One fine summer evening, when a gentle rain had washed the dust out of the two trees which lived out a shambling sort of existence at the back of the house where Mrs. Dibble consented to act the part of guardian to that poor persecuted orphan, whom she loved as if she were her own—on a bright summer evening when the sun was shining out after the rain, and a refreshing breeze came up the Thames and moved the leaves of the trees in question, Chrissy leaned upon Paul Somerton’s shoulder, and told him that she must leave him on the next day. She was now quite well, she said, and her gratitude to him for his great kindness compelled her to take this course. His honourable and respectful conduct towards her, and her love for him, too, all urged departure. She had deceived him, deceived him wickedly, and had never until now felt courage enough to tell him how much she had wronged him.
Paul grew terribly alarmed at her earnest words, and begged her not to tell him, not to talk of leaving him. Where could she go? He could not live without her. O, that cursed marriage! O cruel Fate that had not brought her to him in the days of her early life! It seemed to him, he said, that he had known her always. Her face was familiar to him when first he saw her. Paul had often said this, and poor Chrissy felt satisfied in her own mind that he must have seen that mysterious lady of the Temple of Magic; but, of course, she never assisted his memory one jot, and if memory had given him a quiet nudge in connection with his visit to Severntown with Mrs. Dibble, he would have repudiated the suggestion with scorn.
When he exclaimed, O that cursed marriage! Chrissy held down her head and sighed and wept and murmured out some pathetic words of Thomas Moore’s about forgiveness. She had rehearsed this point before Mrs. Dibble’s glass, and had committed the words to memory for the purpose a week previously. She knew that Paul could not marry her because she was Crawley’s wife; she knew that a divorce was a serious business, and that it might lead to the exposure of her real history. So she had resolved, the first week she was in Paul’s care, that when she was once firmly secure of his love, she would make a pathetic confession of being single, and then fall at his feet and implore his forgiveness.
How cleverly she did this it is unnecessary to say. It was a splendid success; the confession jumped so well with the Lieutenant’s wishes that he blotted out the past at once, forgave her, and in his blind mad fashion felt perfectly happy. He went to his quarters that night determined to exchange into a regiment that was abroad or going abroad, and marry this poor girl, who had been so wronged, and who had knelt at his feet until his heart ached for her, and whose future happiness he vowed should be his continual care.
Mrs. Dibble had told dear Chrissy that she expected her husband coming to spend a day with them in the course of a fortnight; and as the chatty, old woman had told dear Chrissy how she had found poor Thomas with a set of nasty, dirty show people, dear Chrissy thought it best to bring her grand scheme of a new start in life to an early conclusion. O, how she would love to go to India or anywhere beyond the seas, where she could begin her life anew, and prove to her dear, dear Paul, the depth of woman’s gratitude and love!
CHAPTER XIX.
“THE COMING EVENT.”
The preparations for the marriage of Lord Verner to Miss Tallant gradually drew towards completion, and the fashionable world was all agog at the event. The newspapers had published all kinds of piquant paragraphs about the beauty of the bride, her great wealth, the nobility of her birth, and the immense riches of the bridegroom. Introduced by the popular gossip-preface on dit, the Court Journal and Court Circular had fairly vied with each other in racy scraps about Montem Castle and Barton Hall. A journal devoted to the fine arts had made the discovery that many of the landscapes by the now famous artist, Arthur Phillips, were copies of the glorious scenery in that beautiful valley of Avonworth where Barton Hall was situated.
Local newspapers dug up from local histories and elsewhere anecdotes of the Verners, and expressed their belief that his lordship the present Earl would now take his place at the head of the county, and mix in society, as his noble father had done before him. It was, indeed, confidently stated that this would be the effect of his lordship’s marriage, and the county was congratulated upon the event in a hearty, manful style. One journalist, evidently with the fear of London and Punch and Eatanswill before him, came out in a very explanatory sketch, in which he ventured to point out how legitimate it was that county people should make a fuss on the occasion of this marriage, and how proper it was that the newspapers should set forth the event as one of great importance. It was all very well for London people to think lightly of such things; but Londoners were altogether differently placed. They made fuss enough on the occasion of royal marriages, and filled their newspapers with orange-blossom articles. In a city like Severntown the nobility were mixed up with the social, political, and religious welfare of the place. The citizens rejoiced in having such neighbours, and it was right that they should acknowledge the dignity and worth of their native aristocracy. In the present instance the union of an Earl of Verner with the daughter of a woman of the house of Petherington, and daughter of the late Christopher Tallant, a merchant prince, was an event of importance not only to the county of Severnshire but to England. The provincial editor, though he might feel that he was saying nothing silly, nor anything smacking of toadyism, thought it judicious once more in this place to contrast the difference between provincial editors and London editors. The latter might think it fine to laugh at enthusiastic provincials, but Londoners could not possibly enter into the feelings which must necessarily animate a provincial community on an occasion like the present. Londoners who did not talk politics, and could not understand the intense excitement of an election, did not know what it was to live in a restricted community associated with noble and wealthy families who possessed means and facilities for being of the greatest social benefit to those amongst whom they lived.
Our friend got a little involved at this point of his elaborate justification of himself. There was so much of special pleading in his article that the intelligent reader might not unfairly think that he knew he was toadying a little, and was fighting an attack by anticipation. In one portion of his article he was very bitter; he said that the London newspaper-men, who professed to look down from the greatest heights upon provincials, were provincials themselves. Then he claimed all the best men in town as countrymen, and vowed that all the most noteworthy magazine articles were written by provincials. How the editor drifted into this irrelevant discussion was curious to note; how he got back again to the subject in hand was a marvel of literary art. He finished by showing how the marriages of the great influenced the destinies of a nation, and he went back to the remotest times for illustrations of this important point.
Even at the risk of involving the narrative, we pause to tell the reader that the provincial thunderer in question has since succeeded in obtaining an appointment in town, and that he has begun already to look down from his high tower upon his humbler brethren of the Severnshire press; indeed, he is said to be the writer of that amusing satirical tract on “Mrs. Grundy’s Borough,” which lampoons so smartly the society, public and private, of the old city. Well, “circumstances alter cases,” as the Severntown Mercury wisely remarked in reviewing that offensive publication, which took the old city and the post-office by storm one morning not very long ago. The London provincial gentleman, if he be living now (and we hope he is living happily and prosperously), will we trust forgive our allusion to this incident; he may say that it is more irrelevant to this history than that passage in his article to the subject discussed. Perhaps he is right; we bow to his opinion with all deference. We can assure him that we should not have mentioned him at all, only that our story seemed to demand it. Honestly endeavouring to place these records of modern history fairly before the reader, we could not, without something like a breach of faith, have excluded the journalistic features of the union of the houses of Verner and Tallant, and particularly when we consider the consequences of that interesting and delightful marriage.