East Lynne

M >> Mrs. Henry Wood >> East Lynne


"I--did--put on my diamonds; but I--took them off again," stammered
Isabel.

"What on earth for?"

"I did not like to look too fine," answered Isabel, with a laugh and a
blush. "They glittered so! I feared it might be thought I had put them
on _to look_ fine."

"Ah! I see you mean to set up in that class of people who pretend to
despise ornaments," scornfully remarked Mrs. Vane. "It is the refinement
of affectation, Lady Isabel."

The sneer fell harmlessly on Lady Isabel's ear. She only believed
something had put Mrs. Vane out of temper. It certainly had; and that
something, though Isabel little suspected it, was the evident admiration
Captain Levison evinced for her fresh, young beauty; it quite absorbed
him, and rendered him neglectful even of Mrs. Vane.

"Here, child, take your cross," said the old lady. "It is very
pretty; prettier on your neck than diamonds would be. You don't want
embellishing; never mind what Emma says."

Francis Levison took the cross and chain from her hand to pass them to
Lady Isabel. Whether he was awkward, or whether her hands were full, for
she held her gloves, her handkerchief, and had just taken up her mantle,
certain it is that it fell; and the gentleman, in his too quick effort
to regain it, managed to set his foot upon it, and the cross was broken
in two.

"There! Now whose fault was that?" cried Mrs. Levison.

Isabel did not answer; her heart was very full. She took the broken
cross, and the tears dropped from her eyes; she could not help it.

"Why! You are never crying over a stupid bauble of a cross!" uttered
Mrs. Vane, interrupting Captain Levison's expression of regret at his
awkwardness.

"You can have it mended, dear," interposed Mrs. Levison.

Lady Isabel chased away the tears, and turned to Captain Levison with
a cheerful look. "Pray do not blame yourself," she good-naturedly said;
"the fault was as much mine as yours; and, as Mrs. Levison says, I can
get it mended."

She disengaged the upper part of the cross from the chain as she spoke,
and clasped the latter round her throat.

"You will not go with that thin string of gold on, and nothing else!"
uttered Mrs. Vane.

"Why not?" returned Isabel. "If people say anything, I can tell them an
accident happened to the cross."

Mrs. Vane burst into a laugh of mocking ridicule. "'If people say
anything!'" she repeated, in a tone according with the laugh. "They
are not likely to 'say anything,' but they will deem Lord Mount Severn's
daughter unfortunately short of jewellery."

Isabel smiled and shook her head. "They saw my diamonds at the
drawing-room."

"If you had done such an awkward thing for me, Frank Levison," burst
forth the old lady, "my doors should have been closed against you for a
month. There, if you are to go, Emma, you had better go; dancing off to
begin an evening at ten o'clock at night! In my time we used to go at
seven; but it's the custom now to turn night into day."

"When George the Third dined at one o'clock upon boiled mutton
and turnips," put in the graceless captain, who certainly held his
grandmother in no greater reverence than did Mrs. Vane.

He turned to Isabel as he spoke, to hand her downstairs. Thus she was
conducted to her carriage the second time that night by a stranger.
Mrs. Vane got down by herself, as she best could, and her temper was not
improved by the process.

"Good-night," said she to the captain.

"I shall not say good-night. You will find me there almost as soon as
you."

"You told me you were not coming. Some bachelor's party in the way."

"Yes, but I have changed my mind. Farewell for the present, Lady
Isabel."

"What an object you will look, with nothing on your neck but a
schoolgirl's chain!" began Mrs. Vane, returning to the grievance as the
carriage drove on.

"Oh, Mrs. Vane, what does it signify? I can only think of my broken
cross. I am sure it must be an evil omen."

"An evil--what?"

"An evil omen. Mamma gave me that cross when she was dying. She told me
to let it be to me as a talisman, always to keep it safely; and when I
was in any distress, or in need of counsel, to look at it and strive to
recall what her advice would be, and to act accordingly. And now it is
broken--broken!"

A glaring gaslight flashed into the carriage, right into the face of
Isabel. "I declare," uttered Mrs. Vane, "you are crying again! I tell
you what it is, Isabel, I am not going to chaperone red eyes to the
Duchess of Dartford's, so if you can't put a stop to this, I shall order
the carriage home, and go on alone."

Isabel meekly dried her eyes, sighing deeply as she did so. "I can have
the pieces joined, I dare say; but it will never be the same cross to me
again."

"What have you done with the pieces?" irascibly asked Mrs. Vane.

"I folded them in the thin paper Mrs. Levison gave me, and put it inside
my frock. Here it is," touching the body. "I have no pocket on."

