Chapter Eleven.
Jealousy.
Whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny, and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain!
Some weeks after our conversation in the churchyard, I met old Shuffler one day waddling along the Terrace in a state of great excitement.
He told me he was going to an auction, and pressed me to accompany him, that he might have the benefit of my advice and opinion concerning certain objects of “bigotry and virtue,” as he styled them, which he designed purchasing—should he be able to get them knocked down cheap.
On asking the reason for such an unwonted outlay on his part, he said that he was about furnishing a new villa for which he had just found a tenant.
“A fresh tenant!” said I with surprise, a newcomer in our suburb being always regarded as a sort of rare bird. “A fresh tenant! Who is he, or she, or whoever it may be?”
“Well, sir,” said Shuffler, “it’s a secret as yet; but I don’t mind telling you, Mr Lorton, as I know you won’t let it out—Mr Mawley, the parsun, has took the villa!”
“Mr Mawley!” I exclaimed, with redoubled astonishment. “Why, what on earth does he want a house for?”
“I believe, sir,” said Shuffler, blinking his sound eye furiously the while, to give a facetious effect to his words, “he’s agoin’ to get married. So my missus says at least, sir; and she gen’rally knows wot’s agoin’ on. Wemmenfolk finds out them things somehow or other!”
“Mawley going to be married!” I repeated. “Nonsense, Shuffler! it is probably some mistake. You and your wife must have let your brains run wool-gathering, and made the story up between you!”
“No, sir,” he replied, “it’s as true as you are a standin’ there. We’ve no call to tell a lie about the matter, sir,” and he drew himself up with native dignity.
“And you have really heard it for a fact, Shuffler?”
“I ’ave so, sir; and I could tell you, too, the party as he is agoin’ to join!”
“Can you?” I asked. “Who is the favoured she?”
“Well, sir,” said he with a sly wink, screwing up his mouth tightly as if wild horses would not tear the information from him against his will, “that would be tellin’?”
“I know it would,” said I, “but as you have already told me so much, I think you might now let me know the lady’s name.”
“Mr Lorton,” he answered, “you know I would do anything for you I honestly could, for you ’ave been a friend to me many a time, specially when I got into that row with the tax collector, when you be’aved ’andsome. But to speak to the rights of the matter, I can’t say I know the lady’s name wot the parsun is agoin’ to marry: I only has my suspicions like.”
“Well, and whom do you think to be the one?” said I.
“She don’t live far from here!” he said in a stage whisper, dropping his voice, and looking round cautiously, as he pointed along the row of houses composing “the Terrace,” where our most fashionable parishioners resided—our Belgravia, so to speak.
“You don’t mean one of the Miss Dashers?” I said, thinking of Bessie.
“Lord, no!” he replied, “it ain’t one of ‘my lady’s’ young ladies!”
“Then who is it?” I said, getting quite impatient at his tergiversation.
“Oh! she comed here later than them!” he answered, still beating about the bush; “she comed here later than them,” he repeated, nodding his head knowingly.
A sudden fear shot through me. “Is it?—no, it cannot be—is it Miss Clyde?” I asked.
“Ah!” he grunted, oracularly. “You knows best about that, sir!”
“Well, don’t you dare, Shuffler,” I savagely retorted, “to couple that lady’s name with Mr Mawley’s!” I was literally boiling over with fury at the very suspicion:—it was the realisation of my worst fears!
“You’ve no cause to get angry, Mr Lorton,” said he. “I didn’t name no names, sir; tho’ you might be further out, as far as that goes! I didn’t know as you was interested in the lady, or I shouldn’t ’a mentioned it.”
“You’re quite wrong—quite wrong altogether, Shuffler. Why, the thing’s absurd!” I said.
“Well, you know you axed me, sir; and what could I say?” he said apologetically.
“That may be,” I said, less hotly. “But you had better not couple people’s names together in that way. Why, it’s actionable!” I added, knowing the house-agent’s mortal dread of anything connected with the law.
“But you won’t spread it no further, Mr Lorton?” he said, anxiously, the sound eye looking at me with a beseeching expression.
“I won’t, Shuffler,” I answered; “take care that you don’t!”
“I’ll take my davy, sir, as how it shan’t cross my lips again,” he replied in a convincing tone.
“Very well, Shuffler,” I replied, turning away from him. “Only keep to that, and it will be best for you. Good day!”
