This Man's Wife

Volume One – Chapter Fourteen.

Like Gathering Clouds

There is one very pleasant element in country-town life, and that is the breadth of the feeling known as neighbourly. It is often veined by scandal, disfigured by petty curiosity, but a genial feeling, like a solid stratum underlies it all, and makes it firm. Mrs White gets into difficulties, and her furniture is sold by auction; but the neighbours flock to the sale, and the love of bargains is so overridden that the old things often fetch as much as new. Mrs Black’s family are ill, and every one around takes a real and helpful interest. Mrs Scarlet’s husband dies, and a fancy fair is held on her behalf. Then how every one collects at the marriage: how all follow at the death! It must be something very bad indeed that has been committed if, after the customary unpleasant and censorious remarks about walking blindfold into such a slough, Green is not drawn out by helping hands – in fact, there is a kind of clannishness in a country-town, disfigured by the gossips, but very true and earnest all the same.

Consequently as soon as the day was fixed for Millicent Luttrell’s wedding, presents came pouring in from old patients and young friends. A meeting was held at the Corn Exchange, at which Sir Gordon Bourne was to take the chair, but at which he did not put in an appearance, and the Reverend Christie Bayle took his place, while resolutions were moved and carried that a testimonial should be presented to our eminent fellow-townsman, Robert Hallam, Esq, on the occasion of his marriage with the daughter of our esteemed and talented neighbour, Dr Luttrell.

The service of plate was presented at a dinner, where speeches were made, to which Mr Hallam, of the bank, responded fluently, gracefully, and to the point.

Here, too, Christie Bayle took the chair, and had the task of presenting the silver, after reading the inscription aloud, amidst abundant cheers; and as he passed the glittering present to the recipient, their eyes met.

As their eyes met there was a pleasant smile upon Hallam’s lip, and a thought in his heart that he alone could have interpreted, while Bayle’s could have been read by any one skilled in the human countenance, as he breathed a hope that Millicent Luttrell might be made a happy wife.

The whole town was in a ferment – not a particular state of affairs for King’s Castor – in fact, the people of that town in His Majesty’s dominions were always waiting for a chance to effervesce and alter the prevailing stagnation for a time. Hence it was that the town band practised up a new tune; the grass was mowed in the churchyard, and some of the weeds cleared out from the gravel path. Miss Heathery went to the expense of a new bonnet and silk dress, and indulged in a passionate burst of weeping in the secrecy of her own room, because she was not asked to act as bridesmaid; and though Gorringe did not obtain any order from the bridegroom, he was favoured by Mr James Thickens to make him a blue dress-coat with triple-gilt buttons – a coat so blue, and whose buttons were such dazzling disks of metal, that it was not until it had been in the tailor’s window, finished, and “on show” for three days, that James Thickens awakened to the fact that it was his, and paid a nocturnal visit to Gorringe to beg him to send it home.

“But you don’t want it till the day, Mr Thickens,” said the tailor, “and that coat’s bringing me orders.”

“But I shall never dare to wear it, Gorringe – everybody will know it.”

“Of course they will, sir!” said the tailor proudly, and glancing towards his window with that half-smile an artist wears when his successful picture is on view, “that’s a coat such as is not seen in Castor every day. Look at the collar! There’s two days’ hard stitching in that collar, sir!”

“I have looked at the collar,” said Thickens hastily, “and I must have it home.”

Gorringe gave way, and the coat went home; but he felt, as he said to his wife, as if he had been robbed, for that coat would have won the hearts of half the farmers round.

At the doctor’s cottage Mrs Luttrell was in one constant whirl of excitement, with four clever seamstresses at work, for at King’s Castor a bride’s trousseau was called by a much simpler name, and provided throughout at home, along with the house-linen, which in those days meant linen of the finest and coolest, and it was absolutely necessary that every article that could be stitched should be stitched with rows of the finest stitches, carefully put in.

“You’re about worrying yourself into a fever, my dear,” said the doctor smiling, “and I can’t afford such patients as you. Where can I have this bunch of radish-seed hung up to dry? Give it to Thisbe to hang in the kitchen.”

“Now, my dear Joseph, how can you be so unreasonable!” cried Mrs Luttrell, half whimpering. “Radish-seed at a time like this! Thisbe is re-covering the pots of jam.”

“What jam? What for?”

“For Millicent. You don’t suppose I’m going to let her begin housekeeping without a pot of jam in the storeroom!”

“Thank goodness I’ve only one child!” said the doctor with a half-amused, half-vexed countenance.

“Why, papa, you always said you wished we had had a boy.”

“Ah, I did not know that I should have to suffer all this when the wedding time came.”

“Now, if you would only go into your garden, and see to your patients, my love, everything would go right!” cried Mrs Luttrell; “but you are so impatient! Look at Millicent, how quiet and calm she is!”

The doctor had looked at Millicent as she stole out to him in the garden – often now, as if moved by a desire to be as much with him as she could before the great step of her life was taken.

There was a quiet look of satisfaction in her eyes that told of her content, and the happy peace that reigned within her breast.

