# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/Tom Morland's preferment - Part 2

←Part 1
TOM MORLAND’S PREFERMENT.
CHAPTER III.
All Beauchamp was in a state of excitement on the 30th of April. In former days a fair had been held there on May-day, but it had gradually degenerated with the fortunes of the village, and for several years past had served only as an excuse for certain disorderly revels which the rural police of the district were powerless in attempting to put down. Tom had devised a plan which he thought would neutralise much of its evil effect. He gave notice some time previously that he should give a feast to the school-children in the rectory meadow on May-day, on which occasion he offered a prize to the cricket club, and arranged an unusually good match with the Chanleigh players. He engaged the services of the village band, and invited the presence of the “Green,” which verdant but unwieldy emblem of the day was to be decorated with flowers from his own garden. Several customs which had fallen into desuetude were scarcely worth revival. The erection of a greasy pole, with a leg of mutton on the top; the sale of a flabby kind of cheesecake, called a Beauchamp custard, for the making of which every third person in the village became temporarily a confectioner: these were doings of doubtful pleasure and profit. Tom depended rather upon the judicious commingling of rich and poor, the excellence of his home-brewed, and the strong animal spirits of the children, whose enjoyment was to be his first consideration. He had invited several of his neighbours, and fine weather alone was needful to make his little fête-day go off pleasantly.
On this 30th of April, therefore, Tom’s hands were full of business. It is not to be supposed that a bachelor expecting on the morrow thirty or forty private guests, in addition to a large public assemblage, can be without various hospitable cares; and he had been so absorbed in considering whether the round of beef and the sirloin, and the two hams and the pigeon-pies, would be enough for the cold dinner that was to be laid in his dining-room, that the circumstances which had weighed down his spirits a few weeks back, were almost driven from his recollection. All the morning his attention had been given to detail, and that of a very matter-of-fact character: how many tea-spoons he was possessed of; where the fat ponies that drew the various little four-wheeled carriages which he expected, could be put up; even the recipe for syllabub in his housekeeper’s cookery-book, the excellence of which he somehow doubted.
But all these questions were settled at last, and Tom’s mind grew easy towards evening on the score of his next day’s responsibilities. In the midst of his last injunctions to his household, he heard with some surprise the voice of the village post-mistress asking to see him. She was a hard-working woman, who kept a shop in which every necessary of life was to be sold, with the exception of the few articles she was perpetually “out of.”
“I’ve got a letter for you, Mr. Morland,” she said, “which ought by rights to have been delivered this morning. When I was a-sorting of the letters and a-putting of them into the different bags, Mrs. Carter’s Susan comes into the shop with the youngest child in her arms, which she sets down on the counter, and she asks for half-a-pound of treacle: of course I get the jar down, and just as I take the lid off, she changes her mind. Mr. Carter’s Susan is always a-changing of her mind, and she says, ‘No, Mrs. Barnet, I’ll have half-a-pound of golden syrup instead,’ and I go to the last shelf next my back-parlour door to get it, and while I’m gone I suppose Mrs. Carter’s youngest child—which is a boy, Mr. Morland—takes up one of the letters I’ve been a-sorting of and lets it fall into the jar of treacle, for there I found it not half-an-hour ago.”
Mrs. Barnet unfolded a clean blue and white handkerchief as she spoke, and displayed a letter of doubtful hue, which had evidently been ​subjected to many ablutions before it had become even thus far presentable.
Tom laughed good-naturedly at the post-mistress’s explanation as he opened it. It was from the late Inspector of Police. It informed him that George Nugent was on board an Australian vessel, which would land its passengers either that evening or the following morning, and that full information of his further proceedings would be forwarded by the next day’s post. Was not this the news he had been wishing to be able to take Miss Letitia? If he went to her with the letter, he should see her face light up; he should hear her thank him over and over again for the tidings. He felt he did not rejoice at her happiness, and he hated himself for it; but unwilling to lose a moment more, he snatched up his hat and hastened across the garden. As he laid his hand upon the gate, it was opened from the outside, and a tall gaunt-looking man, the outline of whose features he saw in the dusky twilight, said:
“Perhaps you can tell me if Mr. Nugent is at home?”
