Mildred Arkell. Vol. 1 (of 3)

Lucy had been married about a fortnight, and was sitting one evening in all her fragile loveliness, the red light of the setting sun flickering through the elm trees on her damask cheeks, when a tall elegant woman entered. This was Mrs. St. John, whose family had been intimate with the Cheveleys. The St. Johns inhabited that old building in Westerbury called the Palmery, of which mention has been made, but they had been away from it for the past two years. Mrs. St. John had just returned to hear the scandal caused by the recent disobedient marriage.

Though all the world abandoned Lucy, Mrs. St. John would not. She had not so many years been a wife herself, having married the widower, Mr. St. John, who was more than double her age, and had a grown-up son. Lucy started up, with many blushes, at Mrs. St. John's entrance; and she told the story of herself and Peter very simply, when questioned.

"Well, Lucy, I wish you happy," Mrs. St. John said; "but it is not the marriage you should have made."

"Perhaps not. I suppose not. For Mr. Arkell's family is of course inferior to mine–"

"Inferior! Mr. Arkell's family!" interrupted Mrs. St. John, all her aristocratic prejudices offended at the words. "What do you mean, Lucy? Mr. Arkell is of no family! They are tradespeople—manufacturers. We don't speak of that class as 'a family.' You are of our order; and I can tell you, the Cheveleys have had the best blood in their veins. It is a very sad descent for you; little less—my dear, I cannot help speaking—than degradation for life."

"If I had good family," spoke Lucy, "what else had I?"

"Beauty!" was Mrs. St. John's involuntary answer, as she gazed at the wondrously lustrous brown eyes, the bright exquisite features.

"Beauty!" echoed Lucy, in surprise. "Oh, Mrs. St. John! you forget."

"Forget what, Lucy."

"That I am deformed."

The word was spoken in a painful whisper, and the sensitive complexion grew carmine with the sense of shame. It is ever so. Where any defect of person exists, none can feel it as does its possessor; it is to the mind one ever-present agony of humiliation. Lucy Cheveley's spine was not straight; of fragile make and constitution, she had "grown aside," as the familiar saying runs; but at this early period of her life it was not so apparent to a beholder (unless the defect was known and searched for) as it afterwards became.

"You are not very much so, Lucy," was Mrs. St. John's answer. "And your face compensates for it."

Lucy shook her head. "You say so from kindness, I am sure. Do you know," she resumed, her voice again becoming almost inaudible, "I once heard Mrs. Dewsbury joking with Sir Edward about me. He was down for a week about a year ago, and she was telling him he ought to get married and settle down to a steady life. He answered that he could get nobody to have him, and Mrs. Dewsbury—of course you know it was only a jesting conversation on both sides—said, 'There's Lucy Cheveley, would she do for you?' 'She,' he exclaimed; 'she's deformed!' Mrs. St. John, will you believe that for a long while after I felt sick at having to go out, or to cross a room?"

"Yes, I can believe it," said Mrs. St. John, sadly, for she was not unacquainted with this sensitive phase in human misfortune. "Well, Lucy, you cannot be convinced, I dare say, that your figure is not unsightly, so we will let that pass. But I do not understand yet, how you came to marry Peter Arkell."

Lucy laughed and blushed.

"Ah! I see; you loved him. And yet, few, save you, would find Peter Arkell so lovable a man."

"If you only knew his worth, Mrs. St. John!"

"I dare say. But as a knight-errant he is not attractive. Of course, the chief consideration now, is—the thing being irrevocably done, and you here—what sort of a home will he be able to keep for you."

"I have no fear on that score; and I am one to be satisfied with so little. Colonel Dewsbury discharged him, but he soon found an evening engagement that is as good. He intends to go to Oxford when he can accomplish it, and afterwards take orders. When he is a clergyman, perhaps my friends, including you, Mrs. St. John, will admit that his wife can then claim to be in the position of a gentlewoman."

"But, meanwhile you must live."

Lucy smiled. "If you knew how entirely I trust and may trust to Peter, you would have no fear. We shall spend but little; we have begun on the most economical plan, and shall continue it. We keep but one servant–"

"But one servant!" echoed Mrs. St. John. "For you!"

