Mildred Arkell Volume Iii Part 32

"Our property is diminis.h.i.+ng daily," replied Mrs. Arkell. "Which makes it the more necessary that Travice should secure himself by his marriage."

Lucy did not answer; but her heart throbbed violently, and the faint colour on her cheek forsook it. Mrs. Arkell, without looking towards her, rose to poke the fire, and continued talking as she leaned over the grate, with her back to Lucy.

"It is intended that Travice shall marry Barbara Fauntleroy."

The sense of the words was very decided, carrying painful conviction to Lucy's startled ear. She could not have answered, had her life depended on it.

"Lucy, my dear," proceeded Mrs. Arkell, speaking with unwonted affection, and looking Lucy full in the face, "I am speaking to you in entire confidence, and I desire you will respect it as such. Do not drop a hint to Travice or the girls; they would not like my speaking of it."

Lucy sat quiet; and Mrs. Arkell quite devoured the pale face with her eyes.

"At first he did not care much for Barbara; and in truth he does not care for her now, as one we intend to marry ought to be cared for. But that will all come in time. Travice, like many other young men, may have indulged in a little carved-out romance of his own--I don't know that he did, but he _may_--and he has the good sense to see that his romance must yield to reality."

"Yes!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lucy, feeling that she was expected to say something in answer.

"There is our property dwindling down to little; there's the business dwindling down to nothing; and suppose Travice took it into his head to many a portionless girl, what prospect would there be before him? Why, nothing but poverty and self-reproach; nothing but misery. And in time he would hate her for having brought him to it."

"True! true!" murmured Lucy.

"And now," added Mrs. Arkell, "that he is on the point of consenting to marry Miss Fauntleroy, it is the duty of all of us, if we care for his future happiness and welfare, to urge his hopes to that point. You see it, Lucy, I should think, as well as we do."

There was no outward emotion to be observed in Lucy. A transiently white cheek, a momentary quiver of the lip, and all that could be seen was over. Like her aunt Mildred, it was her nature to bear in silence; but some of us know too well that that is the grief which tells. There was a slight s.h.i.+ver of the frame, visible to those keen eyes watching her, and she compelled herself to speak as with indifference.

"Has he consented?"

"My dear Lucy, I said he was on the point of consenting. And there's no doubt he is. I had an explanation with Travice this morning; he seemed inclined to shun Miss Fauntleroy, for I sent for him while she was here, and he did not come. After you left, I spoke to him; I pointed out the state of the case, and said what a sweet girl Miss Fauntleroy was, what a charming wife she would make him; and I hope I brought him to reason.

You see, Lucy, how advantageous it will be in all ways, their union. Not only does it provide for Travice, but it will remove the worst of the great care hanging over the head of Mr. Arkell, and which I am sure, if not removed, will shorten his life. Do you understand?"

"I--think so," replied Lucy, whose brain was whirling in spite of her calm manner.

Mrs. Arkell drew her chair nearer to Lucy, and dropped her voice.

"Our position is this, my dear. A very great portion of Mr. Arkell's property is locked up in his stock, which is immense. _I_ should not have kept on manufacturing as he has done; and I believe it has been partly for the sake of those rubbis.h.i.+ng workmen. Unless he can get some extraneous help, some temporary a.s.sistance, he will have to force his stock to sale at a loss, and it would just be ruin. Miss Fauntleroy proposes to advance any sum he may require, as soon as the marriage has taken place, and there's no doubt he will accept it. It will be only a temporary loan, you know; but it will save us a great, a ruinous loss."

"_She_ proposes to advance it?" echoed Lucy, struck with the words, in the midst of her pain.

"She does. She is as good hearted a girl as ever lived, and proposed it freely. In fact, she would be ready and willing to advance it at once, for of course she knows it would be a safe loan, but Mr. Arkell will not hear of it. She knows what our wishes are upon the subject of the marriage, and she sees that Travice has been holding back; and but for her very good-natured disposition she might not have tolerated it.

However, I hope all will soon be settled now, and she and Travice married. Lucy, my dear, I _rely_ upon you for Mr. Arkell's sake, of whom you are so fond, for Travice's own sake, to forward on this by any little means in your power. And, remember, the confidence I have reposed in you must not be broken."

Lucy sat cold and still. In honour she must no longer think of a possible union with Travice--must never more allow word or look from him seeming to point to it.

"For Mr. Arkell's sake," she kept repeating to herself, as if she were in a dream; "for Travice's own sake!" She saw the future as clearly as though it had been mapped out before her eyes in some prophetic vision: Travice would marry Barbara Fauntleroy and her riches. She almost wished she might never see him more; it could only bring to her additional misery.

Charlotte Arkell came in with Barbara Fauntleroy. Sophy had gone home with the other one for the rest of the day. An old aunt, bed-ridden three parts of her time, had lived with the young ladies since the death of their father. But they were not so very young; and they were naturally independent. Barbara was quite as old as Travice Arkell.

"How shall I bear to see them together?" thought Lucy, as Barbara Fauntleroy sat down opposite to her, in her rustling silk of many colours, and no end of gold trinkets jingling about her. "I wonder why I was born? But for papa, I could wish I had died as Harry did!"

