Mildred Arkell Volume Iii Part 37

"Not allow it to make any difference," interposed Lizzie, imperiously cutting short his words. "Do you take me for a fool, Ben Carr? _You've_ seen the last of me, I can tell you that; and if pa were living still, he should prosecute you for getting my consent to a marriage under false pretences."

"If I do not prosecute you, Benjamin Carr," resumed Mrs. Dund.y.k.e, "you owe it partly to my consideration for your family, partly to the unhappy fact that it could not bring my poor husband back to life. It could not restore to him the mental power he lost, the faculties that were destroyed. It could not bring back to me my lost happiness. How far you may have been guilty, I know not. It must rest with your conscience, and so shall your punishment."

He stood something like a stag at bay--half doubting whether to slink away, whether to turn and beard his pursuers. Barbara Fauntleroy threw wide the door.

"You had better quit us, I think, Mr. Carr."

"I see what it is," said he, at length, to the Miss Fauntleroys. "You are just now too prejudiced to listen to reason. The tale that woman has been telling you of me is a mistaken one; and when you are calm, I will endeavour to convince you of it."

"Calm, man!" cried Barbara, with a laugh. "_I_'m calm enough. It isn't such an interlude, as this, that could take any calmness away from me.

It has been as good to me as a scene at the play."

But the gentleman did not wait to hear the conclusion. He had escaped through the open door. Those left stared at one another.

"Come along," said Lizzie, with unruffled composure; "don't let the dinner get colder than it is. I dare say I'm well rid of him. Where's our gla.s.ses of champagne? A drop will do us all good. Oh dear, Mrs.

Dund.y.k.e! _Pray_ don't suffer it to trouble you!"

She had sat down in a far corner, poor woman, with her face hidden, drowned in a storm of silent tears.

The event, quickly though it had transpired--over, as it were, in a moment--exercised a powerful influence on the spirits of Mrs. Dund.y.k.e.

It brought the old trouble so vividly before her, that she could not rally again as the days went on; and she told Mildred that she should go back to London, but would come to her again at a future time. The resolution was a sudden one. Mrs. Arkell happened to call the same day, and was told of it.

"Going back to London to-morrow!" repeated Mrs. Arkell in consternation; and she hastened to her sister's room.

Mrs. Dund.y.k.e had her drawers all out, and her travelling trunk open, beginning to put things together. Mrs. Arkell went in, and closed the door.

"Betsey, you are going back, I hear; therefore I must at once ask the question that I have been intending to ask before your departure. It may sound to you somewhat premature: I don't know. Will you forget and forgive?"

"Forget and forgive what?"

"My coldness during the past years."

"I am willing to forgive it, Charlotte, if that will do you any good. To forget it is an impossibility."

Mrs. Dund.y.k.e spoke with civil indifference. She was wrapping different toilet articles in paper, and she continued her occupation. Mrs. Arkell, in a state of bitter vexation at the turn things had taken, terribly self-repentant that she should have pursued a line of conduct so inimical to her own interests, sat down on a low chair, and fairly burst into tears.

"Why, what's the matter, Charlotte?"

"You are a rich woman now, and therefore you despise us. We are growing poor."

"How can you talk such nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Dund.y.k.e, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g down the silver stopper of a scent-bottle. "If I became as rich and as grand as a duke, it could never cause me to make the slightest difference in my conduct to anybody, high or low."

"Our intercourse has been so cold, so estranged, during this visit!"

"And, but that you find I am a little better off than you thought for, would you have allowed it to be otherwise than cold and estranged?"

returned Mrs. Dund.y.k.e, putting down the scent-bottle, and facing her sister.

There was no reply. What, indeed, could there be?

"Charlotte," said Mrs. Dund.y.k.e, dropping her voice to earnestness, as she went close to her sister, "the past wore me out. Ask yourself what your treatment of me was--for years, and years, and years. You know how I loved you--how I tried to conciliate you by every means in my power--to be to you a sister; and you would not. You threw my affection back upon myself; you prevented Mr. Arkell and your children coming to me; you heaped unnecessary scorn upon my husband. I bore it; I strove against it; but my patience and my love gave way at last, and I am sorry to say resentment grew in its place. Those feelings of affection, worn out by slow degrees, can never grow again."

"It is as much as to say that you hate me!"

"Not so. We can be civil when we meet; and that can be as often as circ.u.mstances bring us into the same locality. But I do not think there can ever be cordiality between us again."

"I had thought you were of a forgiving disposition, Betsey."

"So I am."