“Mr. Nugent!” said Tom in some surprise. “He has been dead for more than a twelvemonth.”
“Dead!” exclaimed the new comer; “poor old fellow! Is he dead? Who are you?” he suddenly asked.
“His successor in the living,” replied Tom.
“And I am his son,” he said. “Let me go in and see the old place once more.”
Tom led the way in, feeling more as if he were moving in a dream than in actual life. He rang for lights while his guest looked round the room, into which darkness was falling fast, and his eye seemed to note some trifling changes.
“Don’t mention my name before your people,” he said, hurriedly, and for several minutes both men were too busy with their own thoughts to speak farther.
When the lights came, an irrepressible feeling of curiosity prompted Tom to look at George Nugent. He sat opposite to Tom at the table, moody and dejected-looking. He had a tanned, weather-beaten face, overgrown with a long bushy beard. There was something in the expression of his features which said, “Fate has done her worst with me, but she has not beaten me yet.” He looked like an Esau in modern clothes—clothes which seemed less his, than the dummy’s upon which they had hung at an outfitter’s a few hours previously. He wore a large, loose-fitting, light-coloured coat, a striped blue shirt, and a red-spotted silk-handkerchief round his throat. He had laid down his hat and a leathern bag on the table, but he rested a dark knotty stick of formidable dimensions between his knees. He was the first to speak.
“I got off by the express train after I landed this morning,” he said. “The nearer I came to shore, the more I thought I should like to see the old place and the poor old fellow again. He’s gone. He’ll never know that I have got over my difficulties after all, and have come back to England a rich man. I meant to have paid his debts, and to have set him on his feet again. Poor old father!”
“How was it he had no tidings of you for so many years?” asked Tom.
“Ay, how was it,” repeated Nugent, bitterly. “At first everything went wrong with me; I could not write then; I could not ask to be taken back like the Prodigal, knowing the name I had left behind me in Chanleigh. After a time I began to prosper, and what I had earned with so much hardship and difficulty was very dear to me. If I had written home I should have been pressed for money, and to give money to my father was like throwing it into the sea. I will wait, I used to say to myself, till I can go back with a provision for us both; and this is the end of it.”
There was a pause again, which was interrupted by his asking Tom’s name.
“I left England under a cloud, Mr. Morland,” he resumed; “it don’t much signify now that I can make restitution. Every farthing I have ever owed shall be paid; Wortleby’s debt first of all. Wortleby is living, I suppose? Those sort of men never die. Wortleby might have laid the finger of the law upon me, but he didn’t, and why? Because I was the grandson of a peer, and his aristocratic tendencies made him merciful. Poor Wortleby! he wouldn’t touch my bank-notes now if he knew all the trades I have driven to earn them.”
Tom sat listening with a sinking heart. To this man, who spoke as if he were making a hard bargain with a harder man than himself, Letitia Nevil had given up the best years of her life. How soon was he going to her? The delay was irritating.
“Is Reuben Bates in the village, now?” he asked presently. “He was going to the bad when I left, I am afraid.”
Tom gave some account of the poacher’s circumstances, to which Nugent listened attentively.
“I shall send him out to Sydney,” he said at length, “his wife and his children with him. A poor man’s family there are worth their weight in gold; here they are like lead hanging round his neck.”
“I do not know,” said Tom, speaking with an effort, “what Reuben would have done for many years past, if it had not been for Miss Letitia Nevil.”
“What!” said Nugent, “isn’t she married yet?”
Tom’s eyes were riveted on his face.
