Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

  They arrived at an inopportune moment, for Lionel was there. At least, Lionel thought it inopportune. On leaving his mother’s house he had gone to Sibylla’s. And, however gratified he may have been by the speedy compliance of his mother with his request, he had very much preferred not to be present himself, if the call comprised, as he saw it did comprise, Lucy Tempest.

  Sibylla was at home alone; her sisters were out. She had been leaning back in an invalid chair, listening to the words of Lionel, when a servant opened the door and announced Lady Verner. Neither had observed the stopping of the carriage. Carriages often stopped at the house, and visitors entered it; but they were most frequently professional visits, concerning nobody but Jan. Lady Verner swept in. For her very life she could not avoid showing hauteur in that moment. Sibylla sprung from her chair, and stood with a changing face.

  Lionel’s countenance, too, was changing. It was the first time he had met Lucy face to face in the close proximity necessitated by a room. He had studiously striven not to meet her, and had contrived to succeed. Did he call himself a coward for it? But where was the help?

  A few moments given to greeting, to the assuming of seats, and they were settled down. Lady Verner and Decima on a sofa opposite Sibylla; Lucy in a low chair — what she was sure to look out for; Lionel leaning against the mantel-piece — as favourite a position of his, as a low seat was of Lucy’s. Sibylla had been startled by their entrance, and her chest was beating. Her brilliant colour went and came, her hand was pressed upon her bosom, as if to still it, and she lay rather back in her chair for support. She had not assumed a widow’s cap since her arrival, and her pretty hair fell around her in a shower of gold. In spite of Lady Verner’s prejudices, she could not help thinking her very beautiful; but she looked suspiciously delicate.

  “It is very kind of you to come to see me,” said Sibylla, speaking timidly across to Lady Verner.

  Lady Verner slightly bowed. “You do not look strong,” she observed to Sibylla, speaking in the moment’s impulse. “Are you well?”

  “I am pretty well. I am not strong. Since I returned home, a little thing seems to flutter me, as your entrance has done now. Lionel had just told me you would call upon me, he thought. I was so glad to hear it! Somehow I had feared you would not.”

  Candid, at any rate; and Lady Verner did not disapprove the apparent feeling that prompted it; but how her heart revolted at hearing those lips pronounce “Lionel” familiarly, she alone could tell. Again came the offence.

  “Lionel tells me sometimes I am so changed since I went out, that even he would scarcely have known me. I do not think I am so changed as all that. I had a great deal of vexation and trouble, and I grew thin. But I shall soon be well again now.”

  A pause.

  “You ascertained no certain news of John Massingbird, I hear,” observed Lady Verner.

  “Not any. A gentleman there is endeavouring to trace out more particulars. I heard — did Lionel mention to you — that I heard, strange to say, of Luke Roy, from the family I was visiting — the Eyres? Lionel” — turning to him— “did you repeat it to Lady Verner?”

  “I believe not,” replied Lionel. He could not say to Sibylla, “My mother would tolerate no conversation on any topic connected with you.”

  Another flagging pause.

  Lionel, to create a divertisement, raised a remarkably, fine specimen of coral from the table, and carried it to his mother.

  “It is beautiful,” he remarked. “Sibylla brought it home with her.”

  Lady Verner allowed that it was beautiful.

  “Show it to Lucy,” she said, when she had examined it with interest. “Lucy, my dear, do you remember what I was telling you the other evening, about the black coral?”

  Sibylla rose and approached Lucy with Lionel.

  “I am so pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said warmly. “You only came to Deerham a short while before I was leaving it, and I saw scarcely anything of you. Lionel has seen a great deal of you, I fancy, though he will not speak of you. I told him one day it looked suspicious; that I should be jealous of you, if he did not mind.”

  It was a foolish speech — foolish of Sibylla to give utterance to it; but she did so in all singleness of heart, meaning nothing. Lucy was bending over the coral, held by Lionel. She felt her own cheeks flush, and she saw by chance, not by direct look, that Lionel’s face had turned a deep scarlet. Jealous of her! She continued to admire the coral some little time longer, and then resigned it to him with a smile.

  “Thank you, Mr. Verner. I am fond of these marine curiosities. We had a good many of them at the rectory. Mr. Cust’s brother was a sailor.”