“Good day, sir; and you won’t come to the auction along o’ me?”
“No,” said I. “I can’t spare the time to-day. I’ll try and come to-morrow, if that will do as well.”
I did not wish to be angry with him; for, after all, I had brought the bitter information he conveyed entirely upon myself. He was only repeating what was, probably, already the gossip of the whole suburb. Besides, he really had mentioned no names:—the allusion to Min, had been as much my suggestion as his; so, I tried to be affable with him before we parted. “I’ll try and come to-morrow, Shuffler, if that will do as well, to look at the things you want me,” I said, more cordially than I had previously spoken to him.
“All right, sir,” he replied, all beaming once more, with the eye as jovial as ever. “That’ll suit me jest as well, sir; and I’m very much obleeged, too, I’m sure.”
He, thereupon and then, waddled off on his mission of beating down opposition brokers; while I paced along sadly, thinking about the news I had just heard.
I was going to call on Lady Dasher, who would be able to confirm it, or settle that it was a mere idle report; consequently, I would not have to remain long in suspense.
I would soon know the truth, one way or the other.
Prior, however, to my reaching this haven of rumour, I met little Miss Pimpernell. She was trotting along, with a basket on her arm, according to her usual wont when district visiting.
“Hi! Frank,” she exclaimed, on seeing me. “What is the matter with you now? Why, my dear boy, you’ve got a face as long as my arm, and look the picture of misery!”
“Oh, I’ve just heard something that surprised me,” I said. “I’ve been told that Mr Mawley is going to get married.”
“Well, that’s news to me,” she said. “I haven’t heard it before. But what if he is going to be married—are you so sorry on his account, or for the lady?” she continued, in a bantering tone—she always liked a bit of a joke—“I never thought you took such an interest in Mr Mawley!”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said. “It has surprised me, that’s all.”
“So it has me, Frank,” said she. “Who told you?”
“I don’t know whether I ought to tell, Miss Pimpernell,” I replied, hesitatingly. “It was disclosed to me in confidence, and—”
“No matter, no matter, my clear boy,” said the old lady briskly. “Then you ought not to tell me. But, at the same time, Frank, I don’t believe a word of it! If Mr Mawley had been meditating anything of the sort, I would have been his first confidante! I don’t think there’s a word of truth in it, Frank, no matter who your informant was. I daresay the rumour has got about just because he has taken a house, which he can very well afford, having got tired of living in lodgings; and small blame to him, say I! He’s no more going to get married than I am, Frank; and I do not believe that likely, do you?”
She laughed cheerily, tapping me on the cheek with her glove.
She was always petting and caressing me; and, I believe, considered me a sort of big baby exclusively her own property.
“But his taking a house looks suspicious,” I said, willing to be more convinced.
“Not a bit of it,” said Miss Pimpernell, sturdily. “Why, if Monsieur Parole d’Honneur took a house, would that be any reason for his getting married? Ah, I know, Frank, who has put all this nonsense in your head! It is that gossiping old Shuffler. I’ll give him a lecture when I next catch him,” and she shook her fist comically in the air, to the intense wonderment of Miss Spight, who was crossing the road.
“But, mind, I didn’t tell you so, Miss Pimpernell. Don’t tell him that I repeated what he said?”
“Stuff and nonsense,” she said. “Why, he’ll tell everybody he meets the news in confidence, just the same as he did you. I’ll give him a good wigging, I tell you! Mr Mawley is not going to be married in a hurry; and if he is, not to the young person you think, Master Frank.”
“I did not mention anybody, Miss Pimpernell,” I said, in confusion; for, her keen black eyes seemed to penetrate into my very heart, and search out my secret fears.
She looked very sagacious.
“Ah! Frank, you did not say anything; but your looks betrayed you. So that’s the reason why the report of the curate’s marriage affected you so, is it? But you needn’t blush, my dear boy! You need not blush! I will not tell tales out of school; so you may set your mind at rest. It is not, however, as you think, Frank. Cheer up; and good-bye, my dear boy. I must be trotting off now, or my poor blind woman will think I’m never coming to read to her.”
And off she went, leaving me much happier than old Shuffler had done.
Confound him! What did he mean, with his cock-and-a-bull story?
On reaching Lady Dasher’s house, however, the house-agent’s rumour was, to my great distress, confirmed; and, that in the most authoritative manner.
