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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Marchmont's Legacy, Volume I (of 3), by 
+Mary E. Braddon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: John Marchmont's Legacy, Volume I (of 3)
+
+Author: Mary E. Braddon
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2010 [EBook #34539]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY, VOL I ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Clare Graham, using scans from the Internet Archive
+
+
+
+
+JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY.
+
+
+BY [M.E. Braddon] THE AUTHOR OF
+"LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET,"
+ETC. ETC. ETC.
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+VOL.I.
+
+
+Published by Tinsley Brothers of London in 1863 (third edition).
+
+
+THIS STORY
+
+Is Dedicated
+
+TO
+
+MY MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+  CHAPTER I. THE MAN WITH THE BANNER.
+  CHAPTER II. LITTLE MARY.
+  CHAPTER III. ABOUT THE LINCOLNSHIRE PROPERTY.
+  CHAPTER IV. GOING AWAY.
+  CHAPTER V. MARCHMONT TOWERS.
+  CHAPTER VI. THE YOUNG SOLDIER'S RETURN.
+  CHAPTER VII. OLIVIA.
+  CHAPTER VIII. "MY LIFE IS COLD, AND DARK, AND DREARY."
+  CHAPTER IX. "WHEN SHALL I CEASE TO BE ALL ALONE?"
+  CHAPTER X. MARY'S STEPMOTHER.
+  CHAPTER XI. THE DAY OF DESOLATION.
+  CHAPTER XII. PAUL.
+  CHAPTER XIII. OLIVIA'S DESPAIR.
+  CHAPTER XIV. DRIVEN AWAY.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MAN WITH THE BANNER.
+
+
+The history of Edward Arundel, second son of Christopher Arundel
+Dangerfield Arundel, of Dangerfield Park, Devonshire, began on a
+certain dark winter's night upon which the lad, still a schoolboy, went
+with his cousin, Martin Mostyn, to witness a blank-verse tragedy at one
+of the London theatres.
+
+There are few men who, looking back at the long story of their lives,
+cannot point to one page in the record of the past at which the actual
+history of life began. The page may come in the very middle of the
+book, perhaps; perhaps almost at the end. But let it come where it
+will, it is, after all, only the actual commencement. At an appointed
+hour in man's existence, the overture which has been going on ever
+since he was born is brought to a sudden close by the sharp vibration
+of the prompter's signal-bell; the curtain rises, and the drama of life
+begins. Very insignificant sometimes are the first scenes of the
+play,--common-place, trite, wearisome; but watch them closely, and
+interwoven with every word, dimly recognisable in every action, may be
+seen the awful hand of Destiny. The story has begun: already we, the
+spectators, can make vague guesses at the plot, and predicate the
+solemn climax; it is only the actors who are ignorant of the meaning of
+their several parts, and who are stupidly reckless of the obvious
+catastrophe.
+
+The story of young Arundel's life began when he was a light-hearted,
+heedless lad of seventeen, newly escaped for a brief interval from the
+care of his pastors and masters.
+
+The lad had come to London on a Christmas visit to his father's sister,
+a worldly-minded widow, with a great many sons and daughters, and an
+income only large enough to enable her to keep up the appearances of
+wealth essential to the family pride of one of the Arundels of
+Dangerfield.
+
+Laura Arundel had married a Colonel Mostyn, of the East India Company's
+service, and had returned from India after a wandering life of some
+years, leaving her dead husband behind her, and bringing away with her
+five daughters and three sons, most of whom had been born under canvas.
+
+Mrs. Mostyn bore her troubles bravely, and contrived to do more with
+her pension, and an additional income of four hundred a year from a
+small fortune of her own, than the most consummate womanly management
+can often achieve. Her house in Montague Square was elegantly
+furnished, her daughters were exquisitely dressed, her sons sensibly
+educated, her dinners well cooked. She was not an agreeable woman; she
+was perhaps, if any thing, too sensible,--so very sensible as to be
+obviously intolerant of anything like folly in others. She was a good
+mother; but by no means an indulgent one. She expected her sons to
+succeed in life, and her daughters to marry rich men; and would have
+had little patience with any disappointment in either of these
+reasonable expectations. She was attached to her brother Christopher
+Arundel, and she was very well pleased to spend the autumn months at
+Dangerfield, where the hunting-breakfasts gave her daughters an
+excellent platform for the exhibition of charming demi-toilettes and
+social and domestic graces, perhaps more dangerous to the susceptible
+hearts of rich young squires than the fascinations of a _valse à deux
+temps_ or an Italian scena.
+
+But the same Mrs. Mostyn, who never forgot to keep up her
+correspondence with the owner of Dangerfield Park, utterly ignored the
+existence of another brother, a certain Hubert Arundel, who had,
+perhaps, much more need of her sisterly friendship than the wealthy
+Devonshire squire. Heaven knows, the world seemed a lonely place to
+this younger son, who had been educated for the Church, and was fain to
+content himself with a scanty living in one of the dullest and dampest
+towns in fenny Lincolnshire. His sister might have very easily made
+life much more pleasant to the Rector of Swampington and his only
+daughter; but Hubert Arundel was a great deal too proud to remind her
+of this. If Mrs. Mostyn chose to forget him,--the brother and sister
+had been loving friends and dear companions long ago, under the beeches
+at Dangerfield,--she was welcome to do so. She was better off than he
+was; and it is to be remarked, that if A's income is three hundred a
+year, and B's a thousand, the chances are as seven to three that B will
+forget any old intimacy that may have existed between himself and A.
+Hubert Arundel had been wild at college, and had put his autograph
+across so many oblong slips of blue paper, acknowledging value received
+that had been only half received, that by the time the claims of all
+the holders of these portentous morsels of stamped paper had been
+satisfied, the younger son's fortune had melted away, leaving its
+sometime possessor the happy owner of a pair of pointers, a couple of
+guns by crack makers, a good many foils, single-sticks, boxing-gloves,
+wire masks, basket helmets, leathern leg-guards, and other
+paraphernalia, a complete set of the old _Sporting Magazine_, from 1792
+to the current year, bound in scarlet morocco, several boxes of very
+bad cigars, a Scotch terrier, and a pipe of undrinkable port.
+
+Of all these possessions, only the undrinkable port now remained to
+show that Hubert Arundel had once had a decent younger son's fortune,
+and had succeeded most admirably in making ducks and drakes of it. The
+poor about Swampington believed in the sweet red wine, which had been
+specially concocted for Israelitish dealers in jewelry, cigars,
+pictures, wines, and specie. The Rector's pensioners smacked their lips
+over the mysterious liquid and confidently affirmed that it did them
+more good than all the doctor's stuff the parish apothecary could send
+them. Poor Hubert Arundel was well content to find that at least this
+scanty crop of corn had grown up from the wild oats he had sown at
+Cambridge. The wine pleased the poor creatures who drank it, and was
+scarcely likely to do them any harm; and there was a reasonable
+prospect that the last bottle would by-and-by pass out of the rectory
+cellars, and with it the last token of that bitterly regretted past.
+
+I have no doubt that Hubert Arundel felt the sting of his only sister's
+neglect, as only a poor and proud man can feel such an insult; but he
+never let any confession of this sentiment escape his lips; and when
+Mrs. Mostyn, being seized with a fancy for doing this forgotten brother
+a service, wrote him a letter of insolent advice, winding up with an
+offer to procure his only child a situation as nursery governess, the
+Rector of Swampington only crushed the missive in his strong hand, and
+flung it into his study-fire, with a muttered exclamation that sounded
+terribly like an oath.
+
+"A _nursery_ governess!" he repeated, savagely; "yes; an underpaid
+drudge, to teach children their A B C, and mend their frocks and make
+their pinafores. I should like Mrs. Mostyn to talk to my little Livy
+for half an hour. I think my girl would have put the lady down so
+completely by the end of that time, that we should never hear any more
+about nursery governesses."
+
+He laughed bitterly as he repeated the obnoxious phrase; but his laugh
+changed to a sigh.
+
+Was it strange that the father should sigh as he remembered how he had
+seen the awful hand of Death fall suddenly upon younger and stronger
+men than himself? What if he were to die, and leave his only child
+unmarried? What would become of her, with her dangerous gifts, with her
+fatal dowry of beauty and intellect and pride?
+
+"But she would never do any thing wrong," the father thought. "Her
+religious principles are strong enough to keep her right under any
+circumstances, in spite of any temptation. Her sense of duty is more
+powerful than any other sentiment. She would never be false to that;
+she would never be false to that."
+
+In return for the hospitality of Dangerfield Park, Mrs. Mostyn was in
+the habit of opening her doors to either Christopher Arundel or his
+sons, whenever any one of the three came to London. Of course she
+infinitely preferred seeing Arthur Arundel, the eldest son and heir,
+seated at her well-spread table, and flirting with one of his pretty
+cousins, than to be bored with his rackety younger brother, a noisy lad
+of seventeen, with no better prospects than a commission in her
+Majesty's service, and a hundred and fifty pounds a year to eke out his
+pay; but she was, notwithstanding, graciously pleased to invite Edward
+to spend his Christmas holidays in her comfortable household; and it
+was thus it came to pass that on the 29th of December, in the year
+1838, the story of Edward Arundel's life began in a stage-box at Drury
+Lane Theatre.
+
+The box had been sent to Mrs. Mostyn by the fashionable editor of a
+fashionable newspaper; but that lady and her daughters being previously
+engaged, had permitted the two boys to avail themselves of the
+editorial privilege.
+
+The tragedy was the dull production of a distinguished literary
+amateur, and even the great actor who played the principal character
+could not make the performance particularly enlivening. He certainly
+failed in impressing Mr. Edward Arundel, who flung himself back in his
+chair and yawned dolefully during the earlier part of the
+entertainment.
+
+"It ain't particularly jolly, is it, Martin?" he said naïvely, "Let's
+go out and have some oysters, and come in again just before the
+pantomime begins."
+
+"Mamma made me promise that we wouldn't leave the theatre till we left
+for good, Ned," his cousin answered; "and then we're to go straight
+home in a cab."
+
+Edward Arundel sighed.
+
+"I wish we hadn't come till half-price, old fellow," he said drearily.
+"If I'd known it was to be a tragedy, I wouldn't have come away from
+the Square in such a hurry. I wonder why people write tragedies, when
+nobody likes them."
+
+He turned his back to the stage, and folded his arms upon the velvet
+cushion of the box preparatory to indulging himself in a deliberate
+inspection of the audience. Perhaps no brighter face looked upward that
+night towards the glare and glitter of the great chandelier than that
+of the fair-haired lad in the stage-box. His candid blue eyes beamed
+with a more radiant sparkle than any of the myriad lights in the
+theatre; a nimbus of golden hair shone about his broad white forehead;
+glowing health, careless happiness, truth, good-nature, honesty, boyish
+vivacity, and the courage of a young lion,--all were expressed in the
+fearless smile, the frank yet half-defiant gaze. Above all, this lad of
+seventeen looked especially what he was,--a thorough gentleman. Martin
+Mostyn was prim and effeminate, precociously tired of life,
+precociously indifferent to everything but his own advantage; but the
+Devonshire boy's talk was still fragrant with the fresh perfume of
+youth and innocence, still gay with the joyous recklessness of early
+boyhood. He was as impatient for the noisy pantomime overture, and the
+bright troops of fairies in petticoats of spangled muslin, as the most
+inveterate cockney cooling his snub-nose against the iron railing of
+the gallery. He was as ready to fall in love with the painted beauty of
+the ill-paid ballet-girls, as the veriest child in the wide circle of
+humanity about him. Fresh, untainted, unsuspicious, he looked out at
+the world, ready to believe in everything and everybody.
+
+"How you do fidget, Edward!" whispered Martin Mostyn peevishly; "why
+don't you look at the stage? It's capital fun."
+
+"Fun!"
+
+"Yes; I don't mean the tragedy you know, but the supernumeraries. Did
+you ever see such an awkward set of fellows in all your life? There's a
+man there with weak legs and a heavy banner, that I've been watching
+all the evening. He's more fun than all the rest of it put together."
+
+Mr. Mostyn, being of course much too polite to point out the man in
+question, indicated him with a twitch of his light eyebrows; and Edward
+Arundel, following that indication, singled out the banner-holder from
+a group of soldiers in medieval dress, who had been standing wearily
+enough upon one side of the stage during a long, strictly private and
+confidential dialogue between the princely hero of the tragedy and one
+of his accommodating satellites. The lad uttered a cry of surprise as
+he looked at the weak-legged banner-holder.
+
+Mr. Mostyn turned upon his cousin with some vexation.
+
+"I can't help it, Martin," exclaimed young Arundel; "I can't be
+mistaken--yes--poor fellow, to think that he should come to this!--you
+haven't forgotten him, Martin, surely?"
+
+"Forgotten what--forgotten whom? My dear Edward, what _do_ you mean?"
+
+"John Marchmont, the poor fellow who used to teach us mathematics at
+Vernon's; the fellow the governor sacked because----"
+
+"Well, what of him?"
+
+"The poor chap with the banner!" exclaimed the boy, in a breathless
+whisper; "don't you see, Martin? didn't you recognise him? It's
+Marchmont, poor old Marchmont, that we used to chaff, and that the
+governor sacked because he had a constitutional cough, and wasn't
+strong enough for his work."
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember him well enough," Mr. Mostyn answered,
+indifferently. "Nobody could stand his cough, you know; and he was a
+vulgar fellow, into the bargain."
+
+"He wasn't a vulgar fellow," said Edward indignantly;--"there, there's
+the curtain down again;--he belonged to a good family in Lincolnshire,
+and was heir-presumptive to a stunning fortune. I've heard him say so
+twenty times."
+
+Martin Mostyn did not attempt to repress an involuntary sneer, which
+curled his lips as his cousin spoke.
+
+"Oh, I dare say you've heard _him_ say so, my dear boy," he murmured
+superciliously.
+
+"Ah, and it was true," cried Edward; "he wasn't a fellow to tell lies;
+perhaps he'd have suited Mr. Vernon better if he had been. He had bad
+health, and was weak, and all that sort of thing; but he wasn't a snob.
+He showed me a signet-ring once that he used to wear on his
+watch-chain----"
+
+"A _silver_ watch-chain," simpered Mr. Mostyn, "just like a
+carpenter's."
+
+"Don't be such a supercilious cad, Martin. He was very kind to me, poor
+Marchmont; and I know I was always a nuisance to him, poor old fellow;
+for you know I never could get on with Euclid. I'm sorry to see him
+here. Think, Martin, what an occupation for him! I don't suppose he
+gets more than nine or ten shillings a week for it."
+
+"A shilling a night is, I believe, the ordinary remuneration of a
+stage-soldier. They pay as much for the real thing as for the sham, you
+see; the defenders of our country risk their lives for about the same
+consideration. Where are you going, Ned?"
+
+Edward Arundel had left his place, and was trying to undo the door of
+the box.
+
+"To see if I can get at this poor fellow."
+
+"You persist in declaring, then, that the man with the weak legs is our
+old mathematical drudge? Well, I shouldn't wonder. The fellow was
+coughing all through the five acts, and that's uncommonly like
+Marchmont. You're surely not going to renew your acquaintance with
+him?"
+
+But young Arundel had just succeeded in opening the door, and he left
+the box without waiting to answer his cousin's question. He made his
+way very rapidly out of the theatre, and fought manfully through the
+crowds who were waiting about the pit and gallery doors, until he found
+himself at the stage-entrance. He had often looked with reverent wonder
+at the dark portal; but he had never before essayed to cross the sacred
+threshold. But the guardian of the gate to this theatrical paradise,
+inhabited by fairies at a guinea a week, and baronial retainers at a
+shilling a night, is ordinarily a very inflexible individual, not to be
+corrupted by any mortal persuasion, and scarcely corruptible by the
+more potent influence of gold or silver. Poor Edward's half-a-crown had
+no effect whatever upon the stern door-keeper, who thanked him for his
+donation, but told him that it was against his orders to let anybody go
+up-stairs.
+
+"But I want to see some one so particularly," the boy said eagerly.
+"Don't you think you could manage it for me, you know? He's an old
+friend of mine,--one of the supernu--what's-its-names?" added Edward,
+stumbling over the word. "He carried a banner in the tragedy, you know;
+and he's got such an awful cough, poor chap."
+
+"Ze man who garried ze panner vith a gough," said the door-keeper
+reflectively. He was an elderly German, and had kept guard at that
+classic doorway for half-a-century or so; "Parking Cheremiah."
+
+"Barking Jeremiah!"
+
+"Yes, sir. They gall him Parking pecause he's berbetually goughin' his
+poor veag head off; and they gall him Cheremiah pecause he's alvays
+belangholy."
+
+"Oh, do let me see him," cried Mr. Edward Arundel. "I know you can
+manage it; so do, that's a good fellow. I tell you he's a friend of
+mine, and quite a gentleman too. Bless you, there isn't a move in
+mathematics he isn't up to; and he'll come into a fortune some of these
+days--"
+
+"Yaase," interrupted the door-keeper, sarcastically, "Zey bake von of
+him pegause off dad."
+
+"And can I see him?"
+
+"I phill dry and vind him vor you. Here, you Chim," said the
+door-keeper, addressing a dirty youth, who had just nailed an official
+announcement of the next morning's rehearsal upon the back of a
+stony-hearted swing-door, which was apt to jam the fingers of the
+uninitiated,--"vot is ze name off yat zuber vith ze pad gough, ze man
+zay gall Parking."
+
+"Oh, that's Morti-more."
+
+"To you know if he's on in ze virsd zene?"
+
+"Yes. He's one of the demons; but the scene's just over. Do you want
+him?"
+
+"You gan dake ub zis young chendleman's gard do him, and dell him to
+slib town here if he has kod a vaid," said the door-keeper.
+
+Mr. Arundel handed his card to the dirty boy.
+
+"He'll come to me fast enough, poor fellow," he muttered. "I usen't to
+chaff him as the others did, and I'm glad I didn't, now."
+
+Edward Arundel could not easily forget that one brief scrutiny in which
+he had recognised the wasted face of the schoolmaster's hack, who had
+taught him mathematics only two years before. Could there be anything
+more piteous than that degrading spectacle? The feeble frame, scarcely
+able to sustain that paltry one-sided banner of calico and tinsel; the
+two rude daubs of coarse vermilion upon the hollow cheeks; the black
+smudges that were meant for eyebrows; the wretched scrap of horsehair
+glued upon the pinched chin in dismal mockery of a beard; and through
+all this the pathetic pleading of large hazel eyes, bright with the
+unnatural lustre of disease, and saying perpetually, more plainly than
+words can speak, "Do not look at me; do not despise me; do not even
+pity me. It won't last long."
+
+That fresh-hearted schoolboy was still thinking of this, when a wasted
+hand was laid lightly and tremulously on his arm, and looking up he saw
+a man in a hideous mask and a tight-fitting suit of scarlet and gold
+standing by his side.