"I did not bring Peter a shilling. I brought him but myself and the few poor clothes I possess, for my bit of a pension ceased at my marriage. You cannot think that I would run him into any expense not absolutely necessary. We have no need of more than one servant, for we shall certainly be free from visitors."

"How do you know that?"

"Peter has lived too retired a life to entertain any. And there's no fear that my friends will visit me. I have put myself beyond their pale."

"I cannot say that you have not. But how you will feel this, Lucy!"

"I shall not feel it. Mrs. St. John, when I chose my position in life as Peter Arkell's wife, I chose it for all time," she emphatically added. "Neither now, nor at any future period, shall I regret it. Believe me, I shall be far happier here, in retirement with him, although I have the consciousness of knowing that the world calls me an idiot, than I could have been had I married in what you may call my own sphere. For me there are not two Peter Arkells in the world."

And Mrs. St. John rose, and took her leave; deeply impressed with the fact, that though there might not be two Peter Arkells in the world, there was a great deal of infatuation. She could not understand how it was possible for one, born as Lucy Cheveley had been, to make such a marriage, and to live under it without repentance.

CHAPTER XIII.

GOING ON FOR LORD MAYOR

The years rolled on, bringing their changes. Indeed, the first portions of this history are more like a panorama, where you see a scene here, and then go on to another scene there; for we cannot afford to relate these earlier events consecutively.

That good and respected man, Mr. George Arkell, had passed away with the course of time to the place which is waiting to receive us all. His wife followed him within the year. A handsome fortune, independently of the flourishing business at the manufactory, was left to our old friend William; and there was a small legacy to Mildred of a hundred pounds.

William Arkell had taken possession of all: of his father's place, his father's position, and his father's house. No son ever walked more entirely in his father's steps than did he. He was honoured throughout Westerbury, just as Mr. Arkell had been. His benevolence, his probity, his high character, were universally known and appreciated. And Mrs. William Arkell, now of course, Mrs. Arkell, was a very fine lady, but liked on the whole.

They had three children, Travice, Charlotte, and Sophia Mary. Travice bore a remarkable resemblance to his father, both in looks and disposition; the two girls were more like their mother. They were young yet; but no expense, even now, was spared upon them. Indeed, expense, had Mrs. Arkell had her way, would not have been spared in anything. Show and cost were not to William's taste; they were to hers: but he restrained it with a firm hand where it was absolutely essential.

Peter had not got to college yet, and Peter had not on the whole prospered. The great blow to him was the having to pay the four hundred pounds for which he had become security for Mr. Fauntleroy the younger. Mr. Fauntleroy the younger's affairs had come to a crisis; he went away for a time from Westerbury, and Peter was called upon to pay. There's no doubt that it was the one great blight upon Peter Arkell's life. He never recovered it. It is true that the money was afterwards refunded to him by degrees; but it seemed to do him no good; the blight had fallen.

He became ill. Whether it was the blow of this, that suddenly shattered his health, or whether illness was inherent in his constitution, Westerbury never fully decided; certain it was, that Peter Arkell became a confirmed invalid, and had to resign his appointment at the bank. But he had excellent teaching, and was paid well; and he brought out a learned book now and then, so that he earned a good living. He had two children, Lucy, and a boy some years younger.

Never since she quitted the place some ten or twelve years before, had Mildred Arkell paid a visit to Westerbury. She was going to do so now. Lady Dewsbury, whose health was better than usual, had gone to stay with her married sister, and Mildred thought she would take the opportunity of going to see her brother Peter, and to make acquaintance with his wife. It is probable that, without that tie, she would never have re-entered her native place. The pain of going now would be great; the pain of meeting William Arkell and his wife little less than it was when she first left it. But she made her mind up, and wrote to Peter to say she was coming.

It was on a windy day that Mildred Arkell—had anybody known her—might have been seen picking her way-through the mud of the streets of London. She went to a private house in the neighbourhood of Hatton Garden, rang one of its bells, and walked upstairs without waiting for it to be answered. Before she reached the third floor, a young woman, with a coarse apron on, and a quantity of soft flaxen hair twisted round her head, which looked like a lady's head in spite of the accompaniment of the apron, came running down it.

"Oh, Miss Arkell! if you had but sent me word you were coming!"

