Cornelia closed her lips. She divined that her betrayer must be close in his confidence. She went shortly after to Emilia, whose secret at once stood out bare to a kindled suspicion. There was no fear that Cornelia would put her finger on it accusingly, or speak of it directly. She had the sentimentalist"s profound respect for the name and notion of love.
She addressed Emilia vaguely, bidding her keep guard on her emotions, and telling her there was one test of the truth of masculine protestations; this, Will he marry you? The which, if you are poor, is a pa.s.sably infallible test. Emilia sucked this in thoughtfully. She heard that lovers were false. Why, then of course they were not like her lover! Cornelia finished what she deemed her duty, and departed, while Emilia thought: "I wonder whether he could be false to me;" and she gave herself shrewd half-delicious jarrings of pain, forcing herself to contemplate the impossible thing.
She was in this state when Mrs. Chump came across her, and with a slight pressure of a sovereign into her hand, said: "There, it"s for you, little Belloni! and I see ye"ve been thinkin" me one o" the sc.r.a.pe-hards and close-fists. It"s Pole who keeps me low, on purpose. And I"m a wretch if I haven"t my purse full, so you see I"m all in the dark in the house, and don"t know half so much as the s.l.u.ts o" the kitchen. So, ye"ll tell me, little Belloni, is Arr"bella goin" to marry Mr. Annybody?
And is Cornelia goin" to marry Sir Tickleham? And whether Mr. Wilfrud"s goin" to marry Lady Charlotte Chill"nworth? Becas, my dear, there"s Arr"bella, who"s sharp, she is, as a North-easter in January, (which Chump "d cry out for, for the sake of his ships, poor fella--he kneelin"
by "s bedside in a long nightgown and lookin" just twice what he was!) she has me like a nail to my vary words, and shows me that nothin" can happen betas o" what I"ve said. And Cornelia--if ye"ll fancy a tall codfish on its tail: "Mrs. Chump, I beg ye"ll not go to believe annything of me." So I says to her, "Cornelia! my dear! do ye think, now, it"s true that Chump went and marrud his cook, that ye treat me so?
becas my father," I tell her, "he dealt in porrk in a large way, and I was a fine woman, full of the arr"stocracy, and Chump a little puffed-out bladder of a man." So then she says: "Mrs. Chump, I listen to no gossup: listen you to no gossup. "And Mr. Wilfrud, my dear, he sends me on the flat o" my back, laughin". And Ad"la she takes and turns me right about, so that I don"t see the thing I"m askin" after; and there"s n.o.body but you, little Belloni, to help me, and if ye do, ye shall know what the crumple of paper sounds like."
Mrs. Chump gave a sugary suck with her tongue. Emilia returned the money to her.
"Ye"re foolush!" said Mrs. Chump. "A shut fist"s good in fight and bad in friendship. Do ye know that? Open your hand."
"Excuse me," persisted Emilia.
"Pooh! take the money, or I"ll say ye"re in a conspiracy to make me blindman"s-buff of the parrty. Take ut."
"I don"t want it."
"Maybe, it"s not enough?"
"I don"t want any, ma"am."
"Ma"am, to the deuce with ye! I"ll be callin" ye a forr"ner in a minute, I will."
Emilia walked away from a volley of terrific threats.
For some reason, unfathomed by her, she wanted to be alone with Wilfrid and put a question to him. No other, in sooth, than the infallible test.
Not, mind you, that she wished to be married. But something she had heard (she had forgotten what it was) disturbed her, and that recent trifling with pain, in her excess of happiness, laid her open to it. Her heart was weaker, and fluttered, as if with a broken wing. She thought, "if I can be near him to lean against him for one full hour!" it would make her strong again. For, she found that if her heart was rising on a broad breath, suddenly, for no reason that she knew, it seemed to stop in its rise, break, and sink, like a wind-beaten billow. Once or twice, in a quick fear, she thought: "What is this? Is this a malady coming before death?" She walked out gloomily, thinking of the darkness of the world to Wilfrid, if she should die. She plucked flowers, and then reproached herself with plucking them. She tried to sing. "No, not till I have been with him alone;" she said, chiding her voice to silence.
A shadow crossed her mind, as a Spring-mist dulls the glory of May.
"Suppose all singing has gone from me--will he love wretched me?"
By-and-by she met him in the house. "Come out of doors to-night," she whispered.
Wilfrid"s spirit of intrigue was never to be taken by surprise. "In the wood, under the pine, at nine," he replied.
"Not there," said Emilia, seeing this place mournfully dark from Cornelia"s grief. "It is too still; say, where there"s water falling.
One can"t be unhappy by noisy water."
