Barbara Who Came Back/Chapter 5

EXT day, oh, joy of joys! Barbara and Anthony met once more after some fifteen months of separation. Anthony was now in his twenty-fourth year, a fine young man with well-cut features, brown eyes and a pleasant smile. Muscularly, too, he was very strong, as was shown by his athletic record at Cambridge. Whether this strength extended to his constitution was another matter. Mrs. Walrond, noticing his unvarying colour, which she thought unduly high, and the transparent character of his skin, spoke to her husband upon the matter.

In his turn Septimus spoke to the old local doctor, who shrugged his shoulders and remarked that the Arnotts had been delicate for generations—“lungy,” he called it. Noticing that Mr. Walrond looked serious, and knowing something of how matters stood between Anthony and Barbara, he hastened to add that so far as he knew there was no cause for alarm, and that if he were moderately careful he thought that Anthony might live to eighty. “But it is otherwise with his brother,” he added significantly, “and, for the matter of that, with the old man also.”

Then he went away, and there was something in the manner of his going which seemed to suggest that he did not wish to continue the conversation.

From Anthony, however, Barbara soon learned the truth as to his brother. His lungs were gone, for the chill he took in the Crimea had settled on them, and now there was left to him but a little time to live. This was sad news, and marred the happiness of their meeting, since both of them were far too unworldly to consider its effect upon their own prospects, or that it would make easy that which had hitherto seemed almost impossible.

“Are you nursing him?” she asked.

“Yes, more or less. I took him to the south of England for two months, but it did no good.”

“I am glad the thing is not catching,” she remarked, glancing at him.

“Oh no,” he replied carelessly; “I never heard that it was catching, though some people say it runs in families. I hope not, I am sure, as the poor old chap insists upon my sleeping in his room whenever I am at home, as we used to do when we were boys.”

Then their talk wandered elsewhere, for they had so much to say to each other that it seemed doubtful if they would ever get to the end of it all. Anthony was particularly anxious to learn what blessed circumstance had caused Barbara’s sudden reappearance at Eastwich. She fenced for a while, then told him all the truth.

“So you gave up this brilliant marriage for me, a fellow with scarcely a halfpenny and very few prospects,” he exclaimed, staring at her.

“Of course. What would you have expected me to do—marry one man while I love another? As for the rest it must take its chance.” And while the words were on her lips, for the first time it came into Barbara’s mind that perhaps Anthony had no need to trouble about his worldly fortunes. For if it were indeed true that Captain Arnott was doomed, who else would succeed to the estate?

“I think you are an angel,” he said, still overcome by this wondrous instance of fidelity and of courage in the face of Lady Thompson’s anger.

“If I had done anything else, I think, Anthony, that you might very well have called me—whatever is the reverse of an angel.”

And thus the links of their perfect love were drawn even closer than before.

Only three days later Mr. Walrond was summoned hastily to the Hall. When he returned from his ministrations it was to announce in a sad voice that Captain Arnott was sinking fast. Before the following morning he was dead.

A month or so after the grave had closed over Captain Arnott the engagement of Anthony and Barbara was formally announced, and by the express wish of Mr. Arnott. The old gentleman had for years been partially paralysed and in a delicate state of health, which the sad loss of his elder son had done much to render worse. He sent for Barbara, whom he had known from her childhood, and told her that the sooner she and Anthony were married, the better he would be pleased.

“You see, my dear,” he added, “I do not wish the old name to die out after we have been in this place for three hundred years, and you Walronds are a healthy stock, which is more than we can say now. Worn out, I suppose, worn out! In fact,” he went on, looking at her sharply, “it is for you to consider whether you care to take the risks of coming into this family, for, whatever the doctors may or may not say, I think it my duty to tell you straight out that in my opinion there is some risk.”

“If so, I do not fear it, Mr. Arnott, and I hope you will not put any such idea into Anthony’s head, for if you do he might refuse to marry me, and that would break my heart.”

“No, I dare say you do not fear it, but there are other—well, things must take their course. If we were always thinking of the future no one would dare to stir.”

Then he told her that when he first heard of their mutual attachment he had been much disturbed, as he did not see how they were to marry. “But poor George’s death has changed all that,” he said, “since now Anthony will get the estate, which is practically the only property we have, and it ought always to produce enough to keep you going, and to maintain the place in a modest way.”

