Pages from a Journal with Other Papers Part 18

Eighteen months pa.s.sed. The doctor one day was unpacking a book he had bought at Peterborough. Inside the brown paper was a copy of the Stamford Mercury, a journal which had a wide circulation in the Midlands. He generally read it, but he must have omitted to see this number. His eye fell on the following announcement--"On the 24th June last, Richard Leighton, aged 44 years." The notice was late, for the date of the paper was the 18th November. The next afternoon he was in London. He had been to Great Ormond Street before and had inquired for Mrs. Fairfax, but could find no trace of her. He now called again.

"You will remember," he said, "my inquiry about Mrs. Fairfax: can you tell me anything about Mrs. Leighton?" He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out five shillings.

"She isn't here: she went away when her husband died."

"He died abroad?"

"Yes."

"Where has she gone?"

"Don't know quite: her friends wouldn't have anything to do with her.

She said she was going to Plymouth. She had heard of something in the dressmaking line there."

He handed over his five shillings, procured a subst.i.tute for next Sunday, and went to Plymouth. He wandered through the streets but could see no dressmaker's shop which looked as if it had recently changed hands. He walked backwards and forwards on the Hoe in the evening: the Eddystone light glimmered far away on the horizon; and the dim hope arose in him that it might be a prophecy of success, but his hope was vain. It came into his mind that it was not likely that she would be there after dusk, and he remembered her preference for early exercise.

The first morning was a failure, but on the second--it was sunny and warm--he saw her sitting on a bench facing the sea. He went up un.o.bserved and sat down. She did not turn towards him till he said "Mrs. Leighton!" She started and recognised him. Little was spoken as they walked home to her lodgings, a small private house. On her way she called at a large shop where she was employed and obtained leave of absence until after dinner.

"At last!" said the doctor when the door was shut.

She stood gazing in silence at the dull red cinder of the dying fire.

"You put the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Stamford Mercury?" he said.

"Yes."

"I did not see it until a day or two ago."

"I had better tell you at once. My husband, whom you knew, was convicted of forgery, and died at Botany Bay." Her eyes still watched the red cinders.

The Doctor's countenance showed no surprise, for no news could have had any power over the emotion which mastered him. The long, slow years were fulfilled. Long and slow and the fulfilment late, but the joy it brought was the greater. Youthful pa.s.sion is sweet, but it is not sweeter than the discovery when we begin to count the years which are left to us, and to fear there will be nothing in them better than in those which preceded them that for us also love is reserved.

Mrs. Leighton was obliged to go back to her work in the afternoon, but she gave notice that night to leave in a week.

In a couple of months Langborough was astounded at the news of the Rector's marriage with a Mrs. Leighton whom n.o.body in Langborough knew.

The advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Stamford Mercury said that the lady was the widow of Richard Leighton, Esq., and eldest daughter of the late Marmaduke Sutton, Esq. Langborough spared no pains to discover who she was. Mrs. Bingham found out that the Suttons were a Devonshire family, and she ascertained from an Exeter friend that Mr. Marmaduke Sutton was the son of an Honourable, and that Mrs. Leighton was consequently a high-born lady. She had married as her first husband a man who had done well at Cambridge, but who took to gambling and drink, and treated her with such brutality that they separated. At last he forged a signature and was transported. What became of his wife afterwards was not known.

Langborough was not only greatly moved by this intelligence, but was much perplexed. Miss Tarrant's estimate of the Doctor was once more reversed. She was decidedly of opinion that the marriage was a scandal.

A woman who had consented to link herself with such a reprobate as the convict must have been from the beginning could not herself have possessed any reputation. Living apart, too, was next door to divorce, and who could a.s.sociate with a creature who had been divorced? No doubt she was physically seductive, and the doctor had fallen a victim to her snares. Miss Tarrant, if she had not known so well what men are, would never have dreamed that Dr. Midleton, a scholar and a divine, could surrender to corporeal attractions. She declared that she could no longer expect any profit from his ministrations, and that she should leave the parish. Miss Tarrant's friends, however, did not go quite so far, and Mrs. Harrop confessed to Mrs. Cobb that "she for one wouldn't lay it down like Medes and Persians, that we should have nothing to do with a woman because her husband had made a fool of himself. I'm not a Mede nor a Persian, Mrs. Cobb. I say let us wait and see what she is like."

