later time I knew for certain, that his thoughts, wandering far away from his young wife, were all turned inward on his own unhappy self.

For me, the secret pleasure of filling my mind with him whik, I felt him by my side, was a luxury in itself.

I pictured in my thoughts our first meeting in the neighbourhood of my uncle's house.

Our famous north-country trout-stream wound its flashing and foaming way through a ravine in the rocky moorland. It was a windy, shadowy evening. A heavily clouded sunset lay low and red in the west. A solitary angler stood casting his fly, at a turn in the stream, where the backwater lay ttil'

and deep under an overhanging bank. A girl (myself) standing on the bank, invisible to the fisherman beneath, waited eagerly to see the trout rise.

The moment came ; the fish took the fly.

Sometimes on the little level strip of sand at the foot of the bank ; sometimes (when the stream turned again) in the shallower water rushing over its rocky bed, the angler followed the captured trout, now letting the line run out, and now winding it in again, in the difficult and delicate process of ' playing ' the fish. Along the bank I followed, to watch the contest of skill and cunning between the man and the trout. I had lived long enough with my uncle Starkweather to catch some of his enthusiasm for field sports, and to learn something, especially, of the angler's art. Still following the stranger, with my eyes intently fixed on every movement of his rod and line, and with not so much as a chance fragment of my attention to spare for the rough path along which I was walking, I stepped by chance on the loose overhanging earth at the edge of the bank, and fell into the stream in an instant.

The distance was trifling ; the water was shallow ; the bed of the river was (fortunately for me) of sand. Eeyond the fright and the wetting I had nothing to complain of. In a few moments I was out of the water and up again, very much ashamed of myself, on the firm ground. Short as the interval was, it proved long enough to favour the escape of the fish. The angler had heard my first instinctive cry of alarm, had turned, and had thrown aside his rod to help me. We confronted each other for the first time, I on the bank and he in the shallow water below. Our eyes encountered, an* J I verily believe our hearts encountered at the same moment. This I know for certain, we forgot our breeding as lady and gentleman ; we looked at each other in barbarous silence.

I was the first to recover myself. What did I say to him I

I said something about my not being hurt, and then some-

THE BRIDE'S THOUGHTS. 9

thing more, urging him to run back, and try if he might not yet recover the fish.

He went back unwillingly. He returned to me — of course, without the fish. Knowing how bitterly disappointed my uncle would have been in his place, I apologized very earnestly. In my eagerness to make atonement I even offered to show him a spot where he might try again, lower down the stream.

He would not hear of it ; he entreated me to go home and change my wet dress. I cared nothing for the wetting. but I obeyed him without knowing why.

He walked with me. My way back to the Vicarage was his way back to the inn. He had come to our parts, he told me, for the quiet and retirement as much as for the fishing. He had noticed me once or twice from the window of his room at the inn. He asked if I was not the Vicar's daughter.

I set him right. I told him that the Vicar had married my mother's sister, and that the two had been father and mother to me since the death of my parents. He asked if he might venture to call on Doctor Starkweather the next day : mentioning the name of a friend of his, with whom he believed the Vicar to be acquainted. I invited him to visit us, as if it had been my house; I was spell-bound under his eyes and under his voice. I had fancied, honestly fancied, myself to have been in love, often and often before this time. Never, in any other man's company, had I felt aa I now felt in the presence of this man. Night seemed to fall suddenly over the evening landscape when he left me. I leaned against the Vicarage gate. I could not breathe; I could not think ; my heart fluttered as if it would fly out of my bosom — and all this for a stranger ! I burned with ehame ; but oh, in spite of it all, I was so happy !

And now, when little more than a few weeks had passed since that first meeting, I had him by my side ; he was mine io THE LAW AND THE LADY.

for life ! I lifted my head from his bosom to look at him. I was like a child with a new toy- I wanted to make sure that he was really my own.

He never moved in his corner of the carriage. Was he deep in his own thoughts % and were they thoughts 01 Me?

I laid down my head again softly, so as not to disturb him. My mind wandered backward once more, and showed me another picture in the golden gallery of the past.

The garden of the Vicarage formed the new scene. The time was night. We had met together in secret. We were walking slowly to and fro, out of sight of the house ; now in the shadowy paths of the shrubbery, now in the lovely moonlight on the open lawn.

