第184章

Miss Lucy was /en penitence/. She had been guilty of some childish fault that day at Aunt Cornelia's, which, coming to the knowledge of Mrs. Carlyle, after their return home the young lady was ordered to the nursery for the rest of the day, and to be regaled upon bread and water.

Barbara was in her pleasant dressing-room. There was to be a dinner party at East Lynne that evening, and she had just finished dressing.

Very lovely looked she in her dinner dress, with purple and scarlet flowers in her bosom. She glanced at her watch somewhat anxiously, for the gentlemen had not made their appearance. Half-past six! And they were to dine at seven.

Madame Vine tapped at the door. Her errand was to beg grace for Lucy.

She had been promised half an hour in the drawing-room, when the ladies entered it from the dessert-table, and was now in agony of grief at the disappointment. Would Mrs. Carlyle pardon her, and allow her to be dressed?

"You are too lenient to the child, madame," spoke Barbara. "I don't think you ever would punish her at all. But when she commits faults, they must be corrected."

"She is very sorry for her fault; she promises not to be rude again.

She is crying as if she would cry her heart out."

"Not for her ill-behavior, but because she's afraid of missing the drawing-room to-night," cried Barbara.

"Do, pray, restore her to favor," pleaded madame.

"I shall see. Just look, Madame Vine! I broke this, a minute or two ago. Is it not a pity?"

Barbara held in her hand a beautiful toilette ornament, set in pure gold. One of the petals had come off.

Madame Vine examined it. "I have some cement upstairs that would join it," she exclaimed. "I could do it in two minutes. I bought it in France."

"Oh, I wish you would," was Barbara's delighted response. "Do bring it here and join it now. Shall I bribe you?" she added, laughing. "You make this all right, and then you shall bear back grace to Lucy--for I perceive that is what your heart is set upon."

Madame Vine went, and returned with her cement. Barbara watched her, as she took the pieces in her hand, to see how the one must fit on to the other.

"This has been broken once, as Joyce tells me," Barbara said. "But it must have been imperceptibly joined, for I have looked in vain for the damage. Mr. Carlyle bought it for his first wife, when they were in London, after their marriage. She broke it subsequently here, at East Lynne. You will never do it, Madame Vine, if your hand shakes like that. What is the matter?"

A great deal was the matter. First, the ominous words had been upon her tongue. "It was here where the stem joins the flower;" but she recollected herself in time. Next came up the past vision of the place and hour when the accident occurred. Her hanging sleeve had swept it off the table. Mr. Carlyle was in the room, and he had soothed her sorrow--her almost childish sorrow with kisses sweet. Ah me! poor thing! I think our hands would have shaken as hers did. The ornament and the kisses were Barbara's now.

"I ran quickly up the stairs and back again," was the explanation she offered to Mrs. Carlyle for her shaking hands.

At that moment Mr. Carlyle and their guests were heard to return, and ascend to their respective apartments, Lord Vane's gleeful voice echoing through the house. Mr. Carlyle came into his wife's dressing-room, and Madame Vine would have made a precipitate retreat.

"No, no," said Barbara, "finish it, now you have begun. Mr. Carlyle will be going to his room. Look at the misfortune I have had.

Archibald, I have broken this."

Mr. Carlyle glanced carelessly at the trinket, and at Madame Vine's white fingers. He crossed to the door of his dressing-room and opened it, then held out his hand in silence for Barbara to approach and drew her in with him. Madame Vine went on with her work.

Presently Barbara returned, and approached the table where stood Madame Vine, while she drew on her gloves. Her eyelashes were wet.

"I could not help shedding a few tears of joy," exclaimed Barbara, with a pretty blush, perceiving that madame observed the signs. "Mr. Carlyle has been telling me that my brother's innocence is now all but patent to the world. It came out upon the examination of those two men, Sir Francis and Otway Bethel. Lord Mount Severn was present at the proceedings, and says they have in some way incriminated each other. Papa sat in his place as chairman; I wonder that he liked to do so."

Lower bent the head of Madame Vine over her employment. "Has anything been proved against them?" she asked, in her usual soft tone, almost a whisper.

"There is not the least doubt of the guilt of Levison, but Otway Bethel's share in the affair is a puzzle yet," replied Mrs. Carlyle.

"Both are committed for trial. Oh, that man! that man! how his sins come out!" she continued in excitement.

Madame Vine glanced up through her spectacles.

"Would you believe," continued Barbara, dropping her voice, "that while West Lynne, and I fear ourselves also, gave that miserable Afy credit for having gone away with Richard, she was all the time with Levison? Ball, the lawyer got her to confess to-day. I am unacquainted with the details; Mr. Carlyle would not give them to me. He said the bare fact was quite enough, and considering the associations it involved, would not do to talk of."

Mr. Carlyle was right.

"Out it seems to come, little by little, one wickedness after another!" resumed Barbara. "I do not like Mr. Carlyle to hear it. No, I don't. Of course there is no help for it; but he must feel it terribly, as must also Lord Mount Severn. She /was/ his wife, you know, and the children are hers; and to think that she--I mean he--must feel it /for her/," went on Barbara after her sudden pause, and there was some hauteur in her tone lest she should be misunderstood.

"Mr. Carlyle is one of the very few men, so entirely noble, whom the sort of disgrace reflected from Lady Isabel's conduct cannot touch."

The carriage of the first guest. Barbara ran across the room, and rattled at Mr. Carlyle's door. "Archibald do you hear?"