with restless dread. True, the gentleman, as he appeared illuminated by
the jeweller's gas-jets, seemed more likely to injure Ethelberta by
indulgence than by severity, while her beauty lasted; but there was a
nameless something in him less tolerable than this.
The purchaser having completed his dealings with the goldsmith, was
conducted to the door by the master of the shop, and into the carriage,
which was at once driven off up the street.
Christopher now much desired to know the name of the man whom a nice
chain of circumstantial evidence taught him to regard as the happy winner
where scores had lost. He was grieved that Ethelberta's confessed
reserve should have extended so far as to limit her to mere indefinite
hints of marriage when they were talking almost on the brink of the
wedding-day. That the ceremony was to be a private one - which it
probably would be because of the disparity of ages - did not in his
opinion justify her secrecy. He had shown himself capable of a
transmutation as valuable as it is rare in men, the change from pestering
lover to staunch friend, and this was all he had got for it. But even an
old lover sunk to an indifferentist might have been tempted to spend an
unoccupied half-hour in discovering particulars now, and Christopher had
not lapsed nearly so far as to absolute unconcern.
That evening, however, nothing came in his way to enlighten him. But the
next day, when skirting the Close on his ordinary duties, he saw the same
carriage standing at a distance, and paused to behold the same old
gentleman come from a well-known office and re-enter the vehicle - Lord
Mountclere, in fact, in earnest pursuit of the business of yesternight,
having just pocketed a document in which romance, rashness, law, and
gospel are so happily made to work together that it may safely be
regarded as the neatest compromise which has ever been invented since
Adam sinned.
This time Julian perceived that the brougham was one belonging to the
White Hart Hotel, which Lord Mountclere was using partly from the
necessities of these hasty proceedings, and also because, by so doing, he
escaped the notice that might have been bestowed upon his own equipage,
or men-servants, the Mountclere hammer-cloths being known in Melchester.
Christopher now walked towards the hotel, leisurely, yet with anxiety. He
inquired of a porter what people were staying there that day, and was
informed that they had only one person in the house, Lord Mountclere,
whom sudden and unexpected business had detained in Melchester since the
previous day.
Christopher lingered to hear no more. He retraced the street much more
quickly than he had come; and he only said, 'Lord Mountclere - it must
never be!'
As soon as he entered the house, Faith perceived that he was greatly
agitated. He at once told her of his discovery, and she exclaimed, 'What
a brilliant match!'
'O Faith,' said Christopher, 'you don't know! You are far from knowing.
It is as gloomy as midnight. Good God, can it be possible?'
Faith blinked in alarm, without speaking.
'Did you never hear anything of Lord Mountclere when we lived at
Sandbourne?'
'I knew the name - no more.'
'No, no - of course you did not. Well, though I never saw his face, to my
knowledge, till a short time ago, I know enough to say that, if earnest
representations can prevent it, this marriage shall not be. Father knew
him, or about him, very well; and he once told me - what I cannot tell
you. Fancy, I have seen him three times - yesterday, last night, and this
morning - besides helping him on the road some weeks ago, and never once
considered that he might be Lord Mountclere. He is here almost in
disguise, one may say; neither man nor horse is with him; and his object
accounts for his privacy. I see how it is - she is doing this to benefit
her brothers and sisters, if possible; but she ought to know that if she
is miserable they will never be happy. That's the nature of women - they
take the form for the essence, and that's what she is doing now. I
should think her guardian angel must have quitted her when she agreed to
a marriage which may tear her heart out like a claw.'
'You are too warm about it, Kit - it cannot be so bad as that. It is not
the thing, but the sensitiveness to the thing, which is the true measure
of its pain. Perhaps what seems so bad to you falls lightly on her mind.
A campaigner in a heavy rain is not more uncomfortable than we are in a
slight draught; and Ethelberta, fortified by her sapphires and gold cups
and wax candles, will not mind facts which look like spectres to us
outside. A title will turn troubles into romances, and she will shine as
an interesting viscountess in spite of them.'
The discussion with Faith was not continued, Christopher stopping the
argument by saying that he had a good mind to go off at once to Knollsea,
and show her her danger. But till the next morning Ethelberta was
certainly safe; no marriage was possible anywhere before then. He passed
the afternoon in a state of great indecision, constantly reiterating, 'I
will go!'