The tone was a joyous one, mixed somewhat with vexation; and Mildred smiled.

"Why should I send you word, Betsey? If you are busy, you need not mind me."

On the third floor of this house, in two rooms, Mr. and Mrs. David Dundyke had lived ever since their marriage. David himself had chosen it from the one motive that regulated most actions of his life—economy. The two lower floors of the house were occupied by the offices of a solicitor; the underground kitchen and attic by a woman who kept the house clean; and David had taken these two rooms, and got them very cheap, on condition that he should always sleep at home as a protection to the house. Not having any inducement to sleep out, David acceded readily; and here they had been for several years. It was, in one sense, a convenient arrangement for Betsey, for they kept no servant, and the woman occasionally did cleaning and other rough work for her, receiving a small payment weekly.

Will you believe me when I say that David Dundyke was ambitious? Never a more firmly ambitious man lived than he. There have been men with higher aims in life, but not with more pushing, persevering purpose. He wanted to become a rich man; he wanted to become one of importance in this great commercial city; but the highest ambition of all, the one that filled his thoughts, sleeping and waking, was a higher ambition still—and I hope you will hold your breath with proper deference while you read it—he aspired to become, in time, the Lord Mayor!

He was going on for it. He truly and honestly believed that he was going on for it; slowly, it is true, but not less sure. Rome, as we all know was not built in a day; and even such men as the Duke of Wellington must have had a beginning—a first start in life.

Whatever David Dundyke's shortcomings might be, in—if you will excuse the word—gentility, he made up for it by a talent for business. Few men have possessed a better one; and his value in the Fenchurch-street tea-house, was fully known and appreciated. This wholesale establishment, which had tea for its basis, was of undoubted respectability. It took a high standing amidst its fellows, and was second in its large dealings to none. It was not one of your advertising, poetry-puffing, here-to-day and gone-to-morrow houses, but a genuine, sound firm, having real dealings with Chaney, as the respected white-haired head of the house was in the habit of designating the Celestial Empire. Mr. Dundyke sometimes presumed to correct the "Chaney," and hint to his indulgent master and head, that that pronunciation was a little antediluvian, and that nobody now called it anything but "Chinar."

David Dundyke had gone into this house an errand boy; he had risen to be a junior clerk. He was now not a junior one, but took rank with the first. Steady, taciturn, persevering, and industrious to an extent not often seen, thoroughly trustworthy, and in business dealings of strict honour, perhaps David Dundyke was one who could not fail to prosper, wherever he might have been placed. These qualities, combined with rare business foresight, had brought him into notice, and thence into favour. The faintest possible hint had been dropped to him by the white-haired old man, that perseverance, such as his, had been known to meet its reward in an association with the firm; a share in the business. Whether he meant anything, or whether it was but a casual remark, spoken without intention, David did not know; but he saw from thenceforth that one great ambition, of his, coming nearer and nearer. From that moment it was sure; it fevered his veins, and coloured his dreams; the massive gold chain of the Lord Mayor was ever dancing before his eyes and his brain; to be called "my lord" by the multitude, and to sit in that arm-chair, dispensing justice in the Mansion House, seemed to him a very heaven upon earth. Every movement of his mind had reference to it; every nerve was strained on the hope for it! For that he saved; for that he pinched; for that he turned sixpences into shillings, and shillings into pounds: for he knew that to be elected a Lord Mayor he must first of all be a rich man, and attain to the honour through minor gradations of wealth. He was judged to be a hard griping man by the few acquaintances he possessed, possessing neither sympathy for friends, nor pity for enemies; but he was not hard or griping at heart; it was all done to further this dream of ambition. For money in the abstract he really did not very much care; but as a stepping-stone to civic importance, it was of incalculable value.

He had four hundred pounds a year now, and they lived upon fifty. Betsey, the most generous heart in the world, saw but with his eyes, and was as saving and careful as might be, because it pleased him. Many and many a time he had taken home a red herring and made his dinner of it, giving his wife the head and the tail to pick for hers. Not less meek than of yore was Mrs. Dundyke, and felt duly thankful for the head and the tail.

