Mildred Arkell Volume I Part 23

Betsey shook her head dubiously. She had an innate fondness for children, and she kissed the little red face nestled in her arms.

"Charlotte would not like _me_ to stand to it," she whispered.

"Not like it!" echoed William, who did not know his wife yet, and had no suspicion of the state of things. "Of course she would like it. Who has so great a right to stand to the child as you, her sister. Would you like it yourself?"

"Oh, very much; I should think it was my own little boy all through life."

"Until you have little boys of your own," laughed William, and Betsey felt her face glow. "All right, his name shall be Travice."

And so it was; the child was christened Travice George; and Betsey had become his G.o.dmother before Charlotte knew the treason that was agate.

She was bitterly unkind over it afterwards to Betsey, reproaching her with "thrusting herself forward unwarrantably."

A very, very short stay with them, only until Charlotte was quite out of danger, and Betsey went back to London. "Do not, if you can help it, ever ask me down again, dear Mrs. Arkell," she said, with tears. "You must see how it is--how unwelcome I am; Charlotte, of course, is a lady, always was one, and I am but a poor working girl. It is natural she should wish us not to keep up too much intimacy."

"I call it very unnatural," indignantly remonstrated Mrs. Arkell.

Perhaps Betsey Travice yearned to this little baby all the more, from the fact that the youngest of the two children she had taken care of at Mrs. Dund.y.k.e's, had died a few months before. Fractious, sickly, troublesome as it had been, Betsey's fondness for it was great, and her sorrow heavy. There had been n.o.body to mourn it but herself; Mrs.

Dund.y.k.e was too much absorbed in her household cares to spare time for grief, and everybody else, saving Betsey, thought the house was better without the crying baby than with it. These children were almost orphans; the mother, David's only sister, died when the last was born; the father, a merchant captain, given to spend his money instead of bringing it home, was always away at sea.

Death was to be more busy yet with the house of Mrs. Dund.y.k.e. A few months after Betsey's return from the short visit to Westerbury, when the hot weather set in for the summer, the other baby died. Close upon that, Mrs. Dund.y.k.e died--in a fit.

The attack was so sudden, the shock so great, that for a short time those left--David and Betsey--were stunned. David had to go to Fenchurch-street all the same; and Betsey quietly took Mrs. Dund.y.k.e's place in the house, and saw that things went on right. Duty was ever first with Betsey Travice; what her hand found to do, that she did with all her might; and the whole care devolved on her now. A clergyman and his wife were occupying the drawing-rooms, and they took great interest in the poor girl, and were very kind to her; but they never supposed but that she was some near relative of the Dund.y.k.es. David, who did not want for plain sense--no, nor for self-respect either--saw, of course, that the present state of things could not continue.

"Look here, Betsey," he said to her, one evening that they sat together in silence; he busy with his account books, and Betsey absorbed in trying to make out and remember the various items charged in the last week's butcher's bill; "we must make a change, I suppose."

She looked up, marking the place she had come to with her pencil. "What did you please to say, David?--make a change?"

"Well, yes, I suppose so, or we shall have the world about our ears. I mean to get rid of the house as soon as I can; either get somebody to come in and buy the good-will and the furniture; or else, if n.o.body won't do that, give up the house, and sell off the old things by auction, just keeping enough to furnish a room or two."

"It would be better to sell the good-will and the furniture, would it not?"

"Don't I say so? But I'm not sure of doing it, for houses is going down in Stamford-street: people that pay well for apartments, like to be fashionable, and get up to the new buildings westward. Any way, I'm afraid there won't be no more realized than will serve to pay what mother owed."

David stopped here and looked down on his accounts again. Betsey, who sat at the opposite side of the table, with the strong light of the summer evening lighting up its old red cloth, returned to hers. Before she had accomplished another item, David resumed--

"And all this will take time; three or four months, perhaps. And so, Betsey--if you don't mind being hurried into it--I think we had better be married."

"Be married!" echoed Betsey, dropping her book and her pencil. "Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean what I say," was David's sententious answer; "I don't mean nothing else. You and me must be married."

Betsey stared at him aghast. "Oh, David! how can you think of such a thing yet? It is not a month since your poor mother died."

"That's just it, her being dead," said David. "Don't you see, Betsey, neither you nor me can go out of the house until somebody takes to it, or till something's settled; and, in short, folks might get saying things."

Not for a full minute did she in the least comprehend his meaning. Then she burst into a pa.s.sion of tears of anger; all her face aflame.

"Oh! David, how can you speak so? who would dare to be so cruel?"