Wilfrid considered, and named Wilming Weir. "And there we"ll sit and you"ll sing to me. I won"t dine at home, so they won"t susp-a-fancy anything.--Soh! and you want very much to be with me, my bird? What am I?" He bent his head.
"My lover."
He pressed her hand rapturously, half-doubting whether her p.r.o.nunciation of the word had not a rather too confident tw.a.n.g.
Was it not delightful, he asked her, that they should be thus one to the other, and none know of it. She thought so too, and smiled happily, promising secresy, at his request; for the sake of continuing so felicitous a life.
"You, you know, have an appointment with Captain Gambier, and, I with Lady Charlotte Chillingworth," said he. "How dare you make appointments with a captain of hussars?" and he bent her knuckles fondlingly.
Emilia smiled as before. He left her with a distinct impression that she did not comprehend that part of her lesson.
Wilfrid had just bled his father of a considerable sum of money; having a.s.sured him that he was the accepted suitor of Lady Charlotte Chillingworth, besides making himself pleasant in allusion to Mrs.
Chump, so far as to cast some imputation on his sisters" judgement for not perceiving the virtues of the widow. The sum was improvidently large. Mr. Pole did not hear aright when he heard it named. Even at the repet.i.tion, he went: "Eh?" two or three times, vacantly. The amount was distinctly nailed to his ear: whereupon he said, "Ah!--yes! you young fellows want money: must have it, I suppose. Up from the bowels of the earth Up from the--: you"re sure they"re not playing the fool with you, over there?"
Wilfrid understood the indication to Stornley. "I think you need have no fear of that, sir." And so his father thought, after an examination of the youth, who was of manly shape, and had a fresh, non-fatuous, air.
"Well, if that"s all right..." sighed Mr. Pole. "Of course you"ll always know that money"s money. I wish your sisters wouldn"t lose their time, as they do. Time"s worth more than money. What sum?"
"I told you, sir, I wanted--there"s the yacht, you know, and a lot of tradesmen"s bills, which you don"t like to see standing:-about--perhaps I had better name the round sum. Suppose you write down eight hundred. I shan"t want more for some months. If you fancy it too much..."
Mr. Pole had lifted his head. But he spoke nothing. His lips and brows were rigid in apparent calculation. Wilfrid kept his position for a minute or so; and then, a little piqued, he moved about. He had inherited the antipathy to the discussion of the money question, and fretted to find it unnecessarily prolonged.
"Shall I come to you on this business another time, sir?"
"No, G.o.d bless my soul!" cried his father; "are you going to keep this hanging over me for ever? Eight hundred, you said." He mumbled: "salary of a chief clerk of twenty years" standing. Eight: twice four:--there you have it exactly."
"Will you send it me in a letter?" said Wilfrid, out of patience.
"I"ll send it you in a letter," a.s.sented his father. Upon which Wilfrid changed his mind. "I can take a chair, though. I can easily wait for it now."
"Save trouble, if I send it. Eh?"
"Do you wish to see whether you can afford it, sir?"
"I wish to see you show more sense--with your confounded "afford." Have you any idea of bankers" books?--bankers" accounts?" Mr. Pole fished his cheque-book from a drawer and wrote Wilfrid"s name and the sum, tore out the leaf and tossed it to him. "There, I"ve written to-day. Don"t present it for a week." He rubbed his forehead hastily, touching here and there a paper to put it scrupulously in a line with the others.
Wilfrid left him, and thought: "Kind old boy! Of course, he always means kindly, but I think I see a glimpse of avarice as a sort of a sign of age coming on. I hope he"ll live long!"
Wilfrid was walking in the garden, imagining perhaps that he was thinking, as the swarming sensations of little people help them to imagine, when Cornelia ran hurriedly up to him and said: "Come with me to papa. He"s ill: I fear he is going to have a fit."
"I left him sound and well, just now," said Wilfrid. "This is your mania."
"I found him gasping in his chair not two minutes after you quitted him.
Dearest, he is in a dangerous state!"
Wilfrid stept back to his father, and was saluted with a ready "Well?"
as he entered; but the mask had slipped from half of the old man"s face, and for the first time in his life Wilfrid perceived that he had become an old man.
"Well, sir, you sent for me?" he said.
"Girls always try to persuade you you"re ill--that"s all," returned Mr.
Pole. His voice was subdued; but turning to Cornelia, he fired up: "It"s preposterous to tell a man who carries on a business like mine, you"ve observed for a long while that he"s queer!--There, my dear child, I know that you mean well. I shall look all right the day you"re married."
This allusion, and the sudden kindness, drew a storm of tears to Cornelia"s eyelids.
"Papa! if you will but tell me what it is!" she moaned.
A nervous frenzy seemed to take possession of him. He ordered her out of the room.
She was gone, but his arm was still stretched out, and his expression of irritated command did not subside.