Mrs. Bingham was of the same mind. She dwelt much to herself on the fact that Mrs. Midleton's great-grandfather must have been a lord. She secretly hoped that as a wine merchant's wife she might obtain admission into a "sphere," as she called it, from which the other ladies in the town might be excluded. Mrs. Bingham already foretasted the bliss of an invitation to the rectory to meet Lady Caroline from Thaxton Manor; she already foretasted the greater bliss of not meeting her intimate friends there, and that most exquisite conceivable bliss of telling them afterwards all about the party.

Mrs. Midleton and her husband returned on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon. The road from Thaxton cross-roads did not lie through the town: the carriage was closed and n.o.body saw her. When they came to the rectory the Doctor pointed to the verse in white paint on the wall, "It shall be taken out," he said, "before to-morrow morning: to-morrow is Sunday."

He was expected to preach on that day and the church was crammed a quarter of an hour before the service began. At five minutes to eleven a lady and child entered and walked to the rector's pew. The congregation was stupefied with amazement. Mouths were agape, a hum of exclamations arose, and people on the further side of the church stood up.

It was Mrs. Fairfax! n.o.body had conjectured that she and Mrs. Leighton were the same person. It was unimaginable that a dressmaker should have had near ancestors in the peerage. It was more than a year and a half since she left the town. Mrs. Carter was able to say that not a single letter had been addressed to her, and she was almost forgotten.

A few days afterwards Mrs. Sweeting had a little note requesting her to take tea with the Rector and his wife. n.o.body was asked to meet her.

Mrs. Bingham had called the day before, and had been extremely apologetic.

"I am afraid, Mrs. Midleton, you must have thought me sometimes very rude to you."

To which Mrs. Midleton replied graciously, "I am sure if you had been it would have been quite excusable."

"Extremely kind of you to say so, Mrs. Midleton."

Mrs. Cobb also called. "I'll just let her see," said Mrs. Cobb to herself; and she put on a gown which Mrs. Midleton as Mrs. Fairfax had made for her.

"You'll remember this gown, Mrs. Midleton?"

"Perfectly well. It is not quite a fit on the shoulders. If you will let me have it back again it will give me great pleasure to alter it for you."

By degrees, however, Mrs. Midleton came to be loved by many people in Langborough. Mr. Sweeting not long afterwards died in debt, and Mrs.

Sweeting, the old housekeeper being also dead, was taken into the rectory as her successor, and became Mrs. Midleton's trusted friend.

Footnotes:

{10} Since 1868 the Reminiscences and his Life have been published which put this estimate of him beyond all doubt. It is much to be regretted that a certain theory, a certain irresistible tendency to arrange facts so as to prove preconceived notions, a tendency more dangerous and unhistorical even than direct suppression of the truth or invention of what is not true, should have ruined Carlyle's biography.

Professor Norton's edition of the Reminiscences should be compared with Mr. Froude's.

{34a} Ethic pt. 1, def. 3.

{34b} Ibid., pt. 1, def. 6.

{34c} Ibid., pt. 1, prop. 11.

{36} Ethic, pt. 2, prop. 47.

{37a} Letter 56 (Van Vloten and Land's ed.).

{37b} Ethic, pt. 1, coroll. prop. 25.

{37c} Ibid., pt. 5, prop. 24.

{37d} Ibid., pt. 1, schol. to prop. 17.

{38} Ethic, pt. 1, schol. to prop. 17.

{39} Ethic, pt. 2, prop. 13.

{40a} Ethic, pt. 1, coroll. 1, prop. 32.

{40b} Ibid., pt. 1, prop. 33.

{40c} Letter 56

{41a} Letter 21.