41. WORKSHOPS - AN INN - THE STREET
On an extensive plot of ground, lying somewhere between the Thames and
the Kensington squares, stood the premises of Messrs. Nockett and Perch,
builders and contractors. The yard with its workshops formed part of one
of those frontier lines between mangy business and garnished domesticity
that occur in what are called improving neighbourhoods. We are
accustomed to regard increase as the chief feature in a great city's
progress, its well-known signs greeting our eyes on every outskirt. Slush-
ponds may be seen turning into basement-kitchens; a broad causeway of
shattered earthenware smothers plots of budding gooseberry-bushes and
vegetable trenches, foundations following so closely upon gardens that
the householder may be expected to find cadaverous sprouts from
overlooked potatoes rising through the chinks of his cellar floor. But
the other great process, that of internal transmutation, is not less
curious than this encroachment of grey upon green. Its first erections
are often only the milk-teeth of a suburb, and as the district rises in
dignity they are dislodged by those which are to endure. Slightness
becomes supplanted by comparative solidity, commonness by novelty,
lowness and irregularity by symmetry and height.
An observer of the precinct which has been named as an instance in point
might have stood under a lamp-post and heard simultaneously the peal of
the visitor's bell from the new terrace on the right hand, and the stroke
of tools from the musty workshops on the left. Waggons laden with deals
came up on this side, and landaus came down on the other - the former to
lumber heavily through the old-established contractors' gates, the latter
to sweep fashionably into the square.
About twelve o'clock on the day following Lord Mountclere's exhibition of
himself to Christopher in the jeweller's shop at Melchester, and almost
at the identical time when the viscount was seen to come from the office
for marriage-licences in the same place, a carriage drove nearly up to
the gates of Messrs. Nockett and Co.'s yard. A gentleman stepped out and
looked around. He was a man whose years would have been pronounced as
five-and-forty by the friendly, fifty by the candid, fifty-two or three
by the grim. He was as handsome a study in grey as could be seen in
town, there being far more of the raven's plumage than of the gull's in
the mixture as yet; and he had a glance of that practised sort which can
measure people, weigh them, repress them, encourage them to sprout and
blossom as a March sun encourages crocuses, ask them questions, give them
answers - in short, a glance that could do as many things as an American
cooking-stove or a multum-in-parvo pocket-knife. But, as with most men
of the world, this was mere mechanism: his actual emotions were kept so
far within his person that they were rarely heard or seen near his
features.
On reading the builders' names over the gateway he entered the yard, and
asked at the office if Solomon Chickerel was engaged on the premises. The
clerk was going to be very attentive, but finding the visitor had come
only to speak to a workman, his tense attitude slackened a little, and he
merely signified the foot of a Flemish ladder on the other side of the
yard, saying, 'You will find him, sir, up there in the joiner's shop.'
When the man in the black coat reached the top he found himself at the
end of a long apartment as large as a chapel and as low as a malt-room,
across which ran parallel carpenters' benches to the number of twenty or
more, a gangway being left at the side for access throughout. Behind
every bench there stood a man or two, planing, fitting, or chiselling, as
the case might be. The visitor paused for a moment, as if waiting for
some cessation of their violent motions and uproar till he could make his
errand known. He waited ten seconds, he waited twenty; but, beyond that
a quick look had been thrown upon him by every pair of eyes, the muscular
performances were in no way interrupted: every one seemed oblivious of
his presence, and absolutely regardless of his wish. In truth, the
texture of that salmon-coloured skin could be seen to be aristocratic
without a microscope, and the exceptious artizan has an offhand way when
contrasts are made painfully strong by an idler of this kind coming,
gloved and brushed, into the very den where he is sweating and muddling
in his shirt-sleeves.
The gentleman from the carriage then proceeded down the workshop, wading
up to his knees in a sea of shavings, and bruising his ankles against
corners of board and sawn-off blocks, that lay hidden like reefs beneath.
At the ninth bench he made another venture.
'Sol Chickerel?' said the man addressed, as he touched his plane-iron
upon the oilstone. 'He's one of them just behind.'
'Damn it all, can't one of you show me?' the visitor angrily observed,
for he had been used to more attention than this. 'Here, point him out.'
