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                           MILDRED ARKELL.

                              A Novel.

                         BY MRS. HENRY WOOD,

    AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE," "LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS," "TREVLYN HOLD," ETC.


    IN THREE VOLUMES.

    VOL. I.

    LONDON:
    TINSLEY BROTHERS, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND
    1865.

    _All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved._




CONTENTS.


     CHAP.                                                   PAGE

        I. WHICH IS NOTHING BUT AN INTRODUCTION                 1

       II. THE MISS HUGHES'S HOME                              21

      III. THE ADVENT OF CHARLOTTE TRAVICE                     34

       IV. ROBERT CARR'S REQUEST                               50

        V. THE FLIGHT                                          68

       VI. A MISERABLE MISTAKE                                 87

      VII. A HEART SEARED                                     107

     VIII. BETSEY TRAVICE                                     124

       IX. DISPLEASING EYES                                   147

        X. GOING OUT AS LADY'S MAID                           160

       XI. MR. CARR'S OFFER                                   179

      XII. MARRIAGES IN UNFASHIONABLE LIFE                    194

     XIII. GOING ON FOR LORD MAYOR                            213

      XIV. OLD YEARS BACK AGAIN                               228

       XV. THE DEAN'S DAUGHTER                                249

      XVI. A CITY'S DESOLATION                                269

     XVII. A DIFFICULTY ABOUT TICKETS                         288

    XVIII. THE CONCERT                                        303




MILDRED ARKELL.




CHAPTER I.

WHICH IS NOTHING BUT AN INTRODUCTION.


I am going to tell you a story of real life--one of those histories that
in point of fact are common enough; but, hidden within themselves as
they generally are, are thought to be so rare, and, if proclaimed to the
world in all their strange details, are looked upon as a romance, not
reality. Some of the actors in this one are living now, but I have the
right to tell it, if I please.

A fair city is Westerbury; perhaps the fairest of the chief towns in all
the midland counties. Its beautiful cathedral rises in the midst, the
red walls of its surrounding prebendal houses looking down upon the
famed river that flows gently past; a cathedral that shrouds itself in
its unapproachable exclusiveness, as if it did not belong to the busy
town outside. For that town is a manufacturing one, and the aristocracy
of the clergy, with that of the few well-born families time had gathered
round them, and the democracy of trade, be it ever so irreproachable, do
not, as you know, assimilate. In the days gone by--and it is to them we
must first turn--this feeling of exclusiveness, this line of
demarcation, if you will, was far more conspicuous than it is now: it
was indeed carried to a pitch that would now scarcely be believed in.
There were those of the proud old prebendaries, who would never have
acknowledged to knowing a manufacturer by sight; who would not have
spoken to one in the street, had it been to save their stalls. You don't
believe me? I said you would not. Nevertheless, I am telling you the
simple truth. And yet, some of those manufacturers, in their intrinsic
worth, in their attainments, ay, and in their ancestors, if you come to
that, were not to be despised.

In those old days no town was more flourishing than Westerbury. Masters
and workmen were alike enjoying the fruits of their skill and industry:
the masters in amassing a rich competency; the workmen, or operatives,
as it has become the fashion to call them of late years, in earning an
ample living, and in bringing up their children without a struggle. But
those times changed. The opening of our ports to foreign goods brought
upon Westerbury, if not destruction, something very like it; and it was
only the more wealthy of the manufacturers who could weather the storm.
They lost, as others did, a very great deal; but they had (at least,
some few of them) large resources to fall back upon, and their business
was continued as before, when the shock was over; and none in the outer
world knew how deep it had been, or how far it had shaken them.

Conspicuous amidst this latter class was Mr. George Arkell. He had made
a great deal of money--not by the griping hand of extortion; by
badly-paid, or over-tasked workmen; but by skill, care, industry, and
honourable dealing. In all high honour he worked on his way; he could
not have been guilty of a mean action; to take an unfair advantage of
another, no matter how he might have benefited himself, would have been
foreign to his nature. And this just dealing in trade, as in else, let
me tell you, generally answers in the end. A better or more benevolent
man than George Arkell did not exist, a more just or considerate master.
His rate of wages was on the highest scale--and there were high and low
scales in the town--and in the terrible desolation hinted at above, he
had _never_ turned from the poor starving men without a helping hand.

