Wee Wifie Part 6

The elder Miss Mordaunt was somewhat of a recluse in her habits; she was a nervous, diffident woman, who made weak health an excuse for shutting herself out from society. Fay had lived with her ever since her father's death; but during the last year Miss Mordaunt had been much troubled by qualms of conscience, as to whether she was doing her duty to her orphaned niece. Fay was almost a woman, she told herself--a tiny woman certainly, but one must not expect her to grow bigger; girls seldom grew after sixteen, and Fay was more than sixteen. Colonel Mordaunt had left very few instructions in his will about his little daughter. His sister was appointed her personal guardian until she came of age or married; there was a liberal allowance for maintenance and education; but Colonel Mordaunt was a man of simple habits, and Fay had never been accustomed to either ostentation or luxury; one day she would be a rich woman, and find herself the possessor of a large, rambling, old house; until then her father had been perfectly willing that she should live quietly with his sister in her modest cottage at Daintree. Masters and mistresses came over to Fay, and taught her in the low bow-windowed room that was set apart for her use. A chestnut pony was sent from Wyngate Priory; and Miss Mordaunt's groom accompanied Fay in these long scrambling rides.

The young heiress was perfectly happy and content with her simple secluded life; Aunt Griselda would hear the girl warbling like a lark in her little room. Long before the inhabitants of the cottage would be stirring Fay's little feet were accustomed to brush the dew from the gra.s.s; Nero and she would return from their rambles in the highest spirits; the basket of wild flowers that graced the breakfast-table had been all gathered and arranged by Fay's pretty fingers. After breakfast there were all her pets to visit--to feed the doves and chickens and canaries--to give Fairy her corn, and to look after the brindled cow and the dear little gray-and-black kitten in the hay-loft--all the live things on the premises loved their gracious little mistress; even Sulky, Aunt Griselda's old pony--the most ill-conditioned and stubborn of ponies, who never altered his pace for any degree of coaxing--would whinny with pleasure if Fay entered his stall.

Fay was very docile with her masters and mistresses, but it is only fair to say that her abilities were not above the average. She sipped knowledge carelessly when it came in her way, but she never sought it of her own accord. Neither she nor Aunt Griselda were intellectual women. Fay played a little, sung charmingly, filled her sketchbook with unfinished vigorous sketches, chattered a little French, and then shut up her books triumphantly, under the notion that at sixteen a girl's education must be finished.

It must be confessed that Miss Mordaunt was hardly the woman to be intrusted with a girl's education. She was a gentle, shallow creature, with narrow views of life, very prim and puritanical--orthodox, she would have called it--and she brought up Fay in the old-fas.h.i.+oned way in which she herself had been brought up. Fay never mixed with young people; she had no companions of her own age; but people were beginning to talk of her in the neighborhood. Fay's youth, her prospective riches, her secluded nun-like life surrounded her with a certain mystery of attraction. Miss Mordaunt had been much exercised of late by the fact that one or two families in the environs of Daintree had tried to force themselves into intimacy with the ladies of the cottage; sundry young men, too, had made their appearance in the little church at Daintree, as it seemed with the express intention of staring at Fay. One of these, Frank Lumsden, had gone further--he had taken advantage of a service he had rendered the ladies, when Sulky had been more intractable than usual, to join Fay in her walks and rides. He was a handsome boy of about twenty, and he was honestly smitten with the young heiress's sweet face; but Aunt Griselda, who knew her brother's wish, had been greatly alarmed, and had thought of shutting up her cottage and taking Fay to Bath for the winter before Frank Lumsden came back to Daintree Hall for the Christmas vacation.

Aunt Griselda received Sir Hugh graciously, and prosed gently to him of his father's death; but Hugh turned the conversation skillfully to herself and Fay. He managed to extract a good deal of information from the simple woman about her lovely little niece. Miss Mordaunt could be garrulous on the subject of Fay's perfections--she looked upon Hugh Redmond as the suitor whom her brother would have chosen. Before long Hugh heard all about Frank Lumsden's enormities. Before he had visited many times at the cottage Aunt Griselda had confided her perplexities to his ear, and had asked his advice--of course he had commended her wisdom in driving the unlucky Frank from the field.

"It would never do, you know; he is only a boy," Aunt Griselda observed, plaintively; "and Fay will be so rich one of these days."

"Oh! it would never do at all," responded Hugh, hastily. The idea of Frank Lumsden annoyed him. What business had all these impertinent fellows to be staring at Fay in church? He should like to send them all about their own business, he thought; for though hardly a week had pa.s.sed, Hugh was beginning to feel a strong interest in Fay.

