"And now I'm going into the manufactory to tell Mr. Arkell that you and I are two. If he asks for the cause, perhaps I shall whisper to him that I've found out you won't suit me and I prefer to look out for somebody that will; and when Mrs. Arkell asks it me, 'We've split, ma'am—split' I shall tell her. Travice! Travice! did you really think I could stand, knowing it, in the way of anybody's life's happiness?"
He drew her face down to his. He kissed it as he had never kissed it before.
"Friends for life! Firm, warm friends for life, you and I and Lucy! God bless you, Barbara!"
"Mind! I stand out for a jolly ball at the wedding! Lizzie and I mean to dance all night. Fancy us!" she added, with a laugh that rang through the room, "the two forlorn damsels that were to have been brides ourselves! Never mind; we shan't die for the lack of husbands, if we choose to accept them. But it's to be hoped our second ventures will turn out more substantial than our first."
And Travice Arkell, nearly overcome with emotion and weakness, closed his eyes and folded his hands as she went laughing from the room, his lips faintly moving.
"What can I do unto God for all the benefits that He hath done unto me?"
It was during this illness of Travice Arkell's that a circumstance took place which caused some slight degree of excitement in Westerbury. Edward Blissett Hughes, who had gone away from the town between twenty and thirty years before, and of whom nobody had heard much, if any, tidings of since, suddenly made his appearance in it again. His return might not have given rise to much comment, but for the very prominent manner in which his name had been brought forward in connexion with the assize cause; and perhaps no one was more surprised than Mr. Hughes himself when he found how noted he had become.
It matters not to tell how the slim working man of three or four-and-thirty, came back a round, comfortable, portly gentleman of sixty, with a smart, portly wife, and well to do in the world. Well to do?—nay, wealthy. Or how he had but come for a transitory visit to his native place, and would soon be gone again. All that matters not to us; and his return needed not to have been mentioned at all, but that he explained one or two points in the past history, which had never been made quite clear to Westerbury.
One of the first persons to go to see him was William Arkell; and it was from that gentleman Mr. Hughes first learnt the details of the dispute and the assize trial.
Robert Carr had been more malin—as the French would express it—than people gave him credit for. That few hours' journey of his to London, three days previous to the flight, had been taken for one sole purpose—the procuring of a marriage licence. Edward Hughes, vexed at the free tone that the comments of the town were assuming in reference to his young sister, made a tardy interference, and gave Robert Carr his choice—the breaking off the acquaintance, or a marriage. Robert Carr chose the latter alternative, stipulating that it should be kept a close secret; and he ran up to town for the licence. Whether he really meant to use it, or whether he only bought it to appease in a degree the aroused precautions of the brother, cannot be told. That he certainly did not intend to make use of it so soon, Edward Hughes freely acknowledged now. The hasty marriage, the flight following upon it, grew out of that last quarrel with his father. From the dispute at dinner-time, Robert went straight to the Hughes's house, saw Martha Ann, got her consent, and then sought the brother at his workshop, as Edward Hughes still phrased it, and arranged the plans with him for the following morning. Sophia Hughes was of necessity made a party to the scheme, but she was not told of it until night; and Mary they did not tell at all, not daring to trust her. Brother and sister bound themselves to secrecy, for the sake of the fortune that Robert Carr would assuredly lose if the marriage became known; and they suffered the taint to fall on their sister's name, content to know that it was undeserved, and to look forward to the time when all should be cleared up by the reconciliation between father and son, or by the death of Mr. Carr. They were anxious for the marriage, so far beyond anything they could have expected, and, consequently, did not stand at a little sacrifice. Human nature is the same all the world over, and ambition is inherent in it. Robert Carr, on his part, risked something—the chance that, with all their precautions, the fact of the marriage might become known. That it did not, the event proved, as you know; but circumstances at that moment especially favoured them. The rector of St. James the Less was ill; the Reverend Mr. Bell was Robert Carr's firm friend and kept the secret, and there was no clerk. They stole into the church one by one on the winter's morning. Mr. Bell was there before daylight, got it open, and waited for them. The moment Mary Hughes was out of the house, at half-past seven, in pursuance of her engagement at Mrs. Arkell's, Martha Ann was so enveloped in cloaks and shawls that she could not have been readily recognised, had anybody met her, and sent off alone to the church. Her brother and sister followed by degrees. Robert Carr was already there; and as soon as the clock struck eight, the service was performed. One circumstance, quite a little romance in itself, Mr. Hughes mentioned now; and but for a fortunate help in the time of need, the marriage might, after all, not have been completed. Robert Carr had forgotten the ring. Not only Robert, but all of them. That important essential had never once occurred to their thoughts, and none had been bought. The service was arrested midway for the want of it. A few moments' consternation, and then Sophia Hughes came to the rescue. She had been in the habit of wearing her mother's wedding-ring since her death, and she took it from her finger, and the service was completed with it. The party stole away from the church by degrees, one by one, as they had gone to it, and escaped observation. Few people were abroad that dark, dull morning; and the church stood in a lonely, unfrequented part. The getting away afterwards in Mr. Arkell's carriage was easy.