For that first evening, however, she was spared. Their little maid arrived in much commotion, asking to see Miss Lucy. Her papa was feeling worse than when she left home, was the word she brought, and he thought if Lucy did not mind it, he should like her to go back to him at once.

Lucy hastened home. She found her father very poorly; feverish, and coughing a great deal. It was the foreshadowing of an illness from which he was destined never to recover.

Whether his allotted span of life had indeed run out, or whether his exposure to the weather that unlucky morning helped to shorten it, Lucy never knew. A week or two of uncertain sickness--now a little better, now a little worse, and it became too evident that hope of recovery for Peter Arkell was over. A bowed, broken man in frame and spirit, but comparatively young in years, Peter was pa.s.sing from the world he had found little else than trouble in. Lucy wrote in haste and distress for her Aunt Mildred, but a telegram was received in reply, announcing the death of Lady Dewsbury. She had died somewhat suddenly, Mildred said, when a letter came by the next morning's post, in which she gave particulars.

It was nearly impossible for her to come away before the funeral: nothing short of imminent danger in her brother's state would bring her.

She had for a long while been almost sole mistress of the household; Lady Dewsbury was ever her kind friend and protectress; and she could not reconcile it to her feelings to abandon the house while she lay dead in it, unless her brother's state absolutely demanded that she should.

Lucy was to write, or telegraph, as necessity should require.

There was no immediate necessity for her to come, and Lucy wrote accordingly. Lucy stayed on alone with the invalid, shunning as much as was possible the presence of Travice, when he made his frequent visits: that presence which had hitherto been to her as a light from heaven.

Mrs. Arkell, paying a ceremonious call of condolence one day, whispered to Lucy that Travice was becoming quite "reconciled," quite "fond" of Barbara Fauntleroy.

On the evening of the day after Lady Dewsbury was interred, Mildred arrived in Westerbury. Lucy did not know she was coming, and no one was at the station to meet her. Leaving her luggage to be sent after her, she made her way to her brother's house on foot: it was but a quarter of an hour's walk, and Mildred felt cramped with sitting in the train.

She trembled as she came in sight of it, the old home of her youth, fearing that its windows might be closed, as those had been in the house just quitted. As she stood before the door, waiting to be admitted, remembrances of her childhood came painfully across her--of her happy girlhood, when those blissful dreams of William Arkell were mingled with every thought of her existence.

"And oh! what did they end in!" she cried, clasping her hands tightly together and speaking aloud in her anguish. "What am I now? Chilled in feeling; worn in heart; old before my time."

A middle-aged woman, with a light in her hand, opened the door. Mildred stepped softly over the threshold.

"How is Mr. Arkell?"

The woman--she was the night nurse--stared at the handsomely attired strange lady, whose deep mourning looked so fresh and new, coming in that unceremonious manner at the night-hour.

"He is very ill, ma'am; nearly as bad as he can be," she replied, dropping a low curtsey. "What did you please to want?"

"He is in his old chamber, I suppose," said Mildred, turning towards the staircase. The woman, quite taken aback at this unceremonious proceeding, interposed her person.

"Goodness, ma'am, you can't go up to his chamber!" she cried out in amazement. "The poor gentleman's dying. I'll call Miss Lucy."

"I am Miss Arkell," said Mildred quietly, pa.s.sing on up the staircase.

She laid aside her sombre bonnet, with its deep c.r.a.pe veil, her heavy shawl, and entered the chamber softly. Lucy was at a table, measuring some medicine into a tea-cup. A pale, handsome young man stood by the fire, his elbow resting on the mantel-piece. Mildred glanced at his face, and did not need to ask who he was.

Near the bed was Mr. William Arkell; but oh! how different from the lover of Mildred's youth! Now he was a grey-haired man, stooping slightly, looking older than his actual years--then tall, handsome, attractive, as Travice was now. And did William Arkell, at the first view, recognise his cousin? No. For that care-worn, middle-aged woman, whose hair was braided under a white net cap, bore little resemblance to the once happy Mildred Arkell. But the dying man, lying panting on the raised pillows, knew her instantaneously, and held out his feeble hands with a glad cry.

It was a painful meeting, and one into which we have little right to penetrate. Soon, very soon, Peter spoke out the one great care that was lying at his heart. He had not touched upon it till then.

"I am leaving my poor child alone in the world," he panted. "I know not who will afford her shelter--where she will find a home?"

"I would willingly promise you to take her to mine, Peter," said Mr.

Arkell. "Poor Lucy should be as welcome to a shelter under my roof as are my own girls; but, heaven help me! I know not how long I may have a home for any of them."

"Leave Lucy to me, Peter," interposed Miss Arkell. "I shall make a home for myself now, and that home shall be Lucy's. Let no fear of her welfare disturb your peace."

Travice listened half resentfully. He was standing against the mantel-piece still, and Lucy, just then stirring something over the fire, was close to him.

"_They_ need not think about a home for you, Lucy," he whispered, taking the one disengaged hand into his. "That shall be my care."

Lucy coldly drew her hand away. Her head was full of Barbara Fauntleroy--of the certainty that that lady would be his wife--for she believed no earthly event would be allowed to set aside the marriage: her spirit rebelled against the words. What right had he to breathe such to her--he, the engaged husband of another?