"Before I can avail myself of this money," said Mr. Anerley, "you must at least answer me one question. Was it placed in your hands by Frederick Hubbard-by Count Schonstein?"
"No."
"Thank you."
So they went out into the free air, and lo! London was changed. It was no longer a cruel and bitter mother, starving her children, heedless of their cries and their sufferings; but a gracious empress, profuse of feasts, with stores of pleasures in her capacious lap. And this generous creature was to exercise all her power on behalf of Dove; and pure air, and the sweet sunlight, and the sharp hunger of health, were once more to make the young girl"s face less shadowy and unreal.
"Now for your news, Will," said the old man, cheerfully.
"Nothing much, sir," said he. "Only that I have gained the appointment, and the company guarantees me 1000*l.* a year for three years. It never rains but it pours, you see; and if Heaven would only send one more good--"
"My poor girl"s health," said the old man; and he would have given up all his money, and been glad to suffer far greater privations than he had done for the rest of his life, only to secure that one supreme blessing.
When they returned to the house, Mrs. Anerley came to say that Dove wanted to see Will, alone. He went into the room, and stooped over her, and kissed her forehead, and took her hand. She looked very pleased and happy.
"Papa won"t be vexed any more. He has got plenty of money, has he not?"
she said.
"Yes; but that money is for them. _Our_ money, Dove, must come from me; and I have got it-I have got the appointment-and so hurry, hurry fast and get well; and then, hey! for a carriage, and cream-white horses, and jingling bells to take my Dove to church."
She pressed his hand slightly; and her eyes were wistful and absent.
The beautiful land lay along the horizon, and she strained her vision to see it, and the sight of it-for it was so very beautiful-made her sad.
"Come close down, Will, and let me whisper to you. I have taken a fancy into my head lately. I never spoke of it, for I knew neither you nor papa had money; but now it is different. You said we were to be married."
"Why talk of our "maghiage" in that melancholy way, you provoking mouse!"
"Don"t laugh at me, Will! What I have been thinking is this: that I should like to know that I could be married to you at any time without having to wait until I was better-which might be for such a long, long time; and I should like to know that at any moment I could say to you, "Will, make me your wife _now_," and you could come into the room, and all the people would know that I was your wife."
There are ghastly dreams in which the sleeper, gazing on a broad and sunny landscape, suddenly becomes conscious of a cold and terrible pressure, and lifting up his eyes sees a broad cloth, white and black like a funeral pall, descending slowly from the sky, and shutting out the glad sunlight, and gliding down upon the earth. All living things fly from it; if they remain, they grow fixed and immovable, and their eyes become glazed as the eyes of death.
As terrible as such a dream was the vague, scarcely-to-be-imagined suggestion which these patient simple words of Dove bore with them; and Will, horror-stricken by the picture on which her absent eyes seemed now to be gazing (with its dreadful hint about the people standing around), demanded why she should ask this thing, or why she troubled her mind with it.
"My dearest," she said, with a faint smile stealing across the childlike face, "it does not vex me. It pleases me. There is nothing dreadful about the idea to you, is there? I cannot go with you to church to be married. When you talk of a carriage, and white horses, and bells, it seems to me to be so far off-so very, very far away-that it is of no use, and it makes me miserable. But now, if we were married here, how I should like to hear you call me your wife, as you went about the room!"
"And so you shall, my pet, whenever you please. But for you to turn such a dreadful heretic, Dove, and imagine that a marriage outside a church is a marriage at all! Why, even a dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury seems sacrilegious where there are no bridecake, and old slippers, and a lot of carriages."
"Now you"re becoming kind again, Will. And you"ll do as I ask without bothering me about reasons? What I should like, you know, would be the power of getting married when I wanted-if I could have the dispensation, as you say, all ready, and just at any moment I might terrify you by crying out, "Will, come and marry me!" I might be merciful, too, you know, Will; and perhaps let you off, if you were very good and attentive. I"d tell you some day to go to the drawer and take out the paper and burn it. It would be like giving a slave his freedom."
"You will be such a dreadful tyrant when you"re married, Dove, that I shudder to think of what you"ll do to me."
"I think I should have been very kind to you, Will," said the girl, suddenly bursting into tears, and turning away her face from him.
