Love Me Little, Love Me Long Part 85

"May I have a word in private with my niece?" inquired Mrs.

Bazalgette, bitterly, of David.

"Why not?" said David stoutly; but his heart turned sick as he retired. Lucy saw the look of anxiety.

"Lucy," said Mrs. Bazalgette, "you left me because you are averse to matrimony, and I urged you to it; of course, with those sentiments, you have no idea of marrying that man there. I don't suspect you of such hypocrisy, and therefore I say come home with me, and you shall marry n.o.body; your inclination shall be free as air."

"Aunt," said Lucy, demurely, "why didn't you come yesterday? I always said those who love me best would find me first, and you let Mr. Dodd come first. I am so sorry!"

"Then your pretended aversion to marriage was all hypocrisy, was it?"

Lucy informed her that marriage was a contract, and the contracting parties two, and no more--the bride and bridegroom; and that to sign a contract without reading it is silly, and meaning not to keep it is wicked. "So," said she, "I read the contract over in the prayer-book this morning, for fear of accidents."

My reader may, perhaps, be amused at this admission; but Mrs.

Bazalgette was disgusted, and inquired, "What stuff is the girl talking now?"

"It is called common sense. Well, I find the contract is one I can carry out with Mr. Dodd, and with n.o.body else. I can love him a little, can honor him a great deal, and obey him entirely. I begin now. There he is; and if you feel you cannot show him the courtesy of making him one in our conversation, permit me to retire and relieve his solitude."

"Mighty fine; and if you don't instantly leave him and come home, you shall never enter my house again."

"Unless sickness or trouble should visit your house, and then you will send for me, and I shall come."

Mrs. Bazalgette (to the coachman).--"Home!"

Lucy made her a polite obeisance, to keep up appearances before the servants and the farm-people, who were gaping. She, whose breeding was inferior, flounced into a corner without returning it. The carriage drove off.

David inquired with great anxiety whether something had not been said to vex her.

"Not in the least," replied Lucy, calmly. "Little things and little people can no longer vex me. I have great duties to think of and a great heart to share them with me. Let us walk toward Harrowden; we may perhaps meet a friend."

Sure enough, just on this side Harrowden they met the covered cart, and Eve in it, radiant with unexpected delight. The engaged ones--for such they had become in those two miles--mounted the cart, and the two men sat in front, and Eve and Lucy intertwined at the back, and opened their hearts to each other.

Eve. And you have taken the paper off again?

Lucy. What paper? It was no longer applicable.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

I HAVE already noticed that Lucy, after capitulation, laid down her arms gracefully and sensibly. When she was asked to name a very early day for the wedding, she opposed no childish delay to David's happiness, for the _Rajah_ was to sail in six weeks and separate them. So the license was got, and the wedding-day came; and all Lucy's previous study of the contract did not prevent her from being deeply affected by the solemn words that joined her to David in holy matrimony.

She bore up, though, stoutly; for her sense of propriety and courtesy forbade her to cloud a festivity. But, when the post-chaise came to convey bride and bridegroom on their little tour, and she had to leave Mrs. Wilson and Eve for a whole week, the tears would not be denied; and, to show how perilous a road matrimony is, these two risked a misunderstanding on their wedding-day, thus: Lucy, all alone in the post-chaise with David, dissolved--a perfect Niobe--gus.h.i.+ng at short intervals. Sometimes a faint explanation gurgled out with the tears: "Poor Eve! her dear little face was working so not to cry. Oh! oh! I should not have minded so much if she had cried right out." Then, again, it was "Poor Mrs. Wilson! I was only a week with her, for all her love. I have made a c--at's p--paw of her--oh!"

Then, again, "Uncle Bazalgette has never noticed us; he thinks me a h--h--ypocrite." But quite as often they flowed without any accompanying reason.

Now if David had been a poetaster, he would have said: "Why these tears? she has got me. Am I not more than an equivalent to these puny considerations?" and all this salt water would have burned into his vanity like liquid caustic. If he had been a poet, he would have said: "Alas! I make her unhappy whom I hoped to make happy"; and with this he would have been sad, and so prolonged her sadness, and perhaps ended by sulking. But David had two good things--a kind heart and a skin not too thin: and such are the men that make women happy, in spite of their weak nerves and craven spirits.

He gave her time; soothed her kindly; but did not check her weakness dead short.

