Mildred Arkell: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)Wood, Henry, Mrs.
General
Mildred Arkell: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
Fiction
"Did she never know that there had been a marriage?" asked Mr. Arkell.
"Quite at the last, when she had but a day or two left of life. Sophia
told her then; she had grieved much over Martha Ann, and was grieving
still. Sophia told her, and it sent her easy to her grave. Soon after
she died, Sophia married Jem Pycroft, and they came out to me. She's
dead now. So that there's only me left out of the four of us," added the
returned traveller, after a pause.
"And Martha Ann's eldest son became a clergyman, you say; and he died! I
should like to see the other two children she left. Do they live in
Rotterdam?"
"I am not sure; but you would no doubt hear of them there. They sold off
Marmaduke Carr's property when they came into it, after the trial. It's
not to be wondered at: they had no pleasant associations connected with
Westerbury."
Edward Hughes burst into a laugh. "What a blow it must have been for
stingy John Carr!"
"It was that," said Mr. Arkell. "He is always pleading poverty; but
there's no doubt he has been saving money ever since the old squire died
and he came into possession. That can't be far short of twenty years
now."
"Twenty years! How time flies in this world, sir!" was the concluding
remark of Mr. Hughes.
There was no drawback thrown in the way of _this_ marriage of Travice
Arkell's, by himself, or by anybody else; and the day for it was fixed
as soon as he became convalescent. Mrs. Arkell had to reconcile herself
to it in the best way she could; and if she found it a pill to swallow,
it was at least a gilded one: Mrs. Dundyke's money would go to him and
Lucy--and there was Miss Arkell's as well. They would be placed above
the frowns of the world the hour they married, and Travice could turn
amateur astronomer at will.
On the day before that appointed for the ceremony, Lucy, in passing
through the cloisters with Mrs. Dundyke, from some errand in the town,
stopped as she came to that gravestone in the cloisters. She bent her
head over it, for she could hardly read the inscription--what with the
growing dusk, and what with her blinding tears.
"Oh, Aunt Betsey"--she had caught the name from Travice--"if he had but
lived! If he could but be with us to-morrow!"
Aunt Betsey touched with her gentle finger the sorrowing face. "He is
better off, Lucy."
"Yes, I know. But in times of joy it seems hard to remember it. I
wonder--I hope it is not wrong to wonder it--whether he and mamma are
always with me in spirit? I have grown to think so."
"The thinking it will not do you harm, Lucy."
"Oh, was it not a cruel thing, Aunt Betsey, for that boy Lewis to throw
him down! He was forgiven by everybody at the time; but in my heart--I
won't say it. But for that, Henry might be alive now. They left the
college school afterwards. Did you know that?"
"The Lewises? Yes; I think I heard it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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