MABEL CHESTER was the beauty and toast of South Shropshire. She had refused the hand of half the country squires1 in a circle of some dozen miles, till at last Mr. Vane became her suitor. Besides a handsome face and person, Mr. Vane had accomplishments2 his rivals did not possess. He read poetry to her on mossy banks an hour before sunset, and awakened3 sensibilities which her other suitors shocked, and they them.
The lovely Mabel had a taste for beautiful things, without any excess of that severe quality called judgment4.
I will explain. If you or I, reader, had read to her in the afternoon, amid the smell of roses and eglantine, the chirp5 of the mavis, the hum of bees, the twinkling of butterflies, and the tinkle6 of distant sheep, something that combined all these sights, and sounds, and smells—say Milton's musical picture of Eden, P. L., lib. 3, and after that “Triplet on Kew,” she would have instantly pronounced in favor of “Eden”; but if we had read her “Milton,” and Mr. Vane had read her “Triplet,” she would have as unhesitatingly preferred “Kew” to “Paradise.”
She was a true daughter of Eve; the lady, who, when an angel was telling her and her husband the truths of heaven in heaven's own music, slipped away into the kitchen, because she preferred hearing the story at second-hand7, encumbered8 with digressions, and in mortal but marital9 accents.
When her mother, who guarded Mabel like a dragon, told her Mr. Vane was not rich enough, and she really must not give him so many opportunities, Mabel cried and embraced the dragon, and said, “Oh, mother!” The dragon, finding her ferocity dissolving, tried to shake her off, but the goose would cry and embrace the dragon till it melted.
By and by Mr. Vane's uncle died suddenly and left him the great Stoken Church estate, and a trunk full of Jacobuses and Queen Anne's guineas—his own hoard10 and his father's—then the dragon spake comfortably and said: “My child, he is now the richest man in Shropshire. He will not think of you now; so steel your heart.”
Then Mabel, contrary to all expectations, did not cry; but, with flushing cheek, pledged her life upon Ernest's love and honor: and Ernest, as soon as the funeral, etc., left him free, galloped11 to Mabel, to talk of our good fortune. The dragon had done him injustice12; that was not his weak point. So they were married! and they were very, very happy. But, one month after, the dragon died, and that was their first grief; but they bore it together.
And Vane was not like the other Shropshire squires. His idea of pleasure was something his wife could share. He still rode, walked, and sat with her, and read to her, and composed songs for her, and about her, which she played and sang prettily13 enough, in her quiet, lady-like way, and in a voice of honey dropping from the comb. Then she kept a keen eye upon him; and, when she discovered what dishes he liked, she superintended those herself; and, observing that he never failed to eat of a certain lemon-pudding the dragon had originated, she always made this pudding herself, and she never told her husband she made it.
The first seven months of their marriage was more like blue sky than brown earth; and if any one had told Mabel that her husband was a mortal, and not an angel, sent to her that her days and nights might be unmixed, uninterrupted heaven, she could hardly have realized the information.
When a vexatious litigant14 began to contest the will by which Mr. Vane was Lord of Stoken Church, and Mr. Vane went up to London to concert the proper means of defeating this attack, Mrs. Vane would gladly have compounded by giving the man two or three thousand acres or the whole estate, if he wouldn't take less, not to rob her of her husband for a month; but she was docile15, as she was amorous16; so she cried (out of sight) a week; and let her darling go with every misgiving17 a loving heart could have; but one! and that one her own heart told her was impossible.
The month rolled away—no symptom of a return. For this, Mr. Vane was not, in fact, to blame; but, toward the end of the next month, business became a convenient excuse. When three months had passed, Mrs. Vane became unhappy. She thought he too must feel the separation. She offered to come to him. He answered uncandidly. He urged the length, the fatigue18 of the journey. She was silenced; but some time later she began to take a new view of his objections. “He is so self-denying,” said she. “Dear Ernest, he longs for me; but he thinks it selfish to let me travel so far alone to see him.”
Full of this idea, she yielded to her love. She made her preparations, and wrote to him, that, if he did not forbid her peremptorily19, he must expect to see her at his breakfast-table in a very few days.
Mr. Vane concluded this was a jest, and did not answer this letter at all.
Mrs. Vane started. She traveled with all speed; but, coming to a halt at ——, she wrote to her husband that she counted on being with him at four of the clock on Thursday.
This letter preceded her arrival by a few hours. It was put into his hand at the same time with a note from Mrs. Woffington, telling him she should be at a rehearsal20 at Covent Garden. Thinking his wife's letter would keep, he threw it on one side into a sort of a tray; and, after a hurried breakfast, went out of his house to the theater. He returned, as we are aware, with Mrs. Woffington; and also, at her request, with Mr. Cibber, for whom they had called on their way. He had forgotten his wife's letter, and was entirely21 occupied with his guests.
Sir Charles Pomander joined them, and found Mr. Colander22, the head domestic of the London establishment, cutting with a pair of scissors every flower Mrs. Woffington fancied, that lady having a passion for flowers.
