第59章

"I tell you, Joyce, you don't know that he did not care. You are as obstinate as the justice, and I wish to goodness you wouldn't interrupt me. They came up here to pay the wedding visit--master, mistress, and she, came in state in the grand chariot, with the coachman and Jasper. If you have got any memory at all, you can't fail to recollect it. Miss Barbara remained behind at East Lynne to spend the rest of the day."

"I remember it."

"I was sent to fetch her home in the evening, Jasper being out. I came the field way; for the dust by the road was enough to smother one, and by the last stile but one, what do you think I came upon?"

Joyce lifted her eyes. "A snake perhaps."

"I came upon Miss Barbara and Mr. Carlyle. What had passed, nobody knows but themselves. She was leaning back against the stile, crying; low, soft sobs breaking from her, like one might expect to hear from a breaking heart. It seemed as if she had been reproaching him, as if some explanation had passed, and I heard him say that from henceforth they could only be brother and sister. I spoke soon, for fear they should see me, and Mr. Carlyle got over the stile. Miss Barbara said to him that he need not come any further, but he held out his arm, and came with her to our back gate. I went on then to open the door, and I saw him with his head bent down to her, and her two hands held in his.

We don't know how it is between them, I tell you."

"At any rate, she is a downright fool to suffer herself to love him still!" uttered Joyce, indignantly.

"So she is, but she does do it. She'll often steal out to the gate about the time she knows he'll be passing, and watch him by, not letting him see her. It is nothing but her unhappiness, her jealousy of Lady Isabel, that makes her cross. I assure you, Joyce, in this past year she had so changed that she's not like the same person. If Mr. Carlyle should ever get tired of my lady, and--"

"Wilson," harshly interrupted Joyce, "have the goodness to recollect yourself."

"What have I said not? Nothing but truth. Men are shamefully fickle, husbands worse than sweethearts, and I'm sure I'm not thinking of anything wrong. But to go back to the argument that we began with--I say that if anything happened to my lady, Miss Barbara, as sure as fate, would step into her shoes."

"Nothing is going to happen to her," continued Joyce, with composure.

"I hope it is not, now or later--for the sake of this dear little innocent thing upon my lap," went on the undaunted Wilson. "She would not make a very kind stepmother, for it is certain that where the first wife had been hated, her children won't be loved. She would turn Mr. Carlyle against them--"

"I tell you what it is, Wilson," interrupted Joyce, in a firm, unmistakable tone, "if you think to pursue those sort of topics at East Lynne, I shall inform my lady that you are unsuitable for the situation."

"I dare say!"

"And you know that when I make up my mind to a thing I do it," continued Joyce. "Miss Carlyle may well say you have the longest tongue in West Lynne; but you might have the grace to know that this subject is one more unsuitable to it than another, whether you are eating Mr. Hare's bread, or whether you are eating Mr. Carlyle's.

Another word, Wilson; it appears to me that you have been carrying on a prying system in Mrs. Hare's house--do not attempt such a thing in this."

"You were always one of the straight-laced sort, Joyce," cried Wilson, laughing good-humoredly. "But now that I have had my say out, I shall stop; and you need not fear I shall be such a simpleton as to go prattling of this kind of thing to the servants."

Now just fancy this conversation penetrating to Lady Isabel! She heard every word. It is all very well to oppose the argument, "Who attends to the gossip of the servants?" Let me tell you it depends upon what the subject may be, whether the gossip is attended to or not. It might not, and indeed would not, have made so great an impression upon her had she been in strong health, but she was weak, feverish, and in a state of partial delirium; and she hastily took up the idea that Archibald Carlyle had never loved her, that he had admired her and made her his wife in his ambition, but that his heart had been given to Barbara Hare.

A pretty state of excitement she worked herself into as she lay there, jealousy and fever, ay, and love too, playing pranks with her brain.