He handed the man a shilling.
'No trouble to do that,' said the workman; and he turned and signified
Sol by a nod without moving from his place.
The stranger entered Sol's division, and, nailing him with his eye, said
at once: 'I want to speak a few words with you in private. Is not a Mrs.
Petherwin your sister?'
Sol started suspiciously. 'Has anything happened to her?' he at length
said hurriedly.
'O no. It is on a business matter that I have called. You need not mind
owning the relationship to me - the secret will be kept. I am the brother
of one whom you may have heard of from her - Lord Mountclere.'
'I have not. But if you will wait a minute, sir - ' He went to a little
glazed box at the end of the shop, where the foreman was sitting, and,
after speaking a few words to this person, Sol led Mountclere to the
door, and down the ladder.
'I suppose we cannot very well talk here, after all?' said the gentleman,
when they reached the yard, and found several men moving about therein.
'Perhaps we had better go to some room - the nearest inn will answer the
purpose, won't it?'
'Excellently.'
'There's the "Green Bushes" over the way. They have a very nice private
room upstairs.'
'Yes, that will do.' And passing out of the yard, the man with the
glance entered the inn with Sol, where they were shown to the parlour as
requested.
While the waiter was gone for some wine, which Mountclere ordered, the
more ingenuous of the two resumed the conversation by saying, awkwardly:
'Yes, Mrs. Petherwin is my sister, as you supposed, sir; but on her
account I do not let it be known.'
'Indeed,' said Mountclere. 'Well, I came to see you in order to speak of
a matter which I thought you might know more about than I do, for it has
taken me quite by surprise. My brother, Lord Mountclere, is, it seems,
to be privately married to Mrs. Petherwin to-morrow.'
'Is that really the fact?' said Sol, becoming quite shaken. 'I had no
thought that such a thing could be possible!'
'It is imminent.'
'Father has told me that she has lately got to know some nobleman; but I
never supposed there could be any meaning in that.'
'You were altogether wrong,' said Mountclere, leaning back in his chair
and looking at Sol steadily. 'Do you feel it to be a matter upon which
you will congratulate her?'
'A very different thing!' said Sol vehemently. 'Though he is your
brother, sir, I must say this, that I would rather she married the
poorest man I know.'
'Why?'
'From what my father has told me of him, he is not - a more desirable
brother-in-law to me than I shall be in all likelihood to him. What
business has a man of that character to marry Berta, I should like to
ask?'
'That's what I say,' returned Mountclere, revealing his satisfaction at
Sol's estimate of his noble brother: it showed that he had calculated
well in coming here. 'My brother is getting old, and he has lived
strangely: your sister is a highly respectable young lady.'
'And he is not respectable, you mean? I know he is not. I worked near
Enckworth once.'
'I cannot say that,' returned Mountclere. Possibly a certain fraternal
feeling repressed a direct assent: and yet this was the only
representation which could be expected to prejudice the young man against
the wedding, if he were such an one as the visitor supposed Sol to be - a
man vulgar in sentiment and ambition, but pure in his anxiety for his
sister's happiness. 'At any rate, we are agreed in thinking that this
would be an unfortunate marriage for both,' added Mountclere.
'About both I don't know. It may be a good thing for him. When do you
say it is to be, sir - to-morrow?'
'Yes.'
'I don't know what to do!' said Sol, walking up and down. 'If half what
I have heard is true, I would lose a winter's work to prevent her
marrying him. What does she want to go mixing in with people who despise
her for? Now look here, Mr. Mountclere, since you have been and called
me out to talk this over, it is only fair that you should tell me the
exact truth about your brother. Is it a lie, or is it true, that he is
not fit to be the husband of a decent woman?'
'That is a curious inquiry,' said Mountclere, whose manner and aspect,
neutral as a winter landscape, had little in common with Sol's warm and
unrestrained bearing. 'There are reasons why I think your sister will
not be happy with him.'
'Then it is true what they say,' said Sol, bringing down his fist upon
the table. 'I know your meaning well enough. What's to be done? If I
could only see her this minute, she might be kept out of it.'
'You think your presence would influence your sister - if you could see
her before the wedding?'
'I think it would. But who's to get at her?'
'I am going, so you had better come on with me - unless it would be best
for your father to come.'