Mrs. Vane gave vent to a groan. She never had been a girl herself--she
had been a woman at ten; and she complimented Isabel upon being little
better than an imbecile. "Put it inside my frock!" she uttered in a
torrent of scorn. "And you eighteen years of age! I fancied you left off
'frocks' when you left the nursery. For shame, Isabel!"

"I meant to say my dress," corrected Isabel.

"Meant to say you are a baby idiot!" was the inward comment of Mrs.
Vane.

A few minutes and Isabel forgot her grievance. The brilliant rooms were
to her as an enchanting scene of dreamland, for her heart was in its
springtide of early freshness, and the satiety of experience had not
come. How could she remember trouble, even the broken cross, as she bent
to the homage offered her and drank in the honeyed words poured forth
into her ear?

"Halloo!" cried an Oxford student, with a long rent-roll in prospective,
who was screwing himself against the wall, not to be in the way of the
waltzers, "I thought you had given up coming to these places?"

"So I had," replied the fast nobleman addressed, the son of a marquis.
"But I am on the lookout, so am forced into them again. I think a
ball-room the greatest bore in life."

"On the lookout for what?"

"For a wife. My governor has stopped supplies, and has vowed by his
beard not to advance another shilling, or pay a debt, till I reform. As
a preliminary step toward it, he insists upon a wife, and I am trying to
choose one for I am deeper in debt than you imagine."

"Take the new beauty, then."

"Who is she?"

"Lady Isabel Vane."

"Much obliged for the suggestion," replied the earl. "But one likes a
respectable father-in-law, and Mount Severn is going to smash. He and I
are too much in the same line, and might clash, in the long run."

"One can't have everything; the girl's beauty is beyond common. I saw
that rake, Levison, make up to her. He fancies he can carry all before
him, where women are concerned."

"So he does, often," was his quiet reply.

"I hate the fellow! He thinks so much of himself, with his curled hair
and shining teeth, and his white skin; and he's as heartless as an owl.
What was that hushed-up business about Miss Charteris?"

"Who's to know? Levison slipped out of the escapade like an eel, and
the woman protested that he was more sinned against than sinning.
Three-fourths of the world believed them."

"And she went abroad and died; and Levison here he comes! And Mount
Severn's daughter with him."

They were approaching at that moment, Francis Levison and Lady Isabel.
He was expressing his regret at the untoward accident of the cross for
the tenth time that night. "I feel that it can never be atoned for,"
whispered he; "that the heartfelt homage of my whole life would not be
sufficient compensation."

He spoke in a tone of thrilling gentleness, gratifying to the ear but
dangerous to the heart. Lady Isabel glanced up and caught his eyes
gazing upon her with the deepest tenderness--a language hers had never
yet encountered. A vivid blush again arose to her cheek, her eyelids
fell, and her timid words died away in silence.

"Take care, take care, my young Lady Isabel," murmured the Oxonian under
his breath, as they passed him, "that man is as false as he is fair."

"I think he is a rascal," remarked the earl.

"I know he is; I know a thing or two about him. He would ruin her heart
for the renown of the exploit, because she's a beauty, and then fling it
away broken. He has none to give in return for the gift."

"Just as much as my new race-horse has," concluded the earl. "She is
very beautiful."



CHAPTER III.

BARBARA HARE.

West Lynne was a town of some importance, particularly in its own eyes,
though being neither a manufacturing one nor a cathedral one, nor even
the chief town of the county, it was somewhat primitive in its manners
and customs. Passing out at the town, toward the east, you came upon
several detached gentleman's houses, in the vicinity of which stood the
church of St. Jude, which was more aristocratic, in the matter of its
congregation, than the other churches of West Lynne. For about a
mile these houses were scattered, the church being situated at their
commencement, close to that busy part of the place, and about a mile
further on you came upon the beautiful estate which was called East
Lynne.

Between the gentlemen's houses mentioned and East Lynne, the mile of
road was very solitary, being much overshadowed with trees. One house
alone stood there, and that was about three-quarters of a mile before
you came to East Lynne. It was on the left hand side, a square, ugly,
red brick house with a weathercock on the top, standing some little
distance from the road. A flat lawn extended before it, and close to
the palings, which divided it from the road, was a grove of trees, some
yards in depth. The lawn was divided by a narrow middle gravel path, to
which you gained access from the portico of the house. You entered
upon a large flagged hall with a reception room on either hand, and
the staircase, a wide one, facing you; by the side of the staircase you
passed on to the servants' apartments and offices. That place was called
the Grove, and was the property and residence of Richard Hare, Esq.,
commonly called Mr. Justice Hare.