+
+"I'll take off my mask in a minute, Arundel," said a faint voice, that
+sounded hollow and muffled within a cavern of pasteboard and
+wickerwork. "It was very good of you to come round; very, very good!"
+
+"I was so sorry to see you here, Marchmont; I knew you in a moment, in
+spite of the disguise."
+
+The supernumerary had struggled out of his huge head-gear by this time,
+and laid the fabric of papier-mâché and tinsel carefully aside upon a
+shelf. He had washed his face before putting on the mask, for he was
+not called upon to appear before a British public in martial semblance
+any more upon that evening. The pale wasted face was interesting and
+gentlemanly, not by any means handsome, but almost womanly in its
+softness of expression. It was the face of a man who had not yet seen
+his thirtieth birthday; who might never live to see it, Edward Arundel
+thought mournfully.
+
+"Why do you do this, Marchmont?" the boy asked bluntly.
+
+"Because there was nothing else left for me to do," the stage-demon
+answered with a sad smile. "I can't get a situation in a school, for my
+health won't suffer me to take one; or it won't suffer any employer to
+take me, for fear of my falling ill upon his hands, which comes to the
+same thing; so I do a little copying for the law-stationers, and this
+helps out that, and I get on as well as I can. I wouldn't so much mind
+if it wasn't for--"
+
+He stopped suddenly, interrupted by a paroxysm of coughing.
+
+"If it wasn't for whom, old fellow?"
+
+"My poor little girl; my poor little motherless Mary."
+
+Edward Arundel looked grave, and perhaps a little ashamed of himself.
+He had forgotten until this moment that his old tutor had been left a
+widower at four-and-twenty, with a little daughter to support out of
+his scanty stipend.
+
+"Don't be down-hearted, old fellow," the lad whispered, tenderly;
+"perhaps I shall be able to help you, you know. And the little girl can
+go down to Dangerfield; I know my mother would take care of her, and
+will keep her there till you get strong and well. And then you might
+start a fencing-room, or a shooting-gallery, or something of that sort,
+at the West End; and I'd come to you, and bring lots of fellows to you,
+and you'd get on capitally, you know."
+
+Poor John Marchmont, the asthmatic supernumerary, looked perhaps the
+very last person in the world whom it could be possible to associate
+with a pair of foils, or a pistol and a target; but he smiled faintly
+at his old pupil's enthusiastic talk.
+
+"You were always a good fellow, Arundel," he said, gravely. "I don't
+suppose I shall ever ask you to do me a service; but if, by-and-by,
+this cough makes me knock under, and my little Polly should be
+left--I--I think you'd get your mother to be kind to her,--wouldn't
+you, Arundel?"
+
+A picture rose before the supernumerary's weary eyes as he said this;
+the picture of a pleasant lady whose description he had often heard
+from the lips of a loving son, a rambling old mansion, wide-spreading
+lawns, and long arcades of oak and beeches leading away to the blue
+distance. If this Mrs. Arundel, who was so tender and compassionate and
+gentle to every red-cheeked cottage-girl who crossed her
+pathway,--Edward had told him this very often,--would take compassion
+also upon this little one! If she would only condescend to see the
+child, the poor pale neglected flower, the fragile lily, the frail
+exotic blossom, that was so cruelly out of place upon the bleak
+pathways of life!
+
+"If that's all that troubles you," young Arundel cried eagerly, "you
+may make your mind easy, and come and have some oysters. We'll take
+care of the child. I'll adopt her, and my mother shall educate her, and
+she shall marry a duke. Run away, now, old fellow, and change your
+clothes, and come and have oysters, and stout out of the pewter."
+
+Mr. Marchmont shook his head.
+
+"My time's just up," he said; "I'm on in the next scene. It was very
+kind of you to come round, Arundel; but this isn't exactly the best
+place for you. Go back to your friends, my dear boy, and don't think
+any more of me. I'll write to you some day about little Mary."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," exclaimed the boy. "You'll give me
+your address instanter, and I'll come to see you the first thing
+to-morrow morning, and you'll introduce me to little Mary; and if she
+and I are not the best friends in the world, I shall never again boast
+of my successes with lovely woman. What's the number, old fellow?"
+
+Mr. Arundel had pulled out a smart morocco pocket-book and a gold
+pencil-case.
+
+"Twenty-seven, Oakley Street, Lambeth. But I'd rather you wouldn't
+come, Arundel; your friends wouldn't like it."
+
+"My friends may go hang themselves. I shall do as I like, and I'll be
+with you to breakfast, sharp ten."
+
+The supernumerary had no time to remonstrate. The progress of the
+music, faintly audible from the lobby in which this conversation had
+taken place, told him that his scene was nearly on.
+
+"I can't stop another moment. Go back to your friends, Arundel. Good
+night. God bless you!"
+
+"Stay; one word. The Lincolnshire property--"
+
+"Will never come to me, my boy," the demon answered sadly, through his
+mask; for he had been busy re-investing himself in that demoniac guise.
+"I tried to sell my reversion, but the Jews almost laughed in my face
+when they heard me cough. Good night."
+
+He was gone, and the swing-door slammed in Edward Arundel's face. The
+boy hurried back to his cousin, who was cross and dissatisfied at his
+absence. Martin Mostyn had discovered that the ballet-girls were all
+either old or ugly, the music badly chosen, the pantomime stupid, the
+scenery a failure. He asked a few supercilious questions about his old
+tutor, but scarcely listened to Edward's answers; and was intensely
+aggravated with his companion's pertinacity in sitting out the comic
+business--in which poor John Marchmont appeared and re-appeared; now as
+a well-dressed passenger carrying a parcel, which he deliberately
+sacrificed to the felonious propensities of the clown; now as a
+policeman, now as a barber, now as a chemist, now as a ghost; but
+always buffeted, or cajoled, or bonneted, or imposed upon; always
+piteous, miserable, and long-suffering; with arms that ached from
+carrying a banner through five acts of blank-verse weariness, with a
+head that had throbbed under the weight of a ponderous edifice of
+pasteboard and wicker, with eyes that were sore with the evil influence
+of blue-fire and gunpowder smoke, with a throat that had been poisoned
+by sulphurous vapours, with bones that were stiff with the playful
+pummelling of clown and pantaloon; and all for--a shilling a night!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LITTLE MARY.
+
+
+Poor John Marchmont had given his address unwillingly enough to his old
+pupil. The lodging in Oakley Street was a wretched back-room upon the
+second-floor of a house whose lower regions were devoted to that
+species of establishment commonly called a "ladies' wardrobe." The poor
+gentleman, the teacher of mathematics, the law-writer, the Drury-Lane
+supernumerary, had shrunk from any exposure of his poverty; but his
+pupil's imperious good-nature had overridden every objection, and John
+Marchmont awoke upon the morning after the meeting at Drury-Lane to the
+rather embarrassing recollection that he was to expect a visitor to
+breakfast with him.
+
+How was he to entertain this dashing, high-spirited young schoolboy,
+whose lot was cast in the pleasant pathways of life, and who was no
+doubt accustomed to see at his matutinal meal such luxuries as John
+Marchmont had only beheld in the fairy-like realms of comestible beauty
+exhibited to hungry foot-passengers behind the plate-glass windows of
+Italian warehouses?
+
+"He has hams stewed in Madeira, and Perigord pies, I dare say, at his
+Aunt Mostyn's," John thought, despairingly. "What can I give him to
+eat?"
+
+But John Marchmont, after the manner of the poor, was apt to
+over-estimate the extravagance of the rich. If he could have seen the
+Mostyn breakfast then preparing in the lower regions of Montague
+Square, he might have been considerably relieved; for he would have
+only beheld mild infusions of tea and coffee--in silver vessels,
+certainly--four French rolls hidden under a glistening damask napkin,
+six triangular fragments of dry toast, cut from a stale half-quartern,
+four new-laid eggs, and about half a pound of bacon cut into rashers of
+transcendental delicacy. Widow ladies who have daughters to marry do
+not plunge very deep into the books of Messrs. Fortnum and Mason.
+
+"He used to like hot rolls when I was at Vernon's," John thought,
+rather more hopefully; "I wonder whether he likes hot rolls still?"
+
+Pondering thus, Mr. Marchmont dressed himself,--very neatly, very
+carefully; for he was one of those men whom even poverty cannot rob of
+man's proudest attribute, his individuality. He made no noisy protest
+against the humiliations to which he was compelled to submit; he
+uttered no boisterous assertions of his own merit; he urged no
+clamorous demand to be treated as a gentleman in his day of misfortune;
+but in his own mild, undemonstrative way he did assert himself, quite
+as effectually as if he had raved all day upon the hardship of his lot,
+and drunk himself mad and blind under the pressure of his calamities.
+He never abandoned the habits which had been peculiar to him from his
+childhood. He was as neat and orderly in his second-floor-back as he
+had been seven or eight years before in his simple apartments at
+Cambridge. He did not recognise that association which most men
+perceive between poverty and shirt-sleeves, or poverty and beer. He was
+content to wear threadbare cloth, but adhered most obstinately to a
+prejudice in favour of clean linen. He never acquired those lounging
+vagabond habits peculiar to some men in the day of trouble. Even
+amongst the supernumeraries of Drury Lane, he contrived to preserve his
+self-respect; if they nicknamed him Barking Jeremiah, they took care
+only to pronounce that playful sobriquet when the gentleman-super was
+safely out of hearing. He was so polite in the midst of his reserve,
+that the person who could wilfully have offended him must have been
+more unkindly than any of her Majesty's servants. It is true, that the
+great tragedian, on more than one occasion, apostrophised the
+weak-kneed banner-holder as "BEAST" when the super's cough had
+peculiarly disturbed his composure; but the same great man gave poor
+John Marchmont a letter to a distinguished physician, compassionately
+desiring the relief of the same pulmonary affection. If John Marchmont
+had not been prompted by his own instincts to struggle against the evil
+influences of poverty, he would have done battle sturdily for the sake
+of one who was ten times dearer to him than himself.
+
+If he _could_ have become a swindler or a reprobate,--it would have
+been about as easy for him to become either as to have burst at once,
+and without an hour's practice, into a full-blown Léotard or
+Olmar,--his daughter's influence would have held him back as securely
+as if the slender arms twined tenderly about him had been chains of
+adamant forged by an enchanter's power.
+
+How could he be false to his little one, this helpless child, who had
+been confided to him in the darkest hour of his existence; the hour in
+which his wife had yielded to the many forces arrayed against her in
+life's battle, and had left him alone in the world to fight for his
+little girl?
+
+"If I were to die, I think Arundel's mother would be kind to her," John
+Marchmont thought, as he finished his careful toilet. "Heaven knows, I
+have no right to ask or expect such a thing; but Polly will be rich
+by-and-by, perhaps, and will be able to repay them."
+
+A little hand knocked lightly at the door of his room while he was
+thinking this, and a childish voice said,
+
+"May I come in, papa?"
+
+The little girl slept with one of the landlady's children, in a room
+above her father's. John opened the door, and let her in. The pale
+wintry sunshine, creeping in at the curtainless window near which Mr.
+Marchmont sat, shone full upon the child's face as she came towards
+him. It was a small, pale face, with singularly delicate features, a
+tiny straight nose, a pensive mouth, and large thoughtful hazel eyes.
+The child's hair fell loosely upon her shoulders; not in those
+corkscrew curls so much affected by mothers in the humbler walks of
+life, nor yet in those crisp undulations lately adopted in Belgravian
+nurseries; but in soft silken masses, only curling at the extreme end
+of each tress. Miss Marchmont--she was always called Miss Marchmont in
+that Oakley Street household--wore her brown-stuff frock and scanty
+diaper pinafore as neatly as her father wore his threadbare coat and
+darned linen. She was very pretty, very lady-like, very interesting;
+but it was impossible to look at her without a vague feeling of pain,
+that was difficult to understand. You knew, by-and-by, why you were
+sorry for this little girl. She had never been a child. That divine
+period of perfect innocence,--innocence of all sorrow and trouble,
+falsehood and wrong,--that bright holiday-time of the soul, had never
+been hers. The ruthless hand of poverty had snatched away from her the
+gift which God had given her in her cradle; and at eight years old she
+was a woman,--a woman invested with all that is most beautiful amongst
+womanly attributes--love, tenderness, compassion, carefulness for
+others, unselfish devotion, uncomplaining patience, heroic endurance.
+She was a woman by reason of all these virtues; but she was no longer a
+child. At three years old she had bidden farewell for ever to the
+ignorant selfishness, the animal enjoyment of childhood, and had
+learned what it was to be sorry for poor papa and mamma; and from that
+first time of awakening to the sense of pity and love, she had never
+ceased to be the comforter of the helpless young husband who was so
+soon to be left wifeless.
+
+John had been compelled to leave his child, in order to get a living
+for her and for himself in the hard service of Mr. Laurence Vernon, the
+principal of the highly select and expensive academy at which Edward
+Arundel and Martin Mostyn had been educated. But he had left her in
+good hands; and when the bitter day of his dismissal came, he was
+scarcely as sorry as he ought to have been for the calamity which
+brought him back to his little Mary. It is impossible for any words of
+mine to tell how much he loved the child; but take into consideration
+his hopeless poverty, his sensitive and reserved nature, his utter
+loneliness, the bereavement that had cast a shadow upon his youth, and
+you will perhaps understand an affection that was almost morbid in its
+intensity, and which was reciprocated most fully by its object. The
+little girl loved her father _too much_. When he was with her, she was
+content to sit by his side, watching him as he wrote; proud to help
+him, if even by so much as wiping his pens or handing him his
+blotting-paper; happy to wait upon him, to go out marketing for him, to
+prepare his scanty meals, to make his tea, and arrange and re-arrange
+every object in the slenderly furnished second-floor back-room. They
+talked sometimes of the Lincolnshire fortune,--the fortune which
+_might_ come to Mr. Marchmont, if three people, whose lives when Mary's
+father had last heard of them, were each worth three times his own
+feeble existence, would be so obliging as to clear the way for the
+heir-at-law, by taking an early departure to the churchyard. A more
+practical man than John Marchmont would have kept a sharp eye upon
+these three lives, and by some means or other contrived to find out
+whether number one was consumptive, or number two dropsical, or number
+three apoplectic; but John was utterly incapable of any such
+Machiavellian proceeding. I think he sometimes beguiled his weary walks
+between Oakley Street and Drury Lane by the dreaming of such childish
+day-dreams as I should be almost ashamed to set down upon this sober
+page. The three lives might all happen to be riding in the same express
+upon the occasion of a terrible collision; but the poor fellow's gentle
+nature shrank appalled before the vision he had invoked. He could not
+sacrifice a whole train-full of victims, even for little Mary. He
+contented himself with borrowing a "Times" newspaper now and then, and
+looking at the top of the second column, with the faint hope that he
+should see his own name in large capitals, coupled with the
+announcement that by applying somewhere he might hear of something to
+his advantage. He contented himself with this, and with talking about
+the future to little Mary in the dim firelight. They spent long hours
+in the shadowy room, only lighted by the faint flicker of a pitiful
+handful of coals; for the commonest dip-candles are
+sevenpence-halfpenny a pound, and were dearer, I dare say, in the year
+'38. Heaven knows what splendid castles in the air these two
+simple-hearted creatures built for each other's pleasure by that
+comfortless hearth. I believe that, though the father made a pretence
+of talking of these things only for the amusement of his child, he was
+actually the more childish of the two. It was only when he left that
+fire-lit room, and went back into the hard, reasonable, commonplace
+world, that he remembered how foolish the talk was, and how it was
+impossible--yes, impossible--that he, the law-writer and supernumerary,
+could ever come to be master of Marchmont Towers.
+
+Poor little Mary was in this less practical than her father. She
+carried her day-dreams into the street, until all Lambeth was made
+glorious by their supernal radiance. Her imagination ran riot in a
+vision of a happy future, in which her father would be rich and
+powerful. I am sorry to say that she derived most of her ideas of
+grandeur from the New Cut. She furnished the drawing-room at Marchmont
+Towers from the splendid stores of an upholsterer in that thoroughfare.
+She laid flaming Brussels carpets upon the polished oaken floors which
+her father had described to her, and hung cheap satin damask of
+gorgeous colours before the great oriel windows. She put gilded vases
+of gaudy artificial flowers on the high carved mantel-pieces in the old
+rooms, and hung a disreputable gray parrot--for sale at a
+greengrocer's, and given to the use of bad language--under the stone
+colonnnade at the end of the western wing. She appointed the
+tradespeople who should serve the far-away Lincolnshire household; the
+small matter of distance would, of course, never stand in the way of
+her gratitude and benevolence. Her papa would employ the civil
+greengrocer who gave such excellent halfpennyworths of watercresses;
+the kind butterman who took such pains to wrap up a quarter of a pound
+of the best eighteenpenny fresh butter for the customer whom he always
+called "little lady;" the considerate butcher who never cut _more_ than
+the three-quarters of a pound of rump-steak, which made an excellent
+dinner for Mr. Marchmont and his little girl. Yes, all these people
+should be rewarded when the Lincolnshire property came to Mary's papa.
+Miss Marchmont had some thoughts of building a shop close to Marchmont
+Towers for the accommodating butcher, and of adopting the greengrocer's
+eldest daughter for her confidante and companion. Heaven knows how many
+times the little girl narrowly escaped being run over while walking the
+material streets in some ecstatic reverie such as this; but Providence
+was very careful of the motherless girl, and she always returned safely
+to Oakley Street with her pitiful little purchases of tea and sugar,
+butter and meat. You will say, perhaps, that at least these foolish
+day-dreams were childish; but I maintain still, that Mary's soul had
+long ago bade adieu to infancy, and that even in these visions she was
+womanly; for she was always thoughtful of others rather than of
+herself, and there was a great deal more of the practical business of
+life mingled with the silvery web of her fancies than there should have
+been so soon after her eighth birthday. At times, too, an awful horror
+would quicken the pulses of her loving heart as she heard the hacking
+sound of her father's cough; and a terrible dread would seize her,--the
+fear that John Marchmont might never live to inherit the Lincolnshire
+fortune. The child never said her prayers without adding a little
+extempore supplication, that she might die when her father died. It was
+a wicked prayer, perhaps; and a clergyman might have taught her that
+her life was in the hands of Providence; and that it might please Him
+who had created her to doom her to many desolate years of loneliness;
+and that it was not for her, in her wretched and helpless ignorance, to
+rebel against His divine will. I think if the Archbishop of Canterbury
+had driven from Lambeth Palace to Oakley Street to tell little Mary
+this, he would have taught her in vain; and that she would have fallen
+asleep that night with the old prayer upon her lips, the fond foolish
+prayer that the bonds which love had woven so firmly might never be
+roughly broken by death.
