A Country Gentleman and His Family

by Mrs. Oliphant

"Take her away, mother. The carriage has come round to the vestry door. Chatty! This is no longer any place for you."

Chatty looked round upon her faction, who were encircling her with dark or miserable looks. "We are very unfortunate," she said, "but we have done nothing that is wrong."

"Chatty, O Chatty, my darling, come away. You cannot stay any longer here."

"What, without a word to Dick, mother! Speak to him. He is the most to be pitied. We never thought we should have to say good-bye again." Here she paused and the tears came. She repeated in a voice that went to the hearts of all the staring, excited spectators, "I am sorry—for us both."

"God bless you, Chatty! God bless you, my own love! And must we part so?" cried poor Dick, falling down upon his knees, and sobbing over the hands which held his. He was altogether broken down. He knew there was nothing to be said to him, or for him. He was without help or hope. For a moment even Warrender, who was the most severe, could say nothing in sight of this lamentable scene,—the bride and her bridegroom, who had been pronounced man and wife half-an-hour before, and now were parting,—perhaps for ever,—two people between whom there was now no bond, whose duty would be to keep apart. Chatty stooped over him, whom she must see no more, her white veil fell over him covering them both, she laid her pale cheek against his. "It is not our fault. We are very unfortunate. We must have patience," she said.

He kept on kneeling there, following her with his eyes, while her brother and her mother led her away, then with a groan covered his face with his hands. Was this the end?

CHAPTER XLV.

After this extraordinary and terrible event there were a great many conferences and explanations, which did little good as may be understood. Dick's life—the part of it which had passed during his absence, the wanderyear which had brought such painful consequences—was laid entirely open, both to his own family and all the Warrenders. There was nothing in it to be ashamed of—still he had wanted to keep that episode to himself, and the consequence, of course, was that every detail became known. He had thrown himself into the wild, disorderly population on the edge of civilisation: people who lived out of reach of law, and so long as they were not liable to the tribunal of Judge Lynch, did no harm in the eyes of the community. There he had fallen in love, being clean and of pure mind, and disposed to think everybody like himself, and married in haste—a girl whom his tiresome proprieties had wearied at once, and who did not in the most rudimentary way comprehend what to him was the foundation of life. He shuddered, but could give no coherent account of that time. She left him, inclosing him her "marriage lines" and a paper declaring him to be free. And from that time until she had been brought face to face with him in the vestry he had never seen her again. His old father, whom Dick had been anxious to spare from any annoyance, and who was too old to be present at the wedding, had to be called forth from his retirement to hear the whole story; his eldest brother, who was abroad, hurried home, to know what was meant by the paragraphs in the papers, and what it was all about. No particular of bitterness was spared to the unfortunate young man; the particulars of his conduct were discussed at every dinner-party. Had there been collusion? had he known all the time that the woman was not dead? Society did not quite understand the want of accordance with conventional rules that had been shown by everybody concerned. The wicked wife ought to have planned this villainous trick as a way of vengeance against him: whereas it was evident that she had meant only kindness, abandoned creature as she was. And the poor bride, the unfortunate Miss Warrender, should with all her family have sworn everlasting feud with him, whereas it was known that Chatty took his part, and would say nothing but that they were very unfortunate both. Women should not act like this, they should fly at each other's throats, they should tear each other to pieces.

But if Chatty (backed up by her mother, it was said) showed undue indulgence, this was not the case with her brother and sister. Theo's keen temper had taken up and resented the whole matter almost with violence. He had not only treated Cavendish, and the Cavendishes generally, who were more important than the individual Dick, with harsh contumely and enmity, refusing to hear any excuse, and taking the occurrence as an insult to himself: but he had quarrelled with his mother, who was disposed to forgive, and with still more vehemence with Chatty, who made no pretence of any wrath, but believed Dick's story fully, and would not hear anything against him. Chatty had a soft obstinacy about her which nobody had known till now. She had not broken down, nor hidden herself from her family, nor taken any shame to herself. She had even received him, against the advice of everybody, in a long interview, hearing everything over again, and fully, from his own lips, and had kissed him (it was whispered) at parting, while her mother and his sister looking on could do nothing but cry. There began after a while to be many people who sympathised with these two unhappy lovers—who were not so unhappy either, because they understood and had faith in each other. But Theo made an open quarrel with his mother and sister after this meeting. He was furious against both of them, and even against his wife when it became known that she had gone to see and sympathise with them. Warrender declared that he would consider any man his enemy who spoke to him of Cavendish. He was furious with everything and everybody concerned. He said that he had been covered with shame, though how no one could tell. Lady Markland, who also was on the side of Dick, was helpless to restrain her young husband. She too, poor lady, began to feel that her lot was not one of unmixed good, nor her bed of roses. Though the force of events had carried Theo over all the first drawbacks to their marriage, he had never recovered the bitterness and exasperation which these had given. He had not forgiven her, though he adored her, for being still Lady Markland, and though he lived at Markland with her, yet it was under a perpetual protest, to which in moments of excitement he sometimes gave utterance, but which even in silence she was always conscious of. His smouldering discontent burst forth on the occasion given him by this mariage manqué. The rage that filled him was not called forth by Dick Cavendish alone. It was the outflow of all the discontents and annoyances of his life.

And Minnie's outraged virtue was almost more rampant still. That Eustace should have any connection with a scandal which had even got into the newspapers, that a girl who was his sister-in-law should have got herself talked about, was to Minnie a wrong which blazed up to heaven. "For myself, I should not have minded," she said, "at least, however much I minded I should have said as little as possible; but when I think that Eustace has been made a gazing-stock to all the world through me—oh, you may think it extravagant, but I don't. Of course, he has been made a gazing-stock. 'Brother-in-law to that Miss Warrender, you know'—that is how people talk, as if it could possibly be his fault. I am sure he bears it like an angel. All he has ever said, even to me, is, 'Minnie, I wish we had looked into things a little more beforehand,' and what could I say? I could only say you were all so headstrong, you would have your own way."