Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 706», sayfa 2

As is well known, Sir William Fairbairn distinguished himself by his invention of the tubular iron bridge, sustained without stays, and, which adopted by Stephenson, was employed in the construction of the famous tubular iron bridge across the Menai Strait, which is entitled to be called the mechanical wonder of England. We have never been shot along in a railway train through that iron tube, formed by a succession of square cells placed end to end, without thinking of Fairbairn's bold ingenuity. The reputation he acquired by this and other inventions of a useful kind brought him honours from numerous quarters. He had declined to accept a knighthood, and was reserved for the higher dignity of a baronetcy, which was conferred during Mr Gladstone's tenure of office in 1869. Two years previously, he had the misfortune to lose his eldest son, John, a blow which was severely felt by him. Coming from a long-lived family – his father dying in 1844 at the age of eighty-six – and tall, robust, and active, he enjoyed health till nearly the end of his days. He died peacefully August 18, 1874, leaving three sons and a daughter, also a widow, to mourn his loss. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son Thomas. Though the family wished the funeral to be private, it was, as a voluntary mark of respect, attended by upwards of fifty thousand persons. Such was the end of one of the greatest engineers of our day. His whole life pointed a valuable moral which it is unnecessary to repeat. His brother, Sir Peter Fairbairn of Leeds, predeceased him, leaving likewise descendants to perpetuate the reputation of the Fairbairns.

W. C.

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS

CHAPTER XXXI. – AT THE STILE

When was I first conscious of it? When was the first faint shadow of it perceived by the others? It would be difficult to say precisely when; but as days went by, some subtle change was taking place and making itself felt amongst us. Gradually an indefinable something was extracting the sunshine out of our lives. None of us admitted so much to each other; indeed I think we were all equally anxious to have it thought that everything was going on in precisely the same way as before. And yet – where was the frank confidence and ease which only a short time previously had so marked our intercourse? It had given place to constraint, and a restless anxiety to appear unconstrained.

I fancied that I could account for Lilian's nervousness and constraint; but Philip's gaiety seemed to be growing less and less spontaneous; and dear old Mrs Tipper looked depressed, not to say unhappy; whilst I myself felt uncomfortable without being able to trace the cause, unless it arose from sympathy with the others. In vain did I try to account for the change. There was certainly no unkindly feeling betwixt us; indeed I think we were each and all more carefully considerate of each other's feelings than we had hitherto been, displaying a great deal more anxiety to prove that the strength of our attachment to each other was as undiminished as ever.

I felt no shade of difference in my own sentiments; I knew that I felt towards them precisely the same as before, although I was gradually adopting their tone. What troubled me most of all was the reserve growing up between Lilian and me. I tried more than once to break through it; but her real distress – her tears, as she clung to me, entreating me to believe in her love, pained without enlightening me. And when I a little impatiently replied that it rather seemed as though she did not believe in my love, it only brought more tears and distress.

She now frequently excused herself from accompanying Philip and me in our walks and excursions; and shut herself up in her own room many hours during the day. The explanation that she had taken a fancy for studying French history, was not a satisfactory one to me. True, there was evidence that she was diligently plodding through a certain amount of work; but why should that separate us? The studies she had hitherto undertaken had not shut me out of her confidence. She had often declared that the greater part of the enjoyment of such work was to compare notes with me upon the subjects we were reading; and why should French history be an exception?

I was beginning to lose patience – mystery has ever been and ever will be provoking to me – and one evening, when Robert Wentworth asked me some questions about our work, I irritably replied that he must ask Lilian; I could only answer for myself now.

'I am only doing a little French history,' she faltered, becoming very pale, and presently making an excuse for leaving the room.

'What is it? What has so changed her?' I asked, turning towards him.

'I do not observe any particular change,' he replied, lowering his eyes before mine.

'Pray do not you become as mysterious as the rest,' I said angrily.

But he was mysterious. Even Robert Wentworth, who had always been so outspoken and unsparing, was becoming considerate even to politeness. He made no reply, standing before the open window, apparently absorbed in thought. I was about to add some little remark that I had hitherto trusted to his friendship, in a tone meant to be caustic, when I caught sight of his face, and shrank into my shell again. What made him look like that? What did it mean? And why did he so hurriedly take his departure the moment old Mrs Tipper came into the room, in a manner as unlike the Robert Wentworth of the past as it was possible to be?