+
+Miss Marchmont heard the story of last night's meeting with great
+pleasure, though it must be owned she looked a little grave when she
+was told that the generous-hearted school-boy was coming to breakfast;
+but her gravity was only that of a thoughtful housekeeper, who ponders
+ways and means, and even while you are telling her the number and
+quality of your guests, sketches out a rough ground-plan of her dishes,
+considers the fish in season, and the soups most fitting to precede
+them, and balances the contending advantages of Palestine and Julienne
+or Hare and Italian.
+
+"A 'nice' breakfast you say, papa," she said, when her father had
+finished speaking; "then we must have watercresses, _of course_."
+
+"And hot rolls, Polly dear. Arundel was always fond of hot rolls."
+
+"And hot rolls, four for threepence-halfpenny in the Cut."--(I am
+ashamed to say that this benighted child talked as deliberately of the
+"Cut" as she might have done of the "Row.")--"There'll be one left for
+tea, papa; for we could never eat four rolls. They'll take _such_ a lot
+of butter, though."
+
+The little housekeeper took out an antediluvian bead-purse, and began
+to examine her treasury. Her father handed all his money to her, as he
+would have done to his wife; and Mary doled him out the little sums he
+wanted,--money for half an ounce of tobacco, money for a pint of beer.
+There were no penny papers in those days, or what a treat an occasional
+"Telegraph" would have been to poor John Marchmont!
+
+Mary had only one personal extravagance. She read novels,--dirty,
+bloated, ungainly volumes,--which she borrowed from a snuffy old woman
+in a little back street, who charged her the smallest hire ever known
+in the circulating-library business, and who admired her as a wonder of
+precocious erudition. The only pleasure the child knew in her father's
+absence was the perusal of these dingy pages; she neglected no duty,
+she forgot no tender office of ministering care for the loved one who
+was absent; but when all the little duties had been finished, how
+delicious it was to sit down to "Madeleine the Deserted," or "Cosmo the
+Pirate," and to lose herself far away in illimitable regions, peopled
+by wandering princesses in white satin, and gentlemanly bandits, who
+had been stolen from their royal fathers' halls by vengeful hordes of
+gipsies. During these early years of poverty and loneliness, John
+Marchmont's daughter stored up, in a mind that was morbidly sensitive
+rather than strong, a terrible amount of dim poetic sentiment; the
+possession of which is scarcely, perhaps, the best or safest dower for
+a young lady who has life's journey all before her.
+
+At half-past nine o'clock, all the simple preparations necessary for
+the reception of a visitor had been completed by Mr. Marchmont and his
+daughter. All vestiges of John's bed had disappeared; leaving, it is
+true, rather a suspicious-looking mahogany chest of drawers to mark the
+spot where once a bed had been. The window had been opened, the room
+aired and dusted, a bright little fire burned in the shining grate, and
+the most brilliant of tin tea-kettles hissed upon the hob. The white
+table-cloth was darned in several places; but it was a remnant of the
+small stock of linen with which John had begun married life; and the
+Irish damask asserted its superior quality, in spite of many darns, as
+positively as Mr. Marchmont's good blood asserted itself in spite of
+his shabby coat. A brown teapot full of strong tea, a plate of French
+rolls, a pat of fresh butter, and a broiled haddock, do not compose a
+very epicurean repast; but Mary Marchmont looked at the humble
+breakfast as a prospective success.
+
+"We could have haddocks every day at Marchmont Towers, couldn't we,
+papa?" she said naïvely.
+
+But the little girl was more than delighted when Edward Arundel dashed
+up the narrow staircase, and burst into the room, fresh, radiant,
+noisy, splendid, better dressed even than the waxen preparations of
+elegant young gentlemen exhibited at the portal of a great outfitter in
+the New Cut, and yet not at all like either of those red-lipped types
+of fashion. How delighted the boy declared himself with every thing! He
+had driven over in a cabriolet, and he was awfully hungry, he informed
+his host. The rolls and watercresses disappeared before him as if by
+magic; little Mary shivered at the slashing cuts he made at the butter;
+the haddock had scarcely left the gridiron before it was no more.
+
+"This is ten times better than Aunt Mostyn's skinny breakfasts," the
+young gentleman observed candidly. "You never get enough with her. Why
+does she say, 'You won't take another egg, will you, Edward?' if she
+wants me to have one? You should see our hunting-breakfasts at
+Dangerfield, Marchmont. Four sorts of claret, and no end of Moselle and
+champagne. You shall go to Dangerfield some day, to see my mother, Miss
+Mary."
+
+He called her "Miss Mary," and seemed rather shy of speaking to her.
+Her womanliness impressed him in spite of himself. He had a fancy that
+she was old enough to feel the humiliation of her father's position,
+and to be sensitive upon the matter of the two-pair back; and he was
+sorry the moment after he had spoken of Dangerfield.
+
+"What a snob I am!" he thought; "always bragging of home."
+
+But Mr. Arundel was not able to stop very long in Oakley Street, for
+the supernumerary had to attend a rehearsal at twelve o'clock; so at
+half-past eleven John Marchmont and his pupil went out together, and
+little Mary was left alone to clear away the breakfast, and perform the
+rest of her household duties.
+
+She had plenty of time before her, so she did not begin at once, but
+sat upon a stool near the fender, gazing dreamily at the low fire.
+
+"How good and kind he is!" she thought; "just like Cosmo,--only Cosmo
+was dark; or like Reginald Ravenscroft,--but then he was dark too. I
+wonder why the people in novels are always dark? How kind he is to
+papa! Shall we ever go to Dangerfield, I wonder, papa and I? Of course
+I wouldn't go without papa."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ABOUT THE LINCOLNSHIRE PROPERTY.
+
+
+While Mary sat absorbed in such idle visions as these, Mr. Marchmont
+and his old pupil walked towards Waterloo Bridge together.
+
+"I'll go as far as the theatre with you, Marchmont," the boy said;
+"it's my holidays now, you know, and I can do as I like. I am going to
+a private tutor in another month, and he's to prepare me for the army.
+I want you to tell me all about that Lincolnshire property, old boy. Is
+it anywhere near Swampington?"
+
+"Yes; within nine miles."
+
+"Goodness gracious me! Lord bless my soul! what an extraordinary
+coincidence! My uncle Hubert's Rector of Swampington--such a hole! I go
+there sometimes to see him and my cousin Olivia. Isn't she a stunner,
+though! Knows more Greek and Latin than I, and more mathematics than
+you. Could eat our heads off at any thing."
+
+John Marchmont did not seem very much impressed by the coincidence that
+appeared so extraordinary to Edward Arundel; but, in order to oblige
+his friend, he explained very patiently and lucidly how it was that
+only three lives stood between him and the possession of Marchmont
+Towers, and all lands and tenements appertaining thereto.
+
+"The estate's a very large one," he said finally; "but the idea of _my_
+ever getting it is, of course, too preposterous."
+
+"Good gracious me! I don't see that at all," exclaimed Edward with
+extraordinary vivacity. "Let me see, old fellow; if I understand your
+story right, this is how the case stands: your first cousin is the
+present possessor of Marchmont Towers; he has a son, fifteen years of
+age, who may or may not marry; only one son, remember. But he has also
+an uncle--a bachelor uncle, and your uncle, too--who, by the terms of
+your grandfather's will, must get the property before you can succeed
+to it. Now, this uncle is an old man: so of course _he'll_ die soon.
+The present possessor himself is a middle-aged man; so I shouldn't
+think _he_ can be likely to last long. I dare say he drinks too much
+port, or hunts, or something of that sort; goes to sleep after dinner,
+and does all manner of apoplectic things, I'll be bound. Then there's
+the son, only fifteen, and not yet marriageable; consumptive, I dare
+say. Now, will you tell me the chances are not six to six he dies
+unmarried? So you see, my dear old boy, you're sure to get the fortune;
+for there's nothing to keep you out of it, except--"
+
+"Except three lives, the worst of which is better than mine. It's kind
+of you to look at it in this sanguine way, Arundel; but I wasn't born
+to be a rich man. Perhaps, after all, Providence has used me better
+than I think. I mightn't have been happy at Marchmont Towers. I'm a
+shy, awkward, humdrum fellow. If it wasn't for Mary's sake--"
+
+"Ah, to be sure!" cried Edward Arundel. "You're not going to forget all
+about--Miss Marchmont!" He was going to say "little Mary," but had
+checked himself abruptly at the sudden recollection of the earnest
+hazel eyes that had kept wondering watch upon his ravages at the
+breakfast-table. "I'm sure Miss Marchmont's born to be an heiress. I
+never saw such a little princess."
+
+"What!" demanded John Marchmont sadly, "in a darned pinafore and a
+threadbare frock?"
+
+The boy's face flushed, almost indignantly, as his old master said
+this.
+
+"You don't think I'm such a snob as to admire a lady"--he spoke thus of
+Miss Mary Marchmont, yet midway between her eighth and ninth
+birthday--"the less because she isn't rich? But of course your daughter
+will have the fortune by-and-by, even if--"
+
+He stopped, ashamed of his want of tact; for he knew John would divine
+the meaning of that sudden pause.
+
+"Even if I should die before Philip Marchmont," the teacher of
+mathematics answered, quietly. "As far as that goes, Mary's chance is
+as remote as my own. The fortune can only come to her in the event of
+Arthur dying without issue, or, having issue, failing to cut off the
+entail, I believe they call it."
+
+"Arthur! that's the son of the present possessor?"
+
+"Yes. If I and my poor little girl, who is delicate like her mother,
+should die before either of these three men, there is another who will
+stand in my shoes, and will look out perhaps more eagerly than I have
+done for his chances of getting the property."
+
+"Another!" exclaimed Mr. Arundel. "By Jove, Marchmont, it's the most
+complicated affair I ever heard of. It's worse than those sums you used
+to set me in barter: 'If A. sells B. 999 Stilton cheeses at 9 1/2_d_ a
+pound,' and all that sort of thing, you know. Do make me understand it,
+old fellow, if you can."
+
+John Marchmont sighed.
+
+"It's a wearisome story, Arundel," he said. "I don't know why I should
+bore you with it."
+
+"But you don't bore me with it," cried the boy energetically. "I'm
+awfully interested in it, you know; and I could walk up and down here
+all day talking about it."
+
+The two gentlemen had passed the Surrey toll-gate of Waterloo Bridge by
+this time. The South-Western Terminus had not been built in the year
+'38, and the bridge was about the quietest thoroughfare any two
+companions confidentially inclined could have chosen. The shareholders
+knew this, to their cost.
+
+Perhaps Mr. Marchmont might have been beguiled into repeating the old
+story, which he had told so often in the dim firelight to his little
+girl; but the great clock of St. Paul's boomed forth the twelve
+ponderous strokes that told the hour of noon, and a hundred other
+steeples upon either side of the water made themselves clamorous with
+the same announcement.
+
+"I must leave you, Arundel," the supernumerary said hurriedly; he had
+just remembered that it was time for him to go and be browbeaten by a
+truculent stage-manager. "God bless you, my dear boy! It was very good
+of you to want to see me, and the sight of your fresh face has made me
+very happy. I _should_ like you to understand all about the
+Lincolnshire property. God knows there's small chance of its ever
+coming to me or to my child; but when I am dead and gone, Mary will be
+left alone in the world, and it would be some comfort to me to know
+that she was not without _one_ friend--generous and disinterested like
+you, Arundel,--who, if the chance _did_ come, would see her righted."
+
+"And so I would," cried the boy eagerly. His face flushed, and his eyes
+fired. He was a preux chevalier already, in thought, going forth to do
+battle for a hazel-eyed mistress.
+
+"I'll _write_ the story, Arundel," John Marchmont said; "I've no time
+to tell it, and you mightn't remember it either. Once more, good-bye;
+once more, God bless you!"
+
+"Stop!" exclaimed Edward Arundel, flushing a deeper red than
+before,--he had a very boyish habit of blushing,--"stop, dear old boy.
+You must borrow this of me, please. I've lots of them. I should only
+spend it on all sorts of bilious things; or stop out late and get
+tipsy. You shall pay me with interest when you get Marchmont Towers. I
+shall come and see you again soon. Good-bye."
+
+The lad forced some crumpled scrap of paper into his old tutor's hand,
+bolted through the toll-bar, and jumped into a cabriolet, whose
+high-stepping charger was dawdling along Lancaster Place.
+
+The supernumerary hurried on to Drury Lane as fast as his weak legs
+could carry him. He was obliged to wait for a pause in the rehearsal
+before he could find an opportunity of looking at the parting gift
+which his old pupil had forced upon him. It was a crumpled and rather
+dirty five-pound note, wrapped round two half-crowns, a shilling, and
+half-a-sovereign.
+
+The boy had given his friend the last remnant of his slender stock of
+pocket-money. John Marchmont turned his face to the dark wing that
+sheltered him, and wept silently. He was of a gentle and rather womanly
+disposition, be it remembered; and he was in that weak state of health
+in which a man's eyes are apt to moisten, in spite of himself, under
+the influence of any unwonted emotion.
+
+He employed a part of that afternoon in writing the letter which he had
+promised to send to his boyish friend:--
+
+"MY DEAR ARUNDEL,
+
+"My purpose in writing to you to-day is so entirely connected with the
+future welfare of my beloved and only child, that I shall carefully
+abstain from any subject not connected with her interests. I say
+nothing, therefore, respecting your conduct of this morning, which,
+together with my previous knowledge of your character, has decided me
+upon confiding to you the doubts and fears which have long tormented me
+upon the subject of my darling's future.
+
+"I am a doomed man, Arundel! The doctors have told me this; but they
+have told me also that, though I can never escape the sentence of death
+which was passed upon me long ago, I may live for some years if I live
+the careful life which only a rich man can lead. If I go on carrying
+banners and breathing sulphur, I cannot last long. My little girl will
+be left penniless, but not quite friendless; for there are humble
+people, relatives of her poor mother, who would help her kindly, I am
+sure, in their own humble way. The trials which I fear for my orphan
+girl are not so much the trials of poverty as the dangers of wealth. If
+the three men who, on my death, would alone stand between Mary and the
+Lincolnshire property die childless, my poor darling will become the
+only obstacle in the pathway of a man whom, I will freely own to you, I
+distrust.
+
+"My father, John Marchmont, was the third of four brothers. The eldest,
+Philip, died leaving one son, also called Philip, and the present
+possessor of Marchmont Towers. The second, Marmaduke, is still alive, a
+bachelor. The third, John, left four children, of whom I alone survive.
+The fourth, Paul, left a son and two daughters. The son is an artist,
+exercising his profession now in London; one of the daughters is
+married to a parish surgeon, who practises at Stanfield, in
+Lincolnshire; the other is an old maid, and entirely dependent upon her
+brother.
+
+"It is this man, Paul Marchmont the artist, whom I fear.
+
+"Do not think me weak, or foolishly suspicious, Arundel, when I tell
+you that the very thought of this man brings the cold sweat upon my
+forehead, and seems to stop the beating of my heart. I know that this
+is a prejudice, and an unworthy one. I do not believe Paul Marchmont is
+a good man; but I can assign no sufficient reason for my hatred and
+terror of him. It is impossible for you, a frank and careless boy, to
+realise the feelings of a man who looks at his only child, and
+remembers that she may soon be left, helpless and defenceless, to fight
+the battle of life with a bad man. Sometimes I pray to God that the
+Marchmont property may never come to my child after my death; for I
+cannot rid myself of the thought--may Heaven forgive me for its
+unworthiness!--that Paul Marchmont would leave no means untried,
+however foul, to wrest the fortune from her. I dare say worldly people
+would laugh at me for writing this letter to you, my dear Arundel; but
+I address myself to the best friend I have,--the only creature I know
+whom the influence of a bad man is never likely to corrupt. _Noblesse
+oblige!_ I am not afraid that Edward Dangerfield Arundel will betray
+any trust, however foolish, that may have been confided to him.
+
+"Perhaps, in writing to you thus, I may feel something of that blind
+hopefulness--amid the shipwreck of all that commonly gives birth to
+hope--which the mariner cast away upon some desert island feels, when
+he seals his simple story in a bottle, and launches it upon the waste
+of waters that close him in on every side. Before my little girl is
+four years older, you will be a man, Arundel--with a man's intellect, a
+man's courage, and, above all, a man's keen sense of honour. So long as
+my darling remains poor, her humble friends will be strong enough to
+protect her; but if ever Providence should think fit to place her in a
+position of antagonism to Paul Marchmont,--for he would look upon any
+one as an enemy who stood between him and fortune,--she would need a
+far more powerful protector than any she could find amongst her poor
+mother's relatives. Will _you_ be that protector, Edward Arundel? I am
+a drowning man, you see, and catch at the frailest straw that floats
+past me. I believe in you, Edward, as much as I distrust Paul
+Marchmont. If the day ever comes in which my little girl should have to
+struggle with this man, will you help her to fight the battle? It will
+not be an easy one.
+
+"Subjoined to this letter I send you an extract from the copy of my
+grandfather's will, which will explain to you how he left his property.
+Do not lose either the letter or the extract. If you are willing to
+undertake the trust which I confide to you to-day, you may have need to
+refer to them after my death. The legacy of a child's helplessness is
+the only bequest which I can leave to the only friend I have.
+
+"JOHN MARCHMONT.
+
+"27, OAKLEY STREET, LAMBETH,
+
+"_December_ 30_th_, 1838.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"EXTRACT FROM THE WILL OF PHILIP MARCHMONT, SENIOR, OF MARCHMONT
+TOWERS.
+
+"'I give and devise all that my estate known as Marchmont Towers and
+appurtenances thereto belonging to the use of my eldest son Philip
+Marchmont during his natural life without impeachment of waste and from
+and after his decease then to the use of my grandson Philip the first
+son of my said son Philip during the term of his natural life without
+impeachment of waste and after the decease of my said grandson Philip
+to the use of the first and every other son of my said grandson
+severally and successively according to their respective seniority in
+tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the
+daughters and daughter of my said grandson Philip as tenants in common
+in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if
+all the daughters of my said grandson Philip except one shall die
+without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the
+use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue
+then to the use of the second and every other son of my said eldest son
+severally and successively according to his respective seniority in
+tail and in default of such issue to the use of all and every the
+daughters and daughter of my said eldest son Philip as tenants in
+common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail
+and in default of such issue to the use of my second son Marmaduke and
+his assigns during the term of his natural life without impeachment of
+waste and after his decease to the use of the first and every son of my
+said son Marmaduke severally and successively according to their
+respective seniorities in tail and for default of such issue to the use
+of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said son Marmaduke as
+tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them
+in tail and if all the daughters of my said son Marmaduke except one
+shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then
+to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such
+issue then to the use of my third son John during the term of his
+natural life without impeachment of waste and from and after his
+decease then to the use of my grandson John the first son of my said
+son John during the term of his natural life without impeachment of
+waste and after the decease of my said grandson John to the use of the
+first and every other son of my said grandson John severally and
+successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for
+default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and
+daughter of my said grandson John as tenants in common in tail with
+cross remainders between or among them in tail and if all the daughters
+of my said grandson John except one shall die without issue or if there
+shall be but one such daughter' [_This, you will see, is my little
+Mary_] 'then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in
+default of such issue then to the use of the second and every other son
+of my said third son John severally and successively according to his
+respective seniority in tail and in default of such issue to the use of
+all and every the daughters and daughter of my said third son John as
+tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them
+in tail and in default of such issue to the use of my fourth son Paul
+during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and
+from and after his decease then to the use of my grandson Paul the son
+of my said son Paul during his natural life without impeachment of
+waste and after the decease of my said grandson Paul to the use of the
+first and every other son of my said grandson severally and
+successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for
+default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and
+daughter of my said grandson Paul as tenants in common in tail with
+cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if all the
+daughters of my said grandson Paul except one shall die without issue
+or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the use of such one
+or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use
+of the second and every other son of my said fourth son Paul severally
+and successively according to his respective seniority in tail and in
+default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and
+daughter of my said fourth son Paul as tenants in common in tail with
+cross remainders between or amongst them in tail,' &c. &c.