'Perhaps it might,' said the bewildered Sol. 'But he will not be able to
get away; and it's no use for Dan to go. If anybody goes I must! If she
has made up her mind nothing can be done by writing to her.'
'I leave at once to see Lord Mountclere,' the other continued. 'I feel
that as my brother is evidently ignorant of the position of Mrs.
Petherwin's family and connections, it is only fair in me, as his nearest
relative, to make them clear to him before it is too late.'
'You mean that if he knew her friends were working-people he would not
think of her as a wife? 'Tis a reasonable thought. But make your mind
easy: she has told him. I make a great mistake if she has for a moment
thought of concealing that from him.'
'She may not have deliberately done so. But - and I say this with no ill-
feeling - it is a matter known to few, and she may have taken no steps to
undeceive him. I hope to bring him to see the matter clearly.
Unfortunately the thing has been so secret and hurried that there is
barely time. I knew nothing until this morning - never dreamt of such a
preposterous occurrence.'
'Preposterous! If it should come to pass, she would play her part as his
lady as well as any other woman, and better. I wish there was no more
reason for fear on my side than there is on yours! Things have come to a
sore head when she is not considered lady enough for such as he. But
perhaps your meaning is, that if your brother were to have a son, you
would lose your heir-presumptive title to the cor'net of Mountclere?
Well, 'twould be rather hard for ye, now I come to think o't - upon my
life, 'twould.'
'The suggestion is as delicate as the - - atmosphere of this vile room.
But let your ignorance be your excuse, my man. It is hardly worth while
for us to quarrel when we both have the same object in view: do you think
so?'
'That's true - that's true. When do you start, sir?'
'We must leave almost at once,' said Mountclere, looking at his watch.
'If we cannot catch the two o'clock train, there is no getting there to-
night - and to-morrow we could not possibly arrive before one.'
'I wish there was time for me to go and tidy myself a bit,' said Sol,
anxiously looking down at his working clothes. 'I suppose you would not
like me to go with you like this?'
'Confound the clothes! If you cannot start in five minutes, we shall not
be able to go at all.'
'Very well, then - wait while I run across to the shop, then I am ready.
How do we get to the station?'
'My carriage is at the corner waiting. When you come out I will meet you
at the gates.'
Sol then hurried downstairs, and a minute or two later Mr. Mountclere
followed, looking like a man bent on policy at any price. The carriage
was brought round by the time that Sol reappeared from the yard. He
entered and sat down beside Mountclere, not without a sense that he was
spoiling good upholstery; the coachman then allowed the lash of his whip
to alight with the force of a small fly upon the horses, which set them
up in an angry trot. Sol rolled on beside his new acquaintance with the
shamefaced look of a man going to prison in a van, for pedestrians
occasionally gazed at him, full of what seemed to himself to be ironical
surprise.
'I am afraid I ought to have changed my clothes after all,' he said,
writhing under a perception of the contrast between them. 'Not knowing
anything about this, I ain't a bit prepared. If I had got even my second-
best hat, it wouldn't be so bad.'
'It makes no difference,' said Mountclere inanimately.
'Or I might have brought my portmantle, with some things.'
'It really is not important.'
On reaching the station they found there were yet a few minutes to spare,
which Sol made use of in writing a note to his father, to explain what
had occurred.
42. THE DONCASTLES' RESIDENCE, AND OUTSIDE THE SAME
Mrs. Doncastle's dressing-bell had rung, but Menlove, the lady's maid,
having at the same time received a letter by the evening post, paused to
read it before replying to the summons: -
'ENCKWORTH COURT, Wednesday.
DARLING LOUISA, - I can assure you that I am no more likely than
yourself to form another attachment, as you will perceive by what
follows. Before we left town I thought that to be able to see you
occasionally was sufficient for happiness, but down in this lonely
place the case is different. In short, my dear, I ask you to consent
to a union with me as soon as you possibly can. Your prettiness has
won my eyes and lips completely, sweet, and I lie awake at night to
think of the golden curls you allowed to escape from their confinement
on those nice times of private clothes, when we walked in the park and
slipped the bonds of service, which you were never born to any more
than I. . . .