Lastly he presented her with a valuable set of diamonds that had belonged to his mother, saying he might not be alive to do so when the time of her marriage came, and dismissed her with his blessing.

In due course all these tidings, including that of the diamonds, came to the ears of Aunt Thompson and wondrously softened that lady’s anger. Indeed, she wrote to Barbara in very affectionate terms, to wish her every happiness, and say how glad she was to hear that she was settling herself so well in life. She added that she should make a point of being present at the wedding. A postscript informed her that Mr. Russell was about to be married to an Italian countess, a widow.

Barbara’s wedding was fixed for October. At the beginning of that month, however, Anthony was seized with some unaccountable kind of illness in which coughing played a considerable part. So severe were its effects, that it was thought desirable to postpone the ceremony. The doctor ordered him away for a change of air. On the morning of his departure he spoke seriously to Barbara.

“I don’t know what is the matter with me,” he said, “and I don’t think it is very much at present. But, dear, I have a kind of presentiment that I am going to become an invalid. My strength is nothing like what it was, and at times it fails me in a most unaccountable manner. Barbara, it breaks my heart to say it, but I doubt whether you ought to marry me.”

“If you were going to be a permanent invalid, which I do not believe for one moment,” answered Barbara steadily, “you would want a nurse; and who could nurse you so well as your wife? Therefore, unless you have ceased to care for me, I shall certainly marry you.”

Then, as he seemed still to hesitate, she flung her arms about him and kissed him, which was an argument that he lacked strength to resist.

A day or two afterwards her father also spoke to Barbara. “I don’t like this illness of Anthony’s, my dear. The doctor does not seem to understand it, or at any rate so he pretends, and says he has no doubt it will pass off. But I cannot help remembering the case of his brother George; also that of his mother before him. In short, Barbara, do you think—well, that it would be wise to marry him? I know that to break it off would be dreadful, but, you see, health is so very important.”

Barbara turned on her father almost fiercely. “Whose health?” she asked. “If you mean mine, it is in no danger; and if it were I should care nothing. What good would health be to me if [ lost Anthony, who is more to me than life? But if you mean his health, then the greatest happiness I can have is to nurse him.”

“Yes, yes, I understand, dear. But you see, there might be—others.”

“If so, father, they must run their risks as we do; that is, if there are any risks for them to run, which I doubt.”

“I dare say you are quite right, dear; indeed, I feel almost sure that you are right, only I thought it my duty to mention the matter, which I hope you will forgive me for having done. And now I may tell you I have a letter from Anthony, saying that he is ever so much better, and asking if the fifteenth of November will suit us for the wedding.”

On the fifteenth of November, accordingly, Anthony and Barbara were made man and wife by the bride’s father with the assistance of the clergyman of the next parish. Owing to the recent death of the bridegroom’s brother, and the condition of Mr. Arnott’s health, the wedding was extremely quiet. Still, in its way it was as charming as it was happy. All her five sisters acted as Barbara’s bridesmaids, and many gathered in that church said they were the most beautiful bevy of maidens that ever had been seen. But if so, Barbara outshone them all, perhaps because of her jewels and fine clothes and the radiance on her lovely face.

Anthony, who seemed to be quite well again, also looked extremely handsome, while Aunt Thompson, who by now had put off her mourning, shone in that dim church as the sun shines through a morning mist.

In short, all went as merrily as it should, save that the bride’s mother seemed depressed and wept a little.

This, said her sister to someone in a loud voice, was, in her opinion, nothing short of wicked. What business, she asked, has a woman with six portionless daughters, to cry because one of them is making a good marriage?—“though it is true,” she added, dropping her voice to a confidential whisper, “that had Barbara chosen she might have made a better one. Yes, I don’t mind telling you she might have been a peeress, instead of the wife of a mere country squire.”

In truth, Mrs. Walrond was ill at ease about this marriage, why she did not quite know. Something in her heart seemed to tell her that her dear daughter’s happiness would not be of long continuance. Bearing in mind his family history, she feared for Anthony’s health; indeed, she feared a hundred things that she was quite unable to define. However, at the little breakfast which followed she seemed to recover her spirits and laughed as merrily as any one at the speech which Lady Thompson insisted upon making, in which she described Barbara as “her darling, beautiful and most accomplished niece, who indeed was almost her daughter.”