Nugent looked surprised for a moment, and then said, “I suppose you have heard some idle gossip about Letitia Nevil and myself. When she was a young girl and I was a boy, I used to think it would be a pleasant thing to have Letitia for my wife. She was a pretty-looking girl, affectionate and credulous. She used to believe every word I said to her. I wonder she was not married long ago.”
“I don’t think she will ever marry,” said Tom, gravely; “she may still consider herself bound to you.”
“She wrote to me several times after I left England,” said Nugent. “Long, tiresome letters, full of good advice; but a man who has roughed it as I have done, can’t sit down with a woman like Letitia Nevil in his house. Her voice would be like a church bell, saying come and be at peace ​and rest, and all that sort of thing, and my soul would be fretted to death by it. One can’t stand a reproachful face always by one; besides, she must be turned thirty.”
Oh, Tom Morland, be thankful for the self-command that long training has given you, and that you answer this man’s speech with outward composure.
“Miss Nevil’s is a very beautiful face; it is not in her nature to speak or look reproaches. She is loved and looked up to in Beauchamp above every other creature. If, as I believe, she still considers her promise to you as binding, surely you will not draw back, if there exists no impediment to your marriage.”
“There is this impediment,” replied Nugent, “that I don’t wish to marry; and if I did, I should not marry her. I don’t believe in broken hearts. Men, and women too, live through more trouble than is ever heaped up in novels, and are not worse company afterwards.”
“For thirteen years,” said Tom, “you do not deny that Miss Nevil has waited for your return, in the expectation that you would marry her. For thirteen years she has devoted herself to acts of mercy and charity, chiefly that the errors of your youth might be in some measure atoned for. I look back, at this moment, and I see that all she has done has had more or less reference to you and your family. I ask you if this is the reward due to her fidelity.”
“Women find their own reward in patience and suffering,” said Nugent, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite. “The truest-hearted woman I ever knew died with a smile on her face, though she had greater cause for tears. I had had sickness all the winter at my station. She kept about as long as her strength would last. It was a low aguish kind of fever, and the quinine was all gone. There was but one chance for her life. The next station was 170 miles off. I left her and went to seek for assistance. When I came back she was dead, with her face turned towards the door, as if she was watching for me still.”
“If George Nugent is alive I will bring him back to you.” Tom was haunted by his own words, as he felt the chances of fulfilling his promise growing less and less. Nugent was to a certain extent brutalised; but what of that? The faithful affection that had held out for so many years would overlook his faults. He was surely guilty of disloyalty; but women pardon such sins every day. All Tom could do was to ask him to see her.
“I don’t see the use of it,” he replied; “I am in no mood for sentiment. I don’t fancy the sight of her face would waken up any of the old feeling, and there is no occasion for me to brave a meeting.”
“You are no judge of your own feelings,” persisted Tom, “till you have met her face to face, and have satisfied yourself that old associations are past and gone for ever. She will be here to-morrow amongst many other people. It is a village holiday. Supposing you have altered in appearance since you went away, no one here would discover your identity. You would be able to see her without recognition, if it does not suit you to announce your return at present.”
“I will come,” said Nugent, “provided you give me your word that you will not let any human being know I am here.”
“I give you my honour I will not,” replied Tom.
“It will be mistaken kindness to take any notice of me to-morrow,” said Nugent. “Leave me to myself. If I should change my mind and settle down in England, I’ll write a line and send it up from Chanleigh in the evening. I shall not leave till the last train. If you don’t hear from me you may conclude that you are not likely to be troubled with my presence again.”
He rose to go. He could not eat in the house, he said, when Tom pressed him to stay; food would choke him; neither could he sleep there; all night long he should see his poor old father’s face by his bedside. He would walk back to Chanleigh, and get a bed at the Rose and Crown. He put his stick with his bag slung on it over his shoulder, and went away.