'Had not my own feelings been so strong, I should have told you at the
first dash of my pen that what I expected is coming to pass at
last - the old dog is going to be privately married to Mrs. P. Yes,
indeed, and the wedding is coming off to-morrow, secret as the grave.
All her friends will doubtless leave service on account of it. What
he does now makes little difference to me, of course, as I had already
given warning, but I shall stick to him like a Briton in spite of it.
He has to-day made me a present, and a further five pounds for
yourself, expecting you to hold your tongue on every matter connected
with Mrs. P.'s friends, and to say nothing to any of them about this
marriage until it is over. His lordship impressed this upon me very
strong, and familiar as a brother, and of course we obey his
instructions to the letter; for I need hardly say that unless he keeps
his promise to help me in setting up the shop, our nuptials cannot be
consumed. His help depends upon our obedience, as you are aware. . .
.'
This, and much more, was from her very last lover, Lord Mountclere's
valet, who had been taken in hand directly she had convinced herself of
Joey's hopeless youthfulness. The missive sent Mrs. Menlove's spirits
soaring like spring larks; she flew upstairs in answer to the bell with a
joyful, triumphant look, which the illuminated figure of Mrs. Doncastle
in her dressing-room could not quite repress. One could almost forgive
Menlove her arts when so modest a result brought such vast content.
Mrs. Doncastle seemed inclined to make no remark during the dressing, and
at last Menlove could repress herself no longer.
'I should like to name something to you, m'm.'
'Yes.'
'I shall be wishing to leave soon, if it is convenient.'
'Very well, Menlove,' answered Mrs. Doncastle, as she serenely surveyed
her right eyebrow in the glass. 'Am I to take this as a formal notice?'
'If you please; but I could stay a week or two beyond the month if
suitable. I am going to be married - that's what it is, m'm.'
'O! I am glad to hear it, though I am sorry to lose you.'
'It is Lord Mountclere's valet - Mr. Tipman - m'm.'
'Indeed.'
Menlove went on building up Mrs. Doncastle's hair awhile in silence.
'I suppose you heard the other news that arrived in town to-day, m'm?'
she said again. 'Lord Mountclere is going to be married to-morrow.'
'To-morrow? Are you quite sure?'
'O yes, m'm. Mr. Tipman has just told me so in his letter. He is going
to be married to Mrs. Petherwin. It is to be quite a private wedding.'
Mrs. Doncastle made no remark, and she remained in the same still
position as before; but a countenance expressing transcendent surprise
was reflected to Menlove by the glass.
At this sight Menlove's tongue so burned to go further, and unfold the
lady's relations with the butler downstairs, that she would have lost a
month's wages to be at liberty to do it. The disclosure was almost too
magnificent to be repressed. To deny herself so exquisite an indulgence
required an effort which nothing on earth could have sustained save the
one thing that did sustain it - the knowledge that upon her silence hung
the most enormous desideratum in the world, her own marriage. She said
no more, and Mrs. Doncastle went away.
It was an ordinary family dinner that day, but their nephew Neigh
happened to be present. Just as they were sitting down Mrs. Doncastle
said to her husband: 'Why have you not told me of the wedding
to-morrow? - or don't you know anything about it?'
'Wedding?' said Mr. Doncastle.
'Lord Mountclere is to be married to Mrs. Petherwin quite privately.'
'Good God!' said some person.
Mr. Doncastle did not speak the words; they were not spoken by Neigh:
they seemed to float over the room and round the walls, as if originating
in some spiritualistic source. Yet Mrs. Doncastle, remembering the
symptoms of attachment between Ethelberta and her nephew which had
appeared during the summer, looked towards Neigh instantly, as if she
thought the words must have come from him after all; but Neigh's face was
perfectly calm; he, together with her husband, was sitting with his eyes
fixed in the direction of the sideboard; and turning to the same spot she
beheld Chickerel standing pale as death, his lips being parted as if he
did not know where he was.
'Did you speak?' said Mrs. Doncastle, looking with astonishment at the
butler.
'Chickerel, what's the matter - are you ill?' said Mr. Doncastle
simultaneously. 'Was it you who said that?'
'I did, sir,' said Chickerel in a husky voice, scarcely above a whisper.
'I could not help it.'
'Why?'
'She is my daughter, and it shall be known at once!'
'Who is your daughter?'
He paused a few moments nervously. 'Mrs. Petherwin,' he said.