The doctor understood her, as she came to him when at work, questioning him about the blossoms of this rose, and the success of that creeper, and taking endless interest in all he did; and when she was summoned away to try something on, or to select some pattern, she smiled and said that she would soon be back.

“Ah!” he said with a sigh, “she is trying to break it off gently!” and his work ceased until he heard her step, when he became very busy and cheerful again, as they both played at hiding from one another the separation that was to come.

“Poor papa!” thought Millicent, “he will miss me when I am gone!”

“If that fellow does not behave well to her,” said the doctor to himself, “and I do happen to be called in to him, I shall – well, I suppose it would not be right to do that.” As for Mrs Luttrell, she was too busy to think much till she went to bed, and then the doctor complained.

“I must have some rest, my dear!” he said plaintively, “and I don’t say that you will – but if you do have a bad face-ache from sleeping on a pillow soaked with tears, don’t come to me to prescribe.”

It was very near the time, and all was gliding on peacefully towards the wedding-day. Hallam came regularly every evening; and, after a good deal of struggling, Mrs Luttrell contrived to call him “my dear,” while, by a similar effort of mind, the doctor habituated himself, from saying, “Mr Hallam” and “Hallam,” to the familiar “Robert,” though in secret both agreed that it did not seem natural, and did not come easily, and never would be Rob or Bob.

One soft, calm evening, as the moon was rising from behind the fine old church, and Millicent and Hallam lingered still in the garden among the shrubs, where they could see the shaded lamp shining down on Mrs Luttrell’s white curls and pleasant, intent face, as she busily stitched away at a piece of linen for the new house, while the doctor was reading an account of some new plants brought home by Sir Joseph Banks, Millicent had become very silent.

Hallam was holding her tenderly to his side, and looking down at the sweet, calm face, lit by the rising moon, his own in shadow; and after watching her rapt aspect for a time, he said, in his deep, musical voice:

“How silent and absorbed! You are not regretting what is so soon to be?”

“Regretting!” she cried, starting; and, looking up in his face, she laid her hands upon his breast. “Don’t speak to me like that, Robert dear. You know me better. As if I could regret!”

“Then you are quite happy?”

“Happy? Too happy; and yet so sad!” she murmured softly. “It seems as if life were too full of joy, as if I could not bear so much happiness, when it is at the cost of others, and I am giving them pain.”

“Don’t speak like that, my own!” he said tenderly. “It is natural that a woman should leave father and mother to cling unto her husband.”

“Yes, yes: I know,” she sighed; “but the pain is given. They will miss me so much. You are smiling, dear; but this is not conceit. I am their only child, and we have been all in all to each other.”

“But you are not going far,” he said tenderly.

“No, not far; and yet it is away from them,” sighed Millicent, turning her head to gaze sadly at the pleasant picture seen through the open window. “Not far: but it is from home.”

“But to home,” he whispered – “to your home, our home, the home of the husband who loves you with all his heart. Ah, Millicent, I have been so poor a wooer, I have failed to say the winning, flattering things so pleasant to a woman’s ear. I have felt half dumb before you, as if my pleasure was too great for words; and quick and strong as I am with my fellows, I have only been an awkward lover at the best.”

She laid her soft white hand upon his lips, and gave him a half-reproachful look.

“And yet,” she said, smiling, “how much stronger your silent wooing has been than any words that could have been said! Did I ever seem like one who wanted flattering words and admiration? Robert, you do not know me yet.”

“No,” he whispered passionately, “not yet, and never shall, for I find something more in you to love each time we meet, Millicent – my own – my wife!”

She yielded to his embrace, and they remained silent for a time.

At last he spoke.

“But you seemed sad and disappointed to-night. Have I grieved you in any way – have I given you pain?”

“Oh, no,” she said, looking gravely in his face, “and you never could. Robert,” she continued dreamily as she clung to him, “I can see our life mapped out in the future till it fades away. There are pains and sorrows, the thorns that strew the wayside of all; but I have always your strong, guiding arm to help and protect – always your brave, loving words, to sustain me when my spirit will be low, and together, hand in hand, we tread that path, patient, hopeful, loving to the end.”

“My own!” he whispered.

“I have no fear,” she continued; “my love was not given hastily, like that of some quickly dazzled girl; my love was slow to awaken; but when I felt that it was being sought by one whom I could reverence as well as love, I gave it freely – all I had.”

“And you are content?”

“I should be truly happy, but for the pain I must give others.”

“Only a pang, dear love; that will pass away in the feeling that their child is truly happy in her choice. There, there, the moonlight and the solemn look of the night have made you sad. Let us talk more cheerfully. Come, you must have something to ask of me?”

“No; you have told me everything,” she said gravely. “I wish they could have been here to give their blessing on our love.”

“Their blessing?” he said half-wonderingly.

“Your mother – your father, Robert,” she whispered reverently as she bent her head.

“Hush!” he said, and for a few moments they were silent. “But come,” he cried, as if trying to give their conversation a more cheerful turn, “you must have something more to ask of me. I mean for our house.”

“No,” she said; “it is everything I could wish.”

“No,” he said proudly, “it is too humble for my queen. If I were rich, you should have the fairest jewels, costly retinues – a palace.”