It could not be but that such a man should be beloved in private life,
respected in public; and some of those grand old cathedral clergy, who,
with their antiquated and obsolete notions, were fast dropping off to a
place not altogether swayed by exclusiveness, might have made an
exception in favour of Mr. Arkell, and condescended to admit their
knowledge, if questioned, that a man of that name did live in
Westerbury.

George Arkell had one son: an only child. No expense had been spared
upon William Arkell's education. Brought up in the school attached to
the cathedral, the college school as it was familiarly called, he had
also a private tutor at home, and private masters. In accordance with
the good old system obtaining in the past days--and not so very long
past either, as far as the custom is concerned--the college school
confined its branches of instruction to two: Greek and Latin. To teach a
boy to read English and to spell it, would have been too derogatory.
History, geography, any common branch you please to think of;
mathematics, science, modern languages, were not so much as recognised.
Such things probably did exist, but certainly nothing was known of them
in the college school. Mr. Arkell--perhaps a little in advance of his
contemporaries--believed that such acquirements might be useful to his
son, and a private tutor had been provided for him. Masters for every
accomplishment of the day were also given him; and those
accomplishments were less common then than now. It was perhaps
excusable: William Arkell was a goodly son: and he grew to manhood not
only a thoroughly well-read classical scholar and an accomplished man,
but a gentleman. "I should like you to choose a profession, William,"
Mr. Arkell had said to him, when his schooldays were nearly over. "You
shall go to Oxford, and fix upon one while there; there's no hurry."
William laughed; "I don't care to go to Oxford," he said; "I think I
know quite enough as it is; and I intend to come into the manufactory to
you."

And William maintained his resolution. Indulged as he had been, he was
somewhat accustomed to like his own way, good though he was by nature,
dutiful and affectionate by habit. Perhaps Mr. Arkell was not sorry for
the decision, though he laughingly told his son that he was too much of
a gentleman for a manufacturer. So William Arkell was entered at the
manufactory; and when the proper time came he was taken into partnership
with his father, the firm becoming "George Arkell and Son."

Mr. George Arkell had an elder brother, Daniel; rarely called anything
but Dan. _He_ had not prospered. He had had the opportunity of
prospering just as much as his brother had, but he had not done it. A
fatal speculation into which Dan always said he was "drawn," but which
everybody else said he had plunged into of himself with confiding
eagerness, had gone very far towards ruining him. He did not fail; he
was of the honourable Arkell nature; and he paid every debt he owed to
the uttermost penny--paid grandly and liberally; but it left him with no
earthly possession except the house he lived in, and that he couldn't
part with. Dan was a middle-aged man then, and he was fain to accept a
clerkship in the city bank at a hundred a year salary; and he abjured
speculation for the future, and lived quietly on in the old house with
his wife and two children, Peter and Mildred. But wealth, as you are
aware, is always bowed down to, and Westerbury somehow fell into the
habit of calling the wealthy manufacturer "Mr. Arkell," and the elder
"Mr. Dan."

How contrary things run in this world! The one cherished dream of Peter
Arkell's life was to get to the University, for his heart was set on
entering the Church; and poor Peter could not get to it. His cousin
William, who might have gone had it cost thousands, declined to go;
Peter, who had no thousands--no, nor pounds, either, at his command, was
obliged to relinquish it. It is possible that had Mr. Arkell known of
this strong wish, he might have smoothed the way for his nephew, but
Peter never told it. He was of a meek, reticent, somewhat shy nature;
and even his own father knew not how ardently the wish had been
cherished.

"You must do something for your living, Peter," Mr. Dan Arkell had said,
when his son quitted the college school in which he had been educated.
"The bank has promised you a clerkship, and thirty pounds a year to
begin with; and I think you can't do better than take it."

Poor, shy, timid Peter thought within himself he could do a great deal
better, had things been favourable; but they were not favourable, and
the bank and the thirty pounds carried the day. He sat on a high stool
from nine o'clock until five, and consoled himself at home in the
evenings with his beloved classics.

Some years thus passed on, and about the time that William Arkell was
taken into partnership by his father, Mr. Daniel Arkell died, and Peter
was promoted to the better clerkship, and to the hundred a year salary.
He saw no escape now; he was a banker's clerk for life.

And now that all this preliminary explanation is over--and I assure you
I am as glad to get it over as you can be--let us go on to the story.