We had long since owned our love, and devoted our lives to each other. Already our interests were one ; already we shared the pleasures and the pains of life. I had gone out to meet him that night with a heavy heart, to seek comfort in his presence, and to find encouragement in his voice. He noticed that I sighed when he firat took me in his arms, and he gently turned my head towards the moonlight, to read my trouble in my face. How often he had read my happiness there in the earlier days of our love !

' You bring bad news, my angel,' he said, lifting my hair tenderly from my forehead as he spoke. ' I see the lines here which tell me of anxiety and distress. I almost wish I loved you less dearly, Valeria.'

' Why % '

'I might give you back your freedom. I have only to leave this place, and your undo would be satisfied, and you would be relieved from all the eares that are pressing on you now.'

' Don't speak of it, Eustace ( If you want me to forget my c-res, say you love me mor* clearly than ever.'

THE BRIDE'S THOUGHTS. i:

He said it in a kiss. We had a moment of exquisite forgetfulness of the hard ways of life — a moment of delicious absorption in each other. I came back to realities, fortified and composed, rewarded for all that I had gone through, ready to go through it all over again for another kiss. Only give a woman love, and there is nothing she will not venture, Buffer, and do.

*Have they been raising fresh objections to our marriage?' he asked, as we slowly walked on again.

' No ; they have done with objecting. They have remembered at last that I am of age, and that I can choose for myself. They have been pleading with me, Eustace, U. give you up. My aunt, whom I thought rather a hard woman, has been crying — for the first time in my experience of her. My uncle, always kind and good to me, has been kinder and better than ever. He has told me that if I persist in becoming your wife I shall not be deserted on my wedding-day. Wherever we may marry he will be there to read the service, and my aunt will go to the church with me. But he entreats me to consider seriously what I am doing — to consent to a separation from you for a time — to consult other people on my position towards you, if I am not satisfied with his opinion. Oh, my darling, they are as anxious to part us, as if you were the worst, instead of the best, of men ! '

' Has anything happened since yesterday to increase their distrust of me 1 he asked.

'Yes.'

4 What is it?'

'You remember referring my uncle to a friend of yours and of his ? '

' Yes. To Major Fitz-David.'

' My uncle has written to Major Fitz-David ? '

'Why?'

He pronounced that one word in a tone so utterly unlike his natural tone that his voice sounded quite strange to me.

'You won't be angry, Eustace, if I tell you1?' I said. 'My uncle, as I understood him, had several motives for ■writing to the Major. One of them was to inquire if he knew your mother's address.'

Eustace suddenly stood still.

I paused at the same moment, feeling that I could venture no further without the risk of offending him.

To speak the truth, his conduct, when he first mentioned our engagement to my uncle, had been (so far as appearances went) a little flighty and strange. The Vicar had naturally questioned him about his family. He had answered that his father was dead ; and he had consented, though not very readily, to announce his contemplated mar riage to his mother. Informing us that she too lived in tha country, he had gone to see her — without more particularly mentioning her address. In two days he had returned to the Vicarage with a very startling message. His mother intended no disrespect to me or my relatives; but she disapproved so absolutely of her son's marriage that she (and the members of her family, who all agreed with her) would refuse to be present at the ceremony, if Mr. Woodville persisted in keeping his engagement with Doctor Starkweather's niece. Being asked to explain this extraordinary communication, Eustace had told us that his mother and his sisters were bent on his marrying another lady, and that they were bitterly mortified and disappointed by his choosing a stranger to the family. This explanation was enough for me ; it implied, so far as I wa3 concerned, a compliment to my superior influence over Eustace, which a woman always receives ■with pleasure. But it failed to satisfy my uncle and my aunt. The Vicar expressed to Mr. Woodville a wish to write to his mother, or to see her, on the subject of her Btrange message. Eustace obstinately declined to mention his

THE BRIBE'S THOUGHTS. 13

mother's address, on the ground that the Vicar's interference would be utterly useless. My uncle at once drew the conclusion that the mystery about the address indicated something wrong. He refused to favour Mr. Woodville's renewed proposal for my hand ; and he wrote the same day to make inquiries of Mr. Woodville's reference, and of his own friend — Major Fitz-David.