  Lionel could not remember the time when she had called him “Mr. Verner.” It was right, however, that she should do so; but in his heart he felt thankful for that sweet smile. It seemed to tell him that she, at any rate, was heart-whole, that she certainly bore him no resentment. He spoke freely now.

  “You are not looking well, Lucy — as we have been upon the subject of looks.”

  “I? Oh, I have had another cold since the one Jan cured. I did not try his remedies in time, and it fastened upon me. I don’t know which barked the most — I or Growler.”

  “Jan says he shall have Growler here,” remarked Sibylla.

  “No, Sibylla,” interposed Lionel; “Jan said he should like to have Growler here, if it were convenient to do so, and my mother would spare him. A medical man’s is not the place for a barking dog; he might attack the night applicants.”

  “Is it Jan’s dog?” inquired Lucy.

  “Yes,” said Lionel. “I thought you knew it. Why, don’t you remember, Lucy, the day I—”

  Whatever reminiscence Lionel may have been about to recall, he cut it short midway, and subsided into silence. What was his motive? Did Lucy know? She did not ask for the ending, and the rest were then occupied, and had not heard.

  More awkward pauses — as in these visits where the parties do not amalgamate is sure to be the case, and then Lady Verner slightly bowed to Lucy, as she might have done on their retiring from table, and rose. Extending the tips of her delicately-gloved fingers to Sibylla, she swept out of the room. Decima shook hands with her more cordially, although she had not spoken half a dozen words during the interview, and Sibylla turned and put her hand into Lucy’s.

  “I hope we shall be intimate friends,” she said. “I hope you will be our frequent guest at Verner’s Pride.”

  “Thank you,” replied Lucy. And perhaps the sudden flush on her face might have been less vivid had Lionel not been standing there.

  He attended them to the carriage, taking up his hat as he passed through the vestibule; for really the confined space that did duty for hall in Dr. West’s house did not deserve the name. Lady Verner sat on one side the carriage, Decima and Lucy on the seat opposite. Lionel stood a moment after handing them in.

  “If you can tear yourself away from the house for half an hour, I wish you would take a drive with us,” said Lady Verner, her tone of voice no more pleasant than her words. Try as she would, she could not help her jealous resentment against Sibylla from peeping out.

  Lionel smiled, and took his seat by his mother, opposite to Lucy. He was resolved to foster no ill-feeling by his own conduct, but to do all that lay in his power to subdue it in Lady Verner. He had not taken leave of Sibylla; and it may have been this, the proof that he was about to return to her, which had excited the ire of my lady. She, his mother, nothing to him; Sibylla all in all. Sibylla stood at the window, and Lionel bent forward, nodded his adieu, and raised his hat.

  The footman ascended to his place, and the carriage went on. All in silence for some minutes. A silence which Lady Verner suddenly broke.

  “What have you been doing to your cheeks, Lucy? You look as if you had caught a fever.”

  Lucy laughed. “Do I, Lady Verner? I hope it is not a third cold coming on, or Jan will grumble that I take them on purpose — as he did the last lime.”


  She caught the eyes of Lionel riveted on her with a strangely perplexed expression. It did not tend to subdue the excitement of her cheeks.

  Another moment, and Decima’s cheeks appeared to have caught the infection. They had suddenly become one glowing crimson; a strange sight on her delicately pale face. What could have caused it? Surely not the quiet riding up to the carriage of a stately old gentleman who was passing, wearing a white frilled shirt and hessian boots. He looked as if he had come out of a picture-frame, as he sat there, his hat off and his white hair flowing, courteously, but not cordially, inquiring after the health of my Lady Verner.

  “Pretty well, Sir Rufus. I have had a great deal of vexation to try me lately.”

  “As we all have, my dear lady. Vexation has formed a large portion of my life. I have been calling at Verner’s Pride, Mr. Verner.”

  “Have you, Sir Rufus? I am sorry I was not at home.”

  “These fine spring days tempt me out. Miss Tempest, you are looking remarkably well. Good-morning, Lady Verner. Good-morning.”

  A bow to Lady Verner, a sweeping bow to the rest collectively, and Sir Rufus rode away at a trot, putting on his hat as he went. His groom trotted after him, touching his hat as he passed the carriage.

