Bessy Rane: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Mr. North will be with your mistress as soon as you are, Jelly," said he. And Jelly curtsied as she took her departure.

But a scene ensued. Madam had called Mrs. Cumberland a crazy woman: she seemed nothing less herself. Whatever her private objection might have been to her husband's holding an interview with Mrs. Cumberland--and there could be no doubt that she had one--Richard fairly thought she was going mad in her frenzied attempts to prevent it. She stamped, she raved, she threatened Mr. North, she violently pushed him into his chair, she ordered the servants to bar the house doors against him; she was in fact as nearly mad, as a woman out of an asylum could be. Matilda cried: indifferent as that young lady remained in general to her mother's ordinary fits of temper, she was frightened now. The servants collected in dark nooks of the hall, and stood peeping; Mr. North stole into his parlour, and thence, by the window, to a bench in the garden, where he sat in the dark and the rain, trembling from head to foot. Of his own accord he had surely never dared to go, after this: but Richard was his sheet anchor. Richard alone maintained his calm equanimity, and carried matters through. The servants obeyed his slightest word; with sure instinct they saw who could be, and was, the Hall's real master: and the carriage came to the door.

But all this had caused delay. And yet more might have been caused--for what will an unrestrained and determined woman not do--but that just as the wheels, grating on the wet gravel struck on madam's ear, her violence culminated in a species of fainting-fit. For the time at least she could not move, and Richard took the opportunity to conduct his father to the carriage. It was astonishing how confidingly the old man trusted to Richard's protection.

"Won't you come also, Dick? I hardly dare go alone. She'd be capable of coming after me, you know."

Richard's answer was to step in beside his father. It was eight o'clock when they reached Mrs. Cumberland's. Jelly, with a reproachful face, showed them into a sitting-room.

"You can't go up now, sir; you will have to wait!" said she.

"Is she any better?" asked Richard.

"She's worse," replied Jelly; "getting weaker and weaker with every quarter-of-an-hour. Dr. Rane thinks she'll last till morning. I don't. The clergyman's up there now."

And when the time came for Mr. North to be introduced into the room, Mrs. Cumberland was almost beyond speaking to him. They were alone--for she motioned others away. Mr. North never afterwards settled with himself what the especial point could have been that she had wished to see him upon; unless it was the request that he should take charge of Ellen Adair.

Her words were faint and few, and apparently disjointed, at times seeming to have no connection one with another. Mr. North--sitting on a chair in front of her, holding one of her hands, bending down his ear to catch what fell from her white lips--thought her mind wandered a little. She asked him to protect Ellen Adair--to take her home to the Hall until she should be claimed by her husband or her father. It might be only a few days, she added, before the former came, and he would probably wish the marriage to take place at once; if so, it had better be done. Then she went on to say something about Arthur Bohun, which Mr. North could not catch at all. And then she passed abruptly to the matter of the anonymous letter.