Under such circumstances as these, to speak of my uncle'a motives was to venture on very delicate ground. Eustace relieved me from further embarrassment by asking a question to which I could easily reply.

' Has your uncle received any answer from Major Fitz- David 1 ' he inquired.

' Yes.'

' Were you allowed to read it ? ' His voice sank as he said those words ; his face betrayed a sudden anxiety which it gained me to see.

' I have got the answer with me to show you,' I said.

He almost snatched the letter out of my hand ; he turned his back on me to read it by the light of the moon. The letter was short enough to be soon read. I could have repeated it at the time. I can repeat it now.

' Deae Vicae, — Mr. Eustace Woodville is quite correct in stating to you that he is a gentleman by birth and position, and that he inherits (under his deceased father's will) an independent fortune of twc thousand a year.

' Always yours,

' Laweencb Fitz-David.'

' Can any one wish for a plainer answer than that 1 ' Eustace asked, handing the letter back to me.

' If I had written for information about you,' I answered, ' it would have been plain enough for me.'

' Is it not plain enough for your uncle ? '

' What docs he say » '

'Why need you care to know, my darling ?' ' I want to know, Valeria. There must be no secret w» tween us in this matter. Did your uncle say anything when he showed you the Major's letter?'

'Yes.'

'What was it? !

' My uncle told me that his letter of inquiry filled three pages, and he bade me observe that the Major's answer contained one sentence only. He said, " I volunteered to go to Major Fitz-David and talk the matter over. You see, he takes no notice of my proposal. I asked him for the address of Mr. Woodville's mother. He passes over my request, as he has passed over my proposal — he studiously confines himself to the shortest possible statement of bare facts. ITst> your own common sense, Valeria. Isn't this rudeness rather remarkable on the part of a man who is a gentleman by birth and breeding, and who is also a friend of mine 1 " '

Eustace stopped me there.

' Did you answer your uncle's question 1 ' he asked.

' No, I replied. ' I only said that I did not understand the Major's conduct.'

'And what did your uncle say next? If you love me, Valeria, tell me the truth.'

' He used very strong language, Eustace. He is an old man ; you must not be offended with him.'

' I am not offended. What did he say ? '

'He said, " Mark my words ! There is something under the surface in connexion with Mr. Woodville, or with his family, to which Major Fitz-David is not at liberty to allude. Properly interpreted, Valeria, that letter is a warning. Show it to Mr. Woodville, and tell him (if you like) what I hav« just told you " '

Eustace stopped me again.

THE BRIDE'S THOUGHTS. »S

•You are sure your uncle said those words?' ho askcJl, scanning my face attentively in the moonlight.

' Quite sure. But I don't say what my uncle says. Fray don't think that ! '

He suddenly pressed me to his bosom, and fixed his eye3 on mine. His look frightened me.

' Good-bye, Valeria ! ' he said. ' Try and think kindly of mp, my darling, when vou are married to some happier man.'

He attempted to leave me. I flung to him in an agony of ;error that shook me from head to foot.

' "What do you mean 1 ' I asked, as soon as I could speak. ' I am yours and yours only. What have I said, what have I done, to deserve those dreadful words 1 '

' We must part, my angel,' he answered, sadly. ' The fault is none of yours ; the misfortune is all mine. My Valeria ! how can you marry a man who is an object of suspicion to your nearest and dearest friends t I have led a dreary life. I bave never found in any other woman the sympathy with me, the sweet comfort and companionship, that I find in you. Oh, it is hard to lose you ! it is hard to go back again to my unfriended life ! I must make the sacrifice, love, for your sake. I know no more why that letter is what it is than you do. Will your uncle believe me? Will your friends believe me 1 One last kiss, Valeria ! Forgive me for having loved you — passionately, devotedly loved you. Forgive me — and let me go ! '

I held him desperately, recklessly. His eyes put me beside myself; his words filled me with a frenzy of despair.

' Go where you may,' I said, 'I go with you ! Friends — reputation — I care nothing who I lose, or what I lose. Oh, Eustace, I am only a woman — don't madden me ! I can't live without you. I must and will be your wife ! ' Those wild words were all I could say before the misery and madness ia me forced their way outward in a burst of soba and tears.