“No, no, don’t do that yet—not, at any rate, till we see if Walter Hope, Esquire, J.P., will appear on our direction—eh!” suggested the promoter, poking Arthur in the ribs, and winking slyly as he spoke. “Never mind the wife, Dudley, she’ll come to, no fear, when she sees our spec succeed, and you keeping your carriage and horses, and having your box at the Opera, and God knows what besides. Don’t trouble yourself about any persons’ thoughts now; their thoughts will be all right when you have a clear five thousand a year, and the chance of adding another five to that. Never fear; those that win, laugh, you know.”
And with this assurance Arthur departed for Copt Hall, where he was most cordially received and most hospitably entertained, and where he met again, after years, Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Aymescourt Croft.
Meanwhile, Heather remained at home, doubtful whether she had done right in refusing to accompany her husband, in throwing cold water on his proposal that she should array herself like the Queen of Sheba, and thus attired, repair to the courts of Arthur’s relatives.
She could not decide the question to her own contentment—she could not satisfy her understanding as to whether, when a woman promises to obey a man, she thereby excludes herself ever after from all title to take up her own parable and express her opinions boldly.
She knew other women had no such qualms of conscience—that to most of the wives she knew obedience was a dead letter; but this did not prevent Heather fretting and fidgeting. She had vexed her husband at a time when she wanted most to please him, and he had told her before he left, when he saw her busy with preparations for his brother’s departure, that she “liked Alick better than she did him—that she thought of studying every person’s pleasure sooner than his.”
“I do not know what to do, I am sure,” she reflected, as she drove over to South Kemms in an old tumble-down, rattling phaeton, that was the very shame of Arthur’s life, but which she, nevertheless, preferred to the, in her opinion, still more dilapidated fly from the Green Man at Fifield, which was in the habit of conveying visitors to Palinsbridge Station; “I do not know what to do.” She had written every day to Arthur since his departure, but never a line did he vouchsafe to her in return, and she was wondering whether she ought or ought not to write again.
“Of course, if I do not teaze him to answer, if I merely send a line to say we are all well, it cannot seem like worrying,” she decided; and having so decided, she made her purchases (which were principally in Alick’s interest) at South Kemms, returning home with Ned, who was charioteer, as the evening shadows were settling down upon the Hollow.
When she reached the door, Alick was there to help her alight, and carry in her shawls, and wraps, and parcels.
She was full of her little purchases: a woman must, indeed, be in a terrible state of despair—a depth of despondency too great for a spectator to contemplate calmly—when the prospect of opening a draper’s parcel fails to send a thrill of expectant pleasure through her heart.
“Take them into the dining-room, Alick,” she said. “Oh! I am very glad to see that fire, it is so cold out of doors;” and she walked into the apartment and pulled off her bonnet and threw back her mantle, and stood with her hands stretched out towards the blazing coals, warming her numbed fingers.