The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols Part 31

However, Mr. Tom took a much more cool and business-like view of the matter.

'When he is let out,' he remarked, 'I hope the Vice-chancellor will make the other side pay the costs of all these applications and proceedings. I don't see why we should pay, simply because Jack Hanbury went and made an a.s.s of himself.'

'I beg you to remember that you are speaking of my husband?' said Madge, with a sudden fierceness.

'Oh, well, but didn't he?' Mr. Tom said. 'What was the use of bolting like that, when he knew he must be laid by the heels? Why didn't he go to his father and uncle to begin with, and get them to make this arrangement they have now, and then have gone to the chief clerk and showed him that there was no objection anywhere----'

'It was because you were all against him,' said poor Madge, beginning to cry. 'Everybody--everybody. And now he may be shut up there for a whole year--or two years----'

'Oh, but he isn't so badly off,' said Mr. Tom, soothingly. 'You can see they treat him very well. By Jingo, if it was the treadmill, now--that would exercise his toes for him. I tried it once in York Castle; and I can tell you when you find this thing pawing at you over your head it's like an elephant having a game with you. Never mind, Madge. Don't cry. Look here; I'll bet you five sovereigns to one that they let him out on the next application--that's for Thursday. Are you on?'

'Do you mean it?' she said, looking up.

'I do.'

It was wonderful how quickly the light came into her face.

'Then there is a chance?' she said. 'I can't believe the others; for they are only trying to comfort me. But if you would bet on it, Tom--then there's really a chance.'

'Bet's off. You should have snapped at it, Madge. Never mind, you'll have your dear Jack: that'll do instead.'

That afternoon Mary Beresford, now Mrs. Rupert, called, and Mr. Tom, with much dignity of manner, came into the room holding an open letter in his hand,

'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'and friends a.s.sembled, I have a piece of news for you. Mr. Francis Holford King, late Commander in Her Majesty's Navy, has just contracted a--what d'ye call it?--kind of engagement with Miss Anne Beresford of that ilk. It strikes me this is what is termed consolation-stakes----'

'There you are quite wrong,' said Madge, promptly and cheerfully. 'He meant to make me the consolation-stakes: for it was Nan that he wanted to marry all the way through.'

'Well, I shall be glad to see you all married,' said Tom. 'I've had enough bother with you.'

'You look quite worn out,' his eldest sister remarked.

'At least,' he said, sitting down in an easy-chair and stretching out his legs, 'at least I have gained some wisdom. I see the puzzlement you girls are in who haven't got to earn your own living. You don't know what on earth to do with yourselves. You read Ruskin, and think you should be earnest; but you don't know what to be earnest about.

Then you take to improving your mind; and cram your head full of earth-currents, and equinoxes, and eclipses of the moon. But what does it all come to? You can't do anything with it. Even if you could come and tell me that a lime-burner in Jupiter has thrown his wig into the fire, and so altered the spectrum, what's that to me? Then you have a go at philanthropy--that's more practical; Sunday-school teaching, mending children's clothes, doing for other people what they ought to do for themselves, and generally cultivating pauperism. Then, lo and behold! in the middle of all this there comes by a good-looking young fellow; and phew! all your grand ideas are off like smoke; and it's all "Dear Jack!" and "Dear Alfred!" and "I'll go to the ends of the earth with my sodger laddie!" Oh, I know what life is. I see you girls begin with all your fine ideas, and reading up, and earnestness----'

'I suppose, then, there is no such thing as the formation of character,' said his eldest sister, calmly.

'The formation of character!' exclaimed Mr. Tom. 'Out of books? Why, the only one among you who has any character worth mentioning is Nan.

Do you think she got it out of books? No, she didn't. She got it--she got it----'

Here Mr. Tom paused for a second; but only to make a wilder dash.

'----out of the sunlight! There's a grand poetical idea for you. Nan has been more in the open than any of you; and the sunlight has filled her brain, and her mind, and her disposition altogether----'

'I presume that also accounts for the redness of her hair?' said Mrs.

Rupert.

Tom rose to his feet. There was an air of resignation on his face as he left the room. He said, half to himself,

'Well, Nature was right in making me a man. I couldn't have mustered up half enough spite to make a pa.s.sable woman.'

Now, the end of the Madge and Jack episode was in this wise. On the second application the Vice-Chancellor flatly refused to release the young man from prison. His gross offence had not yet been purged. It was quite true, his Lords.h.i.+p admitted, that the young lady and the guardians and relatives on both sides were also sharing in this punishment; and it was unfortunate. Moreover, arrangements had now been made which seemed to render the marriage a perfectly eligible one, if only it had been properly brought about. Nevertheless the Court could not overlook the young man's conduct; in prison he was; and in prison he must remain.

More tears on the part of Madge. More advice from Mr. Tom that she should go and plead with the Vice-Chancellor herself; he was sure her pretty, weeping eyes would soften the flintiest heart. Correspondence addressed by Captain Frank King to Admiral Sir George Stratherne, K.C.B., containing suggestions not in consonance with the lofty integrity of British courts of law.

