By some mighty instinct Mrs. Wilson knew when to come in. She came to the door just one minute after Lucy had capitulated, and, turning the handle, but without opening the door, bawled some fresh directions to Jenny: this was to enable Lucy to smooth her ruffled feathers, if necessary, and look Agnes. But Lucy's actual contact with that honest heart seemed to have made a change in her; instead of doing Agnes, she confronted (after a fashion of her own) the situation she had so long evaded.
“Oh, nurse!” she cried, and wreathed her arms round her.
“Don't cry, my lamb! I can guess.”
“Cry? Oh no; I would not pay him so poor a compliment. It was to say, 'Dear nurse, you must love Mr. Dodd as well as me now.'”
The dame received this indirect intelligence with hearty delight.
“That won't cost me much trouble,” said she. “He is the one I'd have picked out of all England for my nursling. When a young man is kind to an old woman, it is a good sign; but la! his face is enough for me: who ever saw guile in such a face as that. Aren't ye hungry by this time? Dinner will be ready in about a minute.”
“Nurse, can I speak to you a word?”
“Yes, sure.”
It was to inquire whether she would invite Miss Dodd.
“She loves her brother very dearly, and it is cruel to separate them. Mr. Dodd will be nearly always here now, will he not?”
“You may take your davy of that.”
In a very few minutes a note was written, and Mrs. Wilson's eldest son, a handsome young farmer, started in the covered cart with his mother's orders “to bring the young lady willy-nilly.”
The holy allies both openly scouted Kenealy's advice, and both slyly stepped down into the town and acted on it. Mr. Fountain then returned to Font Abbey. Their two advertisements appeared side by side, and exasperated them.
After dinner Mrs. Wilson sent Lucy and David out to take a walk. At the gate they met with a little interruption; a carriage drove up; the coachman touched his hat, and Mrs. Bazalgette put her head out of the window.
“I came to take you back, love.”
David quaked.
“Thank you, aunt; but it is not worth while now.”
“Ah!” said Mrs. Bazalgette, casting a venomous look on David; “I am too late, am I? Poor girl!”
Lucy soothed her aunt with the information that she was much happier now than she had been for a long time past. For this was a fencing-match.
“May I have a word in private with my niece?” inquired Mrs. Bazalgette, bitterly, of David.
“Why not?” said David stoutly; but his heart turned sick as he retired. Lucy saw the look of anxiety.
“Lucy,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, “you left me because you are averse to matrimony, and I urged you to it; of course, with those sentiments, you have no idea of marrying that man there. I don't suspect you of such hypocrisy, and therefore I say come home with me, and you shall marry nobody; your inclination shall be free as air.”
“Aunt,” said Lucy, demurely, “why didn't you come yesterday? I always said those who love me best would find me first, and you let Mr. Dodd come first. I am so sorry!”
“Then your pretended aversion to marriage was all hypocrisy, was it?”
Lucy informed her that marriage was a contract, and the contracting parties two, and no more—the bride and bridegroom; and that to sign a contract without reading it is silly, and meaning not to keep it is wicked. “So,” said she, “I read the contract over in the prayer-book this morning, for fear of accidents.”
My reader may, perhaps, be amused at this admission; but Mrs. Bazalgette was disgusted, and inquired, “What stuff is the girl talking now?”
“It is called common sense. Well, I find the contract is one I can carry out with Mr. Dodd, and with nobody else. I can love him a little, can honor him a great deal, and obey him entirely. I begin now. There he is; and if you feel you cannot show him the courtesy of making him one in our conversation, permit me to retire and relieve his solitude.”
“Mighty fine; and if you don't instantly leave him and come home, you shall never enter my house again.”
“Unless sickness or trouble should visit your house, and then you will send for me, and I shall come.”
Mrs. Bazalgette (to the coachman).—“Home!”
Lucy made her a polite obeisance, to keep up appearances before the servants and the farm-people, who were gaping. She, whose breeding was inferior, flounced into a corner without returning it. The carriage drove off.
David inquired with great anxiety whether something had not been said to vex her.
“Not in the least,” replied Lucy, calmly. “Little things and little people can no longer vex me. I have great duties to think of and a great heart to share them with me. Let us walk toward Harrowden; we may perhaps meet a friend.”
Sure enough, just on this side Harrowden they met the covered cart, and Eve in it, radiant with unexpected delight. The engaged ones—for such they had become in those two miles—mounted the cart, and the two men sat in front, and Eve and Lucy intertwined at the back, and opened their hearts to each other.
Eve. And you have taken the paper off again?
Lucy. What paper? It was no longer applicable.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg