Before Lord Mountfalcon could find time to expostulate the soft woman had him by the neck, and was down among his luxurious whiskers.
"Ha!" She gave a smothered shriek, and fell back. "What hair's that?"
Tom Bakewell just then illumined the transaction.
"Oh, my gracious!" Mrs. Berry breathed with horror, "I been and kiss a strange man!"
Lucy, half-laughing, but in dreadful concern, begged the noble lord to excuse the woful mistake.
"Extremely flattered, highly favoured, I'm sure;" said his lordship, re- arranging his disconcerted moustache; "may I beg the pleasure of an introduction?"
"My husband's dear old nurseMrs. Berry," said Lucy, taking her hand to lend her countenance. "Lord Mountfalcon, Mrs. Berry."
Mrs. Berry sought grace while she performed a series of apologetic bobs, and wiped the perspiration from her forehead.
Lucy put her into a chair: Lord Mountfalcon asked for an account of her passage over to the Island; receiving distressingly full particulars, by which it was revealed that the softness of her heart was only equalled by the weakness of her stomach. The recital calmed Mrs. Berry down.
"Well, and where's mywhere's Mr. Richard? yer husband, my dear?" Mrs.
Berry turned from her tale to question.
"Did you expect to see him here?" said Lucy, in a broken voice.
"And where else, my love? since he haven't been seen in London a whole fortnight."
Lucy did not speak.
"We will dismiss the Emperor Julian till to-morrow, I think," said Lord
Mountfalcon, rising and bowing.
Lucy gave him her hand with mute thanks. He touched it distantly, embraced Mrs. Berry in a farewell bow, and was shown out of the house by Tom Bakewell.
The moment he was gone, Mrs. Berry threw up her arms. "Did ye ever know sich a horrid thing to go and happen to a virtuous woman!" she exclaimed. "I could cry at it, I could! To be goin' and kissin' a strange hairy man! Oh dear me! what's cornin' next, I wonder? Whiskers! thinks Ifor I know the touch o' whiskers't ain't like other hairwhat! have he growed a crop that sudden, I says to myself; and it flashed on me I been and made a awful mistake! and the lights come in, and I see that great hairy manbeggin' his pardonnobleman, and if I could 'a dropped through the floor out o' sight o' men, drat 'em! they're al'ays in the way, that they are!"
"Mrs. Berry," Lucy checked her, "did you expect to find him here?"
"Askin' that solemn?" retorted Berry. "What him? your husband? O' course I did! and you got himsomewheres hid."
"I have not heard from my husband for fifteen days," said Lucy, and her tears rolled heavily off her cheeks.
"Not heer from him!fifteen days!" Berry echoed.
"O Mrs. Berry! dear kind Mrs. Berry! have you no news? nothing to tell me! I've borne it so long. They're cruel to me, Mrs. Berry. Oh, do you know if I have offended himmy husband? While he wrote I did not complain. I could live on his letters for years. But not to hear from him! To think I have ruined him, and that he repents! Do they want to take him from me? Do they want me dead? O Mrs. Berry! I've had no one to speak out my heart to all this time, and I cannot, cannot help crying, Mrs. Berry!"
Mrs. Berry was inclined to be miserable at what she heard from Lucy's lips, and she was herself full of dire apprehension; but it was never this excellent creature's system to be miserable in company. The sight of a sorrow that was not positive, and could not refer to proof, set her resolutely the other way.
"Fiddle-faddle," she said. "I'd like to see him repent! He won't find anywheres a beauty like his own dear little wife, and he know it. Now, look you here, my dearyou blessed weepin' petthe man that could see ye with that hair of yours there in ruins, and he backed by the law, and not rush into your arms and hold ye squeezed for life, he ain't got much man in him, I say; and no one can say that of my babe! I was sayin', look here, to comfort yeoh, why, to be sure he've got some surprise for ye. And so've I, my lamb! Hark, now! His father've come to town, like a good reasonable man at last, to u-nite ye both, and bring your bodies together, as your hearts is, for everlastin'. Now ain't that news?"
"Oh!" cried Lucy, "that takes my last hope away. I thought he had gone to his father." She burst into fresh tears.
Mrs. Berry paused, disturbed.
"Belike he's travellin' after him," she suggested.
"Fifteen days, Mrs. Berry!"
"Ah, fifteen weeks, my dear, after sieh a man as that. He's a regular meteor, is Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey. Well, so hark you here. I says to myself, that knows himfor I did think my babe was in his natural nestI says, the bar'net'll never write for you both to come up and beg forgiveness, so down I'll go and fetch you up. For there was your mistake, my dear, ever to leave your husband to go away from ye one hour in a young marriage. It's dangerous, it's mad, it's wrong, and it's only to be righted by your obeyin' of me, as I commands it: for I has my fits, though I am a soft 'un. Obey me, and ye'll be happy tomorrowor the next to it."
Lucy was willing to see comfort. She was weary of her self-inflicted martyrdom, and glad to give herself up to somebody else's guidance utterly.
"But why does he not write to me, Mrs. Berry?"