“Give me your love, and I have all I need,” she cried, laughing, as she clung to him.

“Then you must be very rich,” he said. “But is there nothing? Come, you are a free agent now. In another week you will be my own – my property, my slave, bound to me by a ring. Come, use your liberty while you can.”

“Well, then, yes,” she said; “I will make a demand or two.”

“That’s right; I am the slave yet, and obey. What is the first wish?”

“I like Sir Gordon, dear; he has always been so good and kind to me. Ask him to come.”

“Too late. He left the town by coach this evening. From a hint he dropped to Thickens about his letters, I think he has gone to Hull, and is going on to Spain.”

“Oh!”

It was an ejaculation full of pain and sorrow.

“I am grieved,” she said softly, and the news brought up that day when he had made her the offer of his hand.

Hallam watched her mobile face and its changes as she gazed straight before her, towards where the moon was beginning to flood the leaden roof of the old church, the crenulated wall, and the crockets on the tall spire standing out black and clear against the sky.

His face was still in the shadow.

“There is another request,” she said at last, and her voice was very low as she spoke. “Robert, will you ask Mr Bayle to marry us? I would rather it was he.”

“Bayle!” he exclaimed, starting, and the word jerked from his lips, as if he had suddenly lost control of himself. “No, it is impossible!”

“Impossible?” she said wonderingly.

“This man has caused me more suffering than I could tell you. If you knew the jealous misery – No, no, I don’t mean that,” he said quickly as he caught her to his breast.

“Oh, Robert!” she cried.

“No, no: don’t notice me,” he said hastily. “It was long ago. He loved you, and I was not sure of you then. Yes, darling, I will ask him, if you wish it. That folly is all dead now.”

“Robert,” she said, after a thoughtful pause, “do you wish me to give up that request?”

“Give up? No, I should be ready to insist upon it if you did. There, that is all past. It was the one boyish folly of my love, one of which I am heartily ashamed.”

“I think he wants to be your friend as well as mine,” she said, “and I should have liked it; but – ”

“Your will is my law, Millicent! He shall marry us.”

“But, Robert – ”

“If you oppose me now in this, I shall think you have not forgiven the folly to which I have confessed. I can hardly forgive myself that meanness. You will not add to my pain.”

“Add to your pain?” she said, laying her hand once more upon his breast. “Robert, you do not know me yet.”

And so it was that Christie Bayle joined the hand of the woman he had loved to that of the man who had told her she would in future be his very own – his property, his slave.

Pretty well all Castor was present, and at the highest pitch of excitement, for a handsomer pair, they said, had never stood in the old chancel to be made one.

And they were made one. The register was signed, and then, in the midst of a murmuring buzz and rustle of garments that filled the great building like the gathering of a storm, Robert Hallam and his fair young wife moved down the aisle, towards where a man was waiting to give the signal to the ringers to begin; and the crowd had filled every corner near the door, and almost blocked the path. The sun shone out brilliantly, and the buzz and rustle grew more and more like the gathering of that storm, which burst at last as the young couple reached the porch, in a thundering cheer.

Millicent looked flushed, and there was a red spot in Hallam’s cheeks as he walked out, proud and defiant, towards where the yellow chaise from the “George,” with four post-horses, was waiting.

The coach had just come in, and the passengers were standing gazing at the novel scene.

Again the storm burst in a tremendous cheer as Hallam handed his young wife into the chaise, and then there seemed to be another nearing storm, sending its harbinger in a fashion which made firm, self-contained Robert Hallam turn pale, as a hand was laid upon his arm.

“He said that if anything did go wrong, he should come back,” flashed through his brain.

Stephen Crellock was bending forward to whisper a few words in his ear.

Volume Two – Chapter One.

The Thorny Way – Millicent Hallam’s Home

“How dare you! Be off! Go to your mistress. Don’t pester me, woman.”

“Didn’t know it were pestering you, sir, to ask for my rights. Two years doo, and it’s time it was paid.”

“Ask your mistress, I tell you. Here, Julia.”

A dark-haired, thoughtful-looking child of about six years old loosened her grasp of Thisbe King’s dress, and crossed the room slowly towards where Robert Hallam sat, newspaper in hand, by his half-finished breakfast.

“Here, Julia!” was uttered with no unkindly intent; but the call was like a command – an imperious command, such as would be given to a dog.

The child was nearly close to him when he gave the paper a sharp rustle, and she sprang back.

“Pish!” he exclaimed, laughing unpleasantly, “what a silly little girl you are! Did you think I was going to strike you?”

“N-no, papa,” said the child nervously.

“Then why did you flinch away? Are you afraid of me?”

The child looked at him intently for a few moments, and then said softly:

“I don’t know.”

“Here, Thisbe,” said Hallam, frowning, “I’ll see to that. You can go now. Leave Miss Julia here.”

“Mayn’t I go with Thisbe, papa?” said the child eagerly.

“No; stay with me. I want to talk to you. Come here.”

The child’s countenance fell, and she sidled towards Hallam, looking wistfully the while at Thisbe, who left the room reluctantly and closed the door.