East Lynne Part 77

"With all the pleasure in life," replied the major. "The chances are against it though, confined as I am to that confounded sister country.

Other regiments get the luck of being quartered in the metropolis, or near it; ours doesn't."

When Major Thorn departed, and Mr. Carlyle was about to return to the room where he left his sister, he was interrupted by Joyce.

"Sir," she began. "Miss Carlyle tells me that there is going to be a change at East Lynne."

The words took Mr. Carlyle by surprise.

"Miss Carlyle has been in a hurry to tell you," he remarked--a certain haughty displeasure in his tone.

"She did not speak for the sake of telling me, sir, it is not likely; but I fancy she was thinking about her own plans. She inquired whether I would go with her when she left, or whether I meant to remain at East Lynne. I would not answer her, sir, until I had spoken to you."

"Well?" said Mr. Carlyle.

"I gave a promise sir, to--to--my late lady--that I would remain with her children as long as I was permitted. She asked it of me when she was ill--when she thought she was going to die. What I would inquire of you, sir, is, whether the change will make any difference to my staying?"

"No," he decisively replied. "I also, Joyce, wish you to remain with the children."

"It is well, sir," Joyce answered, and her face looked bright as she quitted the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

MR. DILL IN AN EMBROIDERED SHIRT-FRONT.

It was a lovely morning in June, and all West Lynne was astir. West Lynne generally was astir in the morning, but not in the bustling manner that might be observed now. People were abroad in numbers, pa.s.sing down to St. Jude's Church, for it was the day of Mr. Carlyle's marriage to Barbara Hare.

Miss Carlyle made herself into a sort of martyr. She would not go near it; fine weddings in fine churches did not suit her, she proclaimed; they could tie themselves up together fast enough without her presence.

She had invited the little Carlyles and their governess and Joyce to spend the day with her; and she persisted in regarding the children as martyrs too, in being obliged to submit to the advent of a second mother. She was back in her old house again, next door to the office, settled there for life now with her servants. Peter had mortally offended her in electing to remain at East Lynne.

Mr. Dill committed himself terribly on the wedding morning. About ten o'clock he made his appearance at Miss Carlyle's; he was a man of the old stage, possessing old-fashioned notions, and he had deemed that to step in to congratulate her on the auspicious day would be only good manners.

Miss Carlyle was seated in her dining-room, her hands folded before her.

It was rare indeed that she was caught doing nothing. She turned her eyes on Mr. Dill as he entered.

"Why, what on earth has taken you?" began she, before he could speak.

"You are decked out like a young duck!"

"I am going to the wedding, Miss Cornelia. Did you know it? Mrs. Hare was so kind as to invite me to the breakfast, and Mr. Archibald insists upon my going to church. I am not too fine, am I?"

Poor old Dill's "finery" consisted of a white waistcoat with gold b.u.t.tons, and an embroidered shirt-front. Miss Corny was pleased to regard it with sarcastic wrath.

"Fine!" echoed she. "I don't know what you call it. I would not make myself such a spectacle for untold gold. You'll have all the ragam.u.f.fins in the street forming a tail after you, thinking you are the bridegroom.

A man of your years to deck yourself out in a worked shirt! I would have had some rosettes on my coat-tails, while I was about it."

"My coat's quite plain, Miss Cornelia," he meekly remonstrated.

"Plain! What would you have it?" snapped Miss Cornelia. "Perhaps you covet a wreath of embroidery round it, gold leaves and scarlet flowers, with a swansdown collar? It would only be in keeping with that shirt and waistcoat. I might as well have gone and ordered a white tarletan dress, looped up with peas, and streamed through the town in that guise. It would be just as consistent."

"People like to dress a little out of common at a wedding, Miss Cornelia; it's only respectful, when they are invited guests."

"I don't say people should go to a wedding in a hop sack. But there's a medium. Pray, do you know your age?"

"I am turned sixty, Miss Corny."

"You just are. And do you consider it decent for an old man, going on for seventy, to be decorated off as you are now? I don't; and so I tell you my mind. Why, you'll be the laughing-stock of the parish! Take care the boys don't tie a tin kettle to you!"

Mr. Dill thought he would leave the subject. His own impression was, that he was not too fine, and that the parish would not regard him as being so; still, he had a great reverence for Miss Corny's judgment, and was not altogether easy. He had had his white gloves in his hand when he entered, but he surrept.i.tiously smuggled them into his pocket, lest they might offend. He pa.s.sed to the subject which had brought him thither.

"What I came in for, was to offer you my congratulations on this auspicious day, Miss Cornelia. I hope Mr. Archibald and his wife, and you, ma'am--"

"There! You need not trouble yourself to go on," interrupted Miss Corny, hotly arresting him. "We want condolence here to-day, rather than the other thing. I'm sure I'd nearly as soon see Archibald go to his hanging."

"Oh, Miss Corny!"

"I would; and you need not stare at me as if you were throttled. What business has he to go and fetter himself with a wife again. One would have thought he had had enough with the other. It is as I have always said, there's a soft place in Archibald's brain."

Old Dill knew there was no "soft place" in the brain of Mr. Carlyle, but he deemed it might be as well not to say so, in Miss Corny's present humor. "Marriage is a happy state, as I have heard, ma'am, and honorable; and I am sure Mr. Archibald--"

"Very happy! Very honorable!" fiercely cried Miss Carlyle, sarcasm in her tone. "His last marriage brought him all that, did it not?"

"That's past and done with, Miss Corny, and none of us need recall it. I hope he will find in his present wife a recompense for what's gone; he could not have chosen a prettier or nicer young lady than Miss Barbara; and I am glad to my very heart that he has got her."

"Couldn't he?" jerked Miss Carlyle.

"No, ma'am, he could not. Were I young, and wanted a wife, there's no one in all West Lynne I would so soon look out for as Miss Barbara. Not that she'd have me; and I was not speaking in that sense, Miss Corny."

"It's to be hoped you were not," retorted Miss Corny. "She is an idle, insolent, vain f.a.got, caring for nothing but her own doll's face and for Archibald."

"Ah, well, ma'am never mind that; pretty young girls know they are pretty, and you can't take their vanity from them. She'll be a good and loving wife to him; I know she will; it is in her nature; she won't serve him as--as--that other poor unfortunate did."

"If I feared she was one to bring shame to him, as the other did, I'd go into the church this hour and forbid the marriage; and if that didn't do, I'd--smother her!" shrieked Miss Carlyle. "Look at that piece of impudence!"

That last sentence was uttered in a different tone, and concerned somebody in the street. Miss Carlyle hopped off her chair and strode to the window. Mr. Dill's eyes turned in the like direction.

In a gay and summer's dress, fine and sparkling, with a coquettish little bonnet, trimmed with pink, shaded by one of those nondescript articles at present called veils, which article was made of white spotted net with a pink ruche round it, sailed Afy Hallijohn, conceited and foolish and good-looking as ever. Catching sight of Mr. Dill, she made him a flourishing and gracious bow. The courteous old gentleman returned it, and was pounced upon by Miss Corny's tongue for his pains.

"Whatever possessed you to do that?"

"Well, Miss Corny, she spoke to me. You saw her."

"I saw her? Yes, I did see her, the brazen bellwether! And she saw me, and spoke to you in her insolence. And you must answer her, in spite of my presence, instead of shaking your fist and giving her a reproving frown. You want a little sharp talking to, yourself."

"But, Miss Corny, it's always best to let bygones be bygones," he pleaded. "She was flighty and foolish, and all that, was Afy; but now that it's proved she did not go with Richard Hare, as was suspected, and is at present living creditably, why should she not be noticed?"