It must be true then, in spite of Miss Pimpernell’s denial!
My lady was in one of her most morbid and melancholy moods, too, which did not help to mend matters.
I praised her fuchsias on entering; but even this homage to her favourite hobby failed to rouse her.
She had heard that Mrs Clyde had some of the most beautiful pelargonia; and what were her paltry flowers in comparison?
Alas! she was poor, and could only afford a few miserable fuchsias to decorate her drawing-room—or rather the better to exhibit its poverty!
If her poor, dear papa had been alive, things of course would have been very different; and she could have had petunias, or orchids, or any of the rarest hot-house flowers she pleased; but, now, she was poor, although proud, and could not afford them like that rich parvenue.
How, good things always seemed given to those who are above their need!
There was Mrs Clyde getting her only daughter engaged to be married also, she heard; while no suitor came forward for her two poor orphan girls!
Such was the staple of her conversation—enlivening, at any rate.
“Oh, ma!” exclaimed Bessie Dasher at this juncture; “you should not say so to Mr Lorton! He’ll think you wish him to propose at once!” and both she and her sister burst out laughing at the idea.
“So I would,” said I, jokingly, notwithstanding that I felt as melancholy and little inclined for raillery as their mother, whose words seemed to clinch what old Shuffler had said. “So I would, too, if there weren’t a pair of you, and bigamy contrary to law. ‘How happy could I be with either, were t’other dear charmer away.’ But,” I continued, turning to Lady Dasher, with an assumption of easy indifference which I found it hard to counterfeit under the searching glances of the two wild Irish girls, her daughters, “is it really true what you said just now about Mrs Clyde’s daughter, Lady Dasher?”
“Yes, Mr Lorton,” she replied, “to the best of my belief it is; for, I have heard, on the most unimpeachable authority, that she is engaged to Mr Mawley. He is always going there, you know.”
“But that is no proof, ma,” said Bessie Dasher, who, as I have hinted before, was suspected of a slight tenderness towards the curate. “Mr Mawley is always coming here, too!”
“True, my dear,” said her mother; “still there are comings and comings. You may depend he only goes there so often for a purpose! Indeed, I asked Mrs Clyde whether there was not something in it only yesterday, and she smiled and said nothing; and, if that isn’t proof,” she concluded, triumphantly, “I don’t know what is!”
Bessie remained silent, but her sister said impulsively, “I don’t believe it, ma—not what you say, but about Minnie Clyde’s engagement. Mr Mawley’s going there proves nothing, as Bessie said; and, as for Mrs Clyde, I believe she would smile in that graceful way of hers—I hate fine people!—and say nothing if you told her that her house was on fire! The curate is always gadding about, and Minnie is a pretty girl; so, of course, he likes to go there and see her; but, I know, that she does not care twopence for him.”
“Ah, you may say so, my dear; but I know better. She would jump to have him. All girls like handsome young clergymen, as I know to my cost. Ah, Mr Lorton,” went on Lady Dasher, with a sad expressive shake of her head, “marriage is a sad lottery, a sad lottery! I once thought of marrying into the church, too, when my poor dear papa was alive. Perhaps it would have been a happier lot for me if I had done so! He was such a dear, nice clergyman, and looked so well in his canonicals—such a truly evangelical minister! I could listen to his sermons for hours without feeling the slightest fatigue!”
“Thank goodness, then, he wasn’t our papa!” exclaimed the saucy Seraphine. “I’m certain that I wouldn’t have been able to listen to his sermons so long!”
“Ah, my dear,” groaned her mother at her levity, “always frivolous, Seraphine! I’m afraid you will never marry a pious, holy man, as I would wish!”
“Not if I know it, ma!” she retorted, so heartily that both her sister Bessie and I—in spite of my anxiety about Min—could not but join in her catching laughter. “No,” continued the pert and impetuous young lady, “when I enter the holy estate of matrimony I shall choose a gay soldier laddie. None of your solemn-faced parsons for me! If they were all like our good old vicar, whom I would take to-morrow if he asked me, it would be quite a different thing; but they are not. They are all too steady and starch and stiff now-a-days. They look as if butter would not melt in their mouths!”
“Ah, my dear!” said her mother, “you will not think so by-and-by. ‘Beggars mustn’t be choosers.’ You have got nothing but your face for your fortune, you know, although it would have been very different if my poor dear papa had been alive!”