The room to the left hand, as you went in, was the general sitting-room;
the other was very much kept boxed up in lavender and brown Holland, to
be opened on state occasions. Justice and Mrs. Hare had three children,
a son and two daughters. Annie was the elder of the girls, and had
married young; Barbara, the younger was now nineteen, and Richard the
eldest--but we shall come to him hereafter.

In this sitting-room, on a chilly evening, early in May, a few days
subsequent to that which had witnessed the visit of Mr. Carlyle to the
Earl of Mount Severn, sat Mrs. Hare, a pale, delicate woman, buried
in shawls and cushions: but the day had been warm. At the window sat a
pretty girl, very fair, with blue eyes, light hair, a bright complexion,
and small aquiline features. She was listlessly turning over the leaves
of a book.

"Barbara, I am sure it must be tea-time now."

"The time seems to move slowly with you, mamma. It is scarcely a quarter
of an hour since I told you it was but ten minutes past six."

"I am so thirsty!" announced the poor invalid. "Do go and look at the
clock again, Barbara."

Barbara Hare rose with a gesture of impatience, not suppressed, opened
the door, and glanced at the large clock in the hall. "It wants nine and
twenty minutes to seven, mamma. I wish you would put your watch on of a
day; four times you have sent me to look at that clock since dinner."

"I am so thirsty!" repeated Mrs. Hare, with a sort of sob. "If seven
o'clock would but strike! I am dying for my tea."

It may occur to the reader, that a lady in her own house, "dying for her
tea," might surely order it brought in, although the customary hour had
not struck. Not so Mrs. Hare. Since her husband had first brought her
home to that house, four and twenty-years ago, she had never dared to
express a will in it; scarcely, on her own responsibility, to give
an order. Justice Hare was stern, imperative, obstinate, and
self-conceited; she, timid, gentle and submissive. She had loved him
with all her heart, and her life had been one long yielding of her will
to his; in fact, she had no will; his was all in all. Far was she from
feeling the servitude a yoke: some natures do not: and to do Mr. Hare
justice, his powerful will that _must_ bear down all before it, was in
fault: not his kindness: he never meant to be unkind to his wife. Of his
three children, Barbara alone had inherited his will.

"Barbara," began Mrs. Hare again, when she thought another quarter of an
hour at least must have elapsed.

"Well, mamma?"

"Ring, and tell them to be getting it in readiness so that when seven
strikes there may be no delay."

"Goodness, mamma! You know they do always have it ready. And there's
no such hurry, for papa may not be at home." But she rose, and rang the
bell with a petulant motion, and when the man answered it, told him to
have tea in to its time.

"If you knew dear, how dry my throat is, how parched my mouth, you would
have more patience with me."

Barbara closed her book with a listless air, and turned listlessly to
the window. She seemed tired, not with fatigue but with what the French
express by the word _ennui_. "Here comes papa," she presently said.

"Oh, I am so glad!" cried poor Mrs. Hare. "Perhaps he will not mind
having the tea in at once, if I told him how thirsty _I_ am."

The justice came in. A middle sized man, with pompous features, and a
pompous walk, and a flaxen wig. In his aquiline nose, compressed lips,
and pointed chin, might be traced a resemblance to his daughter; though
he never could have been half so good-looking as was pretty Barbara.

"Richard," spoke up Mrs. Hare from between her shawls, the instant he
opened the door.

"Well?"

"Would you please let me have tea in now? Would you very much mind
taking it a little earlier this evening? I am feverish again, and my
tongue is so parched I don't know how to speak."

"Oh, it's near seven; you won't have long to wait."

With this exceedingly gracious answer to an invalid's request, Mr. Hare
quitted the room again and banged the door. He had not spoken unkindly
or roughly, simply with indifference. But ere Mrs. Hare's meek sigh
of disappointment was over, the door re-opened, and the flaxen wig was
thrust in again.

"I don't mind if I do have it now. It will be a fine moonlight night and
I am going with Pinner as far as Beauchamp's to smoke a pipe. Order it
in, Barbara."

The tea was made and partaken of, and the justice departed for Mr.
Beauchamp's, Squire Pinner calling for him at the gate. Mr. Beauchamp
was a gentleman who farmed a great deal of land, and who was also Lord
Mount Severn's agent or steward for East Lynne. He lived higher up the
road some little distance beyond East Lynne.

"I am so cold, Barbara," shivered Mrs. Hare, as she watched the justice
down the gravel path. "I wonder if your papa would say it was foolish of
me, if I told them to light a bit of fire?"