But it must not be supposed that I was going to succumb to this state of things. Before I succumbed, I must know the reason why. It would take a great deal yet to make me lose hope. I had too much respect for them and belief in the power of my own love, to be without hope of succeeding in dissipating the clouds which had gathered about us. The one thing to be done was to find out what it was that had come between us. Could I once find out that, I should not despair of the rest. After some anxious reflection, I fancied that I had discovered the cause of the alteration in Lilian's bearing, and took Philip into my confidence.

He listened gravely, I thought even anxiously, and yet he did not appear to think it necessary for me to make any attempt to alter things.

'If – she prefers being more alone, I think – Wouldn't it be best not to interfere, Mary?' – hesitatingly.

'If I did not care for her, perhaps it would be better not to interfere, as you term it,' I hotly rejoined. 'But as it happens, I do care for her, and therefore I cannot see her so changed without making some effort to help her.'

'No one could doubt your love for her, Mary,' he replied in a low voice, laying his hand gently upon mine.

'Then how can I help being anxious, especially when I see that it is not good for her to be moping alone? Any one might see that it is doing her harm. Cannot you see the difference in her of late?' He made no reply; and taking his assent for granted, I went on: 'Do you know I am sadly afraid that she is fretting' – I did not like to say plainly about Arthur Trafford, but added: 'She is beginning to look just as she did in the first shock of finding that she had lost Arthur Trafford! – Ah, spare my roses!'

He was mercilessly, though I think unconsciously, tearing to pieces a beautiful bunch of light and dark roses, which had been given to me by one of the cottagers, scattering the leaves in all directions.

'I – beg your pardon.'

'I really think you ought, sir!' was my playful rejoinder. 'If my path is to be strewed with roses, we need not be so extravagant as that about it. I shall not trust you to carry flowers again.'

He remained so long silent, standing in the same position, that I was about to ask him what he was thinking of, when he impetuously turned towards me, and hurriedly said: 'Why should there be any longer delay, Mary? Why cannot our marriage take place at once – next week? For God's sake, do not let us go on like this!'

'Go on like this!' I repeated, looking up into his face. 'Go on like this, Philip?'

'Say it shall be soon – say when?' catching my hands in both of his with a grip which made me wince, as he hurriedly continued: 'Why do you wish all this delay?'

Had it been spoken in a different tone – had he only looked differently! I tried to believe that it was the eagerness of happiness in his face; but alas! it looked terribly like misery! For a moment my heart stood still in an agony of fear; then I put the disloyal doubt aside, telling myself that it was my too exalted notions which had led to disappointment. I had expected so much more than any woman has a right to expect; and so forth. Then after a moment or two, I honestly replied: 'I do not wish it, Philip. Of course I will say next week, if you wish it; and' – with a faint little attempt at a jest – 'if you do not mind about my having fewer furbelows to pack?'

'I do wish it; and – and – until then I must ask you to excuse my not coming down quite so regularly. So much to arrange, you know,' he hastily continued, 'in case we should take it into our heads to remain abroad some time.'

'Yes; very well,' I murmured, as one in a dream. It was all so different – so terribly different from anything I had expected.

But I soon persuaded myself that the fault, if fault there were, must be mine. How could he be changed – or if he were, why should he so eagerly urge me to delay our marriage no longer?

As if to rebuke my doubt, he turned towards me and gently said: 'God grant that I may be worthy of you, Mary! You are a good woman. I must hope in time to be more worthy of you.'

I was conscious that just then I could have better borne a loving jest at my imperfections than this little set speech of praise. I never before cared so little about being a 'good woman' as I did at that moment. But I told myself that I would not be critical – how horribly critical I seemed to be growing! So I looked up into his face with a smile, as I said something about his being perfect enough for me.

'You are good.'

'Oh, please do not say anything more about my goodness!'

There was another pause; and then he said: 'I think you mentioned that you wished it to be a quiet affair, Mary, and at the little church in the vale – St John's, isn't it called?'