Upon this announcement Neigh looked at poor Chickerel as if he saw
through him into the wall. Mrs. Doncastle uttered a faint exclamation
and leant back in her chair: the bare possibility of the truth of
Chickerel's claims to such paternity shook her to pieces when she viewed
her intimacies with Ethelberta during the past season - the court she had
paid her, the arrangements she had entered into to please her; above all,
the dinner-party which she had contrived and carried out solely to
gratify Lord Mountclere and bring him into personal communication with
the general favourite; thus making herself probably the chief though
unconscious instrument in promoting a match by which her butler was to
become father-in-law to a peer she delighted to honour. The crowd of
perceptions almost took away her life; she closed her eyes in a white
shiver.
'Do you mean to say that the lady who sat here at dinner at the same time
that Lord Mountclere was present, is your daughter?' asked Doncastle.
'Yes, sir,' said Chickerel respectfully.
'How did she come to be your daughter?'
'I - Well, she is my daughter, sir.'
'Did you educate her?'
'Not altogether, sir. She was a very clever child. Lady Petherwin took
a deal of trouble about her education. They were both left widows about
the same time: the son died, then the father. My daughter was only
seventeen then. But though she's older now, her marriage with Lord
Mountclere means misery. He ought to marry another woman.'
'It is very extraordinary,' Mr. Doncastle murmured. 'If you are ill you
had better go and rest yourself, Chickerel. Send in Thomas.'
Chickerel, who seemed to be much disturbed, then very gladly left the
room, and dinner proceeded. But such was the peculiarity of the case,
that, though there was in it neither murder, robbery, illness, accident,
fire, or any other of the tragic and legitimate shakers of human nerves,
two of the three who were gathered there sat through the meal without the
least consciousness of what viands had composed it. Impressiveness
depends as much upon propinquity as upon magnitude; and to have honoured
unawares the daughter of the vilest Antipodean miscreant and murderer
would have been less discomfiting to Mrs. Doncastle than it was to make
the same blunder with the daughter of a respectable servant who happened
to live in her own house. To Neigh the announcement was as the
catastrophe of a story already begun, rather than as an isolated wonder.
Ethelberta's words had prepared him for something, though the nature of
that thing was unknown.
'Chickerel ought not to have kept us in ignorance of this - of course he
ought not!' said Mrs. Doncastle, as soon as they were left alone.
'I don't see why not,' replied Mr. Doncastle, who took the matter very
coolly, as was his custom.
'Then she herself should have let it be known.'
'Nor does that follow. You didn't tell Mrs. Petherwin that your
grandfather narrowly escaped hanging for shooting his rival in a duel.'
'Of course not. There was no reason why I should give extraneous
information.'
'Nor was there any reason why she should. As for Chickerel, he doubtless
felt how unbecoming it would be to make personal remarks upon one of your
guests - Ha-ha-ha! Well, well - Ha-ha-ha-ha!'
'I know this,' said Mrs. Doncastle, in great anger, 'that if my father
had been in the room, I should not have let the fact pass unnoticed, and
treated him like a stranger!'
'Would you have had her introduce Chickerel to us all round? My dear
Margaret, it was a complicated position for a woman.'
'Then she ought not to have come!'
'There may be something in that, though she was dining out at other
houses as good as ours. Well, I should have done just as she did, for
the joke of the thing. Ha-ha-ha! - it is very good - very. It was a case
in which the appetite for a jest would overpower the sting of conscience
in any well-constituted being - that, my dear, I must maintain.'
'I say she should not have come!' answered Mrs. Doncastle firmly. 'Of
course I shall dismiss Chickerel.'
'Of course you will do no such thing. I have never had a butler in the
house before who suited me so well. It is a great credit to the man to
have such a daughter, and I am not sure that we do not derive some lustre
of a humble kind from his presence in the house. But, seriously, I
wonder at your short-sightedness, when you know the troubles we have had
through getting new men from nobody knows where.'
Neigh, perceiving that the breeze in the atmosphere might ultimately
intensify to a palpable black squall, seemed to think it would be well to
take leave of his uncle and aunt as soon as he conveniently could;
nevertheless, he was much less discomposed by the situation than by the
active cause which had led to it. When Mrs. Doncastle arose, her husband
said he was going to speak to Chickerel for a minute or two, and Neigh
followed his aunt upstairs.
