CHAPTER XIII. COMING HOME

Dashing up to Dallory Hall, just a week and a day after the wedding, came Mrs. North. Madam had learnt the news. Whilst she was reposing in all security in Paris, amidst a knot of friends who had chosen to be there at that season, Matilda North happened to take up a Times newspaper of some two or three days old, and saw the account of the marriage: "Oliver Rane, M.D., of Dallory Ham to Bessy, daughter of John North, of Dallory Hall, and of Elizabeth, his first wife." Madam rose up, her face flaming, and clutched the journal: she verily believed Miss Matilda was playing a farce upon her. No: the announcement was there in plain black and white. Making her hasty arrangements to quit the French capital, she came thundering home: and arrived the very day that Dr. and Mrs. Rane returned.

A letter had preceded her. A letter of denouncing wrath, that had made her husband shake in his shoes. Poor Mr. North looked tremblingly out for the arrival, caught a glimpse of the carriage and of madam's face, and slipped out by the back-door into the fields. Where he remained wandering about for hours.

So madam found no one to receive her. Richard was at the works, Captain Bohun had been out all the afternoon.

Nothing increases wrath like having no object to expend it on; and madam foiled, might have sat for a picture of fury. The passion that had been bubbling higher and higher all the way from Paris, found no escape at boiling point.

One of the servants happened to come in her way; the first housemaid, who had been head over Molly Green. Madam stopped her; bit her lips for calmness, and then inquired particulars of the wedding with a smooth face.

"Was it a runaway match, Lake?"

"Goodness, no, madam!" was Lake's answer, who was apt to be outspoken, even to her imperious mistress. "Things were being got ready for a month beforehand; and my master would have gone to church to give Miss Bessy away himself, but for not being well. All us servants went to see it."

Little by little, madam heard every detail. Captain Bohun was best man; Mr. Richard took out Miss Adair, who was bridesmaid, and looked lovely. The bride and bridegroom drove right away from the church-door. Captain Bohun went back in the carriage with Miss Adair; Mr. Richard went off on foot to the works. Miss Bessy--leastways Mrs. Oliver Rane now--had had some furniture sent to her new home from the Hall, and Molly Green was there as housemaid. That Lake should glow with intense gratification at being enabled to tell all this, was only in accordance with frail humanity: she knew what a dose it was for madam; and madam was disliked in the household more than poison. But Lake was hardly prepared for the ashy, tint that spread over madam's features, when she came to the part that told of the homeward drive of her son with Ellen Adair.

The girl was in the midst of her descriptions when Arthur Bohun came in. Madam saw him sauntering lazily up the gravel-drive, and swept down in her fine Parisian costume of white-and-black brocaded silk, lappets of lace floating from her hair. They met in the Hall.

"Why! is it you, mother?" cried Arthur in surprise--for he had no idea the invasion might be expected so soon. "Have you come home?"

He advanced to kiss her. Striving to be as dutiful as she would allow him to be, he was willing to observe all ordinary relations between mother and son: but of affection there existed none. Mrs. North drew back from the offered embrace, and haughtily motioned him to the drawing-room. Matilda sat there, sullen and listless: she was angry at being brought away summarily from Paris.

"Why did I assist at Bessy's wedding?" replied Arthur, parrying the attack with light good humour, as he invariably strove to do on these occasions. "Because I liked it. It was great fun. Especially to see Rane hunting in every pocket for the ring, and turning as red as a salamander."

"What business had you to do such a thing?" retorted madam, her face dark with the passion she was suppressing. "How dared you do it?"

"Do what, madam?"

Madam stamped a little. "You know without asking, sir; personally countenance the wedding."

"Was there any reason why I should not do so? Bessy stands to me as a sister: and I like her. I am glad she is married, and I hope sincerely they'll have the best of luck."

"I had forbidden the union with Oliver Rane," stamped madam. "Do you hear?--forbidden it. You knew that as well as she did."

"But then, don't you see, mother mine, you had no particular right to forbid it. If Matilda, there, took it into her head to marry some knight or other, you would have a voice in the matter, for or against; but Bessy was responsible to her father only."

"Don't bring my name into your nonsense, Arthur," struck in Matilda, with a frown.

Madam, looking from one to the other, was biting her lips.