He had not spoken to her again on that first visit; but after a time she had joined them in the porch, and had sat down demurely by Aunt Griselda, and had busied herself with some work. Hugh could not make her speak to him, but he had a good look at her.

She had laid aside her broad-brimmed hat, and he saw the beautiful little head was covered with soft curly brown hair, that waved naturally over the temples. It was coiled gracefully behind, but no amount of care or pains could have smoothed those rippling waves.

He wished more than once that he could have seen her eyes again, but she kept them fixed on her embroidery; only when anything amused her a charming dimple showed on one cheek. It was the prettiest dimple he had ever seen, and he caught himself trying to say something that would bring it again. Hugh paid a long visit, and in a few days he came again. He was staying at Cooksley, he told them carelessly; and if they would allow it, he added courteously, he should like to walk over to Daintree and see them sometimes.

Miss Mordaunt gave him gracious permission, and Fay looked shyly pleased; and so it came that Hugh called daily at the cottage.

He sent for his horses presently, and drove Miss Mordaunt and her niece to all the beautiful spots in the neighborhood; and he joined Fay in her canters through the lanes, and found fault with Fairy, much to her little mistress's dismay; but Fay blushed very prettily when one day a beautiful little chestnut mare, with a lady's side-saddle, was brought to the cottage-door, where Fay was waiting in her habit.

"I want you to try Bonnie Bell," he said, carelessly, as he put her on her saddle. "You ride perfectly, and Fairy is not half good enough for you;" and Fay was obliged to own that she had never had such a ride before; and Hugh had noticed that people had turned round to look at the beautiful little figure on the chestnut mare.

"I shall bring her every day for you to ride--she is your own property, you know," Hugh said, as he lifted Fay to the ground; but Fay had only tried to hide her blus.h.i.+ng face from his meaning look, and had run into the house.

Hugh was beginning to make his intentions very clear. When he walked with Fay in the little lane behind the cottage he did not say much, but he looked very kindly at her. The girl's innocent beauty--her sweet face and fresh ripple of talk--came soothingly to the jaded man.

He began to feel an interest in the gentle unsophisticated little creature. She was very young, very ignorant, and childish--she had absolutely no knowledge of the world or of men--but somehow her very innocence attracted him.

His heart was bitter against his old love--should he take this child to himself and make her his wife? He was very lonely--restless, and dissatisfied, and miserable; perhaps, after all, she might rest and comfort him. He was already very fond of her; by and by, when he had learned to forget Margaret, when he ceased to remember her with these sickening throbs of pain, he might even grow to love her.

"She is so young--so little will satisfy her," he said to himself, when a chill doubt once crossed his mind whether he could ever give her the love that a woman has a right to demand from the man who offers himself as her husband; but he put away the thought from him.

He was a Redmond, and it was his duty to marry; he had grown very fond of the shy gentle little creature; he could make her happy, for the child liked him, he thought; and it would be pleasant to have her bright face to welcome him when he went home.

So one evening, as they walked up and down the shrubbery, while Aunt Griselda knitted in the porch, Hugh took Fay's hand, and asked her gently if she thought she could love him well enough to be his wife.

Poor simple little child! she hardly knew how to answer him; but Hugh, who had caught a glimpse of the happy blus.h.i.+ng face, was very gentle and patient with her shyness, and presently won from her the answer he wanted. She did like him--so much he understood her to say--he was so kind, and had given her so much pleasure. Yes--after much pressing on Hugh's part--she was sure that she liked him well enough, but she could not be induced to say more.

But Hugh was quite content with his victory; he wanted no words to tell him that Fay adored him from the depths of her innocent heart; he could read the truth in those wonderful eyes--Fay had no idea how eloquent they were.

"How could she help loving him?" she said to herself that night, as she knelt down in the moonlight; had she ever seen any one like him.

No little imprisoned princess ever watched her knight more proudly than Fay did when Hugh rode away on his big black mare. He was like a king, she thought, so kind, and handsome, and gracious; and Fay prayed with tears that she might be worthy of the precious gift that had come to her.

And so one lovely August day, when Aunt Griselda's sunny little garden was sweet with the breath of roses and camellias, Sir Hugh and Fay were married in the little church at Daintree, and as Hugh looked down on his child-wife, something like compunction seized him, and from the depths of his sore heart he solemnly promised that he would keep his vow, and would cherish and love her, G.o.d helping, to his life's end.

CHAPTER VI.

BEULAH PLACE.

Upon her face there was the tint of grief, The settled shadow of an inward strife.

BYRON.

.... A sorrow not, a son.

ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.