Walpurgis Nacht: the words came into Tom’s head as he let Nugent out, and remained leaning on the gate; the moon rising in a flood of mellow light; the first song of the nightingale coming softly from a little wood in the rear of the house, and a dreamy breeze rustling in the young leaves. Walpurgis Nacht: the old German heathens offered sacrifices to the deities on such a night as this, and Tom had stood on the Hartz mountains and pictured to himself their rites. What made him think of them now? O, false idol! O, unhappy worship! Such were the words that had sounded in his ears throughout his interview with Nugent. He had asked himself, had he fulfilled the trust he had undertaken, little foreseeing the part he was to play in it—the urgent recommendation of the woman he loved and reverenced to the good opinion of a man who did not care for her. It never crossed Tom’s mind that perhaps no one had ever been in such a position before; it never once occurred to him that, if Nugent gave her up, he who had been her truest friend had a better chance of her love. If Nugent decided on marrying her, he believed that her devotion to him would bring her happiness, no matter how unworthy he might be of it: if he went away altogether after seeing her, why then he would pray that the trial might come upon her softly and tenderly. And so, throughout the night in the dewy garden, for indoors he felt almost stifled, Tom tried to look his cares calmly in the face. In the first dawn of morning it occurred to him that his household would be astir early, and he crept guiltily to bed.
CHAPTER IV.
May-Day. Numberless pairs of little eyes had peeped out of the windows under the sloping cottage roofs that morning, to see what the sunrise prognosticated for the day. Had the weather been wet, Mr. Stokes’s barn must have been borrowed and decorated for the occasion, and the clearing out of the cobwebs alone was an important undertaking; but there was no need for it. Overhead was a cloudless sky, with the larks fluttering upwards and filling the air with their song. There was something left to hope for, and to look forward to, throughout nature: a sense of incompleteness suggestive of a higher beauty yet to come. Tom sat at his breakfast, and found, as we all ​have done at some time of our lives, that it is not the outward world only that is lighted up by sunshine. He was almost inclined to wonder how it was that he had “given in,” as he expressed it to himself, over night. A letter from the late Inspector of Police lay on the table, informing him that Mr. George Nugent, after landing at 8 a.m. on the previous day, had transacted business at an agent’s and an outfitter’s, and had proceeded to Chanleigh, from whence intelligence of his proceedings would be forwarded to Tom in due course. As it was unnecessary to have Nugent’s visit to himself chronicled, he wrote to his active informant to put a stop to further proceedings. By noon the guests, bidden and unbidden, began to make their appearance. It was impossible for Tom, naturally sanguine as he was, not to feel his spirits rise at the sight of the troops of children pouring in, all prepared for enjoyment of his contriving, and half crazy in the anticipation of it. The little pony carriages, laden with the clergymen of the surrounding parishes, their wives and their children in fabulous numbers, came slowly along the road. Mrs. Wortleby and her seven daughters arrived from Chanleigh, as happy in their rare holiday as the smallest child in the village. Doctors brought the female members of their family, and looked on good-naturedly themselves for half-an-hour or so. The distinguished-looking daughters of the Squire considered it as a good opportunity of doing what was necessary in the way of civility to the clergymen’s wives in the neighbourhood, patronising some and snubbing others; while more than one individual who had been honoured by the Squire’s notice, could say with Macaulay,
He asked after my wife who is dead, And my children who never were born.
Always in the midst of a group of children, kind and happy and helpful, was Miss Letitia. Tom had glanced anxiously at her on her arrival. If he had had a mother or sister to warn her to look her best, he thought he should have been more at ease. He had a vague idea that she was not dressed like the girls who used to assist at the school fêtes of his curate life, when they all seemed to him in a flutter of muslin and blue ribbons; but for all that she wore a dull grey gown,—surely George Nugent would relent when he saw her, and read her whole history in her face. It was no wonder that he started at the sight of every new comer, and hastened restlessly from one group to another. Various rewards and prizes had been given away. The school children had eaten roast-beef and plum-pudding till they had placed their digestions in jeopardy for life. The cricketers were preparing for their share in the programme of the day. If Tom had not been so preoccupied, he would have seen with satisfaction that an old school-fellow named Thorpe, who had a good living in the neighbourhood, and wanted a wife, and whom he had introduced to Mrs. Wortleby and her daughters, was talking eagerly to kind-hearted Jane Wortleby: she rarely found a cavalier on such occasions—the prospect of so numerous a body of sisters-in-law serving as a scarecrow to all matrimonial intentions, to say nothing of the ordinary civilities of life.
