The Parson O' Dumford

“Yes, Joe,” said Mrs Glaire, hastily, “it will be for the best. My son is all that I could wish for now;” and they sat looking out at the two young girls as they stood talking.

Their conversation had been on indifferent things for some time, but Daisy felt a guilty knowledge of something she ought to tell, for Eve was so sweet and gentle with her; not one word or look of reproach had been said, but there had so far been no word of the future.

At length Daisy spoke out.

“Do you quite forgive me, Miss Eve?” she said. “I could not help it then, though I fought against it, and was wretched all the time.”

“Yes, Daisy, yes,” cried Eve, eagerly; and she took the other’s hand; “but tell me truly – do you – do you – oh, I cannot say it.”

“Do I care for Mr Richard Glaire?” said Daisy, with a strange smile. “Do I feel hurt because you will be married to him to-morrow? Not a bit. Don’t think that, dear Miss Eve, for I love poor Tom with all my heart, and only wish I could make him a better wife.”

“And you will be married soon, too?” exclaimed Eve.

“Maybe in a month or two,” said Daisy, looking sadly at her visitor; “we do not want to hurry it on. I wish you every happiness, Miss Eve.”

“And I you, Daisy,” said Eve, looking at her with a wondering wistful look, and asking herself how it was that Richard should have conceived so mad a passion for this girl, while for her his attentions had been of the coldest type.

“Mr Selwood is going to marry you, then?” said Daisy, quietly, for want of something to carry on the conversation. “But what ails you, Miss Eve, are you ill?”

“No, no, nothing,” said Eve, hastily. “It is hot to-day, that’s all.”

And then the two girls stood silent for a while, Eve thinking that the vicar came so seldom now, and then his visits were so quiet and formal; while Daisy kept asking herself one question, and that was —

“Shall I tell her?”

And the answer —

“No, it would be cruel now, and once they and I are married, all that will be over.”

When the visitors had gone, Daisy went up to her bedroom, and took from a little drawer a note which she had received the previous night. It ran as follows: —

“You know how I love you, and how I have watched for weeks for a chance to speak to you. I have been night after night at the old places, believing you would come, but not one glance have I had of you, not one word. Dearest Daisy, by all our old meetings, I ask you to give me one more. Don’t heed the chatter of the place, but come up to the old spot as soon as you receive this, for I am obliged to write. If too late I will be there to-morrow night. Only come and say one loving word to me, and all you have heard shall be as nothing. I cannot live without you, so come, and if you will I am ready to take you anywhere – far away, as I have promised you before.”

Daisy sat looking at the letter, and read it again and again.

“Only to think,” she said at last; “a few months ago I should have sighed and sobbed over that note, and been almost ready to be dragged by him where he would, while now – it makes me almost sick. What could I have seen in his soft boyish face to make me feel as I did. But what shall I do? It seems cruel to let that poor girl go to the church with such a man, only that she might save him. And suppose he makes her miserable for life.”

Daisy turned pale, and sat thinking till she heard her father call, and then she hastily thrust the letter into her bosom, her face grew radiant, and she hurried down, for her father’s words had been —

“Daisy, lass, here’s Tom!”

Volume Three – Chapter Sixteen.

The Eve of the Wedding

That same evening Eve Pelly was in the garden with Mrs Glaire – the old familiar garden where she had spent so many happy hours, while now she was sad with a sadness that made the tears rise and fill her eyes.

The old place, with its abundant flowers, its roses climbing the old red-brick wall, the well-shaven lawn, with its quaint rustic vases and flower-beds, and the seats where she had read and worked since a child. It was her dear old home, and she was not going to leave it, but all the same, on this the eve of her marriage, it seemed to her that the end had come, and that she was about to bid it all farewell.

It had been an anxious day, for many friends had called, and present after present had been brought, all of which, in spite of herself, she had received with tears, and gladly escaped afterwards to the solitude of her own room.

Even the workmen had clubbed together, and, in spite of past hard times, bought a handsome silver teapot, which came “With the men’s dooty to Miss Eve.”

For they recalled her sweet gentle face, patiently watching by or bringing flowers to many a sick wife or child; and it was said that every man in the works, with all his belongings, was to be at the church next morning.

Mrs Glaire was with Eve, but at last she said she would go in, the latter pleading that she would like to stay a little longer in the soft glow of the evening sun; and so it happened that at last she was left, and feeling glad at heart that Richard had been away all day, she sat down alone to think.

It was so strange she could hardly realise it, and yet this was the last day, and to-morrow she would be Richard’s wife.

The warm glow of the setting sun was around her, but a deadly pallor was upon her face, and she began to tremble.

“Am I going to be ill?” she asked herself; and then, making an effort, she tried to shake off the feeling.

“Richard’s wife,” she mused. “May I have strength to make him love me dearly, and to be to him the best of wives.”

It was a fervent wish, but as it passed her trembling lips, the tears began to flow, and though she fought against it, the thoughts would come rushing through her brain of what might have been had some one else known her sooner, and not looked down upon her as a poor weak, simple girl.

“Oh, but this is dreadful,” she moaned; “disloyal to poor Dick – cruel to myself. What shall I do!”

She was hastily drying her eyes, when a step on the gravel startled her, and Jacky Budd appeared, red-nosed as of old, and bearing a small round basket, and a packet.

“From Master Selwood, Miss Eve. Parson said I was to gi’e ’em to yow, so I brote ’em down the garden mysen, and my dooty to you, Miss, and may you be very happy, and I’d take it kindly if yow’d let me drink your health, and long life to you.”

Eve smiled her thanks as she placed a shilling in his hand, sending Jacky away a happy man, as he calculated that that shilling contained eight gills of ale, and to him what he called comfort for his sorrows.

As the gardener went away Eve’s agitation became excessive, and she hardly dared to lift the lid of the basket.

But a short time since, and she had mentally reproached him for forgetting her, as no token whatever had arrived, only a formal note to her aunt, saying that he would be at the church at ten the next morning, while all the time his thoughts had been of her, for here was the token.

A glad flush overspread her cheeks, as at last she took the basket and raised the lid, to find within a large bouquet of costly white exotics, the stephanotis amongst which sent forth its sweet perfume, mingled with that of orange blossoms – a gift to a bride.

“A gift to a bride,” she whispered, and the flush faded, even as the sunbeams were paling fast in the trees above her head.

A bitter sigh escaped her lips – a sigh that was almost a moan, and as she raised the bouquet and kissed it, the tears fell fast, and lay glistening like rain amidst the petals.

“If he knew; if he knew,” she whispered, “it would be cruel; but he does not know – he never will know, and after to-night this must be as a dream.”

Almost mechanically she took the little square white packet that lay on the garden seat by her side, and breaking the seal, on which was the vicar’s crest, she found a small square morocco case; and when at last her trembling fingers had pressed the snap and raised the lid, there upon pale blue velvet lay a large oval locket, crusted with diamonds and pearls, a costly gift that glistened in the fading light, and beside it a scrap of paper, with the words —

“God bless you! May you be very happy.”

Eve sat with one hand laid upon her bosom to still its throbbings, and then her lips were pressed to the locket – longer still to the scrap of paper, before the case was shut, and she sat gazing up at the first stars in the pale, soft sky.

A low, deep sigh escaped her lips, and then with a weary look round —

“I am stronger now,” she said, and rose to go, but only shrank back in her seat as she heard a rustling noise, and then a thud, as if some one had jumped from the wall, while before she could recover herself, Tom Podmore stood before her.

“Is – is anything wrong?” she gasped; for in her nervous state this sudden apparition suggested untold horrors to her excited brain.