At last my Lady Chesterfield said to him, penitently, "This is a poor compliment to you, Mr. Dodd"; and then Niobized again, partly, I believe, with regret that she was behaving so discourteously.

"It is very natural," said David, kindly, "but we shall soon see them all again, you know."

Presently she looked in his radiant face, with wet eyes, but a half-smile. "You amaze me; you don't seem the least terrified at what we have done."

"Not a bit," cried David, like a cheerful horn: "I have been in worse peril than this, and so have you. Our troubles are all over; I see nothing but happiness ahead." He then drew a sunny picture of their future life, to all which she listened demurely; and, in short, he treated her little feminine distress as the summer sun treats a mist that tries to vie with it. He soon dried her up, and when they reached their journey's end she was as bright as himself.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

THEY had been married a week. A slight change, but quite distinct to an observer of her s.e.x, bloomed in Lucy's face and manner. A new beauty was in her face--the blossom of wifehood. Her eyes, though not less modest, were less timid than before; and now they often met David's full, and seemed to sip affection at them. When he came near her, her lovely frame showed itself conscious of his approach. His queen, though he did not know it, was his va.s.sal. They sat at table at a little inn, twenty miles from Harrowden, for they were on their return to Mrs. Wilson. Lucy went to the window while David settled the bill. At the window it is probable she had her own thoughts, for she glided up behind David, and, fanning his hair with her cool, honeyed breath, she said, in the tone of a humble inquirer seeking historical or antiquarian information, "I want to ask you a question, David: are you happy _too?"_

David answered promptly, but inarticulately; so his reply is lost to posterity. Conjecture alone survives.

One disappointment awaited Lucy at Mrs. Wilson's. There were several letters for both David and her, but none from Mr. Bazalgette. She knew by that she had lost his respect. She could not blame him, for she saw how like disingenuousness and hypocrisy her conduct must look to him.

"I must trust to time and opportunity," she said, with a sigh. She proposed to David to read all her letters, and she would read all his.

He thought this a droll idea; but nothing that identified him with his royal va.s.sal came amiss. The first letter of Lucy's that David opened was from Mr. Talboys.

"DEAR MADAM--I have heard of your marriage with Mr. Dodd, and desire to offer both you and him my cordial congratulations.

"I feel under considerable obligation to Mr. Dodd; and, should my house ever have a mistress, I hope she will be able to tempt you both to renew our acquaintance under my roof, and so give me once more that opportunity I have too little improved of showing you both the sincere respect and grat.i.tude with which I am,

"Your very faithful servant,

"REGINALD TALBOYS."

Lucy was delighted with this note. "Who says it was nothing to have been born a gentleman?"

The second letter was from Reginald No. 2; and, if I only give the reader a fragment of it, I still expect his grat.i.tude, all one as if I had disinterred a fragment of Orpheus or Tiresias.

Dear lucy.

It is very ungust of you to go and Mary other peeple wen you Promised me. but it is mr. dod.

So i dont so much mind i like Mr. dod. he is a duc. and they all Say i am too litle and jane says Sailors always end by been Drouned so it is only put off.

But you reely must keep your Promise to me. wen i am biger And mr. Dod is drouned. my Ginny pigs--

Here a white hand drew the pleasing composition out of David's hand, and dropped it on the floor; two piteous, tearful eyes were bent on him, and a white arm went tenderly round his neck to save him from the threatened fate.

At this sight Eve pounced on the horrid scroll, and hurled it, with general acclamation, into the flames.

Thus that sweet infant revenged himself, and, like Sampson, hit hardest of all at parting--in tears and flame vanished from written fiction, and, I conclude, went back to Gavarni.

There was a letter from Mr. Fountain--all fire and fury. She was never to write or speak to him any more. He was now looking out for a youth of good family to adopt and to make a Fontaine of by act of Parliament, etc., etc. A fusillade of written thunderbolts.

There was another from Mrs. Bazalgette, written with cream--of tartar and oil--of vitriol. She forgave her niece and wished her every happiness it was possible for a young person to enjoy who had deceived her relations and married beneath her. She felt pity rather than anger; and there was no reason why Mr. and Mrs. Dodd should not visit her house, as far as she was concerned; but Mr. Bazalgette was a man of very stern rect.i.tude, and, as she could not make sure that he would treat them with common courtesy after what had pa.s.sed, she thought a temporary separation might be the better course for all parties.