A golden age of childhood! Modern writers may say what they will of the acuteness of sorrow and even remorse in early years: we shall never know the delight of the little ones,—five-and-twenty, at least,—who were dancing round the green to the old song of “Here we go round the Mulberry Bush.” O happy vigorous age of youth! with all its shyness and grievous self-consciousness, we shall never feel again the elasticity of muscle and spirit with which the cricketers fought for fame,—and an electro-plated drinking cup. Many of us, like Tom’s older parishioners, must content ourselves with a tranquil pipe, and a seat on the distant bench, willing to witness the exertions of others, and to rejoice in their success. The mirth was at its height. Six plough-boys in sacks had started for a very distant goal amidst loud peals of laughter, in which the gravest of the bystanders joined. With immense difficulty they were advancing towards the side of the field nearest the entrance, where the little children were keeping up their dance round the green. Suddenly Tom’s eye fell on George Nugent, dressed as he had been over-night, with a broad-brimmed white hat, with a piece of crape round it, pulled down over his eyes; his knotty stick still in his hand. He seemed to be watching the proceedings with some interest. Close by was Miss Letitia, busily engaged in the intricacies of the “Mulberry Bush,” and helping the children to keep clear of the green, which was fast becoming obstreperous. She was so near him, that her garments touched him, and recognition on her part seemed inevitable. As George Nugent’s eyes turned moodily upon her, Tom’s heart beat fast. His first impulse was to rush away into the house, anywhere that he might not witness their meeting; but he checked himself, wondering whether he ought not to go up and help them through the awkwardness of it. In a miserable state of indecision, his eyes wandering from the cricket-match to the sack-race, and from the sack-race to Miss Letitia and the little children, several minutes passed on, which seemed almost hours to him. Suddenly he heard George Nugent cry out in a loud voice, “Out of the way, you little idiot!” and saw him put his hand roughly on Jemmy Bates’s shoulder to enforce his order. Down rattled the little crutches as they had done on the day when Tom had first entered Beauchamp. The competitors in the race were close upon him, when Miss Letitia, with more indignation in her face than Tom had ever seen there before, once more ran to the boy’s rescue, and carried him away to a more secure spot. The public attention was concentrated on the race, and very few had observed the occurrence. A few minutes afterwards, George Nugent left the field.
The die was cast, and there was nothing left now but to wait with patience till nightfall. Tom having decided on the merits of the sack-race, proceeded to the dining-room, where his guests were actively employed. He did not observe Mr. Thorpe helping Jane Wortleby to pigeon-pie, nor her mother’s eyes glistening at the sight of the girl’s face, all animation as they talked, and ate, and talked again. Mrs. Wortleby, in her simple-hearted way, had already got so far in her ​speculations as to decide on a fitting wedding-dress for her daughter in the event of a match being the result, and Tom little knew how she had blessed him for the golden opportunity he was unconsciously throwing in Jane’s way. He exerted himself to the utmost in his character of host. He fetched in the elderly and the ordinary among his female visitors, and they somehow felt younger and more attractive in his society; it seemed as if with him there need be no apology for their age or their ugliness: his kind-heartedness overlooked it all. Out into the sunshine again, where the village band has begun to play a country dance, in which young and old, rich and poor, are to join; when Mrs. Wortleby dances with the best bowler, and Miss Letitia with the conquering plough-boy, and Mr. Thorpe, contrary to all etiquette on such occasions, with Jane. It lasts an hour; for every awkward partner has to be put right; the shy ones have to be encouraged; the noisy ones to be kept in order; every big brown hand has to be seized; every tiny hot one to be raised aloft; but it comes to an end at last, and the members of the band retreat to the last cask. While the shadows are lengthening on the grass, it is wonderful to hear “God save the Queen” sung slowly, majestically, and greatly out of tune. The Beauchamp people give three cheers for their rector. He stands bareheaded in the purple light, and thanks them for their good will, and asks them all to come again: and the day is done.