+
+"P.S.--Then comes what the lawyers call a general devise to trustees,
+to preserve the contingent remainders before devised from being
+destroyed; but what that means, perhaps you can get somebody to tell
+you. I hope it may be some legal jargon to preserve my _very_
+contingent remainder."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The tone of Edward Arundel's answer to this letter was more
+characteristic of the writer than in harmony with poor John's solemn
+appeal.
+
+"You dear, foolish old Marchmont," the lad wrote, "of course I shall
+take care of Miss Mary; and my mother shall adopt her, and she shall
+live at Dangerfield, and be educated with my sister Letitia, who has
+the jolliest French governess, and a German maid for conversation; and
+don't let Paul Marchmont try on any of his games with me, that's all!
+But what do you mean, you ridiculous old boy, by talking about dying,
+and drowning, and shipwrecked mariners, and catching at straws, and all
+that sort of humbug, when you know very well that you'll live to
+inherit the Lincolnshire property, and that I'm coming to you every
+year to shoot, and that you're going to build a tennis-court,--of
+course there _is_ a billiard-room,--and that you're going to have a
+stud of hunters, and be master of the hounds, and no end of bricks to
+
+"Your ever devoted Roman countryman and lover,
+
+"EDGARDO?
+
+"42, MONTAGUE SQUARE,
+
+"_December_ 3l_st_, 1838.
+
+"P.S.--By-the-bye, don't you think a situation in a lawyer's office
+would suit you better than the T. R. D. L.? If you do, I think I could
+manage it. A happy new year to Miss Mary!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It was thus that Mr. Edward Arundel accepted the solemn trust which his
+friend confided to him in all simplicity and good faith. Mary Marchmont
+herself was not more innocent in the ways of the world outside Oakley
+Street, the Waterloo Road, and the New Cut, than was the little girl's
+father; nothing seemed more natural to him than to intrust the doubtful
+future of his only child to the bright-faced handsome boy, whose early
+boyhood had been unblemished by a mean sentiment or a dishonourable
+action. John Marchmont had spent three years in the Berkshire Academy
+at which Edward and his cousin, Martin Mostyn, had been educated; and
+young Arundel, who was far behind his kinsman in the comprehension of a
+problem in algebra, had been wise enough to recognise that paradox
+which Martin Mostyn could not understand--a gentleman in a shabby coat.
+It was thus that a friendship had arisen between the teacher of
+mathematics and his handsome pupil; and it was thus that an unreasoning
+belief in Edward Arundel had sprung up in John's simple mind.
+
+"If my little girl were certain of inheriting the fortune," Mr.
+Marchmont thought, "I might find many who would be glad to accept my
+trust, and to serve her well and faithfully. But the chance is such a
+remote one. I cannot forget how the Jews laughed at me two years ago,
+when I tried to borrow money upon my reversionary interest. No! I must
+trust this brave-hearted boy, for I have no one else to confide in; and
+who else is there who would not ridicule my fear of my cousin Paul?"
+
+Indeed, Mr. Marchmont had some reason to be considerably ashamed of his
+antipathy to the young artist working for his bread, and for the bread
+of his invalid mother and unmarried sister, in that bitter winter of
+'38; working patiently and hopefully, in despite of all discouragement,
+and content to live a joyless and monotonous life in a dingy lodging
+near Fitzroy Square. I can find no excuse for John Marchmont's
+prejudice against an industrious and indefatigable young man, who was
+the sole support of two helpless women. Heaven knows, if to be adored
+by two women is any evidence of a man's virtue, Paul must have been the
+best of men; for Stephanie Marchmont, and her daughter Clarisse,
+regarded the artist with a reverential idolatry that was not without a
+tinge of romance. I can assign no reason, then, for John's dislike of
+his cousin. They had been schoolfellows at a wretched suburban school,
+where the children of poor people were boarded, lodged, and educated
+all the year round for a pitiful stipend of something under twenty
+pounds. One of the special points of the prospectus was the
+announcement that there were no holidays; for the jovial Christmas
+gatherings of merry faces, which are so delightful to the wealthy
+citizens of Bloomsbury or Tyburnia, take another complexion in
+poverty-stricken households, whose scantily-stocked larders can ill
+support the raids of rawboned lads clamorous for provender. The two
+boys had met at a school of this calibre, and had never met since. They
+may not have been the best friends, perhaps, at the classical academy;
+but their quarrels were by no means desperate. They may have rather
+freely discussed their several chances of the Lincolnshire property;
+but I have no romantic story to tell of a stirring scene in the humble
+schoolroom--no exciting record of deadly insult and deep vows of
+vengeance. No inkstand was ever flung by one boy into the face of the
+other; no savage blow from a horsewhip ever cut a fatal scar across the
+brow of either of the cousins. John Marchmont would have been almost as
+puzzled to account for his objection to his kinsman, as was the
+nameless gentleman who so naïvely confessed his dislike of Dr. Fell. I
+fear that a great many of our likings and dislikings are too apt to be
+upon the Dr. Fell principle. Mr. Wilkie Collins's Basil could not tell
+_why_ he fell madly in love with the lady whom it was his evil fortune
+to meet in an omnibus; nor why he entertained an uncomfortable feeling
+about the gentleman who was to be her destroyer. David Copperfield
+disliked Uriah Heep even before he had any substantial reason for
+objecting to the evil genius of Agnes Wickfield's father. The boy
+disliked the snake-like schemer of Canterbury because his eyes were
+round and red, and his hands clammy and unpleasant to the touch.
+Perhaps John Marchmont's reasons for his aversion to his cousin were
+about as substantial as those of Master Copperfield. It may be that the
+schoolboy disliked his comrade because Paul Marchmont's handsome grey
+eyes were a little too near together; because his thin and delicately
+chiselled lips were a thought too tightly compressed; because his
+cheeks would fade to an awful corpse-like whiteness under circumstances
+which would have brought the rushing life-blood, hot and red, into
+another boy's face; because he was silent and suppressed when it would
+have been more natural to be loud and clamorous; because he could smile
+under provocations that would have made another frown; because, in
+short, there was that about him which, let it be found where it will,
+always gives birth to suspicion,--MYSTERY!
+
+So the cousins had parted, neither friends nor foes, to tread their
+separate roads in the unknown country, which is apt to seem barren and
+desolate enough to travellers who foot it in hobnailed boots
+considerably the worse for wear; and as the iron hand of poverty held
+John Marchmont even further back than Paul upon the hard road which
+each had to tread, the quiet pride of the teacher of mathematics most
+effectually kept him out of his kinsman's way. He had only heard enough
+of Paul to know that he was living in London, and working hard for a
+living; working as hard as John himself, perhaps; but at least able to
+keep afloat in a higher social position than the law-stationer's hack
+and the banner-holder of Drury Lane.
+
+But Edward Arundel did not forget his friends in Oakley Street. The boy
+made a morning call upon his father's solicitors, Messrs. Paulette,
+Paulette, and Mathewson, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was so extremely
+eloquent in his needy friend's cause, as to provoke the good-natured
+laughter of one of the junior partners, who declared that Mr. Edward
+Arundel ought to wear a silk gown before he was thirty. The result of
+this interview was, that before the first month of the new year was
+out, John Marchmont had abandoned the classic banner and the demoniac
+mask to a fortunate successor, and had taken possession of a
+hard-seated, slim-legged stool in one of the offices of Messrs.
+Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson, as copying and out-door clerk, at a
+salary of thirty shillings a week.
+
+So little Mary entered now upon a golden age, in which her evenings
+were no longer desolate and lonely, but spent pleasantly with her
+father in the study of such learning as was suited to her years, or
+perhaps rather to her capacity, which was far beyond her years; and on
+certain delicious nights, to be remembered ever afterwards, John
+Marchmont took his little girl to the gallery of one or other of the
+transpontine theatres; and I am sorry to say that my heroine--for she
+is to be my heroine by-and-by--sucked oranges, ate Abernethy biscuits,
+and cooled her delicate nose against the iron railing of the gallery,
+after the manner of the masses when they enjoy the British Drama.
+
+But all this time John Marchmont was utterly ignorant of one rather
+important fact in the history of those three lives which he was apt to
+speak of as standing between him and Marchmont Towers. Young Arthur
+Marchmont, the immediate heir of the estate, had been shot to death
+upon the 1st of September, 1838, without blame to anyone or anything
+but his own boyish carelessness, which had induced him to scramble
+through a hedge with his fowling-piece, the costly present of a doating
+father, loaded and on full-cock. This melancholy event, which had been
+briefly recorded in all the newspapers, had never reached the knowledge
+of poor John Marchmont, who had no friends to busy themselves about his
+interests, or to rush eagerly to carry him any intelligence affecting
+his prosperity. Nor had he read the obituary notice respecting
+Marmaduke Marchmont, the bachelor, who had breathed his last stertorous
+breath in a fit of apoplexy exactly one twelvemonth before the day upon
+which Edward Arundel breakfasted in Oakley Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+GOING AWAY.
+
+
+Edward Arundel went from Montague Square straight into the household of
+the private tutor of whom he had spoken, there to complete his
+education, and to be prepared for the onerous duties of a military
+life. From the household of this private tutor he went at once into a
+cavalry regiment; after sundry examinations, which were not nearly so
+stringent in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty, as they
+have since become. Indeed, I think the unfortunate young cadets who are
+educated upon the high-pressure system, and who are expected to give a
+synopsis of Portuguese political intrigue during the eighteenth
+century, a scientific account of the currents of the Red Sea, and a
+critical disquisition upon the comedies of Aristophanes as compared
+with those of Pedro Calderon de la Barca, not forgetting to glance at
+the effect of different ages and nationalities upon the respective
+minds of the two playwrights, within a given period of, say
+half-an-hour,--would have envied Mr. Arundel for the easy manner in
+which he obtained his commission in a distinguished cavalry regiment.
+Mr. Edward Arundel therefore inaugurated the commencement of the year
+1840 by plunging very deeply into the books of a crack military-tailor
+in New Burlington Street, and by a visit to Dangerfield Park; where he
+went to make his adieux before sailing for India, whither his regiment
+had just been ordered.
+
+I do not doubt that Mrs Arundel was very sorrowful at this sudden
+parting with her yellow-haired younger son. The boy and his mother
+walked together in the wintry sunset under the leafless beeches at
+Dangerfield, and talked of the dreary voyage that lay before the lad;
+the arid plains and cruel jungles far away; perils by sea and perils by
+land; but across them all, Fame waving her white beckoning arms to the
+young soldier, and crying, "Come, conqueror that shall be! come,
+through trial and danger, through fever and famine,--come to your rest
+upon my bloodstained lap!" Surely this boy, being only just eighteen
+years of age, may be forgiven if he is a little romantic, a little over
+eager and impressionable, a little too confident that the next thing to
+going out to India as a sea-sick subaltern in a great transport-ship is
+coming home with the reputation of a Clive. Perhaps he may be forgiven,
+too, if, in his fresh enthusiasm, he sometimes forgot the shabby friend
+whom he had helped little better than a twelvemonth before, and the
+earnest hazel eyes that had shone upon him in the pitiful Oakley Street
+chamber. I do not say that he was utterly unmindful of his old teacher
+of mathematics. It was not in his nature to forget anyone who had need
+of his services; for this boy, so eager to be a soldier, was of the
+chivalrous temperament, and would have gone out to die for his
+mistress, or his friend, if need had been. He had received two or three
+grateful letters from John Marchmont; and in these letters the lawyer's
+clerk had spoken pleasantly of his new life, and hopefully of his
+health, which had improved considerably, he said, since his resignation
+of the tragic banner and the pantomimic mask. Neither had Edward quite
+forgotten his promise of enlisting Mrs. Arundel's sympathies in aid of
+the motherless little girl. In one of these wintry walks beneath the
+black branches at Dangerfield, the lad had told the sorrowful story of
+his well-born tutor's poverty and humiliation.
+
+"Only think, mother!" he cried at the end of the little history. "I saw
+the poor fellow carrying a great calico flag, and marching about at the
+heel of a procession, to be laughed at by the costermongers in the
+gallery; and I know that he belongs to a capital Lincolnshire family,
+and will come in for no end of money if he only lives long enough. But
+if he should die, mother, and leave his little girl destitute, you'll
+look after her, won't you?"
+
+I don't know whether Mrs. Arundel quite entered into her son's ideas
+upon the subject of adopting Mary Marchmont, or whether she had any
+definite notion of bringing the little girl home to Dangerfield for the
+natural term of her life, in the event of the child being left an
+orphan. But she was a kind and charitable lady, and she scarcely cared
+to damp her boy's spirits by holding forth upon the doubtful wisdom of
+his adopting, or promising to adopt, any stray orphans who might cross
+his pathway.
+
+"I hope the little girl may not lose her father, Edward," she said
+gently. "Besides, dear, you say that Mr. Marchmont tells you he has
+humble friends, who would take the child if anything happened to him.
+He does not wish us to adopt the little girl; he only asks us to
+interest ourselves in her fate."
+
+"And you will do that, mother darling?" cried the boy. "You will take
+an interest in her, won't you? You couldn't help doing so, if you were
+to see her. She's not like a child, you know,--not a bit like Letitia.
+She's as grave and quiet as you are, mother,--or graver, I think; and
+she looks like a lady, in spite of her poor, shabby pinafore and
+frock."
+
+"Does she wear shabby frocks?" said the mother. "I could help her in
+that matter, at all events, Ned. I might send her a great trunk-full of
+Letitia's things: she outgrows them before they have been worn long
+enough to be shabby."
+
+The boy coloured, and shook his head.
+
+"It's very kind of you to think of it, mother dear; but I don't think
+that would quite answer," he said.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because, you see, John Marchmont is a gentleman; and, you know, though
+he's so dreadfully poor now, he _is_ heir to Marchmont Towers. And
+though he didn't mind doing any thing in the world to earn a few
+shillings a week, he mightn't like to take cast-off clothes."
+
+So nothing more was to be said or done upon the subject.
+
+Edward Arundel wrote his humble friend a pleasant letter, in which he
+told John that he had enlisted his mother's sympathy in Mary's cause,
+and in which he spoke in very glowing terms of the Indian expedition
+that lay before him.
+
+"I wish I could come to say good-bye to you and Miss Mary before I go,"
+he wrote; "but that's impossible. I go straight from here to
+Southampton by coach at the end of this month, and the _Auckland_ sails
+on the 2nd of February. Tell Miss Mary I shall bring her home all kinds
+of pretty presents from Affghanistan,--ivory fans, and Cashmere shawls,
+and Chinese puzzles, and embroidered slippers with turned-up toes, and
+diamonds, and attar-of-roses, and suchlike; and remember that I expect
+you to write to me, and to give me the earliest news of your coming
+into the Lincolnshire property."
+
+John Marchmont received this letter in the middle of January. He gave a
+despondent sigh as he refolded the boyish epistle, after reading it to
+his little girl.
+
+"We haven't so many friends, Polly," he said, "that we should be
+indifferent to the loss of this one."
+
+Mary Marchmont's cheek grew paler at her father's sorrowful speech.
+That imaginative temperament, which was, as I have said, almost morbid
+in its intensity, presented every object to the little girl in a light
+in which things are looked at by very few children. Only these few
+words, and her fancy roamed far away to that cruel land whose perils
+her father had described to her. Only these few words, and she was away
+in the rocky Bolan Pass, under hurricanes of drifting snow; she saw the
+hungry soldiers fighting with savage dogs for the possession of foul
+carrion. She had heard all the perils and difficulties which had
+befallen the Army of the Indus in the year '39, and the womanly heart
+ached with the pain of those cruel memories.
+
+"He will go to India and be killed, papa dear," she said. "Oh! why, why
+do they let him go? His mother can't love him, can she? She would never
+let him go, if she did."
+
+John Marchmont was obliged to explain to his daughter that motherly
+love must not go so far as to deprive a nation of its defenders; and
+that the richest jewels which Cornelia can give to her country are
+those ruby life-drops which flow from the hearts of her bravest and
+brightest sons. Mary was no political economist; she could not reason
+upon the necessity of chastising Persian insolence, or checking Russian
+encroachments upon the far-away shores of the Indus. Was Edward
+Arundel's bright head, with its aureola of yellow hair, to be cloven
+asunder by an Affghan renegade's sabre, because the young Shah of
+Persia had been contumacious?
+
+Mary Marchmont wept silently that day over a three-volume novel, while
+her father was away serving writs upon wretched insolvents, in his
+capacity of out-door clerk to Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and
+Mathewson.
+
+The young lady no longer spent her quiet days in the two-pair back. Mr.
+Marchmont and his daughter had remained faithful to Oakley Street and
+the proprietress of the ladies' wardrobe, who was a good, motherly
+creature; but they had descended to the grandeur of the first floor,
+whose gorgeous decorations Mary had glanced at furtively in the days
+gone by, when the splendid chambers were occupied by an elderly and
+reprobate commission-agent, who seemed utterly indifferent to the
+delights of a convex mirror, surmounted by a maimed eagle, whose
+dignity was somewhat impaired by the loss of a wing; but which bijou
+appeared, to Mary, to be a fitting adornment for the young Queen's
+palace in St. James's Park.
+
+But neither the eagle nor the third volume of a thrilling romance could
+comfort Mary upon this bleak January day. She shut her book, and stood
+by the window, looking out into the dreary street, that seemed so
+blotted and dim under the falling snow.
+
+"It snowed in the Pass of Bolan," she thought; "and the treacherous
+Indians harassed the brave soldiers, and killed their camels. What will
+become of him in that dreadful country? Shall we ever see him again?"
+
+Yes, Mary, to your sorrow! Indian scimitars will let him go scatheless;
+famine and fever will pass him by; but the hand which points to that
+far-away day on which you and he are to meet, will never fail or falter
+in its purpose until the hour of your meeting comes.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We have no need to dwell upon the preparations which were made for the
+young soldier's departure from home, nor on the tender farewells
+between the mother and her son.