  But not a word had he spoken to Decima Verner, not a look had he given her. The omission was unnoticed by the others; not by Decima. The crimson of her cheeks had faded to an ashy paleness, and she silently let fall her veil to hide it.

  What secret understanding could there be between herself and Sir Rufus Hautley?

  CHAPTER XLI.

  A SPECIAL VISION TOUCHING MRS. PECKABY.

  Not until summer, when the days were long and the nights short, did the marriage of Lionel Verner take place. Lady Verner declined to be present at it: Decima and Lucy were. It was a grand ceremony, of course; that is, it would have been grand, but for an ignominious interruption which occurred to mar it. At the very moment they were at the altar, Lionel placing the ring on his bride’s finger, and all around wrapt in breathless silence, in a transport of enthusiasm, the bride’s-maids uncertain whether they must go off in hysterics or not, there tore into the church Master Dan Duff, in a state of extreme terror and ragged shirt sleeves, fighting his way against those who would have impeded him, and shouting out at the top of his voice: “Mother was took with the cholic, and she’d die right off if Mr. Jan didn’t make haste to her.” Upon which Jan, who had positively no more sense of what was due to society than Dan Duff himself had, went flying away there and then, muttering something about “those poisonous mushrooms.” And so they were made man and wife; Lionel, in his heart of hearts, doubting if he did not best love Lucy Tempest.

  A breakfast at Dr. West’s: Miss Deborah and Miss Amilly not in the least knowing (as they said afterwards) how they comported themselves at it; and then Lionel and his bride departed. He was taking her to Paris, which Sibylla had never seen.

  Leaving them to enjoy its attractions — and Sibylla, at any rate, would not fail to do so — we must give another word to that zealous missionary, Brother Jarrum.

  The seed, scattered broadcast by Brother Jarrum, had had time to fructify. He had left the glowing promises of all that awaited them, did they decide to voyage out to New Jerusalem, to take root in the imaginations of his listeners, and absented himself for a time from Deerham. This may have been crafty policy on Brother Jarrum’s part; or may have resulted from necessity. It was hardly likely that so talented and enlightened an apostle as Brother Jarrum should confine his labours to the limited sphere of Deerham: in all probability, they had to be put in requisition elsewhere. However it may have been, for several weeks towards the end of spring, Brother Jarrum was away from Deerham. Mr. Bitterworth, and one or two more influential people, of whom Lionel was one, had very strongly objected to Brother Jarrum’s presence in it at all; and, again, this may have been the reason of his quitting it. However it was, he did quit it; though not without establishing a secret understanding with the more faithful of his converts. With the exception of these converts, Deerham thought he had left it for good; that it was, as they not at all politely expressed it, “shut of him.” In this Deerham was mistaken.

  On the very day of Lionel Verner’s marriage, Brother Jarrum reappeared in the place. He took up his abode, as before, in Mrs. Peckaby’s spare room. Peckaby, this time, held out against it. However welcome the four shillings rent, weekly, was from Brother Jarrum, Peckaby assumed a lordly indifference to it, and protested he’d rather starve, nor have pison like him in the house. Peckaby, however, possessed a wife, who, on occasion, wore, metaphorically speaking, his nether garments, and it was her will and pleasure to countenance the expected guest. Brother Jarrum, therefore, was received and welcomed.

  He did not hold forth this time in Peckaby’s shop. He did not in public urge the delights of New Jerusalem, or the expediency of departure for it. He kept himself quiet and retired, receiving visits in the privacy of his chamber. After dark, especially, friends would drop in; admitted without noise or bustle by Mrs. Peckaby; parties of ones, of twos, of threes, until there would be quite an assembly collected upstairs; why should not Brother Jarrum hold his levees as well as his betters?

  That something unusual was in the wind, was very evident; some scheme, or project, which it appeared expedient to keep a secret. Had Peckaby been a little less fond Of the seductions of the Plough and Harrow, his suspicions must have been aroused. Unfortunately, Peckaby yielded unremittingly to that renowned inn’s temptations, and spent every evening there, leaving full sway to his wife and Brother Jarrum.

  About a month thus passed on, and Lionel Verner and his wife were expected home, when Deerham woke up one morning to a commotion. A flitting had taken place from it in the night. Brother Jarrum had departed, conveying with him a train of followers.