Colander, during his temporary absence from the interior, had appointed James Burdock to keep the house, and receive the two remaining guests, should they arrive.
This James Burdock was a faithful old country servant, who had come up with Mr. Vane, but left his heart at Willoughby. James Burdock had for some time been ruminating23, and his conclusion was, that his mistress, Miss Mabel (as by force of habit he called her), was not treated as she deserved.
Burdock had been imported into Mr. Vane's family by Mabel; he had carried her in his arms when she was a child; he had held her upon a donkey when she was a little girl; and when she became a woman, it was he who taught her to stand close to her horse, and give him her foot and spring while he lifted her steadily24 but strongly into her saddle, and, when there, it was he who had instructed her that a horse was not a machine, that galloping25 tires it in time, and that galloping it on the hard road hammers it to pieces. “I taught the girl,” thought James within himself.
This honest silver-haired old fellow seemed so ridiculous to Colander, the smooth, supercilious26 Londoner, that he deigned27 sometimes to converse28 with James, in order to quiz him. This very morning they had had a conversation.
“Poor Miss Mabel! dear heart. A twelvemonth married, and nigh six months of it a widow, or next door.”
“We write to her, James, and entertain her replies, which are at considerable length.”
“Ay, but we don't read 'em!” said James, with an uneasy glance at the tray.
“Invariably, at our leisure; meantime we make ourselves happy among the wits and the sirens.”
“And she do make others happy among the poor and the ailing29.”
“Which shows,” said Colander, superciliously30, “the difference of tastes.”
Burdock, whose eye had never been off his mistress's handwriting, at last took it up and said: “Master Colander, do if ye please, sir, take this into master's dressing-room, do now?”
Colander looked down on the missive with dilating31 eye. “Not a bill, James Burdock,” said he, reproachfully.
“A bill! bless ye, no. A letter from missus.”
No, the dog would not take it in to his master; and poor James, with a sigh, replaced it in the tray.
This James Burdock, then, was left in charge of the hall by Colander, and it so happened that the change was hardly effected before a hurried knocking came to the street door.
“Ay, ay!” grumbled32 Burdock, “I thought it would not be long. London for knocking and ringing all day, and ringing and knocking all night.” He opened the door reluctantly and suspiciously, and in darted33 a lady, whose features were concealed34 by a hood35. She glided36 across the hall, as if she was making for some point, and old James shuffled37 after her, crying: “Stop, stop! young woman. What is your name, young woman?”
“Why, James Burdock,” cried the lady, removing her hood, “have you forgotten your mistress?”
“Mistress! Why, Miss Mabel, I ask your pardon, madam—here, John, Margery!”
“Hush!” cried Mrs. Vane.
“But where are your trunks, miss? And where's the coach, and Darby and Joan? To think of their drawing you all the way here! I'll have 'em into your room directly, ma'am. Miss, you've come just in time.”
“What a dear, good, stupid old thing you are, James. Where is Ernest—Mr. Vane? James, is he well and happy? I want to surprise him.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said James, looking down.
“I left the old stupid coach at Islington, James. The something—pin was loose, or I don't know what. Could I wait two hours there? So I came on by myself; you wicked old man, you let me talk, and don't tell me how he is.”
“Master is main well, ma'am, and thank you,” said old Burdock, confused and uneasy.
“But is he happy? Of course he is. Are we not to meet to-day after six months? Ah! but never mind, they are gone by.”
“Lord bless her!” thought the faithful old fellow. “If sitting down and crying could help her, I wouldn't be long.”
By this time they were in the banqueting-room and at the preparations there Mabel gave a start; she then colored. “Oh, he has invited his friends to make acquaintance. I had rather we had been alone all this day and to-morrow. But he must not know that. No; his friends are my friends, and shall be too,” thought the country wife. She then glanced with some misgiving at her traveling attire38, and wished she had brought one trunk with her.
“James,” said she, “where is my room? And, mind, I forbid you to tell a soul I am come.”
“Your room, Miss Mabel?”
“Well, any room where there is looking-glass and water.”
She then went to a door which opened in fact on a short passage leading to a room occupied by Mr. Vane himself.
“No, no!” cried James. “That is master's room.”
“Well, is not master's room mistress's room, old man? But stay; is he there?”
“No, ma'am; he is in the garden, with a power of fine folks.”
“They shall not see me till I have made myself a little more decent,” said the young beauty, who knew at bottom how little comparatively the color of her dress could affect her appearance, and she opened Mr. Vane's door and glided in.
Burdock's first determination was, in spite of her injunction, to tell Colander; but on reflection he argued: “And then what will they do? They will put their heads together, and deceive us some other way. No!” thought James, with a touch of spite, “we shall see how they will all look.” He argued also, that, at sight of his beautiful wife, his master must come to his senses, and the Colander faction39 be defeated; and perhaps, by the mercy of Providence40,............