The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. Volume 4. George Meredith

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      Before they reached the hotel, they had agreed to draw Mrs. Berry into their confidence, telling her (with embellishments) all save their names, so that they might enjoy the counsel and assistance of that trump of a woman, and yet have nothing to fear from her. Lucy was to receive the name of Letitia, Ripton's youngest and best-looking sister. The heartless fellow proposed it in cruel mockery of an old weakness of hers.

      "Letitia!" mused Richard. "I like the name. Both begin with L. There's something soft—womanlike—in the L.'s."

      Material Ripton remarked that they looked like pounds on paper. The lover roamed through his golden groves. "Lucy Feverel! that sounds better! I wonder where Ralph is. I should like to help him. He's in love with my cousin Clare. He'll never do anything till he marries. No man can. I'm going to do a hundred things when it's over. We shall travel first. I want to see the Alps. One doesn't know what the earth is till one has seen the Alps. What a delight it will be to her! I fancy I see her eyes gazing up at them.

      "Beautiful! These lines, Rip, were written by a man who was once a friend of my father's. I intend to find him and make them friends again. You don't care for poetry. It's no use your trying to swallow it, Rip!"

      "It sounds very nice," said Ripton, modestly shutting his mouth.

      "The Alps! Italy! Rome! and then I shall go to the East," the hero continued. "She's ready to go anywhere with me, the dear brave heart! Oh, the glorious golden East! I dream of the desert. I dream I'm chief of an Arab tribe, and we fly all white in the moonlight on our mares, and hurry to the rescue of my darling! And we push the spears, and we scatter them, and I come to the tent where she crouches, and catch her to my saddle, and away!—Rip! what a life!"

      Ripton strove to imagine he could enjoy it.

      "And then we shall come home, and I shall lead Austin's life, with her to help me. First be virtuous, Rip! and then serve your country heart and soul. A wise man told me that. I think I shall do something."

      Sunshine and cloud, cloud and sunshine, passed over the lover. Now life was a narrow ring; now the distances extended, were winged, flew illimitably. An hour ago and food was hateful. Now he manfully refreshed his nature, and joined in Algernon's encomiums on Miss Letitia Thompson.

      Meantime Beauty slept, watched by the veteran volunteer of the hero's band. Lucy awoke from dreams which seemed reality, to the reality which was a dream. She awoke calling for some friend, "Margaret!" and heard one say, "My name is Bessy Berry, my love! not Margaret." Then she asked piteously where she was, and where was Margaret, her dear friend, and Mrs. Berry whispered, "Sure you've got a dearer!"

      "Ah!" sighed Lucy, sinking on her pillow, overwhelmed by the strangeness of her state.

      Mrs. Berry closed the frill of her nightgown and adjusted the bedclothes quietly.

      Her name was breathed.

      "Yes, my love?" she said.

      "Is he here?"

      "He's gone, my dear."

      "Gone?—Oh, where?" The young girl started up in disorder.

      "Gone, to be back, my love! Ah! that young gentleman!" Mrs. Berry chanted: "Not a morsel have he eat; not a drop have he drunk!"

      "O Mrs. Berry! why did you not make him?" Lucy wept for the famine-struck hero, who was just then feeding mightily.

      Mrs. Berry explained that to make one eat who thought the darling of his heart like to die, was a sheer impossibility for the cleverest of women; and on this deep truth Lucy reflected, with her eyes wide at the candle. She wanted one to pour her feelings out to. She slid her hand from under the bedclothes, and took Mrs. Berry's, and kissed it. The good creature required no further avowal of her secret, but forthwith leaned her consummate bosom to the pillow, and petitioned heaven to bless them both!—Then the little bride was alarmed, and wondered how Mrs. Berry could have guessed it.

      "Why," said Mrs. Berry, "your love is out of your eyes, and out of everything ye do." And the little bride wondered more. She thought she had been so very cautious not to betray it. The common woman in them made cheer together after their own April fashion. Following which Mrs. Berry probed for the sweet particulars of this beautiful love-match; but the little bride's lips were locked. She only said her lover was above her in station.

      "And you're a Catholic, my dear!"

      "Yes, Mrs. Berry!"

      "And him a Protestant."

      "Yes, Mrs. Berry!"

      "Dear, dear!—And why shouldn't ye be?" she ejaculated, seeing sadness return to the bridal babe. "So as you was born, so shall ye be! But you'll have to make your arrangements about the children. The girls to worship with yet, the boys with him. It's the same God, my dear! You mustn't blush at it, though you do look so pretty. If my young gentleman could see you now!"

      "Please, Mrs. Berry!" Lucy murmured.

      "Why, he will, you know, my dear!"

      "Oh, please, Mrs. Berry!"

      "And you that can't bear the thoughts of it! Well, I do wish there was fathers and mothers on both sides and dock-ments signed, and bridesmaids, and a breakfast! but love is love, and ever will be, in spite of them."

      She made other and deeper dives into the little heart, but though she drew up pearls, they were not of the kind she searched for. The one fact that hung as a fruit upon her tree of Love, Lucy had given her; she would not, in fealty to her lover, reveal its growth and history, however sadly she yearned to pour out all to this dear old Mother Confessor.

      Her conduct drove Mrs. Berry from the rosy to the autumnal view of matrimony, generally heralded by the announcement that it is a lottery.

      "And when you see your ticket," said Mrs. Berry, "you shan't know whether it's a prize or a blank. And, Lord knows! some go on thinking it's a prize when it turns on 'em and tears 'em. I'm one of the blanks, my dear! I drew a blank in Berry. He was a black Berry to me, my dear! Smile away! he truly was, and I a-prizin' him as proud as you can conceive! My dear!" Mrs. Berry pressed her hands flat on her apron. "We hadn't been a three months man and wife, when that man—it wasn't the honeymoon, which some can't say—that man—Yes! he kicked me. His wedded wife he kicked! Ah!" she sighedto Lucy's large eyes, "I could have borne that. A blow don't touch the heart," the poor creature tapped her sensitive side. "I went on loving of him, for I'm a soft one. Tall as a Grenadier he is, and when out of service grows his moustache. I used to call him my body-guardsman like a Queen! I flattered him like the fools we women are. For, take my word for it, my dear, there's nothing here below so vain as a man! That I know. But I didn't deserve it…. I'm a superior cook …. I did not deserve that noways." Mrs. Berry thumped her knee, and accentuated up her climax: "I mended his linen. I saw to his adornments—he called his clothes, the bad man! I was a servant to him, my dear! and there—it was nine months—nine months from the day he swear СКАЧАТЬ