Mrs. Dundyke had been at some household work when Mildred entered, but she soon put it aside and sat down with Mildred in the sitting-room, a cheerful apartment with a large window. Betsey was considerably over thirty years of age now, but she looked nearly as young as ever, as she sat bending her face a little down over her sewing while she talked, the stitching of a wristband; for she was one who thought it a sin to lose time. Mildred told her the news she had come to tell—that she was going on the morrow to Westerbury.

"Going to Westerbury!" echoed Mrs. Dundyke in great surprise; for it had seemed to her that Miss Arkell never meant to go to her native place again.

Mildred explained. She had a holiday for the first time since going to Lady Dewsbury's, and should use it to see her brother and his wife. "I came to tell you, Betsey," she added, "thinking you might have some message you would like me to carry to your sister."

A faint change, like a shadow, passed over Betsey Dundyke's face. "She would not thank you for it, Miss Arkell. But you may give my best love to her. She never came to see me, you know, when they were in London."

"When were they in London?" asked Mildred, quickly.

"Last year. Did you not know of it? Perhaps not, for you were in Paris with Lady Dewsbury at the time, and the reminiscence to me is not so pleasing as to make me mention it gratuitously. She came up with Mr. Arkell and their boy; they were in London about a week: he had business, I believe. The first thing he did was to come and see us, and he brought Travice; and he said he hoped I and my husband would make it convenient to be with them a good deal while they were in town, and would dine with them often at their hotel. Well, David, as you know, has no time to spare in the day, for business is first and foremost with him, but I went the next day to see Charlotte. She was very cool, and she let me unmistakably know in so many words that she could not make an associate of Mr. Dundyke. It was not nice of her, Miss Arkell."

"No, it was not. Did you see much of her?"

"I only saw her that once. William Arkell was terribly vexed, I could see that; and as if to atone for her behaviour, he came here often and brought Travice. Indeed, Travice spent nearly the whole of the time with us, and David would have let me keep him after they went home, but I knew it was of no use to ask Charlotte. He is the nicest boy! I—I know it is wrong to break the tenth commandment," she said, looking up and laughing through her tears, "but I envy Charlotte that boy."

It was an indirect allusion to the one great disappointment of Betsey Dundyke's life: she had no children. She was getting over the grief tolerably now; we get reconciled to the worst evil in time; but in the first years of her marriage she had felt it keenly. It may be questioned if Mr. Dundyke did. Children must have brought expense with them, so he philosophically pitted the gain against the loss.

"Why should Mrs. Arkell dislike to be on sisterly terms with you?" asked Mildred. "I have never been able to understand it."

"Charlotte has two faults—pride and selfishness," was Mrs. Dundyke's answer: "though I cannot bear to speak against her, and never do to David. When she first married, she feared, I believe, that I might become a burden upon her; and she did not like that I should be in the position I was at Mrs. Dundyke's; she thought it reflected in a degree upon her position as a lady. Now she shuns us, because she thinks we are altogether beneath her. Were we living in style, well established and all that, she would be glad to come to us; but we are in these two quiet rooms, living humbly, and Charlotte would cut off her legs before she'd come near us. Don't think me unkind, Miss Arkell; it is Charlotte who has forced this feeling upon me. I worshipped her in the old days, but I cannot be blind to her faults now."

David Dundyke came in. He shook hands cordially with Mildred, whom he was always glad to see. He had begun to dress like a city magnate now: in glossy clothes, and a white neckcloth; and a fine gold cable chain crossed on his waistcoat, in place of the modest silver one he used to wear. He had become more personable as he gained years, was growing portly, and altogether was a fine, gentlemanly-looking man. But his mode of speech! That had very little changed from the earlier style: perhaps David Dundyke was one who did not care to change it; or had no ear to catch the accents of others. If he had but never opened his mouth!

"I'm a little late, Betsey. Shouldn't ha' been, though, if I'd known who was here. Get us some tea, girl; and here's something to eat with it."

He pulled a paper parcel of shrimps out of his pocket as he spoke: a delicacy he was fond of. Some of them fell on the carpet in the process, and Betsey stooped to pick them up. David did not trouble himself to help her. He sat down and talked to Mildred.

"The last time you were here, I remember, something kept me out: extra work at the office, I think that was. I have been round now to Leifchild's. He is my stock-broker."

