Caught in a Trap Part 44

Typical characteristics, however decided, vary with the effects of time and change; and so the dowager had altered very much for the better, as regards her temper and disposition applied to the amenities of daily life, after that attack of paralysis she had had: the arrival of Tom at home again also did much to effect a cure, and she was now by far a more agreeable old woman than when she was first introduced to our notice.

The certainty that Susan was alive and well, and the knowledge that she was comfortably situated, and no questions of money remaining between them, also tended to preserve the old lady's equanimity; and her direct wish was now to see Tom married and done for--then she said, she would be satisfied, and could go to her grave in peace beneath the green turf of Hartwood churchyard, where many a generation of the Hartshorne's of The Poplars slept their last sleep. Her one desire was to see "her boy"

united to her pet Lizzie--that very Lizzie whom she had formerly railed at acrimoniously for "an artful minx!"

Miss Lizzie had certainly played her cards well. She could not have succeeded better in gaining her object if she had schemed ever so shrewdly, like our old friend the campaigner, instead of acting according to the dictates of her own truthful, tender little heart.

The mistress of The Poplars now idolised her, and could not bear the quondam minx to be ever out of her sight. Although Lizzie used to come up every day to see her from the parsonage--now by no means her happy home--and spend long hours reading to her, or casting up her farm accounts, or else working silently by her side, the old lady would grudge her going away; and long before the hour when she generally came up of a day to make her visit, the old lady would be eagerly looking out for her.

The dowager had never relied so on anyone else but herself within the memory of anyone acquainted with her. It was a wonderful transformation in her, and "Garge" and the other servant would canvas each other on the state of the "ould leddy," and since she had given up her scolding and general cantankerousness, they voted unanimously that "she warn't all right--that she warn't," although they, too, took to Lizzie as much as their mistress.

Under these circ.u.mstances Lizzie perceived that her presence was so much required at The Poplars that she must make a virtue of necessity, and consent to take the graceless Master Tom for a partner for better or worse. You see Master Tom was so pleading, and he had gone through such a deal for her sake, that she must reward him somehow or other for his constancy; and then old Mrs Hartshorne told her she already looked upon her as a daughter, and entreated her so tenderly to be so in reality, that Lizzie, who as I have said before had a very tender little heart, could not resist all these pleadings combined. Tom did say such nonsense, and went on so, that she must put a stop to it, and they did not want her at the parsonage now! So hadn't she better?

She debated the point, and as a woman who hesitates--Byron tells us, and he ought to have known--generally capitulates, Lizzie "wouldn't," and wound up by consenting. The magnet was very strong, and her heart was such a very susceptible little bit of steel, that she was attracted to the ultimate goal of love, and "the happy day" was fixed.

Summer was gay now again. A year had pa.s.sed since Tom and Lizzie became first acquainted; and what a wonderful year of events that had been!

But it was not so very extraordinary. What a change one year--nay one month, brings to some of us stragglers in the sea of ever-moving life around us!

But the year had pa.s.sed with all its hopes and fears--with all its troubles and trials, and summer was come again to gladden their heart once more: a summer not only of the season, but one also of joy and happiness, and new-sprung gladness in their hearts. A summer in their lives--May it be the precursor of many such.

The gra.s.s was green, so were their memories of what had been, and their thoughts of the future. The sky was bright, so was their horizon of expected bliss. The birds sang gaily, so did their hearts with pent-up happiness. Time, the great arbitrator, ruled propitiously.

On the day Tom Hartshorne came of age, he and Lizzie were married in the gaily-decked chapel at Hartwood. It was a very quiet little wedding though; quite a contrast to the gorgeous ceremony which had taken place so many months previously at Bigton, under the campaigner's auspices, and that worthy lady turned up her nose at the whole affair, and would not grace it with her presence. Indeed, quite a little disagreement had arisen between herself and her son-in-law, the young inc.u.mbent, in consequence, the upshot of which was that the campaigner removed her bag and baggage from the parsonage, shaking off the metaphorical dust from her feet, and wondering how "they would get on without her."

They did get on, however, much more satisfactorily. With the era of a mother's abdication, the languid Laura became much more bustling and busy, and the parsonage more like home to its occupants, Pringle appearing again quite in his old colours, and preaching far better sermons now than he had since he entered the bonds of matrimony: he had been quite weighted down by the campaigner's metal.