Presently Doncastle joined them. 'I have been talking to Chickerel,' he
said. 'It is a very curious affair - this marriage of his daughter and
Lord Mountclere. The whole situation is the most astounding I have ever
met with. The man is quite ill about the news. He has shown me a letter
which has just reached him from his son on the same subject. Lord
Mountclere's brother and this young man have actually gone off together
to try to prevent the wedding, and Chickerel has asked to be allowed to
go himself, if he can get soon enough to the station to catch the night
mail. Of course he may go if he wishes.'
'What a funny thing!' said the lady, with a wretchedly factitious smile.
'The times have taken a strange turn when the angry parent of the comedy,
who goes post-haste to prevent the undutiful daughter's rash marriage, is
a gentleman from below stairs, and the unworthy lover a peer of the
realm!'
Neigh spoke for almost the first time. 'I don't blame Chickerel in
objecting to Lord Mountclere. I should object to him myself if I had a
daughter. I never liked him.'
'Why?' said Mrs. Doncastle, lifting her eyelids as if the act were a
heavy task.
'For reasons which don't generally appear.'
'Yes,' said Mr. Doncastle, in a low tone. 'Still, we must not believe
all we hear.'
'Is Chickerel going?' said Neigh.
'He leaves in five or ten minutes,' said Doncastle.
After a few further words Neigh mentioned that he was unable to stay
longer that evening, and left them. When he had reached the outside of
the door he walked a little way up the pavement and back again, as if
reluctant to lose sight of the street, finally standing under a lamp-post
whence he could command a view of Mr. Doncastle's front. Presently a man
came out in a great-coat and with a small bag in his hand; Neigh at once
recognizing the person as Chickerel, went up to him.
'Mr. Doncastle tells me you are going on a sudden journey. At what time
does your train leave?' Neigh asked.
'I go by the ten o'clock, sir: I hope it is a third-class,' said
Chickerel; 'though I am afraid it may not be.'
'It is as much as you will do to get to the station,' said Neigh, turning
the face of his watch to the light. 'Here, come into my cab - I am
driving that way.'
'Thank you, sir,' said Chickerel.
Neigh called a cab at the first opportunity, and they entered and drove
along together. Neither spoke during the journey. When they were
driving up to the station entrance Neigh looked again to see the hour.
'You have not a minute to lose,' he said, in repressed anxiety. 'And
your journey will be expensive: instead of walking from Anglebury to
Knollsea, you had better drive - above all, don't lose time. Never mind
what class the train is. Take this from me, since the emergency is
great.' He handed something to Chickerel folded up small.
The butler took it without inquiry, and stepped out hastily.
'I sincerely hope she - Well, good-night, Chickerel,' continued Neigh,
ending his words abruptly. The cab containing him drove again towards
the station-gates, leaving Chickerel standing on the kerb.
He passed through the booking-office, and looked at the paper Neigh had
put into his hand. It was a five-pound note.
Chickerel mused on the circumstance as he took his ticket and got into
the train.
43. THE RAILWAY - THE SEA - THE SHORE BEYOND
By this time Sol and the Honourable Edgar Mountclere had gone far on
their journey into Wessex. Enckworth Court, Mountclere's destination,
though several miles from Knollsea, was most easily accessible by the
same route as that to the village, the latter being the place for which
Sol was bound.
From the few words that passed between them on the way, Mountclere became
more stubborn than ever in a belief that this was a carefully laid trap
of the fair Ethelberta's to ensnare his brother without revealing to him
her family ties, which it therefore behoved him to make clear, with the
utmost force of representation, before the fatal union had been
contracted. Being himself the viscount's only remaining brother and near
relative, the disinterestedness of his motives may be left to
imagination; that there was much real excuse for his conduct must,
however, be borne in mind. Whether his attempt would prevent the union
was another question: he believed that, conjoined with his personal
influence over the viscount, and the importation of Sol as a firebrand to
throw between the betrothed pair, it might do so.
