“Not a night passes but I pray God to forgive me,” he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion, as he pressed her hands between his, “to forgive the sorrow I have brought upon you. Oh, Lucy! forgive—forgive me!”
“Yes, yes,” was all her answer, her sobs impeding her utterance, her tears blinding her. Lionel kept the hands strained to him; he looked down on the upturned face, and read its love there; he kept his own bent, with its mingled expression of tenderness and pain: but he did not take from it a single caress. What right had he? Verily, if he had not shown control over himself once in his life, he was showing it now.
He released one of his hands and laid it gently upon her head for a minute, his lips moving silently. Then he let her go: it was over.
She sat down on the low stool again on the opposite side the hearth, and buried her face and her anguish. Lionel buried his face, his elbow on the mantelpiece, his hand uplifted: he never looked at her again, nor spoke; she never raised her head; and when the company began to arrive, and came in, the silence was still unbroken.
And as they talked and laughed that night, fulfilling the usages of society amidst the guests, how little did any one present suspect the scene which had taken place but a short while before. How many of the smiling faces we meet in society cover aching hearts!
CHAPTER LXII. MASTER CHEESE BLOWN UP.
There were other houses in Deerham, that night, not quite so full of sociability as was Lady Verner’s. For one, may be instanced that of the Miss Wests. They sat at the table in the general sitting-room, hard at work, the lamp between them. Miss Deborah was “turning” a table-cloth; Miss Amilly was darning sundry holes in a pillow-case. Their stock of household linen was in great need of being replaced by new; but, not having the requisite money to spare, they were doing their best to renovate the old.
A slight—they could not help feeling it as such—had been put upon them that day, in not having been invited to Decima Verner’s wedding. The sisters-in-law of Lionel Verner, connected closely with Jan, they had expected the invitation. But it had not come. Lionel had pressed his mother to give it; Jan, in his straightforward way, when he had found it was not forthcoming, said, “Why don’t you invite them? They’d do nobody any harm.” Lady Verner, however, had positively declined: the Wests had never been acquaintances of hers, she said. They felt the slight, poor ladies. But they felt it quite humbly and meekly; not complaining; not venturing even to say to each other that they might have been asked. They only sat a little more silent than usual over their work that evening, doing more, and talking less.
The servant came in with the supper-tray, and laid it on the table.”
“Is the cold pork to come in?” asked she. “I have not brought it. I thought, perhaps, you’d not care to have it in to-night, ma’am, as Mr. Jan’s out.”
Miss Deborah cast her eyes on the tray. There was a handsome piece of cheese, and a large glass of fresh celery. A rapid calculation passed through her mind that the cold pork, if not cut for supper, would make a dinner the following day, with an apple or a jam pudding.
“No, Martha, this will do for to-night,” she answered. “Call Master Cheese, and then draw the ale.”
“It’s a wonder he waits to be called,” was Martha’s comment, as she went out. “He is generally in afore the tray, whatever the meals may be, he is.”
She went out at the side door, and entered the surgery. Nobody was in it except the surgery-boy. The boy was asleep with his head and arms on the counter, and the gas flared away over him. A hissing and fizzing from Jan’s room, like the sounds Lucy Tempest heard when she invaded the surgery the night of the ball at Deerham Hall, saluted Martha’s ears. She went round the counter, tried the door, found it fastened, and shook the handle.
“Who’s there?” called out Master Cheese from the other side.
“It’s me,” said Martha. “Supper’s ready.”
“Very well. I’ll be in directly,” responded Master Cheese.
“I say!” called out Martha, wrathfully, rattling the handle again, “if you are making a mess of that room, like you do sometimes, I won’t have it. I’ll complain to Mr. Jan. There! Messing the floor and places with your powder and stuff! It would take two servants to clear up after you.”
“You go to Bath,” was the satisfactory recommendation of Master Cheese.
Martha called out another wrathful warning, and withdrew. Master Cheese came forth, locked the door, took out the key, went in-doors and sat down to supper.
Sat down in angry consternation. He threw his eager glances to every point of the table, and could not see upon it what he was longing to see—what he had been expecting all the evening to see—for the terrible event of its not being there had never so much as crossed his imagination. The dinner had consisted of a loin of pork with the crackling on, and apple-sauce. A dish so beloved by Master Cheese, that he never thought of it without a watering of the mouth. It had been nothing like half eaten at dinner, neither the pork nor the sauce. Jan was at the wedding-breakfast, and the Miss Wests, in Master Cheese’s estimation, ate like two sparrows: of course he had looked to be regaled with it at supper. Miss West cut him a large piece of cheese, and Miss Amilly handed him the glass, of celery.
Now Master Cheese had no great liking for that vulgar edible which bore his name, and which used to form the staple of so many good old-fashioned suppers. To cheese in the abstract he could certainly have borne no forcible objection, since he was wont to steal into the larder, between breakfast and dinner, and help himself—as Martha would grumblingly complain—to “pounds” of it. The state of the case was just this: the young gentleman liked cheese well