CHAPTER XXV.
IN WHICH THE LADIES PEEP INTO CARDYLLIAN.
"MY dear child," said Miss Sheckleton next day, "is not this a very wildfreak, considering you have shut yourself up so closely, and not withoutreason? Suppose among the visitors at Cardyllian there should happen tobe one who has seen and known you, how would it be if he or she shouldmeet and recognise you?"
"Rely on me, dear old cousin; no one shall know me."
The young lady, in a heavy, gray, Highland shawl, was standing beforethe looking-glass in her room as she spoke.
"Girls look all alike in these great shawls, and I shall wear my thicklace veil, through which I defy anyone to see a feature of my face; andeven my feet, in these strong, laced boots, are disguised. _Now--see!_ Ishould not know myself in the glass among twenty others. I might meetyou a dozen times in Cardyllian and you should not recognise me. Lookand say."
"H-m--well! I must allow it would not be easy to see through all this,"said Miss Sheckleton; "but don't forget and lift your veil, when youcome into the town--the most unlikely people are there sometimes. Who doyou think I had a bow from the other day, but old Doctor Bell, who livesin York; and the same evening in Castle Street whom should I see but myOxford Street dressmaker! It does not matter, you know, where a solitaryold maid like me is seen; but it would be quite different in your case,and who knows what danger to your papa might result from it?"
"I shan't forget--I really shan't," said the girl.
"Well, dear, I've said all I could to dissuade you; but if you _will_come, I suppose you must," said Miss Anne.
"It's just as you say--a fancy," answered Margaret; "but I feel that ifI were disappointed I should die."
I think, and Miss Sheckleton thought so too, that this pretty girl wasvery much excited that day, and could not endure the terrible stillnessof Malory. Uncertainty, suspense, enforced absence from the person wholoved her best in the world, and who yet is very near; dangers andhopes, quite new--no wonder if all these incidents of her situation didexcite her.
It was near a week since the elder lady had appeared in the streets andshops of Cardyllian. Between the banks of the old sylvan road she andher mysterious companion walked in silence into steep Church Street, anddown that quaint quarter of the town presenting houses of all dates fromthree centuries ago, and by the church, still older, down into CastleStreet, in which, as we know, stands the shop of Jones, the draper.Empty of customers was this well-garnished shop when the two ladies ofMalory entered it; and Mrs. Jones raised her broad, bland, spectacledface, with a smile and a word of greeting to Miss Anne Sheckleton, andan invitation to both ladies to "be seated," and her usual inquiry, asshe leaned over the counter, "And what will you be pleased to want?" andthe order, "John, get down the gray linseys--not _them_--those overyonder--yes, sure, you'd like to see the best--I _know_ you would."
So some little time was spent over the linseys, and then,--
"You're to measure thirteen yards, John, for Miss Anne Sheckleton, andsend it over, with trimmin's and linin's, to Miss Pritchard. Miss AnneSheckleton will speak to Miss Pritchard about the trimmin's herself."
Then Mrs. Jones observed,--
"_What_ a day this has been--hasn't it, miss? And such weather,_al_together, I really don't remember in Cardyllian, _I_ think _ever_."
"Yes, charming weather," acquiesced Miss Sheckleton; and just then twoladies came in and bought some velvet ribbon, which caused aninterruption.
"What a pretty girl," said Miss Anne, so soon as the ladies hadwithdrawn. "Is that her mother?"
"Oh, no--dear, no, miss; they are sisters," half laughed Mrs. Jones."Don't you know who they are? No! Well, they are the Miss Etherages.There, they're going down to the green. She'll meet him there. She'sgoing to make a _very great_ match, ma'am--yes, indeed."
"Oh! But whom is she going to meet?" asked Miss Anne, who liked the goodlady's gossip.
