"They're sitting a long time," said Mrs Pinet, as she raked out the kitchen fire to the very last red-hot cinder. "Mr Hallam seemed quite pleased with him; he's altered so for the better. He said I needn't sit up, and so I will go to bed."

Mrs Pinet sought her room, and about twelve heard the door close on the stranger, between whom and Hallam a good deal of eager conversation had pa.s.sed in a low tone.

"You see I'm trusting you," said Hallam as they parted.

"You know you can," was the reply. "And now, look here, if anything goes wrong--"

"I tell you, if you do as I have arranged, nothing can go wrong. I want an agent in London, whom I can implicitly trust, and I am going to trust you. Once more, your task is to do exactly what I tell you."

"But if anything goes wrong, I can't write to you."

"Nothing can go wrong, I tell you."

"Yes," said Crellock to himself, "you told me that once before." Then aloud:

"Well, we will say nothing can go wrong, for I shall do exactly what you have said; but if anything should, I shall come down, and if you see me--look out."

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

LIKE GATHERING CLOUDS.

There is one very pleasant element in country-town life, and that is the breadth of the feeling known as neighbourly. It is often veined by scandal, disfigured by petty curiosity, but a genial feeling, like a solid stratum underlies it all, and makes it firm. Mrs White gets into difficulties, and her furniture is sold by auction; but the neighbours flock to the sale, and the love of bargains is so overridden that the old things often fetch as much as new. Mrs Black's family are ill, and every one around takes a real and helpful interest. Mrs Scarlet's husband dies, and a fancy fair is held on her behalf. Then how every one collects at the marriage: how all follow at the death! It must be something very bad indeed that has been committed if, after the customary unpleasant and censorious remarks about walking blindfold into such a slough, Green is not drawn out by helping hands--in fact, there is a kind of clannishness in a country-town, disfigured by the gossips, but very true and earnest all the same.

Consequently as soon as the day was fixed for Millicent Luttrell's wedding, presents came pouring in from old patients and young friends.

A meeting was held at the Corn Exchange, at which Sir Gordon Bourne was to take the chair, but at which he did not put in an appearance, and the Reverend Christie Bayle took his place, while resolutions were moved and carried that a testimonial should be presented to our eminent fellow-townsman, Robert Hallam, Esq, on the occasion of his marriage with the daughter of our esteemed and talented neighbour, Dr Luttrell.

The service of plate was presented at a dinner, where speeches were made, to which Mr Hallam, of the bank, responded fluently, gracefully, and to the point.

Here, too, Christie Bayle took the chair, and had the task of presenting the silver, after reading the inscription aloud, amidst abundant cheers; and as he pa.s.sed the glittering present to the recipient, their eyes met.

As their eyes met there was a pleasant smile upon Hallam's lip, and a thought in his heart that he alone could have interpreted, while Bayle's could have been read by any one skilled in the human countenance, as he breathed a hope that Millicent Luttrell might be made a happy wife.

The whole town was in a ferment--not a particular state of affairs for King's Castor--in fact, the people of that town in His Majesty's dominions were always waiting for a chance to effervesce and alter the prevailing stagnation for a time. Hence it was that the town band practised up a new tune; the gra.s.s was mowed in the churchyard, and some of the weeds cleared out from the gravel path. Miss Heathery went to the expense of a new bonnet and silk dress, and indulged in a pa.s.sionate burst of weeping in the secrecy of her own room, because she was not asked to act as bridesmaid; and though Gorringe did not obtain any order from the bridegroom, he was favoured by Mr James Thickens to make him a blue dress-coat with triple-gilt b.u.t.tons--a coat so blue, and whose b.u.t.tons were such dazzling disks of metal, that it was not until it had been in the tailor's window, finished, and "on show" for three days, that James Thickens awakened to the fact that it was his, and paid a nocturnal visit to Gorringe to beg him to send it home.

"But you don't want it till the day, Mr Thickens," said the tailor, "and that coat's bringing me orders."

"But I shall never dare to wear it, Gorringe--everybody will know it."

"Of course they will, sir!" said the tailor proudly, and glancing towards his window with that half-smile an artist wears when his successful picture is on view, "that's a coat such as is not seen in Castor every day. Look at the collar! There's two days' hard st.i.tching in that collar, sir!"

"I have looked at the collar," said Thickens hastily, "and I must have it home."