Lady Inskip, it is believed, husbanded her anger against Carry, and offered to go and conduct the household of the other son-in-law, but the wily Captain Miles having politely declined the offer, the campaigner retreated to a boarding house at Southsea, where she lorded it over the other boarders and watched over the education of her young hopeful, that imp "Morti-mer," who was being instructed in the elements of navigation, at a naval academy, at the well-known watering place, contiguous to the old port of Portsmouth: there we leave her.

Tom Hartshorne was married by the Reverend Jabez, of Bigton, that divine having ceased to regard the young inc.u.mbent so unfairly, ever since the Bishop of Chumpchopster had recognised him; and besides, the offices of the Reverend Herbert Pringle were required to give away the bride, the charming little Lizzie.

The solitary bell of the old church rang out as joyfully as it could, and seemed to be a peal all in itself: the affair went off most satisfactorily, the old dowager being wheeled down in a bath chair, in order to be present; and then Tom and Lizzie went off for a three weeks'

honeymoon to the Isle of Wight, that blessed spot for novitiates in matrimony.

They then returned, and settled down at The Poplars, and long may they live there happily. Why, it was only the other day they were married, so much cannot be said of their after life. Knowing the fair-haired Saxon Tom, however, and sweet violet eyes so well, you may be pretty certain that you would search long and widely to find a happier couple in the country round.

It was apparently rather young for Tom to marry and settle down, but he was, with his twenty-one years and experience, older than a good many people of nearly ten years advance in age. Some people look and are older than the calendar puts them down. I shall never forget a well-known military friend, who got into the army under age, in consequence of his old looks. He had a magnificent beard at sixteen, and looked as old as thirty. His brother officers in the mess used to swear that poor--was "born" with whiskers!

Poor fellow! He afterwards fell at Lucknow.

Susan still lives at the old doctor's house in Bigton, with the cheery Damon and the austere virgin, "Pythiasina," as she ought to be called.

Perhaps when the cycle of cradles and pap and babydom once more come round at The Poplars, and little voices are heard in the grim old house--grim now no longer, but lighted up by Lizzie's presence--the daughter of the house may return again to their old home, and "Garge" be charmed once more with the presence of his dearly loved "Leetle Mees."

She seems very happy in her present place, and has quite recovered from the shock of Markworth's death, and is a very different Susan from the girl of a twelvemonth or so back.

The old dowager is quite changed, too, and is "as merry as a grig, G.o.d bless my soul," as the doctor says. She does not grind down the tenants so much now, however, and quite startled a farmer the other day by letting him off a portion of back rent, which he had gone up in fear and trembling to The Poplars to excuse himself from paying just then.

And now, reader, the play is nearly ended--the landscape is completed.

The prompter's bell rings, the curtain is about to rise or fall, it does not matter which, and the last touches only remain to be put to the picture, ere the public be admitted to the view, or the scene closes.

In conclusion, it behoves the _Deus et Machina_ of the puppet show--the painter of the canvas--to offer some little explanation touching the characters introduced, explanation which will tend, perhaps, to elucidate apparent anachronisms with regard to persons and purposes, and acting like the stray _soupcon_ of Chinese white on the superstratum of the finished pencil drawing, heighten the effects of light and shade.

An attempt has been made to portray the struggle of Will _versus_ Power, of Opportunity against Destiny; and to show the contests which sometimes arise between the worse and better feelings of our nature, and how each and all of us are often "Caught in a Trap" of our own making! It depends upon the reader to decide whether the attempt has been a success or a failure; and he or she can fit on each pa.s.sion or feeling to the particular human peg or character on which they think it best should hang.

Above all, the writer wished to draw attention to the looseness of the law, and its vagaries applied to our social and moral life, as evinced in Susan's case. The character and history of the girl is no romance, for Susan is taken from actual existence; still the fallacy of the current ideas on the subject of lunacy and its laws has been already exposed by an abler pictorial pen than that of the writer.

Markworth and Clara Kingscott are no unusual types: search the daily police and criminal intelligence, and you will come across their "doubles." Speaking in the language of the _cuisine_, the meats provided have been fair and hearty, and if the _plat_ be over-seasoned or not sufficiently spiced, the blame rests on the _chef_, and not on the viands.

Ring away, prompter! Lower the curtain. The play is ended: _le jeu est fait_. The scene closes on the well-known forms and faces; and, as the curtain drops on the general tableau at the end, I can still see the cheery, weather-beaten face of Doctor Jolly, and hear him exclaiming, in his usual way, with his hearty voice and contagious _bonhomie_--

"Bless my soul, sir! How are you? How-de-doo?"

THE END.