+
+Mr. Arundel was a country gentleman _pur et simple_; a hearty,
+broad-shouldered squire, who had no thought above his farm and his
+dog-kennel, or the hunting of the red deer with which his neighbourhood
+abounded. He sent his younger son to India as coolly as he had sent the
+elder to Oxford. The boy had little to inherit, and must be provided
+for in a gentlemanly manner. Other younger sons of the House of Arundel
+had fought and conquered in the Honourable East India Company's
+service; and was Edward any better than they, that there should be
+sentimental whining because the lad was going away to fight his way to
+fortune, if he could? Mr. Arundel went even further than this, and
+declared that Master Edward was a lucky dog to be going out at such a
+time, when there was plenty of fighting, and a very fair chance of
+speedy promotion for a good soldier.
+
+He gave the young cadet his blessing, reminded him of the limit of such
+supplies as he was to expect from home, bade him keep clear of the
+brandy-bottle and the dice-box; and having done this, believed that he
+had performed his duty as an Englishman and a father.
+
+If Mrs. Arundel wept, she wept in secret, loth to discourage her son by
+the sight of those natural, womanly tears. If Miss Letitia Arundel was
+sorry to lose her brother, she mourned with most praiseworthy
+discretion, and did not forget to remind the young traveller that she
+expected to receive a muslin frock, embroidered with beetle-wings, by
+an early mail. And as Algernon Fairfax Dangerfield Arundel, the heir,
+was away at college, there was no one else to mourn. So Edward left the
+home of his forefathers by a branch-coach, which started from the
+"Arundel Arms" in time to meet the "Telegraph" at Exeter; and no noisy
+lamentations shook the sky above Dangerfield Park--no mourning voices
+echoed through the spacious rooms. The old servants were sorry to lose
+the younger-born, whose easy, genial temperament had made him an
+especial favourite; but there was a certain admixture of joviality with
+their sorrow, as there generally is with all mourning in the basement;
+and the strong ale, the famous Dangerfield October, went faster upon
+that 31st of January than on any day since Christmas.
+
+I doubt if any one at Dangerfield Park sorrowed as bitterly for the
+departure of the boyish soldier as a romantic young lady, of nine years
+old, in Oakley Street, Lambeth; whose one sentimental
+day-dream--half-childish, half-womanly--owned Edward Arundel as its
+centre figure.
+
+So the curtain falls on the picture of a brave ship sailing eastward,
+her white canvas strained against the cold grey February sky, and a
+little girl weeping over the tattered pages of a stupid novel in a
+shabby London lodging.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MARCHMONT TOWERS.
+
+
+There is a lapse of three years and a half between the acts; and the
+curtain rises to reveal a widely-different picture:--the picture of a
+noble mansion in the flat Lincolnshire country; a stately pile of
+building, standing proudly forth against a background of black
+woodland; a noble building, supported upon either side by an octagon
+tower, whose solid masonry is half-hidden by the ivy which clings about
+the stonework, trailing here and there, and flapping restlessly with
+every breath of wind against the narrow casements.
+
+A broad stone terrace stretches the entire length of the grim façade,
+from tower to tower; and three flights of steps lead from the terrace
+to the broad lawn, which loses itself in a vast grassy flat, only
+broken by a few clumps of trees and a dismal pool of black water, but
+called by courtesy a park. Grim stone griffins surmount the
+terrace-steps, and griffins' heads and other architectural
+monstrosities, worn and moss-grown, keep watch and ward over every door
+and window, every archway and abutment--frowning threat and defiance
+upon the daring visitor who approaches the great house by this, the
+formidable chief entrance.
+
+The mansion looks westward: but there is another approach, a low
+archway on the southern side, which leads into a quadrangle, where
+there is a quaint little door under a stone portico, ivy-covered like
+the rest; a comfortable little door of massive oak, studded with knobs
+of rusty iron,--a door generally affected by visitors familiar with the
+house.
+
+This is Marchmont Towers,--a grand and stately mansion, which had been
+a monastery in the days when England and the Pope were friends and
+allies; and which had been bestowed upon Hugh Marchmont, gentleman, by
+his Sovereign Lord and Most Christian Majesty the King Henry VIII, of
+blessed memory, and by that gentleman-commoner extended and improved at
+considerable outlay. This is Marchmont Towers,--a splendid and a
+princely habitation truly, but perhaps scarcely the kind of dwelling
+one would choose for the holy resting-place we call home. The great
+mansion is a little too dismal in its lonely grandeur: it lacks shelter
+when the dreary winds come sweeping across the grassy flats in the
+bleak winter weather; it lacks shade when the western sun blazes on
+every window-pane in the stifling summer evening. It is at all times
+rather too stony in its aspect; and is apt to remind one almost
+painfully of every weird and sorrowful story treasured in the
+storehouse of memory. Ancient tales of enchantment, dark German
+legends, wild Scottish fancies, grim fragments of half-forgotten
+demonology, strange stories of murder, violence, mystery, and wrong,
+vaguely intermingle in the stranger's mind as he looks, for the first
+time, at Marchmont Towers.
+
+But of course these feelings wear off in time. So invincible is the
+power of custom, that we might make ourselves comfortable in the Castle
+of Otranto, after a reasonable sojourn within its mysterious walls:
+familiarity would breed contempt for the giant helmet, and all the
+other grim apparitions of the haunted dwelling. The commonplace and
+ignoble wants of every-day life must surely bring disenchantment with
+them. The ghost and the butcher's boy cannot well exist
+contemporaneously; and the avenging shade can scarcely continue to lurk
+beneath the portal which is visited by the matutinal milkman. Indeed,
+this is doubtless the reason that the most restless and impatient
+spirit, bent on early vengeance and immediate retribution, will yet
+wait until the shades of night have fallen before he reveals himself,
+rather than run the risk of an ignominious encounter with the postman
+or the parlour-maid. Be it how it might, the phantoms of Marchmont
+Towers were not intrusive. They may have perambulated the long
+tapestried corridors, the tenantless chambers, the broad black
+staircase of shining oak; but, happily, no dweller in the mansion was
+ever scared by the sight of their pale faces. All the dead-and-gone
+beauties, and soldiers, and lawyers, and parsons, and simple
+country-squires of the Marchmont race may have descended from their
+picture-frames to hold a witches' sabbath in the old mansion; but as
+the Lincolnshire servants were hearty eaters and heavy sleepers, the
+ghosts had it all to themselves. I believe there was one dismal story
+attached to the house,--the story of a Marchmont of the time of Charles
+I, who had murdered his coachman in a fit of insensate rage; and it was
+even asserted, upon the authority of an old housekeeper, that John
+Marchmont's grandmother, when a young woman and lately come as a bride
+to the Towers, had beheld the murdered coachman stalk into her chamber,
+ghastly and blood-bedabbled, in the dim summer twilight. But as this
+story was not particularly romantic, and possessed none of the elements
+likely to insure popularity,--such as love, jealousy, revenge, mystery,
+youth, and beauty,--it had never been very widely disseminated.
+
+I should think that the new owner of Marchmont Towers--new within the
+last six months--was about the last person in Christendom to be
+hypercritical, or to raise fanciful objections to his dwelling; for
+inasmuch as he had come straight from a wretched transpontine lodging
+to this splendid Lincolnshire mansion, and had at the same time
+exchanged a stipend of thirty shillings a week for an income of eleven
+thousand a year (derivable from lands that spread far away, over fenny
+flats and low-lying farms, to the solitary seashore), he had ample
+reason to be grateful to Providence, and well pleased with his new
+abode.
+
+Yes; Philip Marchmont, the childless widower, had died six months
+before, at the close of the year '43, of a broken heart,--his old
+servants said, broken by the loss of his only and idolised son; after
+which loss he had never been known to smile. He was one of those
+undemonstrative men who can take a great sorrow quietly, and only--die
+of it. Philip Marchmont lay in a velvet-covered coffin, above his
+son's, in the stone recess set apart for them in the Marchmont vault
+beneath Kemberling Church, three miles from the Towers; and John
+reigned in his stead. John Marchmont, the supernumerary, the
+banner-holder of Drury Lane, the patient, conscientious copying and
+outdoor clerk of Lincoln's Inn, was now sole owner of the Lincolnshire
+estate, sole master of a household of well-trained old servants, sole
+proprietor of a very decent country-gentleman's stud, and of chariots,
+barouches, chaises, phaetons, and other vehicles--a little shabby and
+out of date it may be, but very comfortable to a man for whom an
+omnibus ride had long been a treat and a rarity. Nothing had been
+touched or disturbed since Philip Marchmont's death. The rooms he had
+used were still the occupied apartments; the chambers he had chosen to
+shut up were still kept with locked doors; the servants who had served
+him waited upon his successor, whom they declared to be a quiet, easy
+gentleman, far too wise to interfere with old servants, every one of
+whom knew the ways of the house a great deal better than he did, though
+he was the master of it.
+
+There was, therefore, no shadow of change in the stately mansion. The
+dinner-bell still rang at the same hour; the same tradespeople left the
+same species of wares at the low oaken door; the old housekeeper,
+arranging her simple _menu_, planned her narrow round of soups and
+roasts, sweets and made-dishes, exactly as she had been wont to do, and
+had no new tastes to consult. A grey-haired bachelor, who had been
+own-man to Philip, was now own-man to John. The carriage which had
+conveyed the late lord every Sunday to morning and afternoon service at
+Kemberling conveyed the new lord, who sat in the same seat that his
+predecessor had occupied in the great family-pew, and read his prayers
+out of the same book,--a noble crimson, morocco-covered volume, in
+which George, our most gracious King and Governor, and all manner of
+dead-and-gone princes and princesses were prayed for.
+
+The presence of Mary Marchmont made the only change in the old house;
+and even that change was a very trifling one. Mary and her father were
+as closely united at Marchmont Towers as they had been in Oakley
+Street. The little girl clung to her father as tenderly as ever--more
+tenderly than ever perhaps; for she knew something of that which the
+physicians had said, and she knew that John Marchmont's lease of life
+was not a long one. Perhaps it would be better to say that he had no
+lease at all. His soul was a tenant on sufferance in its frail earthly
+habitation, receiving a respite now and again, when the flicker of the
+lamp was very low--every chance breath of wind threatening to
+extinguish it for ever. It was only those who knew John Marchmont very
+intimately who were fully acquainted with the extent of his danger. He
+no longer bore any of those fatal outward signs of consumption, which
+fatigue and deprivation had once made painfully conspicuous. The hectic
+flush and the unnatural brightness of the eyes had subsided; indeed,
+John seemed much stronger and heartier than of old; and it is only
+great medical practitioners who can tell to a nicety what is going on
+_inside_ a man, when he presents a very fair exterior to the
+unprofessional eye. But John was decidedly better than he had been. He
+might live three years, five, seven, possibly even ten years; but he
+must live the life of a man who holds himself perpetually upon his
+defence against death; and he must recognise in every bleak current of
+wind, in every chilling damp, or perilous heat, or over-exertion, or
+ill-chosen morsel of food, or hasty emotion, or sudden passion, an
+insidious ally of his dismal enemy.
+
+Mary Marchmont knew all this,--or divined it, perhaps, rather than knew
+it, with the child-woman's subtle power of divination, which is even
+stronger than the actual woman's; for her father had done his best to
+keep all sorrowful knowledge from her. She knew that he was in danger;
+and she loved him all the more dearly, as the one precious thing which
+was in constant peril of being snatched away. The child's love for her
+father has not grown any less morbid in its intensity since Edward
+Arundel's departure for India; nor has Mary become more childlike since
+her coming to Marchmont Towers, and her abandonment of all those sordid
+cares, those pitiful every-day duties, which had made her womanly.
+
+It may be that the last lingering glamour of childhood had for ever
+faded away with the realisation of the day-dream which she had carried
+about with her so often in the dingy transpontine thoroughfares around
+Oakley Street. Marchmont Towers, that fairy palace, whose lighted
+windows had shone upon her far away across a cruel forest of poverty
+and trouble, like the enchanted castle which appears to the lost
+wanderer of the child's story, was now the home of the father she
+loved. The grim enchanter Death, the only magician of our modern
+histories, had waved his skeleton hand, more powerful than the
+star-gemmed wand of any fairy godmother, and the obstacles which had
+stood between John Marchmont and his inheritance had one by one been
+swept away.
+
+But was Marchmont Towers quite as beautiful as that fairy palace of
+Mary's day-dream? No, not quite--not quite. The rooms were
+handsome,--handsomer and larger, even, than the rooms she had dreamed
+of; but perhaps none the better for that. They were grand and gloomy
+and magnificent; but they were not the sunlit chambers which her fancy
+had built up, and decorated with such shreds and patches of splendour
+as her narrow experience enabled her to devise. Perhaps it was rather a
+disappointment to Miss Marchmont to discover that the mansion was
+completely furnished, and that there was no room in it for any of those
+splendours which she had so often contemplated in the New Cut. The
+parrot at the greengrocer's was a vulgar bird, and not by any means
+admissible in Lincolnshire. The carrying away and providing for Mary's
+favourite tradespeople was not practicable; and John Marchmont had
+demurred to her proposal of adopting the butcher's daughter.
+
+There is always something to be given up even when our brightest
+visions are realised; there is always some one figure (a low one
+perhaps) missing in the fullest sum of earthly happiness. I dare say if
+Alnaschar had married the Vizier's daughter, he would have found her a
+shrew, and would have looked back yearningly to the humble days in
+which he had been an itinerant vendor of crockery-ware.
+
+If, therefore, Mary Marchmont found her sunlit fancies not quite
+realised by the great stony mansion that frowned upon the fenny
+countryside, the wide grassy flat, the black pool, with its dismal
+shelter of weird pollard-willows, whose ugly reflections, distorted on
+the bosom of the quiet water, looked like the shadows of hump-backed
+men;--if these things did not compose as beautiful a picture as that
+which the little girl had carried so long in her mind, she had no more
+reason to be sorry than the rest of us, and had been no more foolish
+than other dreamers. I think she had built her airy castle too much
+after the model of a last scene in a pantomime, and that she expected
+to find spangled waters twinkling in perpetual sunshine, revolving
+fountains, ever-expanding sunflowers, and gilded clouds of
+rose-coloured gauze,--every thing except the fairies, in short,--at
+Marchmont Towers. Well, the dream was over: and she was quite a woman
+now, and very grateful to Providence when she remembered that her
+father had no longer need to toil for his daily bread, and that he was
+luxuriously lodged, and could have the first physicians in the land at
+his beck and call.
+
+"Oh, papa, it is so nice to be rich!" the young lady would exclaim now
+and then, in a fleeting transport of enthusiasm. "How good we ought to
+be to the poor people, when we remember how poor we once were!"
+
+And the little girl did not forget to be good to the poor about
+Kemberling and Marchmont Towers. There were plenty of poor, of
+course--free-and-easy pensioners, who came to the Towers for brandy,
+and wine, and milk, and woollen stuffs, and grocery, precisely as they
+would have gone to a shop, except that there was to be no bill. The
+housekeeper doled out her bounties with many short homilies upon the
+depravity and ingratitude of the recipients, and gave tracts of an
+awful and denunciatory nature to the pitiful petitioners--tracts
+interrogatory, and tracts fiercely imperative; tracts that asked,
+"Where are you going?" "Why are you wicked?" "What will become of you?"
+and other tracts which cried, "Stop, and think!" "Pause, while there is
+time!" "Sinner, consider!" "Evil-doer, beware!" Perhaps it may not be
+the wisest possible plan to begin the work of reformation by
+frightening, threatening, and otherwise disheartening the wretched
+sinner to be reformed. There is a certain sermon in the New Testament,
+containing sacred and comforting words which were spoken upon a
+mountain near at hand to Jerusalem, and spoken to an auditory amongst
+which there must have been many sinful creatures; but there is more of
+blessing than cursing in that sublime discourse, and it might be rather
+a tender father pleading gently with his wayward children than an
+offended Deity dealing out denunciation upon a stubborn and refractory
+race. But the authors of the tracts may have never read this sermon,
+perhaps; and they may take their ideas of composition from that
+comforting service which we read on Ash-Wednesday, cowering in fear and
+trembling in our pews, and calling down curses upon ourselves and our
+neighbours. Be it as it might, the tracts were not popular amongst the
+pensioners of Marchmont Towers. They infinitely preferred to hear Mary
+read a chapter in the New Testament, or some pretty patriarchal story
+of primitive obedience and faith. The little girl would discourse upon
+the Scripture histories in her simple, old-fashioned manner; and many a
+stout Lincolnshire farm-labourer was content to sit over his hearth,
+with a pipe of shag-tobacco and a mug of fettled beer, while Miss
+Marchmont read and expounded the history of Abraham and Isaac, or
+Joseph and his brethren.
+
+"It's joost loike a story-book to hear her," the man would say to his
+wife; "and yet she brings it all hoame, too, loike. If she reads about
+Abraham, she'll say, maybe, 'That's joost how you gave your only son to
+be a soldier, you know, Muster Moggins;'--she allus says Muster
+Moggins;--'you gave un into God's hands, and you troosted God would
+take care of un; and whatever cam' to un would be the best, even if it
+was death.' That's what she'll say, bless her little heart! so gentle
+and tender loike. The wust o' chaps couldn't but listen to her."
+
+Mary Marchmont's morbidly sensitive nature adapted her to all
+charitable offices. No chance word in her simple talk ever inflicted a
+wound upon the listener. She had a subtle and intuitive comprehension
+of other people's feelings, derived from the extreme susceptibility of
+her own. She had never been vulgarised by the associations of poverty;
+for her self-contained nature took no colour from the things that
+surrounded her, and she was only at Marchmont Towers that which she had
+been from the age of six--a little lady, grave and gentle, dignified,
+discreet, and wise.
+
+There was one bright figure missing out of the picture which Mary had
+been wont of late years to make of the Lincolnshire mansion, and that
+was the figure of the yellow-haired boy who had breakfasted upon
+haddocks and hot rolls in Oakley Street. She had imagined Edward
+Arundel an inhabitant of that fair Utopia. He would live with them; or,
+if he could not live with them, he would be with them as a
+visitor,--often--almost always. He would leave off being a soldier, for
+of course her papa could give him more money than he could get by being
+a soldier--(you see that Mary's experience of poverty had taught her to
+take a mercantile and sordid view of military life)--and he would come
+to Marchmont Towers, and ride, and drive, and play tennis (what was
+tennis? she wondered), and read three-volume novels all day long. But
+that part of the dream was at least broken. Marchmont Towers was Mary's
+home, but the young soldier was far away; in the Pass of Bolan,
+perhaps,--Mary had a picture of that cruel rocky pass almost always in
+her mind,--or cutting his way through a black jungle, with the yellow
+eyes of hungry tigers glaring out at him through the rank tropical
+foliage; or dying of thirst and fever under a scorching sun, with no
+better pillow than the neck of a dead camel, with no more tender
+watcher than the impatient vulture flapping her wings above his head,
+and waiting till he, too, should be carrion. What was the good of
+wealth, if it could not bring this young soldier home to a safe shelter
+in his native land? John Marchmont smiled when his daughter asked this
+question, and implored her father to write to Edward Arundel, recalling
+him to England.