In one of the principal streets of Westerbury, towards the eastern end
of the town, you might see a rather large space of ground, on which
stood a handsome house and other premises, the whole enclosed by iron
gates and railings, running level with the foot pavement of the street.
Removed from the bustle of the town, which lay higher up, the street was
a quiet one, only private houses being in it--no shops. It was, however,
one of the principal streets, and the daily mails and other
stage-coaches, not yet exploded, ran through it. The house mentioned lay
on the right hand, going towards the town, and not far off, behind
various intervening houses, rose the towers of the cathedral. This house
lay considerably back from the street--on a level with it, at some
distance, was a building whose many windows proclaimed it what it was--a
manufactory; and at the back of the open-paved yard, lying between the
house and the manufactory, was a coach-house and stable--behind all, was
a large garden.

Standing at the door of that house, one autumn evening, the red light of
the setting sun falling sideways athwart his face, was a gentleman in
the prime of life. Some may demur to the expression--for men estimate
the stages of age differently--and this gentleman must have seen
fifty-five years; but in his fine, unwrinkled, healthy face, his
slender, active, upright form, might surely be read the indications that
he was yet in his prime. It was the owner of the house and its
appendages--the principal of the manufactory, George Arkell.

He was drawing on a pair of black gloves as he stood there, and the
narrow crape-band on his hat proclaimed him to be in slight mourning. It
was the fashion to remain in mourning longer then than now. Daniel
Arkell had been dead twelve months, but the Arkell family had not put
away entirely the signs. Suddenly, as Mr. Arkell looked towards the iron
gates--both standing wide open--a gentlemanly young man turned in, and
came with a quick step across the yard.

There was not much likeness between the father and son, save in the
bright dark eyes, and in the expression of the countenance--_that_ was
the same in both; good, sensitive, benevolent. William was taller than
his father, and very handsome, with a look of delicate health on his
refined features, and a complexion almost as bright as a girl's. At the
same moment that he was crossing the yard, an open carriage, well built
and handsome, but drawn by only one horse, was being brought round from
the stables. Nearly every afternoon of their lives, Sundays excepted,
Mr. and Mrs. Arkell went out for a drive in this carriage, the only one
they kept.

"How late you are starting!" exclaimed William to his father.

"Yes; I have been detained. I had to go into the manufactory after tea,
and since then Marmaduke Carr called, and he kept me."

"It is hardly worth while going now."

"Yes, it is. Your mother has a headache, and the air will do her good;
and we want to call in for a minute on the Palmers."

The carriage had come to a stand-still midway from the stables. There
was a small seat behind for the groom, and William saw that it was open;
when the groom did not attend them, it remained closed. Never lived
there a man of less pretension than George Arkell; and the taking a
servant with him for show would never have entered his imagination. They
kept but this one man--he was groom, gardener, anything; his state-dress
(in which he was attired now) being a long blue coat with brass buttons,
drab breeches, and gaiters.

"You are going to take Philip to-night?" observed William.

"Yes; I shall want him to stay with the horse while we go in to the
Palmers'. Heath Hall is a goodish step from the road, you know."

"I will tell my mother that the carriage is ready," said William,
turning into the house.

But Mr. Arkell put up his finger with a detaining movement.

"Stop a minute, William. Marmaduke Carr's visit this evening had
reference to you. He came to complain."

"To complain!--of me?" echoed William Arkell, his tone betraying his
surprise. "What have I done to him?"

"At least, it sounded very like a complaint to my ears," resumed the
elder man; "and though he did not say he came purposely to prefer it,
but introduced the subject in an incidental sort of manner, I am sure he
did come to do it."

"Well, what have I done?" repeated William, an amused expression
mingling with the wonder on his face.

"After conversing on other topics, he began speaking of his son, and
that Hughes girl. He has come to the determination, he says, of putting
a final stop to it, and he requests it as a particular favour that you
won't mix yourself up in the matter and will cease from encouraging
Robert in it."

"_I!_" echoed William. "That's good. I don't encourage it."

"Marmaduke Carr says you do encourage it. He tells me you were strolling
with the girl and Robert last Sunday afternoon in the fields on the
other side the water. I confess I was surprised to hear this, William."

William Arkell raised his honest eyes, so clear and truthful, straight
to the face of his father.

"How things may be distorted!" he exclaimed. "Do you remember, sir, my
mother asked me, as we left the cathedral after service, to go and
inquire whether there was any change for the better in Mrs. Pembroke?"