"It's because I know the world better than you, and because I know how cruel it is, that I say it," added David. "Look here, Betsey, there's n.o.body left now to take care of you but me; and I _shall_ take care of you, and I'm saying what's right. I shall buy a licence; it's a dreadful deal of money, when asking in church does as well, but that takes longer, and I'll spend the money cheerfully, for your sake. We'll go quietly to church next Sunday morning, and n.o.body need know, till it's all over, what we've been for. Unless you like to tell the servant, and the parson and his wife in the drawing-room. Perhaps you'd better."

"But, David----"

"Now, where's the good of contending?" he interrupted; "you don't want to give me up, do you?"

"You know I don't, David."

"Very well, then."

Betsey held out for some time longer, and it was only because she saw no other opening out of the dilemma--for, as David said, neither of them could leave the house if it was to go on--that she gave in at last.

David at once entered upon sundry admonitions as to future economy, warning her that he intended they should live upon next to nothing for years and years to come. He did not intend to spend all his income, and be reduced to letting lodgings, or what not, when he should get old.

And a day or two after the marriage had really taken place, Betsey wrote a very deprecatory note to Charlotte, and another to Mrs. Arkell, with the news. But she did not give them an intimation of it beforehand. So that even had Charlotte wished to make any attempt to prevent it, she had not the opportunity. And from thenceforth she washed her hands of Betsey Dund.y.k.e, even more completely than she had done of Betsey Travice.

This first portion of my story is, I fear, rather inclined to be fragmentary, for I have to speak of the history of several; but it is necessary to do so, if you are to be quite at home with all our friends in it, as I always like you to be. The next thing we have to notice, was an astounding event in the life of Peter Arkell.

Peter Arkell was not a man of the world; he was a great deal too simple-minded to be anything of the sort. In worldly cunning, Peter was not a whit above Moses Primrose at the fair. Peter was getting on famously; he had let his house furnished, and the family who took it accommodated Peter with a room in it, and let him take his breakfast and dinner with them, for a very moderate sum. He worked at the bank, as usual, and he attended at Colonel Dewsbury's of an evening; that gentleman's eldest son had gone to college, but he had others coming on.

Peter Arkell had also found time to write a small book, not _in_ Greek, but touching Greek; it was excessively learned, and found so much favour with the cla.s.sical world, that Peter Arkell grew to be stared at in his native city, as that very rare menagerie animal, a successful author; besides which, Peter's London publishers had positively transmitted him a sum of thirty pounds. I can tell you that the sum of thirty hundred does not appear so much to some people as that appeared to Peter. Had he gained thousands and thousands in his after life, they would have been to him as nothing, compared to the enraptured satisfaction brought to his heart by that early sum, the first fruits of his labours. Ask any author that ever put pen to paper, if the first guinea he ever earned was not more to him than all the golden profusion of the later harvest.

And so Peter, in his own estimation at any rate, was going on for a prosperous man. He put by all he could; and at the end of three years and a-half from Mildred's departure--for time is constantly on the wing, remember--Peter had saved a very nice sum, nearly enough to take him to Oxford, when he should find time to get there. For that, the getting there, was more of a stumbling block now than the means, since Peter did not yet see his way clear to resign his situation in the bank.

Meanwhile he waited, hoped, and worked. And during this season of patience, he had an honour conferred upon him by young Fauntleroy the lawyer: a gentleman considerably older than Peter, but called young Fauntleroy, in distinction to his father, old Fauntleroy the lawyer.

Young Fauntleroy, who was as much given to spending as Peter was to saving, and had a hundred debts, unknown to the world, got simple Peter to be security for him in some dilemma. Peter hesitated at first. Four hundred pounds was a large sum, and would swamp him utterly should he ever be called upon to pay it; but upon young Fauntleroy's a.s.suring him, on his honour, that the bank could not be more safe to pay its quarterly dividends than he was to provide for that obligation when the time came, Peter gave in. He signed his name, and from that hour thought no more of the matter. When a person promised Peter to do a thing he had the implicit faith of a child. And now comes the event that so astounded Westerbury.

You remember Lucy Cheveley, the young lady whose lovely face had so won on Mildred's admiration? How it came about no human being could ever tell, least of all themselves; but she and Peter Arkell fell in love with each other. It was not one of those ephemeral fancies that may be thrown off just as easily as they are a.s.sumed, but a pa.s.sionate, powerful, lasting love, one that makes the bliss or the bane of a whole future existence. The chief of the blame was voted by the meddling town to Colonel and Mrs. Dewsbury. Why had they allowed Miss Cheveley to mix in familiar intercourse with the tutor? To tell the truth, Miss Cheveley had not been much better there than a governess. Her means were very small. She had only the pension of a deceased officer's daughter, and Mrs. Dewsbury, what with clothes and maintenance, was considerably out of pocket by her; therefore she repaid herself by making Miss Cheveley useful with the children. The governess was a daily one, and Lucy Cheveley helped the children at night to prepare their lessons for her.

