Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/456

 8, 1864.] upon: there’s no room left for good strengthening meat. Cakes, and sweets, and trash! all that comes of coddling. Mind, Lucy, I will not allow cakes or"

“I am not coddled,” interrupted Frank opportunely. “And mamma says I shall soon go to Eton.”

“The very best place for you,” cried Sir Stephen. “I hope it’s true.”

“Oh, it’s true,” said Lady Oakburn. “He is strong enough for it already, Sir Stephen: in spite of the coddling,” she added with a smile.

“Thanks to me, my lady, for keeping the coddling within bounds. Judith! that’s never you in that white topknot!”

Judith laughed, turned, and curtsied. The white satin bow on her cap was as large as the coachmen’s favours. Judith was waiting at the chocolate table, her hands encased, perhaps for the first time in Judith’s life, in delicate white kid gloves.

“Why can’t Lucy come back to-night?” suddenly demanded the young earl, appealing to the table generally.

“Because Lucy’s mine now, and I can’t spare her,” whispered Frederick Grey, leaning behind Lucy to speak.

An indignant pause. “She’s not yours.”

“Indeed she is.”

“You have not bought her!”

“Yes I have. I bought her with the gold ring that is upon her finger.”

Lord Oakburn had seen the ring put on, and sundry disagreeable convictions arose within him. “Is she quite bought?” he asked.

“Quite. She can’t ever be sold back again.”

“But why need she go away? Can’t you let her stop here?”

“I am afraid I can’t, Frank. She shall come and see you soon.”

Upon which his lordship burst into a cry and rubbed his wet cheeks until he was a sight to be seen. Pompey surreptitiously filled his ears with soothing words, and his hands with wedding cake and bon-bons.

About ten days after this, Frederick Grey and his wife were at South Wennock. It had been arranged that they should pay Jane a short visit before returning to town to take possession of their new home.

There had not been many changes at South Wennock. The greatest perhaps was at the late house of Mr. and Lady Laura Carlton. It had been converted into a “Ladies’ College,” and the old surgery side-door had got a large brass plate on its middle, “Pupils’ Entrance.” The Widow Gould flourished still, and had not yet ceased talking about the events of the previous December; and Mrs. Pepperfly was decidedly more robust than ever, and had been in very great request this year from her near connection with the events which had brought to light the tragedy. Mrs. Smith had gone back to Scotland. She had a tie there, she said—her husband’s grave.

Just as they had been sitting, nearly a fortnight before, so they were sitting now, the ladies Jane and Laura. Laura, in spite of her cap and her widowhood, had contrived to make herself look very charming, almost as much so as the fair young bride, who ran in to them from the carriage, her face radiant with happiness.

But Lucy’s gaiety, and her husband’s also, faded down to a sort of timid reserve at the sight of Laura. It was the first time they had met since the enacting of the cruel trouble, and it was impossible but that their minds should go back to it. Laura noted the change of manner, and resented it according to her hasty fashion, taking some idea into her head that they considered she ought to be treated with grave sobriety in her character of widow; while she did not think so at all.

They had arrived in time for a late dinner, and in the evening Frederick said he would just run down as far as his uncle’s. Somehow it had been a dull dinner; try as Frederick and Lucy would, they could not divest themselves of the impression left by the past, in this first interview with Mr. Carlton’s wife. Laura, in a pet, went up-stairs early.

“Jane, how well Laura is looking!” were Lucy’s first words. “I had not expected to see her half so well; and all her old light manner has returned. Has she forgotten Mr. Carlton?”

“Quite sufficiently to marry again,” replied Jane, somewhat heedlessly. These words shocked Lucy.

“Oh, Jane! Marry again—yet!"

Jane looked up and smiled at the mistake.

“I did not mean that, Lucy; of course not. But I should think it an event not unlikely to happen with time. She said one day that she would give a great deal to be able to put away the tarnished name of Carlton. She is young enough still, very good-looking, of good birth, and upon her, personally, there rests no slur; altogether, it has struck me as being probable. Next year, which she is to pass with Lady Oakburn, she will be in her element—the world.”

“Jane,” said Lucy, awaking from a reverie, “I wonder you never married.”

A tinge of red came into Jane Chesney’s cheeks, and her drooping eyelids were not raised.