"Oh! you _don't know_! Well, dear me! I thought every one knew that.Why, Mr. Cleve, of course--young Mr. Verney. He meets her everyafternoon on the green here, and walks home with the young ladies. Ithas been a _very_ old liking--you understand--between them, and latelyhe has grown very pressing, and they do say--them that should know--thatthe Admiral--we call him--Mr. Vane Etherage--her father, has spoke tohim. She has a good fortune, you know--yes, indeed--the two MissEtherages has--we count them quite heiresses here in Cardyllian, and avery good old family too. Everybody here is pleased it is to be, andthey do say Mr. Kiffyn--that is, the Honourable Kiffyn FulkeVerney--will be very glad, too, he should settle at last, and has wroteto the young lady's father, to say how well pleased he is; for Mr. Clevehas been"--here she dropped her voice to a confidential murmur,approaching her spectacles to the very edge of her customer's bonnet, asshe rested her fat arms upon the counter--"wild. Oh, dear! they do tellsuch _stories_ of him! A pity, Miss Sheckleton--_is_n't it?--thereshould be so many stories to his prejudice. But, _dear_ me! he _has_been wild, miss; and now, you see, on that account it is Mr. Kiffyn--theHonorable Kiffyn Fulke Verney--is so well pleased he should settle andtake a wife that will be so liked by the people at Ware as well as atthis side."
Miss Anne Sheckleton had been listening with an uneasiness, which thedraper's wife fancied she saw, yet doubted her own observation; for shecould not understand why her old spinster customer should care afarthing about the matter, the talk about his excursions to Maloryhaving been quite suspended and abolished by the sustained and vigorousgossip to which his walks with Agnes Etherage, and his ostentatiousattentions, had given rise.
"But Miss Etherage is hardly the kind of person--is she?--whom a youngman of fashion, such as I suppose young Mr. Verney to be, would thinkof. She must have been very much shut up with her old father, at thatquiet little place of his," suggested Miss Sheckleton.
"Shut up, miss! Oh, dear me! Nothing of _that_ sort, miss. She is outwith her sister, Miss Charity, every day, about the schools, and theSunday classes, and the lending library, and the clothing charity, andall them things; very good of _her_, you know. I often say to her--'I_wonder_, Miss Agnes--that's her name--you're not _tired_ with all yourwalks; I do, indeed;' and she only laughs. She has a very pretty laughtoo, she has; and as Mr. Cleve said to me once--that's two years ago,now--the first year he was spoke of in Cardyllian about her. We didthink then there was something to be, and now it is all on again, andthe old people--as we may call them--is well pleased it should."
"Yes, but I mean that Miss Etherage has seen nothing of theworld--nothing of society, except what is to be met with atHazelden--isn't that the name of the place?--and in her littleexcursions into this town. Isn't it so?" said Miss Sheckleton.
"Oh, no!--bless you, no. Miss Agnes Etherage--they pay visits--she andher sister--at all the great houses; a week here, and a fortnight there,round the two counties, this side and the other. She's a greatfavourite, is Miss Agnes. She can play and sing, dear me, very nice, shecan: I have _heard_ her. You would _wonder_ now, what a bright littlething she is."
"But even so. I don't think that town-bred young men ever care much forcountry-bred young ladies. Not that they mayn't be a great deal better;but, somehow, they don't suit, I think--they don't get on."
"But, mark you this," said Mrs. Jones. "He always liked her. We alwayssaw he liked her. There's property too--a good estate; and all goes tothem two girls; and Miss Charity, we all know, will never marry; no morewill the Admiral--I mean Mr. Etherage himself--with them legs of his;and Mr. Kiffyn--Master Cleve's uncle--spoke to our lawyer here onceabout it, as if it was a thing he would like--that the Hazelden propertyshould be joined to the Ware estate."
"Joined together in holy wedlock," laughed Miss Sheckleton; but she wasnot particularly cheerful. And some more intending purchasers coming inand seizing upon the communicative Mrs. Jones, who had only time towhisper, "They do say--them that _should_ know--that it will be inspring next; but I'm not to tell; so you'll please remember it's asecret."