'Yes, Philip.'

'And you must let me know what I ought to do besides procuring the ring and license. I am sure you will give me credit for wishing not to be remiss in any way, and will not mind giving me a hint if I appear likely to fall short in any of the – proper observances.'

Proper observances! How coldly the words struck upon me!

'Shall you not come down once, Philip?' I murmured.

'Once? O yes, of course; and – you can give me any little commission by letter, you know.'

Then looking at his watch, he found that he might catch the eight o'clock train, and hastily bade me good-night; asking me to excuse him at the cottage, and tell them about our plans.

'Eh bien, Philippe,' I returned, more disappointed than I should have cared to acknowledge at his not asking me to accompany him the remainder of the distance to the stile, to which I always walked with him when Robert Wentworth was not with us. Moreover, I thought that the parting kiss was to be forgotten. I believe that it was forgotten for a moment. But he turned back and pressed his lips for a moment upon my brow.

'Good-night, Mary. God grant I may be worthy of you!'

'Good-night, Philip,' I faltered.

As in a dream I walked down the lane, entered the cottage, and turned into the little parlour, not a little relieved to find no one there.

The heat was almost stifling, the swallows flying low beneath the lowering sky, and there was the heavy stillness – the, so to speak, pause in the atmosphere which presages a coming storm. The windows and doors were flung wide open; and I could hear Mrs Tipper and Becky talking to each other in their confidential way, as they bustled in and out the back garden, fetching in the clothes, which the former always put out to 'sweeten,' as she termed it, after they were returned from the wash. Lilian was, I suppose, in her own room, as her habit was of late.

Throwing off my hat, I sat down, and with my hands tightly locked upon my lap, I tried to think – to understand my own sensations, asking myself over and over again what was wrong – what made me like this? half conscious all the while of a discussion over a hole in a tablecloth, that ought not to have been allowed to get to such a stage without being darned.

'A stitch in time saves nine, you know, Becky; never you leave a thin place, and you'll never have a hole to mend;' and so on.

Suddenly, as my eyes wandered aimlessly about the room, they fell upon some documents on the table referring to the sale of Hill Side, which Philip had brought down to shew us, and which I knew he had intended to take away. Reflecting that he was very desirous of completing the purchase, that the delay of a post might make a difference, and that I might yet overtake him if I were quick, I hurriedly caught up the papers in my hand and ran down the lane towards the stile. Have I mentioned that there was a sharp curve in the lane before it reached the stile, so that you came close upon the latter before it was in sight? I had just arrived at the curve when the sound of voices reached me; and recollecting that I had not waited to put my hat on, and not wishing to be recognised by any one, I paused a moment to draw the hood of my cloak over my head.

Robert Wentworth and Philip! I had time for a moment's surprise that the former should be there when we had not seen him at the cottage, before Philip's words reached me: 'And you have been waiting here to say this to me. But I am not so base as that, Wentworth! I have just begged her to be my wife at once, and she has consented. She suspects nothing.'

'Thank God for that!' ejaculated Robert Wentworth.

I could not have moved now had my life depended upon it – though my life did seem to depend upon it. 'Suspect what? What was there to suspect?' I asked myself in a bewildered kind of way.

'God grant that she may be always spared the knowledge!'

'She shall be, Wentworth, if it be in my power to spare her.'

'Great heavens! that it should be possible to love another woman after knowing her! Man, you never can have known her as she is, or it would be impossible for another woman to come between you. The other is no more to be compared' —

'Respect her, Wentworth; blame me as you will, but respect Lilian.'

'Lilian!' I muttered – 'Lilian!'

'She is, I think – I trust, utterly unconscious of my – madness. But if she knew, and if she – cared for me, she would be loyal to the right. You ought to be sure of that, knowing what her love for Mary is, Wentworth.'

'Yes; she is true; she will try to be true. But it is quite time that' —

I knew that the voices sounded fainter and fainter, and that the sense of the words became lost to me, because they were walking on; I knew that they were great drops of rain and not tears pattering down upon me where I lay prone upon the ground; and I could recollect that the papers must not be lost; so I had kept my senses.