+
+"God knows how glad I should be to have the boy here, Polly!" John
+said, as he drew his little girl closer to his breast,--she sat on his
+knee still, though she was thirteen years of age. "But Edward has a
+career before him, my dear, and could not give it up for an inglorious
+life in this rambling old house. It isn't as if I could hold out any
+inducement to him: you know, Polly, I can't; for I mustn't leave any
+money away from my little girl."
+
+"But he might have half my money, papa, or all of it," Mary added
+piteously. "What could I do with money, if----?"
+
+She didn't finish the sentence; she never could complete any such
+sentence as this; but her father knew what she meant.
+
+So six months had passed since a dreary January day upon which John
+Marchmont had read, in the second column of the "Times," that he could
+hear of something greatly to his advantage by applying to a certain
+solicitor, whose offices were next door but one to those of Messrs.
+Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson's. His heart began to beat very
+violently when he read that advertisement in the supplement, which it
+was one of his duties to air before the fire in the clerks' office; but
+he showed no other sign of emotion. He waited until he took the papers
+to his employer; and as he laid them at Mr. Mathewson's elbow, murmured
+a respectful request to be allowed to go out for half-an-hour, upon his
+own business.
+
+"Good gracious me, Marchmont!" cried the lawyer; "what can you want to
+go out for at this time in the morning? You've only just come; and
+there's that agreement between Higgs and Sandyman must be copied
+before----"
+
+"Yes, I know, sir. I'll be back in time to attend to it; but I--I think
+I've come into a fortune, sir; and I should like to go and see about
+it."
+
+The solicitor turned in his revolving library-chair, and looked aghast
+at his clerk. Had this Marchmont--always rather unnaturally reserved
+and eccentric--gone suddenly mad? No; the copying-clerk stood by his
+employer's side, grave, self-possessed as ever, with his forefinger
+upon the advertisement.
+
+"Marchmont--John--call--Messrs. Tindal and Trollam--" gasped Mr.
+Mathewson. "Do you mean to tell me it's _you_?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Egad, I'll go with you!" cried the solicitor, hooking his arm through
+that of his clerk, snatching his hat from an adjacent stand, and
+dashing through the outer office, down the great staircase, and into
+the next door but one before John Marchmont knew where he was.
+
+John had not deceived his employer. Marchmont Towers was his, with all
+its appurtenances. Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson took him
+in hand, much to the chagrin of Messrs. Tindal and Trollam, and proved
+his identity in less than a week. On a shelf above the high wooden desk
+at which John had sat, copying law-papers, with a weary hand and an
+aching spine, appeared two bran-new deed-boxes, inscribed, in white
+letters, with the name and address of JOHN MARCHMONT, ESQ., MARCHMONT
+TOWERS. The copying-clerk's sudden accession to fortune was the talk of
+all the _employés_ in "The Fields." Marchmont Towers was exaggerated
+into half Lincolnshire, and a tidy slice of Yorkshire; eleven thousand
+a year was expanded into an annual million. Everybody expected largesse
+from the legatee. How fond people had been of the quiet clerk, and how
+magnanimously they had concealed their sentiments during his poverty,
+lest they should wound him, as they urged, "which" they knew he was
+sensitive; and how expansively they now dilated on their
+long-suppressed emotions! Of course, under these circumstances, it is
+hardly likely that everybody could be satisfied; so it is a small thing
+to say that the dinner which John gave--by his late employers'
+suggestion (he was about the last man to think of giving a dinner)--at
+the "Albion Tavern," to the legal staff of Messrs. Paulette, Paulette,
+and Mathewson, and such acquaintance of the legal profession as they
+should choose to invite, was a failure; and that gentlemen who were
+pretty well used to dine upon liver and bacon, or beefsteak and onions,
+or the joint, vegetables, bread, cheese, and celery for a shilling,
+turned up their noses at the turbot, murmured at the paucity of green
+fat in the soup, made light of red mullet and ortolans, objected to the
+flavour of the truffles, and were contemptuous about the wines.
+
+John knew nothing of this. He had lived a separate and secluded
+existence; and his only thought now was of getting away to Marchmont
+Towers, which had been familiar to him in his boyhood, when he had been
+wont to go there on occasional visits to his grandfather. He wanted to
+get away from the turmoil and confusion of the big, heartless city, in
+which he had endured so much; he wanted to carry away his little girl
+to a quiet country home, and live and die there in peace. He liberally
+rewarded all the good people about Oakley Street who had been kind to
+little Mary; and there was weeping in the regions of the Ladies'
+Wardrobe when Mr. Marchmont and his daughter went away one bitter
+winter's morning in a cab, which was to carry them to the hostelry
+whence the coach started for Lincoln.
+
+It is strange to think how far those Oakley-street days of privation
+and endurance seem to have receded in the memories of both father and
+daughter. The impalpable past fades away, and it is difficult for John
+and his little girl to believe that they were once so poor and
+desolate. It is Oakley Street now that is visionary and unreal. The
+stately county families bear down upon Marchmont Towers in great
+lumbering chariots, with brazen crests upon the hammer-cloths, and
+sulky coachmen in Brown-George wigs. The county mammas patronise and
+caress Miss Marchmont--what a match she will be for one of the county
+sons by-and-by!--the county daughters discourse with Mary about her
+poor, and her fancy-work, and her piano. She is getting on slowly
+enough with her piano, poor little girl! under the tuition of the
+organist of Swampington, who gives lessons to that part of the county.
+And there are solemn dinners now and then at Marchmont Towers--dinners
+at which Miss Mary appears when the cloth has been removed, and
+reflects in silent wonder upon the change that has come to her father
+and herself. Can it be true that she has ever lived in Oakley Street,
+whither came no more aristocratic visitors than her Aunt Sophia, who
+was the wife of a Berkshire farmer, and always brought hogs' puddings,
+and butter, and home-made bread, and other rustic delicacies to her
+brother-in-law; or Mrs. Brigsome, the washer-woman, who made a
+morning-call every Monday, to fetch John Marchmont's shabby shirts? The
+shirts were not shabby now; and it was no longer Mary's duty to watch
+them day by day, and manipulate them tenderly when the linen grew
+frayed at the sharp edges of the folds, or the buttonholes gave signs
+of weakness. Corson, Mr. Marchmont's own-man, had care of the shirts
+now: and John wore diamond-studs and a black-satin waistcoat, when he
+gave a dinner-party. They were not very lively, those Lincolnshire
+dinner-parties; though the dessert was a sight to look upon, in Mary's
+eyes. The long shining table, the red and gold and purple Indian china,
+the fluffy woollen d'oyleys, the sparkling cut-glass, the sticky
+preserved ginger and guava-jelly, and dried orange rings and chips, and
+all the stereotyped sweetmeats, were very grand and beautiful, no
+doubt; but Mary had seen livelier desserts in Oakley Street, though
+there had been nothing better than a brown-paper bag of oranges from
+the Westminster Road, and a bottle of two-and-twopenny Marsala from a
+licensed victualler's in the Borough, to promote conviviality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE YOUNG SOLDIER'S RETURN.
+
+
+The rain beats down upon the battlemented roof of Marchmont Towers this
+July day, as if it had a mind to flood the old mansion. The flat waste
+of grass, and the lonely clumps of trees, are almost blotted out by the
+falling rain. The low grey sky shuts out the distance. This part of
+Lincolnshire--fenny, misty, and flat always--seems flatter and mistier
+than usual to-day. The rain beats hopelessly upon the leaves in the
+wood behind Marchmont Towers, and splashes into great pools beneath the
+trees, until the ground is almost hidden by the fallen water, and the
+trees seem to be growing out of a black lake. The land is lower behind
+Marchmont Towers, and slopes down gradually to the bank of a dismal
+river, which straggles through the Marchmont property at a snail's
+pace, to gain an impetus farther on, until it hurries into the sea
+somewhere northward of Grimsby. The wood is not held in any great
+favour by the household at the Towers; and it has been a pet project of
+several Marchmonts to level and drain it, but a project not very easily
+to be carried out. Marchmont Towers is said to be unhealthy, as a
+dwelling-house, by reason of this wood, from which miasmas rise in
+certain states of the weather; and it is on this account that the back
+of the house--the eastern front, at least, as it is called--looking to
+the wood is very little used.
+
+Mary Marchmont sits at a window in the western drawing-room, watching
+the ceaseless falling of the rain upon this dreary summer afternoon.
+She is little changed since the day upon which Edward Arundel saw her
+in Oakley Street. She is taller, of course, but her figure is as
+slender and childish as ever: it is only her face in which the
+earnestness of premature womanhood reveals itself in a grave and sweet
+serenity very beautiful to contemplate. Her soft brown eyes have a
+pensive shadow in their gentle light; her mouth is even more pensive.
+It has been said of Jane Grey, of Mary Stuart, of Marie Antoinette,
+Charlotte Corday, and other fated women, that in the gayest hours of
+their youth they bore upon some feature, or in some expression, the
+shadow of the End--an impalpable, indescribable presage of an awful
+future, vaguely felt by those who looked upon them.
+
+Is it thus with Mary Marchmont? Has the solemn hand of Destiny set that
+shadowy brand upon the face of this child, that even in her prosperity,
+as in her adversity, she should be so utterly different from all other
+children? Is she already marked out for some womanly martyrdom--already
+set apart for more than common suffering?
+
+She sits alone this afternoon, for her father is busy with his agent.
+Wealth does not mean immunity from all care and trouble; and Mr.
+Marchmont has plenty of work to get through, in conjunction with his
+land-steward, a hard-headed Yorkshireman, who lives at Kemberling, and
+insists on doing his duty with pertinacious honesty.
+
+The large brown eyes looked wistfully out at the dismal waste and the
+falling rain. There was a wretched equestrian making his way along the
+carriage-drive.
+
+"Who can come to see us on such a day?" Mary thought. "It must be Mr.
+Gormby, I suppose;"--the agent's name was Gormby. "Mr. Gormby never
+cares about the wet; but then I thought he was with papa. Oh, I hope it
+isn't anybody coming to call."
+
+But Mary forgot all about the struggling equestrian the next moment.
+She had some morsel of fancy-work upon her lap, and picked it up and
+went on with it, setting slow stitches, and letting her thoughts wander
+far away from Marchmont Towers--to India, I am afraid; or to that
+imaginary India which she had created for herself out of such images as
+were to be picked up in the "Arabian Nights." She was roused suddenly
+by the opening of a door at the farther end of the room, and by the
+voice of a servant, who mumbled a name which sounded something like Mr.
+Armenger.
+
+She rose, blushing a little, to do honour to one of her father's county
+acquaintance, as she thought; when a fair-haired gentleman dashed in,
+very much excited and very wet, and made his way towards her.
+
+"I _would_ come, Miss Marchmont," he said,--"I would come, though the
+day was so wet. Everybody vowed I was mad to think of it, and it was as
+much as my poor brute of a horse could do to get over the ten miles of
+swamp between this and my uncle's house; but I would come! Where's
+John? I want to see John. Didn't I always tell him he'd come into the
+Lincolnshire property? Didn't I always say so, now? You should have
+seen Martin Mostyn's face--he's got a capital berth in the War Office,
+and he's such a snob!--when I told him the news: it was as long as my
+arm! But I must see John, dear old fellow! I long to congratulate him."
+
+Mary stood with her hands clasped, and her breath coming quickly. The
+blush had quite faded out, and left her unusually pale. But Edward
+Arundel did not see this: young gentlemen of four-and-twenty are not
+very attentive to every change of expression in little girls of
+thirteen.
+
+"Oh, is it you, Mr. Arundel? Is it really you?"
+
+She spoke in a low voice, and it was almost difficult to keep the
+rushing tears back while she did so. She had pictured him so often in
+peril, in famine, in sickness, in death, that to see him here, well,
+happy, light-hearted, cordial, handsome, and brave, as she had seen him
+four-and-a-half years before in the two-pair back in Oakley Street, was
+almost too much for her to bear without the relief of tears. But she
+controlled her emotion as bravely as if she had been a woman of twenty.
+
+"I am so glad to see you," she said quietly; "and papa will be so glad
+too! It is the only thing we want, now we are rich; to have you with
+us. We have talked of you so often; and I--we--have been so unhappy
+sometimes, thinking that----"
+
+"That I should be killed, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; or wounded very, very badly. The battles in India have been
+dreadful, have they not?"
+
+Mr. Arundel smiled at her earnestness.
+
+"They have not been exactly child's play," he said, shaking back his
+chesnut hair and smoothing his thick moustache. He was a man now, and a
+very handsome one; something of that type which is known in this year
+of grace as "swell"; but brave and chivalrous withal, and not afflicted
+with any impediment in his speech. "The men who talk of the Affghans as
+a chicken-hearted set of fellows are rather out of their reckoning. The
+Indians can fight, Miss Mary, and fight like the devil; but we can lick
+'em!"
+
+He walked over to the fireplace, where--upon this chilly wet day, there
+was a fire burning--and began to shake himself dry. Mary, following him
+with her eyes, wondered if there was such another soldier in all Her
+Majesty's dominions, and how soon he would be made General-in-Chief of
+the Army of the Indus.
+
+"Then you've not been wounded at all, Mr. Arundel?" she said, after a
+pause.
+
+"Oh, yes, I've been wounded; I got a bullet in my shoulder from an
+Affghan musket, and I'm home on sick-leave."
+
+This time he saw the expression of her face, and interpreted her look
+of alarm.
+
+"But I'm not ill, you know, Miss Marchmont," he said, laughing. "Our
+fellows are very glad of a wound when they feel home-sick. The 8th come
+home before long, all of 'em; and I've a twelvemonth's leave of
+absence; and we're pretty sure to be ordered out again by the end of
+that time, as I don't believe there's much chance of quiet over there."
+
+"You will go out again!----"
+
+Edward Arundel smiled at her mournful tone.
+
+"To be sure, Miss Mary. I have my captaincy to win, you know; I'm only
+a lieutenant, as yet."
+
+It was only a twelvemonth's reprieve, after all, then, Mary thought. He
+would go back again--to suffer, and to be wounded, and to die, perhaps.
+But then, on the other hand, there was a twelvemonth's respite; and her
+father might in that time prevail upon the young soldier to stay at
+Marchmont Towers. It was such inexpressible happiness to see him once
+more, to know that he was safe and well, that Mary could scarcely do
+otherwise than see all things in a sunny light just now.
+
+She ran to John Marchmont's study to tell him of the coming of this
+welcome visitor; but she wept upon her father's shoulder before she
+could explain who it was whose coming had made her so glad. Very few
+friendships had broken the monotony of her solitary existence; and
+Edward Arundel was the only chivalrous image she had ever known, out of
+her books.
+
+John Marchmont was scarcely less pleased than his child to see the man
+who had befriended him in his poverty. Never has more heartfelt welcome
+been given than that which greeted Edward Arundel at Marchmont Towers.
+
+"You will stay with us, of course, my dear Arundel," John said; "you
+will stop for September and the shooting. You know you promised you'd
+make this your shooting-box; and we'll build the tennis-court. Heaven
+knows, there's room enough for it in the great quadrangle; and there's
+a billiard-room over this, though I'm afraid the table is out of order.
+But we can soon set that right, can't we, Polly?"
+
+"Yes, yes, papa; out of my pocket-money, if you like."
+
+Mary Marchmont said this in all good faith. It was sometimes difficult
+for her to remember that her father was really rich, and had no need of
+help out of her pocket-money. The slender savings in her little purse
+had often given him some luxury that he would not otherwise have had,
+in the time gone by.
+
+"You got my letter, then?" John said; "the letter in which I told
+you----"
+
+"That Marchmont Towers was yours. Yes, my dear old boy. That letter was
+amongst a packet my agent brought me half-an-hour before I left
+Calcutta. God bless you, dear old fellow; how glad I was to hear of it!
+I've only been in England a fortnight. I went straight from Southampton
+to Dangerfield to see my father and mother, stayed there little over
+ten days, and then offended them all by running away. I reached
+Swampington yesterday, slept at my uncle Hubert's, paid my respects to
+my cousin Olivia, who is,--well, I've told you what she is,--and rode
+over here this morning, much to the annoyance of the inhabitants of the
+Rectory. So, you see, I've been doing nothing but offending people for
+your sake, John; and for yours, Miss Mary. By-the-by, I've brought you
+such a doll!"
+
+A doll! Mary's pale face flushed a faint crimson. Did he think her
+still a child, then, this soldier; did he think her only a silly child,
+with no thought above a doll, when she would have gone out to India,
+and braved every peril of that cruel country, to be his nurse and
+comfort in fever and sickness, like the brave Sisters of Mercy she had
+read of in some of her novels?
+
+Edward Arundel saw that faint crimson glow lighting up in her face.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Marchmont," he said. "I was only joking; of
+course you are a young lady now, almost grown up, you know. Can you
+play chess?"
+
+"No, Mr. Arundel."
+
+"I am sorry for that; for I have brought you a set of chessmen that
+once belonged to Dost Mahommed Khan. But I'll teach you the game, if
+you like?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Mr. Arundel; I should like it very, very much."
+
+The young soldier could not help being amused by the little girl's
+earnestness. She was about the same age as his sister Letitia; but, oh,
+how widely different to that bouncing and rather wayward young lady,
+who tore the pillow-lace upon her muslin frocks, rumpled her long
+ringlets, rasped the skin off the sharp points of her elbows, by
+repeated falls upon the gravel-paths at Dangerfield, and tormented a
+long-suffering Swiss attendant, half-lady's-maid, half-governess, from
+morning till night. No fold was awry in Mary Marchmont's simple
+black-silk frock; no plait disarranged in the neat cambric tucker that
+encircled the slender white throat. Intellect here reigned supreme.
+Instead of the animal spirits of a thoughtless child, there was a
+woman's loving carefulness for others, a woman's unselfishness and
+devotion.
+
+Edward Arundel did not understand all this, but I think he had a dim
+comprehension of the greater part of it.
+
+"She is a dear little thing," he thought, as he watched her clinging to
+her father's arm; and then he began to talk about Marchmont Towers, and
+insisted upon being shown over the house; and, perhaps for the first
+time since the young heir had shot himself to death upon a bright
+September morning in a stubble-field within earshot of the park, the
+sound of merry laughter echoed through the long corridors, and
+resounded in the unoccupied rooms.
+
+Edward Arundel was in raptures with everything. "There never was such a
+dear old place," he said. "'Gloomy?' 'dreary?' 'draughty?' pshaw! Cut a
+few logs out of that wood at the back there, pile 'em up in the wide
+chimneys, and set a light to 'em, and Marchmont Towers would be like a
+baronial mansion at Christmas-time." He declared that every dingy
+portrait he looked at was a Rubens or a Velasquez, or a Vandyke, a
+Holbein, or a Lely.