Mildred laughed. She supposed he was saying it for jest. But the keen look came over Mr. Dundyke's face that was usual to it when he spoke of money.

"Leifchild is a steady-going man; he's no fool, he isn't: There's not a steadier nor a keener on the stock exchange. I've knowed him since he was that high, for we was boys together; and, like me, he began from nothing. There was one thing kept him down—want of capital; if he had had that, he'd ha' been a rich man now, for many good things fell in his way, and he had to let 'em slip by him. I turned the risk over in my mind, Miss Arkell; for, and against; and I came to the conclusion to put a thousand pound in his hands, on condition–"

"A thousand pounds," involuntarily interrupted Mildred. "Had you so much—to spare?"

"Yes, I had that," said David Dundyke, with a little cough that seemed to say he might have found more, if he had cared to do so. "On condition that I went shares in whatsoever profit my thousand pound should be the means of realizing," he resumed where he had broken off. "And my thousand pound has not done badly yet."

Mildred could not help noting the significant satisfaction of the tone. "I should have fancied you too cautious to risk your money in speculating, Mr. Dundyke."

"And you fancied right. 'Tain't speculating: leastways not now. There might be some risk at first, but I knew Leifchild. In three months after that there thousand pound was in his hand, he had made two of it for me, and I took the one back from him, leaving him the other to go on with again. That hasn't done badly neither, Miss Arkell; it's paying itself over and over again. And I'm safe; for if he lost it all, I'm only where I was afore I began, and my first risked thousand is safe."

"And if failure should come, is there no risk to you?"

"Not a penny risk. Trust me for that. But failure won't come. My head's a pretty long one for seeing my way clear, and Leifchild lays every thing before me afore he ventures. It's better, this is, than your five per cent. investments."

"I think it must be," assented Mildred. "I wish I could employ a trifle in the same manner."

She spoke without any ulterior motive, but David Dundyke took the words literally. He had no objection to do a good turn where it involved no outlay to himself, and he really liked Mildred. He drew his chair an inch nearer, and talked to her long and earnestly.

"Let's say it's a hundred pound," he said. "Risk it. And when Leifchild has doubled that for you, take the first hundred back. If you lose the rest, it won't hurt; and if it multiplies its ones into tens, you'll be so much the better off."

It cannot be denied that Mildred was struck with the proposition. "But does Mr. Leifchild do all this for nothing?" she asked.

"In course he don't. Leifchild ain't a fool. He gets his percentage—and a good fat percentage too. The thing can afford it. Do as you like, you know, Miss Arkell; but if you take my advice, you mayn't find cause to be sorry for it in the end."

"Thank you," said Mildred, "I will think of it."

"Give Aunt Betsey's dear love to Travice," whispered Mrs. Dundyke, when Mildred was leaving, "and my best and truest regards to Mr. Arkell. And oh, Miss Mildred, if you could prevail upon them to let Travice come back with you to visit me, I should not know how to be happy enough! I have always so loved children; and David would like it, too."

"Is there any chance, think you?" returned Mildred.

"No, no, there is none; his mother would be indignant at the presumption of the request," concluded Betsey in her bitter conviction.

And she was not mistaken.

CHAPTER XIV.

OLD YEARS BACK AGAIN

Mildred's heart ached with the changes; Peter was growing into a middle-aged man, his hair beginning to silver, his tall back bowed with care.

They were gathered in the old familiar sitting-room the night of her arrival at Westerbury. Peter and Mildred sat at the table, Mrs. Peter Arkell lay on her sofa; the children remained orderly on the hearth rug. Lucy was getting a great girl now; little Harry—a most lovely child, his face the counterpart of his mother's—was but three years old.

Never but once in her life had Mildred seen the exquisite face of Miss Lucy Cheveley; it had never left her memory. The same, same face was before her now, looking upwards from the sofa, not a whit altered—not a shade less beautiful. But Mildred had now become aware of a fact which she had not known previously—Peter had kept it from her in his letters—that the defect in Mrs. Peter Arkell's back had become more formidable, giving her pain nearly always. They had had a hard, reclining sofa made, a little raised at the one end; and here she had to lie a great deal, some days only getting up from it to meals.