  One of the first to hear of it was Jan Verner; and, curious to say, he heard it from Mrs. Baynton, the lady at Chalk Cottage. Jan, who, let him be called abroad in the night as he would, was always up with the sun, stood one morning in his surgery, between seven and eight o’clock, when he was surprised by the entrance of Mrs. Baynton — a little woman, with a meek, pinched face, and gray hair. Since Dr. West’s departure, Jan had attended the sickly daughter, therefore he knew Mrs. Baynton, but he had never seen her abroad in his life. Her bonnet looked ten years old. Her daughters were named — at least, they were called — Flore and Kitty; Kitty being the sickly one. To see Mrs. Baynton arrive thus, Jan jumped to the conclusion that Kitty must be dying.

  “Is she ill again?” he hastily asked, with his usual absence of ceremony, giving the lady no time to speak.

  “She’s gone,” gasped Mrs. Baynton.

  “Gone — dead?” asked Jan, with wondering eyes.

  “She’s gone off with the Mormons.”

  Jan stood upright against the counter, and stared at the old lady. He could not understand. “Who is gone off with the Mormons?” was his rejoinder.

  “Kitty is. Oh, Mr. Jan, think of her sufferings! A journey like that before her! All the way to that dreadful place! I have heard that even strong women die on the road of the hardships.”

  Jan had stood with open mouth. “Is she mad?” he questioned.

  “She has not been much better than mad since — since — But I don’t wish to go into family troubles. Can you give me Dr. West’s address? She might come back for him.”

  Now Jan had received positive commands from that wandering physician not to give his address to chance applicants, the inmates of Chalk Cottage having come in for a special interdiction. Therefore Jan could only decline.

  “He is moving about from one place to another,” said Jan. “To-day in Switzerland, to-morrow in France; the next day in the moon, for what we can tell. You can give me a letter, and I’ll try and get it conveyed to him somehow.”

  Mrs. Baynton shook her head.

  “It would be too late. I thought if I could telegraph to him, he might have got to Liverpool in ti
me to stop Kitty. There’s a large migration of Mormons to take place in a day or two, and they are collecting at Liverpool.”

  “Go and stop her yourself,” said Jan sensibly.

  “She’d not come back for me,” replied Mrs. Baynton, in a depressed tone. “What with her delicate health, and what with her wilfulness, I have always had trouble with her. Dr. West was the only one — But I can’t refer to those matters. Flore is broken-hearted. Poor Flore! she has never given me an hour’s grief in her life. Kitty has given me little else. And now to go off with the Mormons!”

  “Who has she gone with?”

  “With the rest from Deerham. They have gone off in the night. That Brother Jarrum and a company of about five-and-twenty, they say.”

  Jan could scarcely keep from exploding into laughter. Part of Deerham gone off to join the Mormons! “Is it a fact?” cried he.

  “It is a fact that they are gone,” replied Mrs. Baynton. “She has been out several times in an evening to hear that Brother Jarrum, and had become infected with the Mormon doctrine. In spite of what I or Flore could say, she would go to listen to the man, and she grew to believe the foolish things he uttered. And you can’t give me Dr. West’s address?”

  “No, I can’t,” replied Jan. “And I see no good that it would be to you, if I could. He could not get to Liverpool in time, from wherever he may be, if the flight is to take place in a day or two.”

  “Perhaps not,” sighed Mrs. Baynton. “I was unwilling to come, but it seemed like a forlorn hope.”

  She let down her old crape veil as she went out at the door; and Jan, all curious for particulars, went abroad to pick up anything he could learn.

  About fifteen had gone off, exclusive of children. Grind’s lot, as it was called, meaning Grind, his wife, and their young ones; Davies had gone, Mary Green had gone, Nancy from Verner’s Pride had gone, and sundry others whom it is not necessary to enumerate. It was said that Dinah Roy made preparations to go, but her heart failed her at the last. Some accounts ran that she did start, but was summarily brought up by the appearance of her husband, who went after her. At his sight she turned without a word, and walked home again, meekly submitting to the correction he saw fit to inflict. Jan did not believe this. His private opinion was, that had Dinah Roy started, her husband would have deemed it a red-letter day, and never have sought to bring her back more.