"Shall we go, dear?" whispered Miss Sheckle
ton to her muffled companion,who forthwith rose and accompanied her from the shop, followed by theeyes of Mrs. Jones's new visitors, who were more interested on hearingthat "it was Miss Anne Sheckleton and the other Malory lady," and theyslipped out to the door-step, and under the awning peeped after themysterious ladies, until an accidental backward glance from MissSheckleton routed them, and the _materfamilias_ entered a little hastilybut gravely, and with her head high, and her young ladies tittering.
As Cleve Verney walked to and fro beside pretty Agnes Etherage that day,and talked as usual, gaily and fluently, there seemed on a sudden tocome a sort of blight over the harvest of his thoughts--both corn andflowers. He repeated the end of his sentence, and forgot what he wasgoing to say; and Miss Charity said, "Well? go on; I want so much tohear the end;" and looking up she thought he looked a little pale.
"Yes, certainly, I'll tell you the end when I can remember it. But I letmyself think of something else for a moment, and it has flown away--"
"I beg your pardon," interrupted Miss Charity, "just a moment. Lookthere, Aggie! Aren't those the Malory ladies?"
"Where?" said Cleve. "Oh! I see. Very like, I think--the old lady, Imean."
"Yes, oh certainly," replied Agnes, "it is the old lady, and I'm nearlycertain the young lady also; _who else_ can it be? It must be she."
"They are going over the hill to Malory," said Miss Charity. "I don'tknow what it is about that old lady that I think so _wonderfully_ nice,and so perfectly charming; and the young lady is _the_ mostperfectly--beautiful--person, all to _nothing_, I ever saw in my life.Don't you think so, Mr. Verney?"
"Your sister, I'm sure, is very much obliged," said he, with a glance atAgnes. "But this Malory young lady is so muffled in that great shawlthat there is very little indeed to remind one of the young lady we sawin church--"
"What o'clock is that?" interrupted Miss Charity, as the boom of theclock from the church tower sounded over the green.
So it seemed their hour had come, and the little demonstration on thegreen came to a close, and Cleve that evening walked with the Hazeldenladies only so far as the bridge; there taking his leave with an excuse.He felt uncomfortable somehow. That Margaret Fanshawe should haveactually come down to Cardyllian was a singular and almost anunaccountable occurrence!
Cleve Verney had certainly not intended the pantomime which he presentedto the window of the Cardyllian reading-room for the eyes that hadwitnessed it.
Cleve was uncomfortable. It is always unpleasant to have toexplain--especially where the exculpation involves a disclosure that isnot noble.
END OF VOL. I.
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
Transcriber's note:
Page 4 Duplicate 'to' removed. (visitors to the old church)
Page 9 'gripe' corrected to 'grip' (the inflexible grip of)
Page 54 'stedfastly' corrected to 'steadfastly' (looking steadfastly in the direction)
Page 73 Duplicate 'he' removed. (a thing he said)
Page 84 'Celve' corrected to 'Cleve' (Cleve laughed gently)
Page 88 Duplicate 'this' removed. (if you don't, this minute)
Page 101 'tendernesss' corrected to 'tenderness' (and once excite tenderness)
Page 106 'euemies' corrected to 'enemies' (will satisfy his enemies)
Page 118 Missing 'n' added to word 'whe' (in the house when)
Page 123 'parly' corrected to 'partly' (brought about partly, by)
Page 128 'wont' corrected to 'won't' (won't cry for you)
Page 149 'oo' corrected to 'too' (can't be too cautious)
Page 156 'fly-book' corrected to 'fly-hook' (taken his rod and fly-hook)
Page 217 'Jaques' corrected to 'Jacques' (the melancholy Jacques)
Page 224 'bard' corrected to 'hard' (and these are hard terms)
Page 254 'Clive' corrected to 'Cleve' ("good night, sir," said Cleve.)
Page 258 'stedfastly' corrected to 'steadfastly' (looking steadfastly upon her). There is an old spelling of 'stedfastly' but there are several instances of 'steadfastly' already in this text.
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