"I remember it quite well."

"Well, I went. Coming back, I chose the field way, and I had no sooner
got into the first field, than I overtook Robert Carr and Martha Ann
Hughes. I walked with him through the fields until we came to the
bridge, and then I came on alone. Much 'encouragement' there was in
that!"

"It was countenancing the thing, at any rate, if not encouraging it,"
remarked Mr. Arkell.

"There's no harm in it; none at all."

"Do you mean in the affair itself, or in your having so far lent
yourself to it?"

"In both," fearlessly answered William. "I wonder who it is that carries
these tales to old Carr! We did not meet a soul, that I remember; he
must have spies at work."

The remark rather offended Mr. Arkell.

"William," he gravely asked, "do you consider it fitting that Robert
Carr should marry that girl?"

William's eyes opened rather wide at the remark.

"He is not likely to do that, sir; he would not make a simpleton of
himself."

"Then you consider that he should choose the other alternative, and turn
rogue?" rejoined Mr. Arkell, indignation in his suppressed tone.
"William, had anyone told me this of you, I would not have believed it."

William Arkell's sensitive cheek flushed red.

"Sir, you are entirely mistaking me; I am sure you are mistaking the
affair itself. I believe that the girl is as honest and good a girl as
ever lived; and Robert Carr knows she is."

"Then what is it that he proposes to himself in frequenting her society?
If he has no end at all in view, why does he do it?"

"I don't think he _has_ any end in view. There is really nothing in
it--as I believe; we all form acquaintances and drop them. Marmaduke
Carr need not put himself in a fever."

"We form acquaintances in our own sphere of life, mind you, young sir;
they are the safer ones. I wonder some of the ladies don't give a hint
to the two Miss Hughes's to take better care of their sister--she's but
a young thing. At any rate, William, do not you mix yourself up in it."

"I have not done it, indeed, sir. As to my walking through the fields
with them, when we met, as I tell you, accidentally, I could not help
myself, friendly as I am with Robert Carr. There was no harm in it; I
should do it again to-morrow under the circumstances; and if old Carr
speaks to me, I shall tell him so."

The carriage came up, and no more was said. Philip had halted to do
something to the harness. Mrs. Arkell came out.

She was tall, and for her age rather an elegant woman. Her face must
once have been delicately beautiful: it was easy to be seen whence
William had inherited his refined features; but she was simple in manner
as a child.

"What have you been doing, William? Papa was speaking crossly to you,
was he not?"

She sometimes used the old fond word to him, "papa." She looked fondly
at her son, and spoke in a joking manner. In truth, William gave them
little cause to be "cross" with him; he was a good son, in every sense
of the term.

"Something a little short of high treason," replied William, laughing,
as he helped her in; "Papa can tell you, if he likes."

Mr. Arkell took the reins, Philip got up behind, and they drove out of
the yard. William Arkell went indoors, put down a roll of music he had
been carrying, and then left the house again.

Turning to his right hand as he quitted the iron gates, he continued his
way up the street towards the busier portion of the city. It was not his
intention to go so far as that now. He crossed over to a wide, handsome
turning on the left, and was speedily close upon the precincts of the
cathedral. It was almost within the cathedral precincts that the house
of Mrs. Daniel Arkell was situated. Not a large house, as was Mr.
Arkell's, but a pretty compact red-brick residence, with a small garden
lying before the front windows, which looked out on the Dean's garden
and the cathedral elm-trees.

William Arkell opened the door and entered. In a little bit of a room on
the left, sat Peter Arkell, deep in some abstruse Greek play. This
little room was called Peter's study, for it had been appropriated to
the boy and his books ever since he could remember. William looked in,
just gave him a nod, and then entered the room on the other side the
entrance-passage.

Two ladies sat in this, both of them in mourning: Mrs. Daniel Arkell, a
stout, comfortable-looking woman, in widow's weeds; Mildred in a pretty
dress of black silk. Peter and William were about the same age; Mildred
was two years younger. She was a quiet, sensible, lady-like girl, with a
gentle face and the sweetest look possible in her soft brown eyes. She
had not been educated fashionably, according to the custom of the
present day; she had never been to school, but had received, as we are
told of Moses Primrose, a "sort of miscellaneous education at home." She
possessed a thorough knowledge of her own language, knew a good deal of
Latin, insensibly acquired through being with Peter when he took his
earlier lessons in it from