No letter. The suspense of another night would have been intolerable. Tom walked over to Chanleigh, where he arrived just as the Rose and Crown was closing, and found that a person answering George Nugent’s description had left for London early in the evening. The clock of Beauchamp church struck twelve as he crossed the common on his way home. Then came the hour again, like an echo from the church tower at Chanleigh: more faintly still, little chimes broke into the clear air from the next village. Tom was somewhat weary both in body and mind; but a vague sense of relief came over him as he looked back on the events of the day. He was thankful for it, and in natures such as his, thankfulness is one form of happiness.
Two days afterwards, Mr. Wortleby drove over from Chanleigh with a sense of importance hid under a more distant manner than usual, calling at the Squire’s, the rectory, the medical man’s, and even at the Golden Lion, telling everywhere the same story in precisely the same words. He stated that Mr. George Nugent had returned from Australia, and in the handsomest and most honourable manner had intimated his intention of paying his father’s debts in addition to his own. For himself, he must be allowed to say that he had received a magnificent silver tea-service in acknowledgment of some slight assistance he had once had the satisfaction of rendering Mr. Nugent. He did not add that in the silver tea-pot he had found a hundred pound note in an envelope, on which was written, “Debt, £37, and interest,” or that George Nugent, in taking that sum from his cash-box for his passage to Australia, had committed a felony. The whole village was full of the wonderful event, and of Reuben Bates’s good fortune, Mr. Wortleby having been charged with the arrangements for his emigration. Tom longed to know how Miss Letitia had received the tidings. Had he been treacherous to her cause, he could not have been more careful to avoid her since the school-feast. Sunday came, and he went down to the church for the morning service, for the first time, with a divided heart. He knew that Miss Letitia sat where he could see her face, and he felt as if he must stop short in the psalm which he was reading, if he did not satisfy himself as to the effect the news had had upon her. Tom looked at her but once; and he carried away with him an impression that her eyes were glittering, that her cheeks were carnation-coloured, and that she wore a red bonnet. Poor Miss Letitia! It was a pardonable piece of female vanity to wear a pink ribbon on this day above all others, when the whole of the inhabitants of the parish were expecting George Nugent amongst them again. Sunday passed, and the week wore on, and still he did not come. By dint of bounding over hedges and otherwise ignominiously making his escape when Miss Letitia came in sight, Tom had avoided meeting her in his daily walks; but he grew at last so much to dread an interview, that he could scarcely bring himself to leave the house. He had a foreboding that sooner or later he must meet her face to face, and own that he had utterly failed in what he had undertaken to do; and he tried to be prepared to answer her questions without touching on the subject of George Nugent’s visit: but the meeting should be of her own seeking; he resolved to evade it while he could. The crisis came at last. Tom had a note from Miss Letitia, asking to speak to him, and he went at the appointed hour with a heavy heart. She was sitting at the open window, with restless eyes, which looked as if they had watched and watched again till they had grown weary in the task. How long had she been without sleep, Tom wondered, as he glanced at her face, and noted how many painful feelings, shame, disappointment, and yet some lingering thread of hope, had been striving for the mastery since he had seen her last.
“I would not have asked you to come, Mr. Morland,” she said, “if I had any relation, any other friend to give me advice. You may have heard that Mr. Nugent has returned from Australia?”
Tom said in a low tone that he knew it.