"I had thought----" Mrs. Arkell paused a moment, as if half ashamed of what she was about to say--"I had thought to enlist your sisterly feelings for me; that is, for my daughters. You are rich now; you have plenty of money to spare; and their patrimony has dwindled down to nothing--nothing compared to what it ought to have been. They----"

"Stay, Charlotte. We may as well come to an understanding on this point at once; it will serve for always. Your daughters have never condescended to recognise me in their lives; it was perhaps your fault, perhaps theirs: I don't know. But the effect upon me has not been a pleasant one. I shall decline to help them."

Mrs. Arkell's proud spirit was rising. What it had cost thus to bend herself to her life-despised sister, she alone knew. She beat her foot upon the hearth-rug.

"I don't know how they'll get along. But for Mr. Arkell's having kept on the business for Travice, we should be rich still. He has always been a fool in some things."

"Don't disparage your husband before me, Charlotte; I shall not listen calmly; you were never worthy of him. I love Mr. Arkell for his goodness, and I love your son. If you asked me for help for Travice, you should have it; never for your daughters."

"Very kind, I'm sure! when you know he does not want it," was the provoking and angry answer. "Travice is placed above requiring your help, by marriage with Miss Fauntleroy."

And Mrs. Arkell gave her head a scornful toss as she went out, and banged the chamber-door after her.

CHAPTER XV.

MILDRED'S RECOMPENSE.

The consent of Travice once obtained, the necessary word spoken to Miss Fauntleroy, Mrs. Arkell hurried the marriage on in earnest. So long as Travice had only made the offer, and given no signs of wis.h.i.+ng for the ceremony to take place, not much could be done; but he had now said to Barbara, "Fix your own day."

There was no trouble needed in regard to a house; at least, there had not hitherto been. The house that the Miss Fauntleroys lived in was their own, and Barbara wished to continue in it. It was supposed that her sister would be moving to a farm in the parish of Eckford. That was now frustrated. "Never mind," said Barbara, in her easy way, "Lizzie can stop on with us; Travice won't mind it, and I shall like it. If we find afterwards that it does not answer, different arrangements can be made."

The Miss Fauntleroys were generous in the matter of Benjamin Carr. Those others who had been present were generous, even Mrs. Dund.y.k.e. The identification of the gentleman with the Mr. Hardcastle, of Geneva memory, was not allowed to transpire: they all had regard to the feelings of the squire and his family. It was fortunate that the only servant in the room had gone from it with Benjamin Carr's over-coat, and Barbara had had the presence of mind to slip the bolt of the door. Mr.

Ben Carr, however, thought it well to take a tour just at this time, and he did not show his face in Westerbury previous to his departure.

Lucy Arkell was solicited to be one of the bridesmaids; but Lucy declined. Mildred remembered a wedding which _she_ had declined to attend as bridesmaid. How little, how little did she think that the same cruel pain was swaying the motives of Lucy!

Lucy and her aunt saw but little now of the Arkells. Travice never called; Mr. Arkell, full of trouble, confined himself to his home; and Mrs. Arkell had not entered the house since the rebuff given her by Mrs.

Dund.y.k.e. Lucy held aloof from them; and Mildred certainly did not go there of her own accord. It therefore came to pa.s.s that they heard little news of the doings there, except what might be dropped by chance callers-in.

And now, as if Mildred had really been gifted with prevision, Tom Palmer made an offer of his hand and heart to Lucy. Lucy's response was by no means a dignified one--she burst out crying. Mildred, in surprise, asked what was the matter, and Lucy said she had not thought her old friend Tom could have been so unkind. Unkind! But the result was, that Lucy refused him in the most positive manner, then and for always. Mildred began to think that she could not understand Lucy.

There was a grand party given one night at Mrs. Arkell's, and they went to that. Mildred accepted the invitation without consulting Lucy. The Palmers were there; and Travice treated Tom very cavalierly. In fact, that word is an appropriate one to characterise his general behaviour to everybody throughout the evening. And, so far as anybody saw, he never once went near Miss Fauntleroy, with the exception that he took her into the supper room. Mr. Arkell did not appear until quite late in the evening. It was said he had an engagement. So he had, with men of business; while the revelry was going on in doors, he was in his counting-house, endeavouring to negotiate for a loan of money, in which he was not successful. Little heart had he at ten o'clock to go in and dress himself and enter upon that scene of gaiety. Mildred exchanged but a few sentences with him, but she thought he was in remarkably low spirits.

"Are you not well, William?" she asked.