Throckmorton: A Novel

by Molly Elliot Seawell

“We will try—O Jacqueline, we will try!”

“And do you know it has troubled me even more than losing Freke; for I feel he is lost to me, even if he were to come to-morrow morning and say he was a free man; the fear that when I get well I shall be avoided; the people will leave me alone at church, and the county people will stop visiting us. That would indeed kill me.”

“Dear child, we will hope and pray. I believe it would kill me too.”

Jacqueline at this worked herself up into such a violent fit of weeping that Judith was frightened into giving her a great many more assurances of safety than her own anxious heart believed, but Jacqueline at last was quieted. In both of them, so widely unlike, was that profound respect for their neighbors, characteristic of simple and provincial souls. They knew no other world but that little neighborhood around Severn church, and its opinion was life or death.

But it troubled Judith that by degrees visitors began to fall off and inquiries ceased for Jacqueline. The temper and habit of the people were such that Judith knew Jacqueline could never hope for any forgiveness if that week’s journey should be known. Jacqueline too, although she was entirely silent afterward upon the subject, was thinking and dreading and fearing. It was the custom for many kindly and neighborly visits to be paid the sick, many flowers and delicacies to be sent them; but after a while Jacqueline ceased to have either flowers or visitors. She was nearly well, though, or at least she protested that she was. But, although Jacqueline declared to Judith that, if Freke were legally free to-morrow, she would not marry him as long as that other woman lived, it was plain that he had completely captivated her imagination. She loved him in her own wild, unreasoning way. Judith was hourly amazed at the sudden self-control, finesse, the power to deceive, that Jacqueline developed regarding him. Usually her composure was perfect, but once in her own room, Jacqueline threw herself on the rug before the fire and wept and sobbed so that Judith was seriously alarmed. But, still trying to keep the burden from the unconscious father and mother, she remained with Jacqueline until a calm had come after the storm.

“I love him! I love him!” was all Jacqueline would say, and Judith believed her.

“You told me how I ought to love Throckmorton,” she said that night, with a melancholy smile; “it is exactly how I love Freke. Don’t look at me in that indignant way, Judith. It is not my fault.”

Jack Throckmorton had remained at Millenbeck when his father left. Throckmorton had briefly announced to him that the wedding was off. Jack came at last to see them, looking very sheepish. Judith suspected that he came in obedience to Throckmorton’s wishes. But Jacqueline at once slipped back into her old friendly way, if a little less gay and thoughtless than before. Jack sent her flowers, and would have brought his dog-cart over every day to take her to drive, so much touched was he by Jacqueline’s illness, but Judith would not let him. Nevertheless, he was in and out of the house very much as he had been ever since that first night he was there. Judith, who had come to love him for his sweet, bright, boyish nature, he felt was his friend, as indeed everybody at Barn Elms was. The whole affair was intensely puzzling to Jack. He dared not show Throckmorton the awkward sympathy that he was struggling first to express and then to repress; but Jacqueline was young and ill, and had few pleasures, and he had once been a little gone on her, so it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should be kind to her.

There were mysterious hints, though, flying about the county regarding Jacqueline’s affairs. Mrs. Sherrard was dying with curiosity, and made many visits to Barn Elms for the purpose of gratifying it. But she soon found out that, beyond knowing that Jacqueline had tired of her engagement and had thrown Throckmorton over, neither General nor Mrs. Temple knew anything to communicate. About this time, too, the party-giving fever, which was never long in abeyance with Mrs. Sherrard, seized her. A party she must give. General Temple brought a note to that effect, coupled with a request for Mrs. Temple’s salad-bowls and ladles, one day from the post-office. Jacqueline, who had been out-of-doors several times and had quite given up her invalidism, showed the keenest and the most unexpected delight when she heard of the party. She jumped up and down, clapped her hands, and began to dance.