Next morning Dove was a great deal better, everybody thought. Even the doctor spoke cheerfully, and the whole house was radiant. A thaw had set in; the air was foggy, and damp, and close; and the streets were in that condition which melted snow and drizzling rain generally produce in London; but inside the house there was sunlight enough for all concerned. And when, on the following morning, the weather cleared, and the sun painted bars of yellow on the curtains of the windows, it seemed as if the old sad anxious time were past, and the dawn of a new and happy life had broken over them.
Nevertheless, Dove did not give up her idea of the special licence and the private marriage. Rather she lay and brooded over it; and sometimes her face was moved with a happy delight which those around her could not well understand. Indeed, her heart was so bent upon it, that they all agreed to acquiesce in her wishes, and the necessary steps were taken to secure the legalization of the ceremony. The covert opposition which the proposal had met was surely not due to any opposition to the marriage, on the part of any one concerned, but to another and vaguer feeling, which no one of them dared to reveal to the other.
Said Dove to him suddenly this morning-
"Is Miss Brunel in town, Will?"
"I don"t know, Dove."
"It is such a long time since she came to see me; I wonder if it was because you treated her so coldly the last time she was here."
"I?"
"You did not speak to her as you ought to have clone. You kept near me, and kept speaking to me, as if you imagined I was afraid she would take you away from me again. I know you did it to please me; but I could see something in her face, Will, that seemed to say that I needn"t be afraid, and that she wouldn"t come again. I should be sorry for that.
Will you go and ask her to come again?"
"Certainly, if you wish it."
"And you will speak to her just as you speak to me. I can"t be jealous, Will-of her, because she did not try to take you from me."
"I will go if you like, Dove," said Will; "but considering--"
"I have considered" (with petulant haste). "I have nothing to do all day but lie and consider-and how many things I have considered within this day or two! I have altered my mind completely about the marriage.
I won"t have you marry me, Will--"
"But all the forms have been gone through--"
She lay silent and meditative for some time, and then she said-
"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble; but I should like to alter all my plans. You know the betrothals they have in French stories and in the operas: I should like to have a betrothal, Will, and all you will have to get for me is a big sheet of paper and a marriage-ring."
How eagerly he accepted the offer! This pretty notion of hers, which was obviously only meant to please a pa.s.sing whim, was so much more grateful to him than the marriage proposal, with its black background:
"We will have it at once, Dove; and I think you are so well that you might drink a little champagne with us to grace the ceremony. Then I shall be able to call you my wife all the same, and you shall wear the wedding-ring; and then, you know, we can have the white horses and the carriages afterwards. But I am afraid the betrothal contract will be frightfully inaccurate; I don"t know the terms--"
"Get a sheet of paper, Will, and I will tell you what to write down."
He got the paper, and, at her dictation, wrote down the following words-
"We two, loving each other very dearly, write our names underneath in token that we have become husband and wife, and as a pledge of our constant love."
She smiled faintly when he placed the writing before her, and then she leant back on the pillow, with a satisfied air. Mrs. Anerley now came into the room, and Will, obeying some further commands, went off to see whether Annie Brunel was yet in her old lodgings, and also to purchase a wedding-ring for the ceremony on which Dove had set her heart.
Miss Brunel"s landlady told Will that her lady-lodger would probably return the next day, with which piece of information he returned. He also showed Dove the wedding-ring; and she placed it on her finger, and kept it there.
But that evening the insidious disease from which the girl was suffering withdrew the treacherous semblance of health it had lent to her burning cheeks, and it was obvious that she had grown rapidly worse. They all saw it, and would not confess it to each other. They only noticed that Mrs. Anerley did not stir now from Dove"s bedside.
Mr. Anerley spent nearly the whole of that night in walking up and down his own room-from time to time stealthily receiving messages, for they would not admit to Dove that they felt much anxiety about her. The man seemed to have grown greyer; or perhaps it was the utter wretchedness of his face that made him look so old and careworn. Will sate in an easy-chair, gloomily staring into the fire. The appointment he had so eagerly sought and so joyfully gained, fancying it was to bring them all back again into pleasant circ.u.mstances, was only a bitter mockery now.
He could not bear to think of it. He could bear to think of nothing when this terrible issue was at stake in the next room.
In the morning, when the first grey light was sufficiently clear to show Dove"s face to the nurse and Mrs. Anerley, the latter looked at the girl for a long time.
"Why do you look at me so, mamma?" she asked.