+
+"Look at that fur border to the old woman's black-velvet gown, John;
+look at the colouring of the hands! Do you think anybody but Peter Paul
+could have painted that? Do you see that girl with the blue-satin
+stomacher and the flaxen ringlets?--one of your ancestresses, Miss
+Mary, and very like you. If that isn't in Sir Peter Lely's best
+style,--his earlier style, you know, before he was spoiled by royal
+patronage, and got lazy,--I know nothing of painting."
+
+The young soldier ran on in this manner, as he hurried his host from
+room to room; now throwing open windows to look out at the wet
+prospect; now rapping against the wainscot to find secret hiding-places
+behind sliding panels; now stamping on the oak-flooring in the hope of
+discovering a trap-door. He pointed out at least ten eligible sites for
+the building of the tennis-court; he suggested more alterations and
+improvements than a builder could have completed in a lifetime. The
+place brightened under the influence of his presence, as a landscape
+lights up under a burst of sudden sunshine breaking through a dull grey
+sky.
+
+Mary Marchmont did not wait for the removal of the table-cloth that
+evening, but dined with her father and his friend in a snug
+oak-panelled chamber, half-breakfast-room, half-library, which opened
+out of the western drawing-room. How different Edward Arundel was to
+all the rest of the world, Miss Marchmont thought; how gay, how bright,
+how genial, how happy! The county families, mustered in their fullest
+force, couldn't make such mirth amongst them as this young soldier
+created in his single person.
+
+The evening was an evening in fairy-land. Life was sometimes like the
+last scene in a pantomime, after all, with rose-coloured cloud and
+golden sunlight.
+
+One of the Marchmont servants went over to Swampington early the next
+day to fetch Mr. Arundel's portmanteaus from the Rectory; and after
+dinner upon that second evening, Mary Marchmont took her seat opposite
+Edward, and listened reverently while he explained to her the moves
+upon the chessboard.
+
+"So you don't know my cousin Olivia?" the young soldier said by-and-by.
+"That's odd! I should have thought she would have called upon you long
+before this."
+
+Mary Marchmont shook her head.
+
+"No," she said; "Miss Arundel has never been to see us; and I should so
+like to have seen her, because she would have told me about you. Mr.
+Arundel has called one or twice upon papa; but I have never seen him.
+He is not our clergyman, you know; Marchmont Towers belongs to
+Kemberling parish."
+
+"To be sure; and Swampington is ten miles off. But, for all that, I
+should have thought Olivia would have called upon you. I'll drive you
+over to-morrow, if John thinks me whip enough to trust you with me, and
+you shall see Livy. The Rectory's such a queer old place!"
+
+Perhaps Mr. Marchmont was rather doubtful as to the propriety of
+committing his little girl to Edward Arundel's charioteership for a
+ten-mile drive upon a wretched road. Be it as it might, a lumbering
+barouche, with a pair of over-fed horses, was ordered next morning,
+instead of the high, old-fashioned gig which the soldier had proposed
+driving; and the safety of the two young people was confided to a sober
+old coachman, rather sulky at the prospect of a drive to Swampington so
+soon after the rainy weather.
+
+It does not rain always, even in this part of Lincolnshire; and the
+July morning was bright and pleasant, the low hedges fragrant with
+starry opal-tinted wild roses and waxen honeysuckle, the yellowing corn
+waving in the light summer breeze. Mary assured her companion that she
+had no objection whatever to the odour of cigar-smoke; so Mr. Arundel
+lolled upon the comfortable cushions of the barouche, with his back to
+the horses, smoking cheroots, and talking gaily, while Miss Marchmont
+sat in the place of state opposite to him. A happy drive; a drive in a
+fairy chariot through regions of fairyland, for ever and for ever to be
+remembered by Mary Marchmont.
+
+They left the straggling hedges and the yellowing corn behind them
+by-and-by, as they drew near the outskirts of Swampington. The town
+lies lower even than the surrounding country, flat and low as that
+country is. A narrow river crawls at the base of a half-ruined wall,
+which once formed part of the defences of the place. Black barges lie
+at anchor here; and a stone bridge, guarded by a toll-house, spans the
+river. Mr. Marchmont's carriage lumbered across this bridge, and under
+an archway, low, dark, stony, and grim, into a narrow street of solid,
+well-built houses, low, dark, stony, and grim, like the archway, but
+bearing the stamp of reputable occupation. I believe the grass grew,
+and still grows, in this street, as it does in all the other streets
+and in the market-place of Swampington. They are all pretty much in the
+same style, these streets,--all stony, narrow, dark, and grim; and they
+wind and twist hither and thither, and in and out, in a manner utterly
+bewildering to the luckless stranger, who, seeing that they are all
+alike, has no landmarks for his guidance.
+
+There are two handsome churches, both bearing an early date in the
+history of Norman supremacy: one crowded into an inconvenient corner of
+a back street, and choked by the houses built up round about it; the
+other lying a little out of the town, upon a swampy waste looking
+towards the sea, which flows within a mile of Swampington. Indeed,
+there is no lack of water in that Lincolnshire borough. The river winds
+about the outskirts of the town; unexpected creeks and inlets meet you
+at every angle; shallow pools lie here and there about the marshy
+suburbs; and in the dim distance the low line of the grey sea meets the
+horizon.
+
+But perhaps the positive ugliness of the town is something redeemed by
+a vague air of romance and old-world mystery which pervades it. It is
+an exceptional place, and somewhat interesting thereby. The great
+Norman church upon the swampy waste, the scattered tombstones, bordered
+by the low and moss-grown walls, make a picture which is apt to dwell
+in the minds of those who look upon it, although it is by no means a
+pretty picture. The Rectory lies close to the churchyard; and a
+wicket-gate opens from Mr. Arundel's garden into a narrow pathway,
+leading across a patch of tangled grass and through a lane of sunken
+and lopsided tombstones, to the low vestry door. The Rectory itself is
+a long irregular building, to which one incumbent after another has
+built the additional chamber, or chimney, or porch, or bow-window,
+necessary for his accommodation. There is very little garden in front
+of the house, but a patch of lawn and shrubbery and a clump of old
+trees at the back.
+
+"It's not a pretty house, is it, Miss Marchmont?" asked Edward, as he
+lifted his companion out of the carriage.
+
+"No, not very pretty," Mary answered; "but I don't think any thing is
+pretty in Lincolnshire. Oh, there's the sea!" she cried, looking
+suddenly across the marshes to the low grey line in the distance. "How
+I wish we were as near the sea at Marchmont Towers!"
+
+The young lady had something of a romantic passion for the
+wide-spreading ocean. It was an unknown region, that stretched far
+away, and was wonderful and beautiful by reason of its solemn mystery.
+All her Corsair stories were allied to that far, fathomless deep. The
+white sail in the distance was Conrad's, perhaps; and he was speeding
+homeward to find Medora dead in her lonely watch-tower, with fading
+flowers upon her breast. The black hull yonder, with dirty canvas
+spread to the faint breeze, was the bark of some terrible pirate bound
+on rapine and ravage. (She was a coal-barge, I have no doubt, sailing
+Londonward with her black burden.) Nymphs and Lurleis, Mermaids and
+Mermen, and tiny water-babies with silvery tails, for ever splashing in
+the sunshine, were all more or less associated with the long grey line
+towards which Mary Marchmont looked with solemn, yearning eyes.
+
+"We'll drive down to the seashore some morning, Polly," said Mr.
+Arundel. He was beginning to call her Polly, now and then, in the easy
+familiarity of their intercourse. "We'll spend a long day on the sands,
+and I'll smoke cheroots while you pick up shells and seaweed."
+
+Miss Marchmont clasped her hands in silent rapture. Her face was
+irradiated by the new light of happiness. How good he was to her, this
+brave soldier, who must undoubtedly be made Commander-in-Chief of the
+Army of the Indus in a year or so!
+
+Edward Arundel led his companion across the flagged way between the
+iron gate of the Rectory garden and a half-glass door leading into the
+hall. Out of this simple hall, only furnished with a couple of chairs,
+a barometer, and an umbrella-stand, they went, without announcement,
+into a low, old-fashioned room, half-study, half-parlour, where a young
+lady was sitting at a table writing.
+
+She rose as Edward opened the door, and came to meet him.
+
+"At last!" she said; "I thought your rich friends engrossed all your
+attention."
+
+She paused, seeing Mary.
+
+"This is Miss Marchmont, Olivia," said Edward; "the only daughter of my
+old friend. You must be very fond of her, please; for she is a dear
+little girl, and I know she means to love you."
+
+Mary lifted her soft brown eyes to the face of the young lady, and then
+dropped her eyelids suddenly, as if half-frightened by what she had
+seen there.
+
+What was it? What was it in Olivia Arundel's handsome face from which
+those who looked at her so often shrank, repelled and disappointed?
+Every line in those perfectly-modelled features was beautiful to look
+at; but, as a whole, the face was not beautiful. Perhaps it was too
+much like a marble mask, exquisitely chiselled, but wanting in variety
+of expression. The handsome mouth was rigid; the dark grey eyes had a
+cold light in them. The thick bands of raven-black hair were drawn
+tightly off a square forehead, which was the brow of an intellectual
+and determined man rather than of a woman. Yes; womanhood was the
+something wanted in Olivia Arundel's face. Intellect, resolution,
+courage, are rare gifts; but they are not the gifts whose tokens we
+look for most anxiously in a woman's face. If Miss Arundel had been a
+queen, her diadem would have become her nobly; and she might have been
+a very great queen: but Heaven help the wretched creature who had
+appealed from minor tribunals to _her_ mercy! Heaven help delinquents
+of every kind whose last lingering hope had been in her compassion!
+
+Perhaps Mary Marchmont vaguely felt something of all this. At any rate,
+the enthusiasm with which she had been ready to regard Edward Arundel's
+cousin cooled suddenly beneath the winter in that pale, quiet face.
+
+Miss Arundel said a few words to her guest; kindly enough; but rather
+too much as if she had been addressing a child of six. Mary, who was
+accustomed to be treated as a woman, was wounded by her manner.
+
+"How different she is from Edward!" thought Miss Marchmont. "I shall
+never like her as I like him."
+
+"So this is the pale-faced child who is to have Marchmont Towers
+by-and-by," thought Miss Arundel; "and these rich friends are the
+people for whom Edward stays away from us."
+
+The lines about the rigid mouth grew harder, the cold light in the grey
+eyes grew colder, as the young lady thought this.
+
+It was thus that these two women met: while one was but a child in
+years; while the other was yet in the early bloom of womanhood: these
+two, who were predestined to hate each other, and inflict suffering
+upon each other in the days that were to come. It was thus that they
+thought of one another; each with an unreasonable dread, an undefined
+aversion gathering in her breast.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Six weeks passed, and Edward Arundel kept his promise of shooting the
+partridges on the Marchmont preserves. The wood behind the Towers, and
+the stubbled corn-fields on the home-farm, bristled with game. The
+young soldier heartily enjoyed himself through that delicious first
+week in September; and came home every afternoon, with a heavy game-bag
+and a light heart, to boast of his prowess before Mary and her father.
+
+The young man was by this time familiar with every nook and corner of
+Marchmont Towers; and the builders were already at work at the
+tennis-court which John had promised to erect for his friend's
+pleasure. The site ultimately chosen was a bleak corner of the eastern
+front, looking to the wood; but as Edward declared the spot in every
+way eligible, John had no inclination to find fault with his friend's
+choice. There was other work for the builders; for Mr. Arundel had
+taken a wonderful fancy to a ruined boat-house upon the brink of the
+river; and this boat-house was to be rebuilt and restored, and made
+into a delightful pavilion, in the upper chambers of which Mary might
+sit with her father in the hot summer weather, while Mr. Arundel kept a
+couple of trim wherries in the recesses below.
+
+So, you see, the young man made himself very much at home, in his own
+innocent, boyish fashion, at Marchmont Towers. But as he had brought
+life and light to the old Lincolnshire mansion, nobody was inclined to
+quarrel with him for any liberties which he might choose to take: and
+every one looked forward sorrowfully to the dark days before Christmas,
+at which time he was under a promise to return to Dangerfield Park;
+there to spend the remainder of his leave of absence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+OLIVIA.
+
+
+While busy workmen were employed at Marchmont Towers, hammering at the
+fragile wooden walls of the tennis-court,--while Mary Marchmont and
+Edward Arundel wandered, with the dogs at their heels, amongst the
+rustle of the fallen leaves in the wood behind the great gaunt
+Lincolnshire mansion,--Olivia, the Rector's daughter, sat in her
+father's quiet study, or walked to and fro in the gloomy streets of
+Swampington, doing her duty day by day.
+
+Yes, the life of this woman is told in these few words: she did her
+duty. From the earliest age at which responsibility can begin, she had
+done her duty, uncomplainingly, unswervingly, as it seemed to those who
+watched her.
+
+She was a good woman. The bishop of the diocese had specially
+complimented her for her active devotion to that holy work which falls
+somewhat heavily upon the only daughter of a widowed rector. All the
+stately dowagers about Swampington were loud in their praises of Olivia
+Arundel. Such devotion, such untiring zeal in a young person of
+three-and-twenty years of age, were really most laudable, these solemn
+elders said, in tones of supreme patronage; for the young saint of whom
+they spoke wore shabby gowns, and was the portionless daughter of a
+poor man who had let the world slip by him, and who sat now amid the
+dreary ruins of a wasted life, looking yearningly backward, with hollow
+regretful eyes, and bewailing the chances he had lost. Hubert Arundel
+loved his daughter; loved her with that sorrowful affection we feel for
+those who suffer for our sins, whose lives have been blighted by our
+follies.
+
+Every shabby garment which Olivia wore was a separate reproach to her
+father; every deprivation she endured stung him as cruelly as if she
+had turned upon him and loudly upbraided him for his wasted life and
+his squandered patrimony. He loved her; and he watched her day after
+day, doing her duty to him as to all others; doing her duty for ever
+and for ever; but when he most yearned to take her to his heart, her
+own cold perfections arose, and separated him from the child he loved.
+What was he but a poor, vacillating, erring creature; weak, supine,
+idle, epicurean; unworthy to approach this girl, who never seemed to
+sicken of the hardness of her life, who never grew weary of well-doing?
+
+But how was it that, for all her goodness, Olivia Arundel won so small
+a share of earthly reward? I do not allude to the gold and jewels and
+other worldly benefits with which the fairies in our children's
+story-books reward the benevolent mortals who take compassion upon them
+when they experimentalise with human nature in the guise of old women;
+but I speak rather of the love and gratitude, the tenderness and
+blessings, which usually wait upon the footsteps of those who do good
+deeds. Olivia Arundel's charities were never ceasing; her life was one
+perpetual sacrifice to her father's parishioners. There was no natural
+womanly vanity, no simple girlish fancy, which this woman had not
+trodden under foot, and trampled out in the hard pathway she had chosen
+for herself.
+
+The poor people knew this. Rheumatic men and women, crippled and
+bed-ridden, knew that the blankets which covered them had been bought
+out of money that would have purchased silk dresses for the Rector's
+handsome daughter, or luxuries for the frugal table at the Rectory.
+They knew this. They knew that, through frost and snow, through storm
+and rain, Olivia Arundel would come to sit beside their dreary hearths,
+their desolate sick-beds, and read holy books to them; sublimely
+indifferent to the foul weather without, to the stifling atmosphere
+within, to dirt, discomfort, poverty, inconvenience; heedless of all,
+except the performance of the task she had set herself.
+
+People knew this; and they were grateful to Miss Arundel, and
+submissive and attentive in her presence; they gave her such return as
+they were able to give for the benefits, spiritual and temporal, which
+she bestowed upon them: but they did not love her.
+
+They spoke of her in reverential accents, and praised her whenever her
+name was mentioned; but they spoke with tearless eyes and unfaltering
+voices. Her virtues were beautiful, of course, as virtue in the
+abstract must always be; but I think there was a want of individuality
+in her goodness, a lack of personal tenderness in her kindness, which
+separated her from the people she benefited.
+
+Perhaps there was something almost chilling in the dull monotony of
+Miss Arundel's benevolence. There was no blemish of mortal weakness
+upon the good deeds she performed; and the recipients of her bounties,
+seeing her so far off, grew afraid of her, even by reason of her
+goodness, and _could_ not love her.
+
+She made no favourites amongst her father's parishioners. Of all the
+school-children she had taught, she had never chosen one curly-headed
+urchin for a pet. She had no good days and bad days; she was never
+foolishly indulgent or extravagantly cordial. She was always the
+same,--Church-of-England charity personified; meting out all mercies by
+line and rule; doing good with a note-book and a pencil in her hand;
+looking on every side with calm, scrutinising eyes; rigidly just,
+terribly perfect.
+
+It was a fearfully monotonous, narrow, and uneventful life which Olivia
+Arundel led at Swampington Rectory. At three-and-twenty years of age
+she could have written her history upon a few pages. The world outside
+that dull Lincolnshire town might be shaken by convulsions, and made
+irrecognisable by repeated change; but all those outer changes and
+revolutions made themselves but little felt in the quiet grass-grown
+streets, and the flat surrounding swamps, within whose narrow boundary
+Olivia Arundel had lived from infancy to womanhood; performing and
+repeating the same duties from day to day, with no other progress to
+mark the lapse of her existence than the slow alternation of the
+seasons, and the dark hollow circles which had lately deepened beneath
+her grey eyes, and the depressed lines about the corners of her firm
+lower-lip.
+
+These outward tokens, beyond her own control, alone betrayed this
+woman's secret. She was weary of her life. She sickened under the dull
+burden which she had borne so long, and carried so patiently. The slow
+round of duty was loathsome to her. The horrible, narrow, unchanging
+existence, shut in by cruel walls, which bounded her on every side and
+kept her prisoner to herself, was odious to her. The powerful intellect
+revolted against the fetters that bound and galled it. The proud heart
+beat with murderous violence against the bonds that kept it captive.
+
+"Is my life always to be this--always, always, always?" The passionate
+nature burst forth sometimes, and the voice that had so long been
+stifled cried aloud in the black stillness of the night, "Is it to go
+on for ever and for ever; like the slow river that creeps under the
+broken wall? O my God! is the lot of other women never to be mine? Am I
+never to be loved and admired; never to be sought and chosen? Is my
+life to be all of one dull, grey, colourless monotony; without one
+sudden gleam of sunshine, without one burst of rainbow-light?"
+
+How shall I anatomise this woman, who, gifted with no womanly
+tenderness of nature, unendowed with that pitiful and unreasoning
+affection which makes womanhood beautiful, yet tried, and tried
+unceasingly, to do her duty, and to be good; clinging, in the very
+blindness of her soul, to the rigid formulas of her faith, but unable
+to seize upon its spirit? Some latent comprehension of the want in her
+nature made her only the more scrupulous in the performance of those
+duties which she had meted out for herself. The holy sentences she had
+heard, Sunday after Sunday, feebly read by her father, haunted her
+perpetually, and would not be put away from her. The tenderness in
+every word of those familiar gospels was a reproach to the want of
+tenderness in her own heart. She could be good to her father's
+parishioners, and she could make sacrifices for them; but she could not
+love them, any more than they could love her.