"'Cause, 'causewho can tell the why of men, my dear? But that he love ye faithful, I'll swear. Haven't he groaned in my arms that he couldn't come to ye?weak wretch! Hasn't he swore how he loved ye to me, poor young man! But this is your fault, my sweet. Yes, it be. You should 'a followed my 'dvice at the fust'stead o' going into your 'eroics about this and t'other." Here Mrs. Berry poured forth fresh sentences on matrimony, pointed especially at young couples. "I should 'a been a fool if I hadn't suffered myself," she confessed, "so I'll thank my Berry if I makes you wise in season."
Lucy smoothed her ruddy plump cheeks, and gazed up affectionately into the soft woman's kind brown eyes. Endearing phrases passed from mouth to mouth. And as she gazed Lucy blushed, as one who has something very secret to tell, very sweet, very strange, but cannot quite bring herself to speak it.
"Well! these's three men in my life I kissed," said Mrs. Berry, too much absorbed in her extraordinary adventure to notice the young wife's struggling bosom, "three men, and one a nobleman! He've got more whisker than my Berry, I wonder what the man thought. Ten to one he'll think, now, I was glad o' my chancethey're that vain, whether they's lords or commons. How was I to know? I nat'ral thinks none but her husband'd sit in that chair. Ha! and in the dark? and alone with ye?" Mrs. Berry hardened her eyes, "and your husband away? What do this mean? Tell to me, child, what it mean his bein' here alone without ere a candle?"
"Lord Mountfalcon is the only friend I have here," said Lucy. "He is very kind. He comes almost every evening."
"Lord Montfalconthat his name!" Mrs. Berry exclaimed. "I been that flurried by the man, I didn't mind it at first. He come every evenin', and your husband out o' sight! My goodness me! it's gettin' worse and worse. And what do he come for, now, ma'am? Now tell me candid what ye do together here in the dark of an evenin'."
Mrs. Berry glanced severely.
"O Mrs. Berry! please not to speak in that wayI don't like it," said
Lucy, pouting.
"What do he come for, I ask?"
"Because he is kind, Mrs. Berry. He sees me very lonely, and wishes to amuse me. And he tells me of things I know nothing about and"
"And wants to be a-teachin' some of his things, mayhap," Mrs. Berry interrupted with a ruffled breast.
"You are a very ungenerous, suspicious, naughty old woman," said Lucy, chiding her.
Mrs. Berry glanced severely.
"O Mrs. Berry! please not to speak in that wayI don't like it," said
Lucy, pouting.
"What do he come for, I ask?"
"Because he is kind, Mrs. Berry. He sees me very lonely, and wishes to amuse me. And he tells me of things I know nothing about and"
"And wants to be a-teachin' some of his things, mayhap," Mrs. Berry interrupted with a ruffled breast.
"You are a very ungenerous, suspicious, naughty old woman," said Lucy, chiding her.
"And you're a silly, unsuspectin' little bird," Mrs. Berry retorted, as she returned her taps on the cheek. "You haven't told me what ye do together, and what's his excuse for comin'."
"Well, then, Mrs. Berry, almost every evening that he comes we read History, and he explains the battles, and talks to me about the great men. And he says I'm not silly, Mrs. Berry."
"That's one bit o' lime on your wings, my bird. History, indeed!
History to a young married lovely woman alone in the dark! a pretty
History! Why, I know that man's name, my dear. He's a notorious living
rake, that Lord Montfalcon. No woman's safe with him."
"Ah, but he hasn't deceived me, Mrs. Berry. He has not pretended he was good."
"More's his art," quoth the experienced dame. "So you read History together in the dark; my dear!"
"I was unwell to-night, Mrs. Berry. I wanted him not to see my face.
Look! there's the book open ready for him when the candles come in. And
now, you dear kind darling old thing, let me kiss you for coming to me.
I do love you. Talk of other things."
"So we will," said Mrs. Berry softening to Lucy's caresses. "So let us. A nobleman, indeed, alone with a young wife in the dark, and she sich a beauty! I say this shall be put a stop to now and henceforth, on the spot it shall! He won't meneuvele Bessy Berry with his arts. There! I drop him. I'm dyin' for a cup o' tea, my dear."
Lucy got up to ring the bell, and as Mrs. Berry, incapable of quite dropping him, was continuing to say: "Let him go and boast I kiss him; he ain't nothin' to be 'shamed of in a chaste woman's kissunawareswhich men don't get too often in their lives, I can assure 'em;"her eye surveyed Lucy's figure.
Lo, when Lucy returned to her, Mrs. Berry surrounded her with her arms, and drew her into feminine depths. "Oh, you blessed!" she cried in most meaning tone, "you good, lovin', proper little wife, you!"
"What is it, Mrs. Berry!" lisps Lucy, opening the most innocent blue eyes.
"As if I couldn't see, you pet! It was my flurry blinded me, or I'd 'a marked ye the fast shock. Thinkin' to deceive me!"
Mrs. Berry's eyes spoke generations. Lucy's wavered; she coloured all over, and hid her face on the bounteous breast that mounted to her.
