“Certainly. His name was Mr Donald Ramsay.”
“Thank you, Miss Simpson.”
Mr Bloxam leant back in his chair, the prey to conflicting thoughts and tumultuous emotions. He rapidly reviewed the situation. His house was furnished; he had, on the eve of his departure, addressed a meeting of his congregation and announced that he was about to take upon his shoulders the responsibilities of the married state. A welcome was, he knew, being prepared for his bride. The Sabbath-school children had arranged to present her with an address, which had already been drafted by the schoolmaster of the Mission. The very invitations to a tea-meeting on a large scale had been issued. He could never face the ordeal of returning without a wife. Stella had been conclusively proved to be a vessel of abominable things; Matilda, owing to his foolish precipitancy in surrendering his right of pre-emption, had been annexed by Mr Winterton. Lavinia only remained. He would endow Lavinia with his belated affections.
“Miss Simpson,” (he found that now he had not the least difficulty in expressing himself fluently), “it has been made clear to my heart that Providence has ordained that you should be a helpmeet unto me. Do you think you could confidently place your life and happiness in my keeping?”
Lavinia thought she could.
Five
Mrs Wiseman hurried Stella up to the house from the arbour, and took her straight to her bedroom. Stella submitted without the least question. Mrs Wiseman gently forced her down on the bed, with her face turned to the wall, spread a light counterpane over her, told her in a whisper to lie quite still, patted her affectionately on the shoulder, and left the room. Then she hurried along the passage to Lavinia’s room, which she found empty. She then went to the drawing-room, and peeped in. There sat Lavinia—so absorbed in the improving book, that she did not even notice the intrusion of her hostess upon her moral researches. Mrs Wiseman then hurried to her own bedroom, locked the door on the inside, and took a seat at a window overlooking the path leading from the house to the arbour. Here she sat, like a portly spider behind a web of white lace curtain, which effectually concealed her from view from the outside.
Before she had waited very long she saw Mr Bloxam hurrying past her to the house. His lips were white, and were pressed firmly together; his eyes glinted with baleful light; thunder lurked among the wrinkles of his brow. She heard his stamping footsteps lead to the study of Mr Wiseman, who, however, had been carefully got rid of for the whole forenoon by a stroke of Machiavellian diplomacy. She trembled with excitement, and felt her heart sink with an anxiety which was not all painful. The deep-laid plot she had woven had been so far successful, and now events had only to develop one stage farther upon their natural course for her efforts to be crowned with complete triumph. Things had reached a most critical stage, and much depended upon whether Mr Bloxam left the home in dudgeon to seek for Mr Wiseman or went into the drawing-room where Lavinia was sitting, engaged in the perfecting of her superior mind. Mrs Wiseman recognised the danger of Mr Bloxam’s first seeing her husband, whose ridiculous conscientiousness might possibly lead to complications; but her knowledge of the clerical variety of human nature told her with no uncertain voice that, once in the drawing-room, his doom would be sealed. She heard him falter in the passage, and her heart rose to her throat in a lump. Then she heard the sound of his footsteps leading in the desired direction, and just afterwards, the well-known creak caused by the closing of the drawing-room door smote on her delighted ear. She gave a gasping sigh of relief, stood up, and, regardless of the continued stability of the building, executed a ponderous war-dance around the room.
After she had thus relieved her overwrought feelings, Mrs Wiseman opened the door and stepped quietly down the passage to the dining-room, where she took her seat within sight of the closed drawing-room door. Here she sat like a fowler watching a net in which valuable prey is just in the act of entangling itself. After a short interval the door opened, and Mr Bloxam emerged with Lavinia leaning on his arm. Lavinia’s face wore an expression of discreet satisfaction, but Mr Bloxam looked by no means so rapturous.