"They had the wedding whilst you were away that it might be got over quietly," resumed Arthur, in his laughing way, determined not to give in an inch, even though he had to tell a home truth or two. "For my part, mother, I have never understood what possible objection you could have to Rane."

"That is my business," spoke Mrs. North. "I wish he and those Cumberland people were all at the bottom of the sea. How dared you disgrace yourself, Arthur Bohun?"

"Disgrace myself?"

"You did. You, a Bohun, to descend to companionship with them! Fie upon you! And you have been said to inherit your father's pride."

"As I hope I do, in all proper things. I am unable to understand your distinctions, madam," he added, laughingly. "Rane is as good as Bessy, for all I see. As good as we are."

Madam caught up a hand-screen, as if she would have liked to throw it at him. Her hand trembled, with emotion or temper.

"There's some girl living with them. They tell me you went home with her in the carriage!"

Arthur Bohun suddenly turned his back upon them, as if to see who might be coming, for distant footsteps were heard advancing. But for that, madam might have seen a hot flush illumine his face.

"Well? What else, mother? Of course I took her home--Miss Adair."

"In the face and eyes of Dallory!"

"Certainly. And we had faces and eyes out that morning, I can tell you. It is not every day a Miss North gets married."

"How came you to take her home?"

"Dick asked me to do so. There was no one else to ask, you see. Mrs. Gass cheered us in going by, as if we had been an election. She had a shining yellow gown on and white bows in her cap."

His suavity was so great, his determination not to be ruffled so evident, that Mrs. North felt partly foiled. It was not often she attacked Arthur; he always met it in this way, and no satisfaction came of it. She could have struck him as he stood.

"What is the true tale about the ring, Arthur?" asked Matilda, in the silence come to by Mrs. North. "Lake says Oliver Rane really lost it."

"Really and truly, Matty."

"Were they married without a ring?"

"Some one present produced one," he replied carelessly, in his invincible dislike to mention Ellen Adair before his mother and sister: a dislike that had ever clung to him. Did it arise from the reticence that invariably attends love, this feeling?--or could it have been some foreshadowing, some dread instinct of what the future was to bring forth?

"How came Dr. Rane to lose the ring?"

"Carelessness, I suppose. We found it in the carriage, going home. He must have dropped it accidentally."

"Peace, Matilda! Keep your foolish questions for a fitting time," stormed madam. "How dare you turn your back upon me, Arthur? What money has gone out with the girl?"

Arthur turned to answer. In spite of his careless manner, he was biting his lips with shame and vexation. It was so often he had to blush for his mother.

"I'm sure I don't know, if you mean with Bessy; it is not my business that I should presume to ask. Here comes Dick: I thought it was his step. You can inquire of him, madam."

Richard North looked into the drawing-room, unconscious of the storm awaiting him. Matilda sat back in an easy-chair tapping her foot discontentedly; Arthur Bohun toyed with a rose at the window; madam, standing upright by the beautiful inlaid table, her train sweeping the rich carpet, confronted him.

But there was something about Richard North that instinctively subdued madam; she had never domineered over him as she did over her husband, and Bessy, and Arthur; and at him she did not rave and rant. Calm always, sufficiently courteous to her, and yet holding his own in self-respect, Richard and madam seldom came to an issue. But she attacked him now: demanding why this iniquity--the wedding--had been allowed to be enacted.

"Pardon me, Mrs. North, if I meet your question by another," calmly spoke Richard. "You complain of my sister's marriage as though it were a wrong against yourself. What is your reason?"

"I said it should not take place."

"Will you tell me why you oppose it?"

"No. It is sufficient that, to my mind, it did not present itself as suitable. I have resolutely set my face against Dr. Rane and his statue of a mother, who presumes to call the Master of Dallory Hall John! And I forbade Bessy to think of him."

"But--pardon me, Mrs. North--Bessy was not bound to obey you. Her father and I saw no objection to Dr. Rane."

"Was it right, was it honourable, that you should seize upon my absence to marry her in this indecent manner?--before Edmund was cold in his grave?"

"Circumstances control cases," said Richard. "As for marrying her whilst you were away, it was done in the interests of peace. Your opposition, had you been at home, would not have prevented the marriage; it was therefore as well to get it over in quietness."