The study for both boys and girls was the same, and thus Lucy was in constant daily intercourse with Mr. Peter Arkell. Since the publication of Peter's learned book, and his consequent rise in public estimation, Colonel Dewsbury had once or twice invited him to dinner; and Miss Cheveley met him on an equality.

But the marvel was, how ever that lovely girl could have lost her heart to Peter Arkell--plain, shy, awkward Peter! But that such things have been known before, it might have been looked upon as an impossibility.

There was a fearful rumpus. The discovery came through Mrs. Dewsbury's bursting one night into the study in search of a book, when the children had left it, and she supposed it empty. Mr. Peter Arkell stood there with his arm round Lucy's waist, and both her hands gathered and held in his. For the first minute or so, Mrs. Dewsbury did not believe her own eyes. Lucy stood in painful distress, the damask colour glowing on her transparent cheek, and the explanation, as of right it would, fell to Peter.

These shy, timid, awkward-mannered men in every-day life, are sometimes the most collected in situations of actual embarra.s.sment. It was so with Peter Arkell. In a calm, quiet way he turned to Mrs. Dewsbury, and told her the straightforward truth: that he and Miss Cheveley were attached to each other, and he had asked her to be his wife.

Mrs. Dewsbury was an excitable woman. She went back to the dining-room, shrieking like one in hysterics, and told the news. It aroused Colonel Dewsbury from his wine; and it was not a light thing in a general way that could do that, for the colonel was fond of it.

Then ensued the scene. Colonel and Mrs. Dewsbury heaped vituperation on the head of the tutor, asking what he could expect to come to for thus abusing confidence? Poor Peter, far more composed in that moment than he was in every-day matters, said honestly that he had not intended to abuse it; nothing would ever have been farther from his thoughts; but the mutual love had come to them both unawares, and been betrayed to each other without thought of the consequences.

All the abuse ever spoken would not avail to undo the past. Of course nothing was left now but to dismiss Mr. Peter Arkell summarily from his tutorship, and order Miss Cheveley never to hold intercourse by word or look with him again. This might have mended matters in a degree had Miss Cheveley acquiesced, and carried the mandate out; but, encouraged no doubt secretly by Mr. Peter, she timidly declined to do so--said, in fact, she would not. Colonel and Mrs. Dewsbury were rampant as two chained lions, who long to get loose and tear somebody to pieces.

For Mr. Peter Arkell was not to be got at. The law did not sanction his imprisonment; and society would not countenance the colonel in beating or killing him. Neither could Mrs. Dewsbury lock up Miss Lucy Cheveley, as was the mode observed to refractory damsels in what is called the good old time.

The next scene in the play was their marriage. Lucy, finding that she could never hope to obtain the consent of her protectors to it, walked quietly to church from their house one fine morning, met Peter there, and was married without consent. Peter had made his arrangements for the event in a more sensible manner than one so incapable would have been supposed likely to do. The friends who had occupied his house vacated it previously to oblige him; he had it papered and painted, and put into thoroughly nice order, spending about a hundred pounds in new furniture, and took Lucy home to it. Never did a more charming wife enter on possession of a home; and Westerbury, which of course made everybody's affairs its own, in the usual manner, was taken with a sudden fit of envy at the good fortune of Peter Arkell, when it had recovered its astonishment at Miss Cheveley's folly. One of her order marry poor Peter Arkell, the banker's clerk! The world must be coming to an end.

Colonel and Mrs. Dewsbury almost wished it _was_ coming to an end, for the bride and bridegroom at any rate, in their furious anger. The colonel went to the bank, and coolly requested it to discharge Peter Arkell from its service. The bank politely declined, saying that Mr.

Peter Arkell had done nothing to offend it, or of which it could take cognizance. Colonel Dewsbury threatened to withdraw his account, and carry it off forthwith to a sort of patent company bank, recently opened in the town. The bank listened with equanimity; it would be sorry of course, and hoped the colonel would think better of it; but, if he insisted, his balance (he never kept more than a couple of hundred pounds there) should then be handed to him. The colonel growled, and went out with a bang. He next wrote to Lady Dewsbury a peremptory letter, almost _requiring_ her to discharge Miss Arkell from her service. Lady Dewsbury wrote word back that Mildred had become too valuable to her to be parted with; and that if Peter Arkell was like his sister in goodness, Lucy Cheveley had not chosen amiss.

Lucy had been married about a fortnight, and was sitting one evening in all her fragile loveliness, the red light of the setting sun flickering through the elm trees on her damask cheeks, when a tall elegant woman entered. This was Mrs. St. John, whose family had been intimate with the Cheveleys. The St. Johns inhabited that old building in Westerbury called the Palmery, of which mention has been made, but they had been away from it for the past two years. Mrs. St. John had just returned to hear the scandal caused by the recent disobedient marriage.