"You're a sweet one," murmured the soft woman, patting her back, and rocking her. "You're a rose, you are! and a bud on your stalk. Haven't told a word to your husband, my dear?" she asked quickly.
Lucy shook her head, looking sly and shy.
"That's right. We'll give him a surprise; let it come all at once on him, and thinks helosin' breath 'I'm a father!' Nor a hint even you haven't give him?"
Lucy kissed her, to indicate it was quite a secret.
"Oh! you are a sweet one," said Bessy Berry, and rocked her more closely and lovingly.
Then these two had a whispered conversation, from which let all of male persuasion retire a space nothing under one mile.
Returning, after a due interval, we see Mrs. Berry counting on her fingers' ends. Concluding the sum, she cries prophetically: "Now this right everythinga baby in the balance! Now I say this angel-infant come from on high. It's God's messenger, my love! and it's not wrong to say so. He thinks you worthy, or you wouldn't 'a had onenot for all the tryin' in the world, you wouldn't, and some tries hard enough, poor creatures! Now let us rejice and make merry! I'm for cryin' and laughin', one and the same. This is the blessed seal of matrimony, which Berry never stamp on me. It's be hoped it's a boy. Make that man a grandfather, and his grandchild a son, and you got him safe. Oh! this is what I call happiness, and I'll have my tea a little stronger in consequence. I declare I could get tipsy to know this joyful news."
So Mrs. Berry carolled. She had her tea a little stronger. She ate and she drank; she rejoiced and made merry. The bliss of the chaste was hers.
Says Lucy demurely: "Now you know why I read History, and that sort of books."
"Do I?" replies Berry. "Belike I do. Since what you done's so good, my darlin', I'm agreeable to anything. A fig for all the lords! They can't come anigh a baby. You may read Voyages and Travels, my dear, and Romances, and Tales of Love and War. You cut the riddle in your own dear way, and that's all I cares for."
"No, but you don't understand," persists Lucy. "I only read sensible books, and talk of serious things, because I'm sure because I have heard saydear Mrs. Berry! don't you understand now?"
Mrs. Berry smacked her knees. "Only to think of her bein' that thoughtful! and she a Catholic, too! Never tell me that people of one religion ain't as good as another, after that. Why, you want to make him a historian, to be sure! And that rake of a lord who've been comin' here playin' at wolf, you been and made himunbeknown to himselfsort o' tutor to the unborn blessed! Ha! ha! say that little women ain't got art ekal to the cunningest of 'em. Oh! I understand. Why, to be sure, didn't I know a lady, a widow of a clergyman: he was a postermost child, and afore his birth that women read nothin' but Blair's 'Grave' over and over again, from the end to the beginnin';that's a serious book!very hard readin'!and at four years of age that child that come of it reelly was the piousest infant!he was like a little curate. His eyes was up; he talked so solemn." Mrs. Berry imitated the little curate's appearance and manner of speaking. "So she got her wish, for one!"
But at this lady Lucy laughed.
They chattered on happily till bedtime. Lucy arranged for Mrs. Berry to sleep with her. "If it's not dreadful to ye, my sweet, sleepin' beside a woman," said Mrs. Berry. "I know it were to me shortly after my Berry, and I felt it. It don't somehow seem nat'ral after matrimonya woman in your bed! I was obliged to have somebody, for the cold sheets do give ye the creeps when you've been used to that that's different."
Upstairs they went together, Lucy not sharing these objections. Then Lucy opened certain drawers, and exhibited pretty caps, and laced linen, all adapted for a very small body, all the work of her own hands: and Mrs. Berry praised them and her. "You been guessing a boywoman-like," she said. Then they cooed, and kissed, and undressed by the fire, and knelt at the bedside, with their arms about each other, praying; both praying for the unborn child; and Mrs. Berry pressed Lucy's waist the moment she was about to breathe the petition to heaven to shield and bless that coming life; and thereat Lucy closed to her, and felt a strong love for her. Then Lucy got into bed first, leaving Berry to put out the light, and before she did so, Berry leaned over her, and eyed her roguishly, saying, "I never see ye like this, but I'm half in love with ye myself, you blushin' beauty! Sweet's your eyes, and your hair do take one solyin' back. I'd never forgive my father if he kep me away from ye four-and-twenty hours just. Husband o' that!" Berry pointed at the young wife's loveliness. "Ye look so ripe with kisses, and there they are a-languishin'! You never look so but in your bed, ye beauty! just as it ought to be." Lucy had to pretend to rise to put out the light before Berry would give up her amorous chaste soliloquy. Then they lay in bed, and Mrs. Berry fondled her, and arranged for their departure to-morrow, and reviewed Richard's emotions when he came to hear he was going to be made a father by her, and hinted at Lucy's delicious shivers when Richard was again in his rightful place, which she, Bessy Berry, now usurped; and all sorts of amorous sweet things; enough to make one fancy the adage subverted, that stolen fruits are sweetest; she drew such glowing pictures of bliss within the law and the limits of the conscience, till at last, worn out, Lucy murmured "Peepy, dear Berry," and the soft woman gradually ceased her chirp.