"Have it lighted if you like," responded Barbara, ringing the bell.
"Papa will know nothing about it, one way or the other, for he won't be
home till after bedtime. Jasper, mamma is cold, and would like a fire
lighted."

"Plenty of sticks, Jasper, that it may burn up quickly," said Mrs. Hare,
in a pleading voice, as if the sticks were Jasper's and not hers.

Mrs. Hare got her fire, and she drew her chair in front, and put her
feet on the fender, to catch its warmth. Barbara, listless still, went
into the hall, took a woolen shawl from the stand there, threw it over
her shoulders, and went out. She strolled down the straight formal path,
and stood at the iron gate, looking over it into the public road. Not
very public in that spot, and at that hour, but as lonely as one could
wish. The night was calm and pleasant, though somewhat chilly for the
beginning of May, and the moon was getting high in the sky.

"When will he come home?" she murmured, as she leaned her head upon the
gate. "Oh, what would life be like without him? How miserable these few
days have been! I wonder what took him there! I wonder what is detaining
him! Corny said he was only gone for a day."

The faint echo of footsteps in the distance stole upon her ear, and
Barbara drew a little back, and hid herself under the shelter of the
trees, not choosing to be seen by any stray passer-by. But, as they drew
near, a sudden change came over her; her eyes lighted up, her
cheeks were dyed with crimson, and her veins tingled with excess of
rapture--for she knew those footsteps, and loved them, only too well.

Cautiously peeping over the gate again, she looked down the road. A tall
form, whose very height and strength bore a grace of which its owner was
unconscious, was advancing rapidly toward her from the direction of West
Lynne. Again she shrank away; true love is ever timid; and whatever may
have been Barbara Hare's other qualities, her love at least was true
and deep. But instead of the gate opening, with the firm quick motion
peculiar to the hand which guided it, the footsteps seemed to pass, and
not to have turned at all toward it. Barbara's heart sank, and she stole
to the gate again, and looked out with a yearning look.

Yes, sure enough he was striding on, not thinking of her, not coming to
her; and she, in the disappointment and impulse of the moment, called to
him,--

"Archibald!"

Mr. Carlyle--it was no other--turned on his heel, and approached the
gate.

"Is it you, Barbara! Watching for thieves and poachers? How are you?"

"How are you?" she returned, holding the gate open for him to enter, as
he shook hands, and striving to calm down her agitation. "When did you
return?"

"Only now, by the eight o'clock train, which got in beyond its time,
having drawled unpardonably at the stations. They little thought they
had me in it, as their looks betrayed when I got out. I have not been
home yet."

"No! What will Cornelia say?"

"I went to the office for five minutes. But I have a few words to say to
Beauchamp, and am going up at once. Thank you, I cannot come in now; I
intend to do so on my return."

"Papa has gone up to Mr. Beauchamp's."

"Mr. Hare! Has he?"

"He and Squire Pinner," continued Barbara. "They have gone to have a
smoking bout. And if you wait there with papa, it will be too late to
come in, for he is sure not to be home before eleven or twelve."

Mr. Carlyle bent his head in deliberation. "Then I think it is of little
use my going on," said he, "for my business with Beauchamp is private. I
must defer it until to-morrow."

He took the gate out of her hand, closed it, and placed the hand
within his own arm, to walk with her to the house. It was done in
a matter-of-fact, real sort of way; nothing of romance or sentiment
hallowed it; but Barbara Hare felt that she was in Eden.

"And how have you all been, Barbara, these few days?"

"Oh, very well. What made you start off so suddenly? You never said you
were going, or came to wish us good-bye."

"You have just expressed it, Barbara--'suddenly.' A matter of business
suddenly arose, and I suddenly went upon it."

"Cornelia said you were only gone for a day."

"Did she? When in London I find so many things to do! Is Mrs. Hare
better?"

"Just the same. I think mamma's ailments are fancies, half of them; if
she would rouse herself she would be better. What is in that parcel?"

"You are not to inquire, Miss Barbara. It does not concern you. It only
concerns Mrs. Hare."

"Is it something you have brought for mamma, Archibald?"

"Of course. A countryman's visit to London entails buying presents for
his friends; at least, it used to be so, in the old-fashioned days."

"When people made their wills before starting, and were a fortnight
doing the journey in a wagon," laughed Barbara. "Grandpapa used to tell
us tales of that, when we were children. But is it really something for
mamma?"

"Don't I tell you so? I have brought something for you."

"Oh! What is it?" she uttered, her color rising, and wondering whether
he was in jest or earnest.