“He has acted nobly,” she said, and a flush of enthusiasm spread on her cheeks. “He has paid his father’s debts; he has made provision for his old servants; he intends to send out to the colonies anyone who cannot honestly get on here; but is it because the place is so full of unhappy associations to him, that he does not come himself? Is it because—” she waited for a moment, and then broke out in sobs—“Is it because he has forgotten me?”
What could Tom say? He sat looking at a flower-pot on the window-sill, growing more and more wretched every moment.
“I must try and tell you what I want you to do,” she said, checking her tears. “I hear that ​Mr. Wortleby stated yesterday in Chanleigh that Mr. Nugent was going back to Australia. I have tried to write to him, but I cannot do it. I want you to ascertain if the report is true from Mr. Nugent himself. Think, Mr. Morland, I have no father, no brother, no one to ask to help me in the wide world.”
“I would do what you wish willingly,” said Tom, in a troubled voice, “if it would be of any earthly use.”
“Perhaps he never had my letters; perhaps he thinks that after leaving so suddenly, without saying one word of farewell, I should cease to look upon him as I had done,” she pleaded. “You told me you once had a sister; you would have stretched out your hand to help her in such a strait; have pity on me!”
There was more of the spirit of chivalry in Tom’s nature than anybody ever suspected. He felt he would rather cut off his right hand than tell her that Nugent had looked at her face, and no longer cared for it. His only alternative was to venture on scarcely loss delicate ground.
“You believe that I would tell you the truth,” he said, “no matter how painful it might be to me? On my honour, then,—I say it to you as I would have said it to her,—he is not worthy of you.”
“Don’t say so! Don’t say so!” she cried. “Think of all that he has done. Think what his life must have been all these years, to bear such fruit in the end. Restitution, kindness, charity, he has failed in none of these. What can you know of him, that you should be his accuser?”
Tom was silent.
“He has been misrepresented to you,” she said, “and you have held back, because some story of his former life has prejudiced you against him. You, of all men, should judge him as he now is.”
“I do,” said Tom, solemnly. “Letitia, I have seen him.”
“You have seen him!” she exclaimed, in astonishment.
“Yes; immediately on his return; but I could not bring myself to tell you. You would not know him as he now is.”
“If he were altered by sickness, by old age even, I should know him,” she said; “anywhere in the world, if I saw his face, I should recognise it again. You have broken your promise to me, Mr. Morland. You have let him go without a word. He does not know I have loved him all these long years.”
Tom was wounded by her words.
“I would have laid down my life to have brought him back,” he said. “I do not wish to speak against him, or to urge his faults as a reason for your ceasing to regret him. Think of him as leniently as you will. Only have patience with yourself, Letitia. You have made too many happy around you to fail to find peace now.”
“If I could have seen him!” she said, weeping bitterly. “It was cruel of you not to let me see him.”
“You have seen him,” he said, scarcely knowing what he was saying in his distress.
She looked breathlessly in his face.
“On the day of the school-feast,” he said, “when you were playing with the children,—Jemmy Bates was knocked down by some one standing by. It was George Nugent.”
She had risen from her seat while he was speaking. As if she had been blind, she held by one piece of furniture after another till she reached the door,—Tom not daring to approach her, or call for assistance. He held his breath as she ascended the staircase, and with uncertain steps reached the room above. A moment afterwards he heard her fall heavily on the floor.
Six years have passed since Tom’s May-day feast, the results of which have tended to make the Beauchamp corner of the world a happier one. Mr. Thorpe has married Jane Wortleby, and she has never ceased from her kindly endeavours to promote the welfare of her sisters. Three of them she has already disposed of in matrimony, and she has strong hopes and cheering prospects for the rest. Tom has lost none of his interest in the parish. By his side runs a bright-eyed boy, with his small hand always locked in that of his father, to whom he is companion and playmate during the greater part of the day. Tom laughs when the school-children even now address his wife as Miss Letitia, for he has called her so himself many times since their marriage; and Letitia has grown a happy, comely-looking matron,—but, certainly the reverse of thin.
(Concluded.)