“Oh, quite simply; there won’t be much beating about the bush, I can assure you. You and Lavinia and Matilda will all sit in the drawing-room, and the three will be brought in and introduced to you. Then you will be left to look at each other like a lot of stuffed parrots; none of you—not even old Bloxam—will be able to talk a bit. Then to-morrow night an extra long prayer will be given that Providence may guide you all to choose wisely. Stuff and nonsense! as I’ve often told Joe. As if Providence would always give the youngest and prettiest wives to the old men and the old and ugly ones to young fellows like Wardley!”
“What is Mr Bloxam like? I suppose I ought to know, as it appears I am going to marry him,” said Stella, losing the drift of her previous question.
“Fat, fussy, and over forty-five, my dear; that is what I should call him. He doesn’t pray for quite as long as Winterton, but he eats a lot, and I’m sure he’d be fussy in the house. But I don’t want you to hate me by-and-by in case you should happen to get fond of him, which isn’t likely; so I shan’t tell you another word. You’ll see him quite soon enough, in all conscience.”
Mrs Wiseman bade the girl an affectionate “Good-night,” and then retired to her room. She found, however, that she could not sleep; she was weighted by the burthen of painful anticipation. She had long been fond of Mr Wardley in a motherly way, and during the past week she had learned to love Stella. She seemed to live once more through her bitter experience of long ago, and a like blight had now to fall upon these two in the morning of their life. She felt certain that the hearts of Stella and Wardley would rush to each other, impelled by strong forces of both attraction and repulsion, and be damaged in the collision.
When she retired for the night her husband was fast asleep, and as he was a very heavy sleeper she had no fear of disturbing him. The sight of him serenely slumbering irritated her so that she longed to shake him. She blew out the candle, but visions of the sanguine face and the stout figure of Mr Bloxam—the former wearing an expression of smug satisfaction and proprietorship; and the frightened, half-desperate, and wholly disgusted look of Stella, as she submitted to the caresses of her elderly lover, haunted her with a persistence that became agonising; so she lit the candle once more. Then another aspect of the case flashed balefully across her mind, and she sat up in bed, clasping her hands convulsively to her face. What had she not been doing, wicked woman that she was? Had she not taken the very course calculated to make the burthen of the poor girl unbearable? Had she not set the girl’s wandering thoughts flowing in the very direction which should have been avoided—namely, those of dislike to Mr Bloxam and love for Mr Wardley; and would not the torrents of emotion to which she would be the prey during the next two days cut channels so deep that the stream of her life would never again flow out of them? What could she now do to repair the mischief wrought by her thoughtlessness? She sat for a long time with her hands pressed to her face and the hot tears streaming through her trembling fingers. What could she do—what—what? She got up from her bed and began pacing the room with quick, nervous steps. Her tears had now ceased, and her brow was contracted in a deep travail of thought. All at once she turned sharply round, hurried to the side of the bed, and began violently shaking her sleeping husband.
“Wake up! Wake up, Joe,” she said in a loud voice.
Mr Wiseman was not easy to waken, but the energy of his wife’s attack brought him to a sitting posture on the side of the bed in a very few seconds.
“Goodness gracious, my dear! what has happened? Is the house on fire?” He was now wide awake and really startled.
“The house isn’t on fire, Joe; don’t be a fool, but wake up. I want to talk to you about something very important.”
“Yes, my dear; I’m wide awake, but a—won’t the subject keep until to-morrow?”