In one of the dingiest suburbs of London there is a small plot of ground known by the name of the Elysian Fields; but how it had ever acquired this singular appellation is likely to remain an unsolved problem to the end of time.

Most probably those great satirists, street denominators, had branded it with this t.i.tle in ridicule, for anything further removed from the mythological meadows could not possibly be conceived, even by the most sanguine temperament. True, there was a market garden or two, and odors redolent of decaying vegetables; but, on the whole, it was rather an unsavory region, and much frequented by the costermonger and fishwoman.

The Elysian Fields were divided and subdivided into streets, rows, and alleys; some respectable, others semi-genteel, but in most cases to be defined by the three degrees of comparison--dingy, dingier, most dingy; and it was under the comparative degree that a certain street, known by the name of Beulah Place, must be cla.s.sed.

It was a long narrow street, not differing much from the others that ran parallel with it, except in a general air of retirement and obscurity, owing to a "No Thoroughfare" placarded up on the blank wall of a brewery, which had rather a depressing effect on the end houses that looked full on it.

There was little that was noticeable about the street except its name--for here again the satirists had sharpened their wits, and Beulah Place looked down in conscious superiority on Paradise Row.

In conscious superiority indeed--for had not Beulah Place this distinction, that its houses were garnished with imposing flights of steps and a railed-in area, while Paradise Row opened its doors directly on the pavement?

Therefore Beulah Place noted itself eminently respectable, and put on airs; let its front and back parlors to single gentlemen or widows; and looked over its wire blinds in superb disdain at the umbrella-mender, or genteel dressmaker who lived opposite.

At the extreme corner of Beulah Place, with its one gla.s.s eye peering down High Street, was Mrs. Watkins, tea merchant and Italian warehouseman--at least, so ran the gilt-lettered inscription, which had been put up over the door in the days of her predecessor, and had remained there ever since. But it was in reality an all-sorts shop, where nearly everything edible could be procured, and to betray ignorance of Mrs. Watkins was to betray ignorance not only of Beulah Place, but of the whole of the Elysian Fields.

To be sure the long window aided the deception, and was fitted up solely with goods in the grocery line; but enter the dark low door-way, and get an odorous whiff from within, and one's olfactory nerves would soon convince one of the contrary.

There was a flavor of everything there; a blended fragrance compounded of strong cheese, herrings, and candles, with a suspicion of matches and tarred wood, which to the uninitiated was singularly unpalatable, and suggested to them to shake off the dust of Mrs. Watkins as soon as possible.

To be sure this was only a trifle. To do her justice, Mrs. Watkins drove a very thriving trade; the very carters had a partiality for the shop, and would lurch in about twelve o'clock, with their pipes and hob-nailed boots, for a twist of tobacco or a slice of cheese, and crack clumsy jokes across the counter.

But, besides this, Mrs. Watkins had another source of profit that was at once lucrative and respectable. She let lodgings.

And very genteel lodgings they were, with a private entrance in Beulah Place, and a double door that excluded draughts and the heterogeneous odors from the shop.

These lodgers of Mrs. Watkins were the talk of the neighborhood, and many a pa.s.ser-by looked curiously up at the bright windows and clean white curtains, between which in summer time bloomed the loveliest flowers, and the earliest snow-drops and crocuses in spring, in the hope of seeing two fair faces which had rather haunted their memory ever since they had first seen them.

It was six o'clock on the evening of a dreary November day. Watkins's shop was empty, for the fog and the rawness and the cold had driven folks early to their homes; and Mrs. Watkins herself, fortified with strong tea and much b.u.t.tered toast, was entering her profits on a small greasy slate, and casting furtive glances every now and then into the warm, snug parlor, where her nephew and factotum Tony was refres.h.i.+ng himself in his turn from the small black teapot on the hob.

A fresh, wholesome-looking woman was Mrs. Watkins, with an honest, reliable face and a twofold chin; but she had two peculiarities--she always wore the stiffest and cleanest and most crackling of print dresses, and her hair was nearly always pinned up in curl-papers under her black cap.

Mrs. Watkins was engaged in jotting down small dabs of figures on the slate and rubbing them out again, when the green baize swing-door leading to the pa.s.sage was pushed back, and a tall grave-looking woman in black entered the shop and quietly approached the counter.

She was certainly a striking-looking person; in spite of the gray hair and a worn, sad expression, the face bore the trace of uncommon beauty, though all youth and freshness, animation and coloring, had faded out of it.

The profile was almost perfect, and the mouth would have been lovely too but for a certain proud droop of the lips which gave an impression of hardness and inflexibility; but the dark eyes were very soft and melancholy, and seemed to hold a world of sadness in their depths.