Paul felt happy in the society of his new sister, as he called her—the happiness of an aspiring mind in the presence of its superior; and Arthur Phillips, with his grand thoughts and his quiet manner, was a welcome guest at the old Lincolnshire house. Mrs. Somerton was not a happy woman, though she evidently made a constant effort to appear so; but Luke was full of life and spirits. He was the leading man of the district, and rapidly becoming the most popular. It was like reading a book, his Lincolnshire friends said, to hear him talk about farming, and the newspapers reported his speeches in full when he presided at the District Agricultural Society.
After a time the Lieutenant rejoined his regiment, and left England for the Cape of Good Hope, a wiser and a better, though not a happier, man, for his adventure with the barrister’s mysterious daughter. He kept his secret all the time in the Lincolnshire fens and marshes, and carried it with him to Kaffir-land. May we hope to hear of him before our story closes, that he found consolation in the love of some other woman more worthy his devotion. The lacerations of young hearts often heal with astonishing rapidity.
CHAPTER X.
“FROM GRAVE TO GAY.”
Joy and grief, how they alternate! What a busy, sorrowing, cheerful, merry, sad, wicked, virtuous world it is! Births, marriages, and deaths!—a text for all preachers—a safe guide for novelist and story teller. Births, marriages, and deaths! The same story every day told by every newspaper. What then can a true history of life be but a story of births, marriages, and deaths?
Unroof yon street, friend Asmodeo, and let the reader judge for himself. Here a child is born; there a bridegroom has just brought home his newly-married wife; yonder lies a dead man with sorrow weeping by his side. Carry us away to that village in the soft, sunny country. The same story still. Births, marriages, and deaths—joy and grief alternating! What bells are those that ring so merrily? What bell is that which groans, and sobs, and wails?
Thank goodness, the merry bells are for our ears in this chapter. The sound comes from a great square tower, that stands up like a beacon in the Lincolnshire cornfields. The clash and clang of the bells comes rushing out through the belfry apertures into the clear air amongst the rooks and the swallows. The dead who lie beneath those gaunt, crumbling, half-buried grave-stones, hear them not, though they rung out joyously at their marriages. The hard, grimy faces in the church porch, and the cherubims that ornament the water-spouts, hear the bells now quite as well as the men and women who passed them by on their way to the altar years and years ago. You would think the birds heard the melody and rejoiced in it; they chirruped, and sung, and flitted to and fro with a gaiety which they rarely exhibit in autumn days; for they knew the year was coming to an end, and that the north wind cometh after harvest. That ancient sluggish river, which had been red in olden times with the blood of the last Saxon warriors, let the bell-music rest upon its bright bosom in which the clouds mimicked each other, and hid themselves amongst spikes of waving rushes and green water flags.
They were ringing, these Lincolnshire bells, in celebration of the marriage of Arthur Phillips and Phœbe Somerton, who had walked arm in arm to church to be married, unattended save by Luke Somerton and Paul, and their own true love. It was Arthur’s wish that it should be so; and nobody but those most intimately concerned knew of the marriage until the bells, big with the secret, burst their iron bonds, and gave birth to that joyous melody.
And whilst they were ringing out their blithe and hopeful song, the Earl and Countess of Verner were discussing the happy event at Montem Castle, walking by the side of that sunny lake in the park.
“The news comes so suddenly,” said her ladyship, “that it is almost tantalising.”
“What a sly little fox it is,” said his lordship.