Gorringe gave way, and the coat went home; but he felt, as he said to his wife, as if he had been robbed, for that coat would have won the hearts of half the farmers round.

At the doctor's cottage Mrs Luttrell was in one constant whirl of excitement, with four clever seamstresses at work, for at King's Castor a bride's _trousseau_ was called by a much simpler name, and provided throughout at home, along with the house-linen, which in those days meant linen of the finest and coolest, and it was absolutely necessary that every article that could be st.i.tched should be st.i.tched with rows of the finest st.i.tches, carefully put in.

"You're about worrying yourself into a fever, my dear," said the doctor smiling, "and I can't afford such patients as you. Where can I have this bunch of radish-seed hung up to dry? Give it to Thisbe to hang in the kitchen."

"Now, my dear Joseph, how can you be so unreasonable!" cried Mrs Luttrell, half whimpering. "Radish-seed at a time like this! Thisbe is re-covering the pots of jam."

"What jam? What for?"

"For Millicent. You don't suppose I'm going to let her begin housekeeping without a pot of jam in the storeroom!"

"Thank goodness I've only one child!" said the doctor with a half-amused, half-vexed countenance.

"Why, papa, you always said you wished we had had a boy."

"Ah, I did not know that I should have to suffer all this when the wedding time came."

"Now, if you would only go into your garden, and see to your patients, my love, everything would go right!" cried Mrs Luttrell; "but you are so impatient! Look at Millicent, how quiet and calm she is!"

The doctor had looked at Millicent as she stole out to him in the garden--often now, as if moved by a desire to be as much with him as she could before the great step of her life was taken.

There was a quiet look of satisfaction in her eyes that told of her content, and the happy peace that reigned within her breast.

The doctor understood her, as she came to him when at work, questioning him about the blossoms of this rose, and the success of that creeper, and taking endless interest in all he did; and when she was summoned away to try something on, or to select some pattern, she smiled and said that she would soon be back.

"Ah!" he said with a sigh, "she is trying to break it off gently!" and his work ceased until he heard her step, when he became very busy and cheerful again, as they both played at hiding from one another the separation that was to come.

"Poor papa!" thought Millicent, "he will miss me when I am gone!"

"If that fellow does not behave well to her," said the doctor to himself, "and I do happen to be called in to him, I shall--well, I suppose it would not be right to do that." As for Mrs Luttrell, she was too busy to think much till she went to bed, and then the doctor complained.

"I must have some rest, my dear!" he said plaintively, "and I don't say that you will--but if you do have a bad face-ache from sleeping on a pillow soaked with tears, don't come to me to prescribe."

It was very near the time, and all was gliding on peacefully towards the wedding-day. Hallam came regularly every evening; and, after a good deal of struggling, Mrs Luttrell contrived to call him "my dear,"

while, by a similar effort of mind, the doctor habituated himself, from saying, "Mr Hallam" and "Hallam," to the familiar "Robert," though in secret both agreed that it did not seem natural, and did not come easily, and never would be Rob or Bob.

One soft, calm evening, as the moon was rising from behind the fine old church, and Millicent and Hallam lingered still in the garden among the shrubs, where they could see the shaded lamp shining down on Mrs Luttrell's white curls and pleasant, intent face, as she busily st.i.tched away at a piece of linen for the new house, while the doctor was reading an account of some new plants brought home by Sir Joseph Banks, Millicent had become very silent.

Hallam was holding her tenderly to his side, and looking down at the sweet, calm face, lit by the rising moon, his own in shadow; and after watching her rapt aspect for a time, he said, in his deep, musical voice:

"How silent and absorbed! You are not regretting what is so soon to be?"

"Regretting!" she cried, starting; and, looking up in his face, she laid her hands upon his breast. "Don't speak to me like that, Robert dear.

You know me better. As if I could regret!"

"Then you are quite happy?"

"Happy? Too happy; and yet so sad!" she murmured softly. "It seems as if life were too full of joy, as if I could not bear so much happiness, when it is at the cost of others, and I am giving them pain."

"Don't speak like that, my own!" he said tenderly. "It is natural that a woman should leave father and mother to cling unto her husband."

"Yes, yes: I know," she sighed; "but the pain is given. They will miss me so much. You are smiling, dear; but this is not conceit. I am their only child, and we have been all in all to each other."

"But you are not going far," he said tenderly.