A bold avowal. Richard stood before madam when he made it, upright as herself. She saw it was useless to contend: and all the abuse in the world would not undo it now.

"What money has gone out with her?"

It was a question that she had no right to put. Richard answered it, however.

"At present, not any. To-morrow I shall give Rane a cheque for two hundred pounds. Time was, madam, when I thought my sister would have gone from us with twenty thousand."

"We are not speaking of what was, but of what is," said madam, an unpleasant sneer on her face. "Mr. North--to hear him speak--cannot spare the two hundred."

"Quite true; Mr. North has it not to spare," said Richard. "It is I who give it to my sister. Drained though we constantly are for money, I could not, for very shame, suffer Bessy to go to her husband quite penniless."

"She has not gone penniless," retorted madam, brazening the thing out. "I hear the Hall has been dismantled for her."

"Oh, mother!" interposed Arthur in a rush of pain.

"Hold your tongue; it is no affair of yours," spoke Mrs. North. "A cartload of furniture has gone out of the Hall."

"Bessy's own," said Richard. "It was her mother's; and we have always considered it Bessy's. A few trifling mahogany things, madam, that you have never condescended to take notice of, and that never, in point of fact, have belonged to you. They have gone with Bessy, poor girl; and I trust Rane will make her a happier home than she has had here."

"I trust they will both be miserable," flashed madam.

Equable in temper though Richard North was, there are limits to endurance; he found his anger rising, and quitted the room abruptly. Arthur Bohun went limping after him: in any season of emotion, he was undeniably lame.

"I would beg your pardon for her, Dick, in all entreaty," he whispered, putting his arm within Richard's, "but that my tongue is held by shame and humiliation. It was an awful misfortune for you all when your father married her."

"We can only make the best of it, Arthur," was the kindly answer. "It was neither your fault nor mine."

"Where is the good old pater?"

"Hiding somewhere. Not a doubt of it."

"Let us go and find him, Dick. He may be the better for having us with him to-day. If she was not my mother--and upon my word and honour, Richard, I sometimes think she is not--I'd strap on my armour and do brave battle for him."

The bride and bridegroom were settling down in their house. Bessy, arranging her furniture in her new home, was busy and happy as the summer day was long. Some of the mahogany things were terribly old-fashioned, but the fact never occurred to Bessy. The carpet was bright; the piano, Richard's present, and a great surprise, was beautiful. It was so kind of him to give her one--she who was only a poor player at best, and had thought of asking madam to be allowed to have the unused old thing in the old schoolroom at Dallory Hall. She clung to Richard with tears in her eyes as she kissed and thanked him. He kissed her again, and gave his good wishes for her happiness, but Bessy thought him somewhat out of spirits. Richard North handed over two hundred pounds to them: a most acceptable offering to Dr. Rane.

"Thank you, Richard," he heartily said, grasping his brother-in-law's hand. "I shall be getting on so well shortly as to need no help for my wife's sake or for mine." And Richard knew that he was anticipating the period when the other doctor should have left, and the whole practice be in his own hands.

It was on the third or fourth morning after their return, that Dr. Rane, coming home from seeing his patients, met his fellow-surgeon, arm-in-arm with a stranger. Mr. Alexander stopped to introduce him.

"Mr. Seeley, Rane," he said. "My friend and successor."

Had a shot been fired at Dr. Rane, he could scarcely have felt more astounded. In the moment's confused blow, he almost stammered.

"Your successor? Here?"

"My successor in the practice. I have sold him the goodwill, and he has come down to be introduced."

Dr. Rane bowed. The new doctor put out his hand. That same day Dr. Rane went over to Mr. Alexander's and reproached him.

"You might at least have given me the refusal had you wanted to sell it."

"My good fellow, I promised it to Seeley ages ago," was the answer. "He knew I had a prospect of the London appointment: in fact, helped me to get it."

What was to be said? Nothing. But Oliver Rane felt as though a bitter blow had again fallen upon him, blighting the fair vista of the future.

"Don't be down-hearted, Oliver," whispered Bessy, hopefully, as she clung around him when he went in and spoke of the disappointment. "We shall be just as happy with a small practice as a large one. It will all come right--with God's blessing on us."

But Oliver Rane, looking back on a certain deed of the past, felt by no means sure in his heart of hearts that the blessing would be upon them.