Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/478

470 as he had come; and, not very long afterwards, the first carriage drew up. It was Lady Verner’s. Lord Garle hastened to Decima, and Lionel took out Lucy Tempest.

“Will you think me very foolish if I say a word of warning to you?” asked Lucy in a low tone, as they reached the terrace.

“A word of warning to me, Lucy!” Lionel repeated. “Of what nature?”

“That Roy is not a good man. He was greatly incensed at your putting him out of his place when you succeeded to Verner’s Pride, and it is said that he cherishes vengeance. He may have been watching to-night for an opportunity to injure you. Take care of him.”

Lionel smiled as he looked at her. Her upturned face looked pale and anxious in the moonlight. Lionel could not receive the fear at all: he would as soon have thought to dread the most improbable thing imaginable, as to dread this sort of violence, whether from Roy, or from any one else.

“There’s no fear whatever, Lucy.”

“I know you will not see it for yourself, and that is the reason why I am presumptive enough to suggest the idea to you. Pray be cautious! pray take care of yourself!”

He shook his head laughingly as he looked down upon her.

“Thank you heartily all the same for your consideration, Lucy,” said he, and for the very life of him he could not help pressing her hand warmer than was needful as he placed her in the carriage.

They drove away. Lord Garle returned to the room; Lionel stood against one of the outer pillars, looking forth on the lovely moonlight scene. The part played by Roy—if it was Roy—in the night’s doings disturbed him not; but that his wife had shown herself so entirely unlike a lady did disturb him. Bitterly did she stand out that night to his mind, in contrast to Lucy. He turned away, after some minutes, with an impatient movement, as if he would fain throw remembrance and vexation from him. Lionel had himself chosen his companion in life, and none knew better, than he, that he must abide by it: none could be more firmly resolved to do his full duty by her in love. Sibylla was standing outside the window alone. Lionel approached her, and gently laid his hand upon her shoulder.

“Sibylla, what caused you to show agitation when Cannonby’s name was mentioned?”

“I told you,” answered Sibylla. “It is dreadful to be reminded of that miserable time. It was Cannonby, you know, who buried my husband.”

And before Lionel could say more, she had shaken his hand from her shoulder, and was back amidst her guests.

Jan had said somebody might be going dead while the parish was being scoured for him: and, in point of fact, Jan found, on reaching home, that that undesirable consummation was not unlikely to occur. But we must leave Jan, and make an evening call upon Mrs. Duff.

Mrs. Duff stood behind her counter, sorting silks. Not rich piece silks that are made into gowns; Mrs. Duff’s shop did not aspire to that luxurious class of goods; but humble skeins of mixed sewing-silks, that were kept tied up in a piece of wash-leather. Mrs. Duff’s head and a customer’s head were brought together over the bundle, endeavouring to fix upon a skein of a particular shade, by the help of the one gas-burner which flared away over head.

“Drat the silk!” said Mrs. Duff at length. “One can’t tell which is which, by candle-light. The green looks blue, and the blue looks green. Look at them two skeins, Polly: which is the green?”

Miss Polly Dawson, a showy damsel with black hair and a cherry-coloured net at the back of it,—one of the family that Roy was pleased to term the ill-doing Dawsons, took the two skeins in her hand.

“Blest if I can tell!” was her answer. “It’s for doing up mother’s green silk bonnet, so it won’t do to take blue. You be more used to it nor me, Mrs. Duff.”

“My eyes never was good for sorting silks by this light,” responded Mrs. Duff. “I’ll tell you what, Polly; you shall take ’em both. Your mother must take the responsibility of fixing on it herself, or let her keep ’em till the morning and fix on the right, then. She should have sent by daylight. You can bring back the one you don’t use to-morrow; but mind you keep it clean.”

“Wrap ’em up,” curtly returned Miss Polly Dawson.

Mrs. Duff was proceeding to do so, when some tall thin form, bearing a large bundle, entered the shop in a fluster. It was Mrs. Peckaby. She sat herself down on the only stool the shop contained, and let the bundle slip to the floor.

“Give a body leave to rest a bit, Mother Duff! I be turned a’most inside out.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Mrs. Duff, while Polly Dawson surveyed her with a stare.

“There’s a white cow in the pound. I can’t tell ye the turn it give me, coming sudden upon it. I thought nothing less, at first glance, but it was the white quadruple.”

“What! hasn’t that there white donkey come yet?” demanded Polly Dawson; who, in conjunction with sundry others of her age and sex in the village, was not sparing of her free remarks to Mrs. Peckaby on the subject, thereby aggravating that lady considerably.

“You hold your tongue, Polly Dawson, and don’t be brazen, if you can help it,” rebuked Mrs. Peckaby. “I was so took aback for the minute, that I couldn’t neither stir nor speak,” she resumed to Mrs. Duff. “But when I found it was nothing but a old strayed wretch of a pounded cow, I a’most dropped with the disappointment. So I thought I’d come back here and take a rest. Where’s Dan?”

“Dan’s out,” answered Mrs. Duff.

“Is he? I thought he might have took this parcel down to Sykes’s, and saved me the sight o’ that pound again and the deceiver in it. It’s just my luck!”

“Dan’s gone up to Verner’s Pride,” continued Mrs. Duff. “That fine French madmizel, as rules