Then, at last, the Vice-chancellor relented. Mr. Hanbury had given an undertaking to execute any settlement the Court might think fit with regard to the young lady's property. Then he must pay all costs of the proceedings, likewise the guardians' costs. This being so, his Lords.h.i.+p was disposed to take a merciful view of the case; and would make an order discharging the young man from prison.

'Oh, Jack,' poor Madge exclaimed, when he was restored to her, 'shall I ever forget what you have suffered for my sake?'

Jack looked rather foolish among all these people; but at last he plucked up courage, and went and made a straightforward apology to Lady Beresford; and said he hoped this piece of folly would soon be forgotten; and that Madge would be happy after all. The sisters were disposed to pet him. Tom tolerated him a little. Then there was a general bustle; for they were all (including Frank King) going down again to Brighton; and they made a large party.

How clear the air and the sunlight were after the close atmosphere of London! The s.h.i.+ning sea--the fresh breeze blowing in--the busy brightness and cheerfulness of the King's Road--it all seemed new and delightful again! And of course amidst the general clamour and commotion of getting into the house, who was to take much notice of Nan, or watch her self-conscious shyness, or regard the manner in which she received Frank King after his absence? You see, Nan was always wanted to do things, or fetch things, or send for things. 'She's a house-keeperish kind of young party,' Tom used to say of her, when he had coolly sent her to look out his shooting-boots.

The spring-time was come; not only was the suns.h.i.+ne clearer, and the wind from the sea softer and fresher, but human nature, also, grew conscious of vague antic.i.p.ations and an indefinable delight, Flowers from the sheltered valleys behind the downs began to appear in the streets. The year was opening; soon the colours of the summer would s.h.i.+ning over the land.

'Nan-nie,' said Frank King to her who was most occasions now his only and dear companion, they were walking along one of the country ways, 'don't you think June is a good month to get married in?'

'Frank dear,' she said, 'I haven't had much experience.'

'Now, look here, Nan,' he said--the others were a long way ahead, and he could scold her as he liked. 'You may have some strong points--wisdom, perhaps--and a capacity for extracting money out of people for lifeboats--and a knack of boxing the ears of small boys whom you find shying stones at sparrows--I say you may have your strong points; but flippancy isn't one of them. And this is a very serious matter.'

'I know it is,' said Nan, demurely. 'And far more serious than you imagine. For, do you know, Frank, that the moment I get married I shall cease to be responsible for the direction of my own life altogether. You alone will be responsible. Whatever you say I should do, I will do; what you say I must think, or believe, or try for, that will be my guide. Don't you know that I have been trying all my life to get rid of the responsibility of deciding for myself? I nearly ended--like such a lot of people!--in "going over to the Church." Oh, Frank,' she said, 'I think if it hadn't been for you I should have married a clergyman, and been good.'

She laughed a little, soft, low laugh; and continued:

'No, I think that never could have happened. But I should have done something--gone into one of those visiting sisterhoods, or got trained as a nurse--you don't know what a good hospital nurse you spoiled in me. However, now that is not my business. Undine got a soul when she married; I give up mine. I shall efface myself. It's you who have to tell me what to think, and believe, and try to do.'

'Very well,' said he. 'I shall begin by advising you to give up cultivating the acquaintance of tinkers and gipsies; and first of all to resolve not to speak again to Singing Sal.'

'Oh, but that's foolish--that is unnecessary!' she said, with a stare; and he burst out laughing.

'Here we are at the outset!' he said. 'But don't you think, Nan-nie, you might let things go on as they are? You haven't done so badly after all. Do you know that people don't altogether detest you? Some of them would even say that you made the world a little brighter and pleasanter for those around you; and that is always something.'

'But it's so little,' said Nan. 'And--and I had thought of--of I don't know what, I believe--in that Cathedral at Lucerne--and now I am going to do just like everybody else. It's rather sneaky.'

'What is?' he asked. 'To be a good woman?'

'Oh, you are not philosophical,' she said. 'And me--me too. My brain, what there was of it, is clean gone; my heart has got complete mastery.

It is really ludicrous that my highest ambition, and my highest delight, should be to be able to say "I love you," and to go on saying it any number of times. But then, dear Frank, when all this nonsense is over between us, then we will set to work and try and do some good.

There must be something for us to do in the world.'

'Oh yes, no doubt,' he said, 'and do you know when I think this nonsense will be over between you and me, Nan?--when you and I are lying dead together in Kingscourt churchyard.'

She touched his hand with her hand--for a moment.

'And perhaps not even then, Frank.'

Well, it was a double wedding, after all; and Mr. Roberts was determined that it should be memorable in Brighton, if music, and flowers, and public charities would serve. Then Mr. and Mrs. Jack Hanbury were to come along from Southampton; and Mr. Jacomb had, in the most frank and manly fas.h.i.+on, himself asked permission to a.s.sist at the marriage ceremony. There were, of course, many presents; two of which were especially grateful to Nan. The first was a dragon-fly in rubies and diamonds, the box enclosing which was wrapped round by a sheet of note-paper really belonging to Her Majesty, and hailing from Whitehall.