"There's an impatient girl! 'What is it?' Wait a moment, and you shall
see what it is."

He put the parcel or roll he was carrying upon a garden chair, and
proceeded to search his pockets. Every pocket was visited, apparently in
vain.

"Barbara, I think it is gone. I must have lost it somehow."

Her heart beat as she stood there, silently looking up at him in the
moonlight. _Was_ it lost? _What_ had it been?

But, upon a second search, he came upon something in the pocket of his
coat-tail. "Here it is, I believe; what brought it there?" He opened a
small box, and taking out a long, gold chain, threw it around her neck.
A locket was attached to it.

Her cheeks' crimson went and came; her heart beat more rapidly. She
could not speak a word of thanks; and Mr. Carlyle took up the roll, and
walked on into the presence of Mrs. Hare.

Barbara followed in a few minutes. Her mother was standing up, watching
with pleased expectation the movements of Mr. Carlyle. No candles were
in the room, but it was bright with firelight.

"Now, don't laugh at me," quoth he, untying the string of the parcel.
"It is not a roll of velvet for a dress, and it is not a roll of
parchment, conferring twenty thousand pounds a year. But it is--an air
cushion!"

It was what poor Mrs. Hare, so worn with sitting and lying, had often
longed for. She had heard such a luxury was to be bought in London,
but never remembered to have seen one. She took it almost with a greedy
hand, casting a grateful look at Mr. Carlyle.

"How am I to thank you for it?" she murmured through her tears.

"If you thank me at all, I will never bring you anything again," cried
he, gaily. "I have been telling Barbara that a visit to London entails
bringing gifts for friends," he continued. "Do you see how smart I have
made her?"

Barbara hastily took off the chain, and laid it before her mother.

"What a beautiful chain!" muttered Mrs. Hare, in surprise. "Archibald,
you are too good, too generous! This must have cost a great deal; this
is beyond a trifle."

"Nonsense!" laughed Mr. Carlyle. "I'll tell you both how I happened to
buy it. I went into a jeweller's about my watch, which has taken to lose
lately in a most unceremonious fashion, and there I saw a whole display
of chains hanging up; some ponderous enough for a sheriff, some light
and elegant enough for Barbara. I dislike to see a thick chain on a
lady's neck. They put me in mind of the chain she lost, the day she and
Cornelia went with me to Lynchborough, which loss Barbara persisted in
declaring was my fault, for dragging her through the town sight-seeing,
while Cornelia did her shopping--for it was then the chain was lost."

"But I was only joking when I said so," was the interruption of Barbara.
"Of course it would have happened had you not been with me; the links
were always snapping."

"Well, these chains in the shop in London put me in mind of Barbara's
misfortune, and I chose one. Then the shopman brought forth some
lockets, and enlarged upon their convenience for holding deceased
relatives' hair, not to speak of sweethearts', until I told him he
might attach one. I thought it might hold that piece of hair you prize,
Barbara," he concluded, dropping his voice.

"What piece?" asked Mrs. Hare.

Mr. Carlyle glanced round the room, as if fearful the very walls might
hear his whisper. "Richard's. Barbara showed it me one day when she was
turning out her desk, and said it was a curl taken off in that illness."

Mrs. Hare sank back in her chair, and hid her face in her hands,
shivering visibly. The words evidently awoke some poignant source of
deep sorrow. "Oh, my boy! My boy!" she wailed--"my boy! My unhappy boy!
Mr. Hare wonders at my ill-health, Archibald; Barbara ridicules it; but
there lies the source of all my misery, mental and bodily. Oh, Richard!
Richard!"

There was a distressing pause, for the topic admitted of neither hope
nor consolation. "Put your chain on again, Barbara," Mr. Carlyle
said, after a while, "and I wish you health to wear it out. Health and
reformation, young lady!"

Barbara smiled and glanced at him with her pretty blue eyes, so full of
love. "What have you brought for Cornelia?" she resumed.

"Something splendid," he answered, with a mock serious face; "only I
hope I have not been taken in. I bought her a shawl. The venders vowed
it was true Parisian cashmere. I gave eighteen guineas for it."

"That is a great deal," observed Mrs. Hare. "It ought to be a very good
one. I never gave more than six guineas for a shawl in all my life."

"And Cornelia, I dare say, never more than half six," laughed Mr.
Carlyle. "Well, I shall wish you good evening, and go to her; for if she
knows I am back all this while, I shall be lectured."

He shook hands with them both. Barbara, however, accompanied him to the
front door, and stepped outside with him.

"You will catch cold, Barbara. You have left your shawl indoors."