About half-an-hour before sunset the two individuals, linked by their
differences, reached the point of railway at which the branch to
Sandbourne left the main line. They had taken tickets for Sandbourne,
intending to go thence to Knollsea by the steamer that plied between the
two places during the summer months - making this a short and direct
route. But it occurred to Mountclere on the way that, summer being over,
the steamer might possibly have left off running, the wind might be too
high for a small boat, and no large one might be at hand for hire:
therefore it would be safer to go by train to Anglebury, and the
remaining sixteen miles by driving over the hills, even at a great loss
of time.
Accident, however, determined otherwise. They were in the station at the
junction, inquiring of an official if the Speedwell had ceased to sail,
when a countryman who had just come up from Sandbourne stated that,
though the Speedwell had left off for the year, there was that day
another steamer at Sandbourne. This steamer would of necessity return to
Knollsea that evening, partly because several people from that place had
been on board, and also because the Knollsea folk were waiting for
groceries and draperies from London: there was not an ounce of tea or a
hundredweight of coal in the village, owing to the recent winds, which
had detained the provision parcels at Sandbourne, and kept the colliers
up-channel until the change of weather this day. To introduce
necessaries by a roundabout land journey was not easy when they had been
ordered by the other and habitual route. The boat returned at six
o'clock.
So on they went to Sandbourne, driving off to the pier directly they
reached that place, for it was getting towards night. The steamer was
there, as the man had told them, much to the relief of Sol, who, being
extremely anxious to enter Knollsea before a late hour, had known that
this was the only way in which it could be done.
Some unforeseen incident delayed the boat, and they walked up and down
the pier to wait. The prospect was gloomy enough. The wind was north-
east; the sea along shore was a chalky-green, though comparatively calm,
this part of the coast forming a shelter from wind in its present
quarter. The clouds had different velocities, and some of them shone
with a coppery glare, produced by rays from the west which did not enter
the inferior atmosphere at all. It was reflected on the distant waves in
patches, with an effect as if the waters were at those particular spots
stained with blood. This departed, and what daylight was left to the
earth came from strange and unusual quarters of the heavens. The zenith
would be bright, as if that were the place of the sun; then all overhead
would close, and a whiteness in the east would give the appearance of
morning; while a bank as thick as a wall barricaded the west, which
looked as if it had no acquaintance with sunsets, and would blush red no
more.
'Any other passengers?' shouted the master of the steamboat. 'We must be
off: it may be a dirty night.'
Sol and Mountclere went on board, and the pier receded in the dusk.
'Shall we have any difficulty in getting into Knollsea Bay?' said
Mountclere.
'Not if the wind keeps where it is for another hour or two.'
'I fancy it is shifting to the east'ard,' said Sol.
The captain looked as if he had thought the same thing.
'I hope I shall be able to get home to-night,' said a Knollsea woman. 'My
little children be left alone. Your mis'ess is in a bad way, too - isn't
she, skipper?'
'Yes.'
'And you've got the doctor from Sandbourne aboard, to tend her?'
'Yes.'
'Then you'll be sure to put into Knollsea, if you can?'
'Yes. Don't be alarmed, ma'am. We'll do what we can. But no one must
boast.'
The skipper's remark was the result of an observation that the wind had
at last flown to the east, the single point of the compass whence it
could affect Knollsea Bay. The result of this change was soon
perceptible. About midway in their transit the land elbowed out to a
bold chalk promontory; beyond this stretched a vertical wall of the same
cliff, in a line parallel with their course. In fair weather it was
possible and customary to steer close along under this hoary facade for
the distance of a mile, there being six fathoms of water within a few
boats' lengths of the precipice. But it was an ugly spot at the best of
times, landward no less than seaward, the cliff rounding off at the top
in vegetation, like a forehead with low-grown hair, no defined edge being
provided as a warning to unwary pedestrians on the downs above.
As the wind sprung up stronger, white clots could be discerned at the
water level of the cliff, rising and falling against the black band of
shaggy weed that formed a sort of skirting to the base of the wall. They
were the first-fruits of the new east blast, which shaved the face of the
cliff like a razor - gatherings of foam in the shape of heads, shoulders,
and arms of snowy whiteness, apparently struggling to rise from the
deeps, and ever sinking back to their old levels again. They reminded an
observer of a drowning scene in a picture of the Deluge. At some points
the face of rock was hollowed into gaping caverns, and the water began to
thunder into these with a leap that was only topped by the rebound