“What, my face, ma?” said her dutiful daughter, “I’m sure I hope not! Really, I’m very well satisfied with it;” and, getting up and going to the mirror, she set about altering the riband in her hair, humming the while the old ballad—
“‘My face is my fortune, kind sir,’ she said,
‘Kind sir,’ she said, ‘sir,’ she said;
‘My face is my fortune, kind sir,’ she said.”
I did not like to press any more inquiries with reference to Mr Mawley’s rumoured engagement, thinking they would look too pointed, disclosing my interest in the affair,—however much I was transported with the feelings of mingled jealousy, doubt, and uncertainty, that were preying on my heart; consequently, I now took my leave, all the suspicions and fears, which Shuffler’s news had given rise to, more rife than ever:—the renewed hope that Miss Pimpernell’s cheery address had inspired me with, completely dispelled.
I’m afraid my anxiety was only too apparent; for, Seraphine Dasher whispered to me as I went out, “I don’t believe a word of it, there! It is only one of those absurd ‘true stories’ that ma is always getting hold of.”
But I wouldn’t be comforted.
It was only likely enough. Mawley was constantly going there, as Lady Dasher had said, and Mrs Clyde encouraged him, there could be no doubt; there must be something in it, or these reports would never have got about. “There is never any smoke without fire.”
Besides, Min herself did not dislike the curate as I did.
I could see that plainly for myself the night of that birthday party at her house. His insinuating address and treacherous advances had probably succeeded at last in entrapping her affections.
False, cruel girl that she was, how could she encourage me as she had done, to nurse delusive hopes which, as she must have known, would only end in disappointment! What had been probably sport to her was death to me!
And yet, I could not believe it of her.
My pure angel-natured Min, with her darling madonna-like face and honest, trustful grey eyes, to act like this?
No. It could not be. It was impossible.
Still, the very next day I saw her walking out alone with the curate.
It must be true, then, I thought; and I ground my teeth in anguish.
I determined to avoid her, never passing her house as I had been previously accustomed to; and, only bowing coldly when I met her in the street.
At last she spoke to me one day, as I was coming out of the vicarage.
She was just going to knock at the door; so I encountered her face to face on the step, without a chance of escape.
She held out her hand to me.
I took it mechanically, and then let it drop; raising my hat at the same time, without saying a word.
She addressed me with heightened colour and a wistful look in the deep, grey eyes.
“Why are you so angry with me, Frank?” she asked in her sweet, low voice, which had a slight tremble in it as she spoke. “What have I done to offend you? You never stop and speak to me now, never call at our house, and always pass me by with a cold frigid bow! Have I done anything to offend you, Frank?” she entreated again. “If so, tell me; and I will beg your pardon, for it must have been unintentional on my part?”
I was foolish, and proud, and conceited. I thought that I would not allow myself to be deceived twice.
I was bitter and rude. I made a mockery of all the friendly overtures which she made so lovingly with all the coy bashfulness of her maiden heart.
I could have strangled myself afterwards, when I thought it all over!
“I’m not aware, Miss Clyde,” said I, as stiffly as you please—just as if she were a stranger to me, and not the dear Min whom I knew and loved so well—“I am not aware that there is any necessity for your asking my forgiveness:—if you cannot suggest to yourself the reason for my altered manner, words on my part would be useless indeed!”
I spoke thus harshly to her, and coldly, when my heart was almost breaking the while.
“And is that all you have got to say to me, Frank?” she said, still in the same dear, tender, entreating voice, and with glistening eyes.
My sternness was nearly melted; but I continued to hold out and stand upon my dignity.
“I have nothing more to add, Miss Clyde,” I said, with another Grandisonian bow.
“Then, Mr Lorton,” she said, her grey eyes flashing, and her whole dear little self roused into a fiery, impulsive little Min—she looked glorious in her pique!—“then, Mr Lorton, I will not seek to detain you further—let me pass, sir!” she added passionately, as, relenting of my behaviour, I tried to stop her and explain my conduct—“Let me pass, sir! I do not wish to hear another word from you!”
And she walked, as stately as a little queen, into the hall of the vicarage, tossing up her sweet little dimpled chin proudly; while, I?—went back disconsolately home, my heart torn with conflicting emotions.
Was I right, or wrong?
Perhaps the rumour of her engagement had not the slightest foundation, in fact.
However, it was too late now to think about that!
All was over.
We were parted for ever!