+
+That divine and universal pity, that spontaneous and boundless
+affection, which is the chief loveliness of womanhood and Christianity,
+had no part in her nature. She could understand Judith with the
+Assyrian general's gory head held aloft in her uplifted hand; but she
+could not comprehend that diviner mystery of sinful Magdalene sitting
+at her Master's feet, with the shame and love in her face half hidden
+by a veil of drooping hair.
+
+No; Olivia Arundel was not a good woman, in the commoner sense we
+attach to the phrase. It was not natural to her to be gentle and
+tender, to be beneficent, compassionate, and kind, as it is to the
+women we are accustomed to call "good." She was a woman who was for
+ever fighting against her nature; who was for ever striving to do
+right; for ever walking painfully upon the difficult road mapped out
+for her; for ever measuring herself by the standard she had set up for
+her self-abasement. And who shall say that such a woman as this, if she
+persevere unto the end, shall not wear a brighter crown than her more
+gentle sisters,--the starry circlet of a martyr?
+
+If she persevere unto the end! But was Olivia Arundel the woman to do
+this? The deepening circles about her eyes, the hollowing cheeks, and
+the feverish restlessness of manner which she could not always control,
+told how terrible the long struggle had become to her. If she could
+have died then,--if she had fallen beneath the weight of her
+burden,--what a record of sin and anguish might have remained unwritten
+in the history of woman's life! But this woman was one of those who can
+suffer, and yet not die. She bore her burden a little longer; only to
+fling it down by-and-by, and to abandon herself to the eager devils who
+had been watching for her so untiringly.
+
+Hubert Arundel was afraid of his daughter. The knowledge that he had
+wronged her,--wronged her even before her birth by the foolish waste of
+his patrimony, and wronged her through life by his lack of energy in
+seeking such advancement as a more ambitious man might have won,--the
+knowledge of this, and of his daughter's superior virtues, combined to
+render the father ashamed and humiliated by the presence of his only
+child. The struggle between this fear and his remorseful love of her
+was a very painful one; but fear had the mastery, and the Rector of
+Swampington was content to stand aloof, mutely watchful of his
+daughter, wondering feebly whether she was happy, striving vainly to
+discover that one secret, that keystone of the soul, which must exist
+in every nature, however outwardly commonplace.
+
+Mr. Arundel had hoped that his daughter would marry, and marry well,
+even at Swampington; for there were rich young landowners who visited
+at the Rectory. But Olivia's handsome face won her few admirers, and at
+three-and-twenty Miss Arundel had received no offer of marriage. The
+father reproached himself for this. It was he who had blighted the life
+of his penniless girl; it was his fault that no suitors came to woo his
+motherless child. Yet many dowerless maidens have been sought and
+loved; and I do not think it was Olivia's lack of fortune which kept
+admirers at bay. I believe it was rather that inherent want of
+tenderness which chilled and dispirited the timid young Lincolnshire
+squires.
+
+Had Olivia ever been in love? Hubert Arundel constantly asked himself
+this question. He did so because he saw that some blighting influence,
+even beyond the poverty and dulness of her home, had fallen upon the
+life of his only child. What was it? What was it? Was it some hopeless
+attachment, some secret tenderness, which had never won the sweet
+return of love for love?
+
+He would no more have ventured to question his daughter upon this
+subject than he would have dared to ask his fair young Queen, newly
+married in those days, whether she was happy with her handsome husband.
+
+Miss Arundel stood by the Rectory gate in the early September evening,
+watching the western sunlight on the low sea-line beyond the marshes.
+She was wearied and worn out by a long day devoted to visiting amongst
+her parishioners; and she stood with her elbow leaning on the gate, and
+her head resting on her hand, in an attitude peculiarly expressive of
+fatigue. She had thrown off her bonnet, and her black hair was pushed
+carelessly from her forehead. Those masses of hair had not that purple
+lustre, nor yet that wandering glimmer of red gold, which gives
+peculiar beauty to some raven tresses. Olivia's hair was long and
+luxuriant; but it was of that dead, inky blackness, which is all
+shadow. It was dark, fathomless, inscrutable, like herself. The cold
+grey eyes looked thoughtfully seaward. Another day's duty had been
+done. Long chapters of Holy Writ had been read to troublesome old women
+afflicted with perpetual coughs; stifling, airless cottages had been
+visited; the dull, unvarying track had been beaten by the patient feet,
+and the yellow sun was going down upon another joyless day. But did the
+still evening hour bring peace to that restless spirit? No; by the
+rigid compression of the lips, by the feverish lustre in the eyes, by
+the faint hectic flush in the oval cheeks, by every outward sign of
+inward unrest, Olivia Arundel was not at peace! The listlessness of her
+attitude was merely the listlessness of physical fatigue. The mental
+struggle was not finished with the close of the day's work.
+
+The young lady looked up suddenly as the tramp of a horse's hoofs, slow
+and lazy-sounding on the smooth road, met her ear. Her eyes dilated,
+and her breath went and came more rapidly; but she did not stir from
+her weary attitude.
+
+The horse was from the stables at Marchmont Towers, and the rider was
+Mr. Arundel. He came smiling to the Rectory gate, with the low sunshine
+glittering in his chesnut hair, and the light of careless, indifferent
+happiness irradiating his handsome face.
+
+"You must have thought I'd forgotten you and my uncle, my dear Livy,"
+he said, as he sprang lightly from his horse. "We've been so busy with
+the tennis-court, and the boat-house, and the partridges, and goodness
+knows what besides at the Towers, that I couldn't get the time to ride
+over till this evening. But to-day we dined early, on purpose that I
+might have the chance of getting here. I come upon an important
+mission, Livy, I assure you."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+There was no change in Miss Arundel's voice when she spoke to her
+cousin; but there was a change, not easily to be defined, in her face
+when she looked at him. It seemed as if that weary hopelessness of
+expression which had settled on her countenance lately grew more weary,
+more hopeless, as she turned towards this bright young soldier,
+glorious in the beauty of his own light-heartedness. It may have been
+merely the sharpness of contrast which produced this effect. It may
+have been an actual change arising out of some secret hidden in
+Olivia's breast.
+
+"What do you mean by an important mission, Edward?" she said.
+
+She had need to repeat the question; for the young man's attention had
+wandered from her, and he was watching his horse as the animal cropped
+the tangled herbage about the Rectory gate.
+
+"Why, I've come with an invitation to a dinner at Marchmont Towers.
+There's to be a dinner-party; and, in point of fact, it's to be given
+on purpose for you and my uncle. John and Polly are full of it. You'll
+come, won't you, Livy?"
+
+Miss Arundel shrugged her shoulders, with an impatient sigh.
+
+"I hate dinner-parties," she said; "but, of course, if papa accepts Mr.
+Marchmont's invitation, I cannot refuse to go. Papa must choose for
+himself."
+
+There had been some interchange of civilities between Marchmont Towers
+and Swampington Rectory during the six weeks which had passed since
+Mary's introduction to Olivia Arundel; and this dinner-party was the
+result of John's simple desire to do honour to his friend's kindred.
+
+"Oh, you must come, Livy," Mr. Arundel exclaimed. "The tennis-court is
+going on capitally. I want you to give us your opinion again. Shall I
+take my horse round to the stables? I am going to stop an hour or two,
+and ride back by moonlight."
+
+Edward Arundel took the bridle in his hand, and the cousins walked
+slowly round by the low garden-wall to a dismal and rather dilapidated
+stable-yard at the back of the Rectory, where Hubert Arundel kept a
+wall-eyed white horse, long-legged, shallow-chested, and large-headed,
+and a fearfully and wonderfully made phaëton, with high wheels and a
+mouldy leathern hood.
+
+Olivia walked by the young soldier's side with that air of hopeless
+indifference that had so grown upon her very lately. Her eyelids
+drooped with a look of sullen disdain; but the grey eyes glanced
+furtively now and again at her companion's handsome face. He was very
+handsome. The glitter of reddish gold in his hair, and the light in his
+fearless blue eyes; the careless grace peculiar to the kind of man we
+call "a swell;" the gay _insouciance_ of an easy, candid, generous
+nature,--all combined to make Edward Arundel singularly attractive.
+These spoiled children of nature demand our admiration, in very spite
+of ourselves. These beautiful, useless creatures call upon us to
+rejoice in their valueless beauty, like the flaunting poppies in the
+cornfield, and the gaudy wild-flowers in the grass.
+
+The darkness of Olivia's face deepened after each furtive glance she
+cast at her cousin. Could it be that this girl, to whom nature had
+given strength but denied grace, envied the superficial attractions of
+the young man at her side? She did envy him; she envied him that sunny
+temperament which was so unlike her own; she envied him that wondrous
+power of taking life lightly. Why should existence be so bright and
+careless to him; while to her it was a terrible fever-dream, a long
+sickness, a never-ceasing battle?
+
+"Is my uncle in the house?" Mr. Arundel asked, as he strolled from the
+stable into the garden with his cousin by his side.
+
+"No; he has been out since dinner," Olivia answered; "but I expect him
+back every minute. I came out into the garden,--the house seemed so hot
+and stifling to-night, and I have been sitting in close cottages all
+day."
+
+"Sitting in close cottages!" repeated Edward. "Ah, to be sure; visiting
+your rheumatic old pensioners, I suppose. How good you are, Olivia!"
+
+"Good!"
+
+She echoed the word in the very bitterness of a scorn that could not be
+repressed.
+
+"Yes; everybody says so. The Millwards were at Marchmont Towers the
+other day, and they were talking of you, and praising your goodness,
+and speaking of your schools, and your blanket-associations, and your
+invalid-societies, and your mutual-help clubs, and all your plans for
+the parish. Why, you must work as hard as a prime-minister, Livy, by
+their account; you, who are only a few years older than I."
+
+Only a few years! She started at the phrase, and bit her lip.
+
+"I was three-and-twenty last month," she said.
+
+"Ah, yes; to be sure. And I'm one-and-twenty. Then you're only two
+years older than I, Livy. But, then, you see, you're so clever, that
+you seem much older than you are. You'd make a fellow feel rather
+afraid of you, you know. Upon my word you do, Livy."
+
+Miss Arundel did not reply to this speech of her cousin's. She was
+walking by his side up and down a narrow gravelled pathway, bordered by
+a hazel-hedge; she had gathered one of the slender twigs, and was idly
+stripping away the fluffy buds.
+
+"What do you think, Livy?" cried Edward suddenly, bursting out laughing
+at the end of the question. "What do you think? It's my belief you've
+made a conquest."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"There you go; turning upon a fellow as if you could eat him. Yes,
+Livy; it's no use your looking savage. You've made a conquest; and of
+one of the best fellows in the world, too. John Marchmont's in love
+with you."
+
+Olivia Arundel's face flushed a vivid crimson to the roots of her black
+hair.
+
+"How dare you come here to insult me, Edward Arundel?" she cried
+passionately.
+
+"Insult you? Now, Livy dear, that's too bad, upon my word,"
+remonstrated the young man. "I come and tell you that as good a man as
+ever breathed is over head and ears in love with you, and that you may
+be mistress of one of the finest estates in Lincolnshire if you please,
+and you turn round upon me like no end of furies."
+
+"Because I hate to hear you talk nonsense," answered Olivia, her bosom
+still heaving with that first outburst of emotion, but her voice
+suppressed and cold. "Am I so beautiful, or so admired or beloved, that
+a man who has not seen me half a dozen times should fall in love with
+me? Do those who know me estimate me so much, or prize me so highly,
+that a stranger should think of me? You _do_ insult me, Edward Arundel,
+when you talk as you have talked to-night."
+
+She looked out towards the low yellow light in the sky with a black
+gloom upon her face, which no reflected glimmer of the sinking sun
+could illumine; a settled darkness, near akin to the utter blackness of
+despair.
+
+"But, good heavens, Olivia, what do you mean?" cried the young man. "I
+tell you something that I think a good joke, and you go and make a
+tragedy out of it. If I'd told Letitia that a rich widower had fallen
+in love with her, she'd think it the finest fun in the world."
+
+"I'm not your sister Letitia."
+
+"No; but I wish you'd half as good a temper as she has, Livy. However,
+never mind; I'll say no more. If poor old Marchmont has fallen in love
+with you, that's his look-out. Poor dear old boy, he's let out the
+secret of his weakness half a dozen ways within these last few days.
+It's Miss Arundel this, and Miss Arundel the other; so unselfish, so
+accomplished, so ladylike, so good! That's the way he goes on, poor
+simple old dear; without having the remotest notion that he's making a
+confounded fool of himself."
+
+Olivia tossed the rumpled hair from her forehead with an impatient
+gesture of her hand.
+
+"Why should this Mr. Marchmont think all this of me?" she said,
+"when--" she stopped abruptly.
+
+"When--what, Livy?"
+
+"When other people don't think it."
+
+"How do you know what other people think? You haven't asked them, I
+suppose?"
+
+The young soldier treated his cousin in very much the same
+free-and-easy manner which he displayed towards his sister Letitia. It
+would have been almost difficult for him to recognise any degree in his
+relationship to the two girls. He loved Letitia better than Olivia; but
+his affection for both was of exactly the same character.
+
+Hubert Arundel came into the garden, wearied out, like his daughter,
+while the two cousins were walking under the shadow of the neglected
+hazels. He declared his willingness to accept the invitation to
+Marchmont Towers, and promised to answer John's ceremonious note the
+next day.
+
+"Cookson, from Kemberling, will be there, I suppose," he said, alluding
+to a brother parson, "and the usual set? Well, I'll come, Ned, if you
+wish it. You'd like to go, Olivia?"
+
+"If you like, papa."
+
+There was a duty to be performed now--the duty of placid obedience to
+her father; and Miss Arundel's manner changed from angry impatience to
+grave respect. She owed no special duty, be it remembered, to her
+cousin. She had no line or rule by which to measure her conduct to him.
+
+She stood at the gate nearly an hour later, and watched the young man
+ride away in the dim moonlight. If every separate tramp of his horse's
+hoofs had struck upon her heart, it could scarcely have given her more
+pain than she felt as the sound of those slow footfalls died away in
+the distance.
+
+"O my God," she cried, "is this madness to undo all that I have done?
+Is this folly to be the climax of my dismal life? Am I to die for the
+love of a frivolous, fair-haired boy, who laughs in my face when he
+tells me that his friend has pleased to 'take a fancy to me'?"
+
+She walked away towards the house; then stopping, with a sudden shiver,
+she turned, and went back to the hazel-alley she had paced with Edward
+Arundel.
+
+"Oh, my narrow life!" she muttered between her set teeth; "my narrow
+life! It is that which has made me the slave of this madness. I love
+him because he is the brightest and fairest thing I have ever seen. I
+love him because he brings me all I have ever known of a more beautiful
+world than that I live in. Bah! why do I reason with myself?" she
+cried, with a sudden change of manner. "I love him because I am mad."
+
+She paced up and down the hazel-shaded pathway till the moonlight grew
+broad and full, and every ivy-grown gable of the Rectory stood sharply
+out against the vivid purple of the sky. She paced up and down, trying
+to trample the folly within her under her feet as she went; a fierce,
+passionate, impulsive woman, fighting against her mad love for a
+bright-faced boy.
+
+"Two years older--only two years!" she said; "but he spoke of the
+difference between us as if it had been half a century. And then I am
+so clever, that I seem older than I am; and he is afraid of me! Is it
+for this that I have sat night after night in my father's study, poring
+over the books that were too difficult for him? What have I made of
+myself in my pride of intellect? What reward have I won for my
+patience?"
+
+Olivia Arundel looked back at her long life of duty--a dull, dead
+level, unbroken by one of those monuments which mark the desert of the
+past; a desolate flat, unlovely as the marshes between the low Rectory
+wall and the shimmering grey sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+"MY LIFE IS COLD, AND DARK, AND DREARY."
+
+
+Mr. Richard Paulette, of that eminent legal firm, Paulette, Paulette,
+and Mathewson, coming to Marchmont Towers on business, was surprised to
+behold the quiet ease with which the sometime copying-clerk received
+the punctilious country gentry who came to sit at his board and do him
+honour.
+
+Of all the legal fairy-tales, of all the parchment-recorded romances,
+of all the poetry run into affidavits, in which the solicitor had ever
+been concerned, this story seemed the strangest. Not so very strange in
+itself, for such romances are not uncommon in the history of a lawyer's
+experience; but strange by reason of the tranquil manner in which John
+Marchmont accepted his new position, and did the honours of his house
+to his late employer.
+
+"Ah, Paulette," Edward Arundel said, clapping the solicitor on the
+back, "I don't suppose you believed me when I told you that my friend
+here was heir-presumptive to a handsome fortune."
+
+The dinner-party at the Towers was conducted with that stately grandeur
+peculiar to such solemnities. There was the usual round of country-talk
+and parish-talk; the hunting squires leading the former section of the
+discourse, the rectors and rectors' wives supporting the latter part of
+the conversation. You heard on one side that Martha Harris' husband had
+left off drinking, and attended church morning and evening; and on the
+other that the old grey fox that had been hunted nine seasons between
+Crackbin Bottom and Hollowcraft Gorse had perished ignobly in the
+poultry-yard of a recusant farmer. While your left ear became conscious
+of the fact that little Billy Smithers had fallen into a copper of
+scalding water, your right received the dismal tidings that all the
+young partridges had been drowned by the rains after St. Swithin, and
+that there were hardly any of this year's birds, sir, and it would be a
+very blue look-out for next season.
+
+Mary Marchmont had listened to gayer talk in Oakley Street than any
+that was to be heard that night in her father's drawing-rooms, except
+indeed when Edward Arundel left off flirting with some pretty girls in
+blue, and hovered near her side for a little while, quizzing the
+company. Heaven knows the young soldier's jokes were commonplace
+enough; but Mary admired him as the most brilliant and accomplished of
+wits.
+
+"How do you like my cousin, Polly?" he asked at last.
+
+"Your cousin, Miss Arundel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She is very handsome."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," the young man answered carelessly. "Everybody says
+that Livy's handsome; but it's rather a cold style of beauty, isn't it?
+A little too much of the Pallas Athenë about it for my taste. I like
+those girls in blue, with the crinkly auburn hair,--there's a touch of
+red in it in the light,--and the dimples. You've a dimple, Polly, when
+you smile."
+
+Miss Marchmont blushed as she received this information, and her brown
+eyes wandered away, looking very earnestly at the pretty girls in blue.
+She looked at them with a strange interest, eager to discover what it
+was that Edward admired.
+
+"But you haven't answered my question, Polly," said Mr. Arundel. "I am
+afraid you have been drinking too much wine, Miss Marchmont, and
+muddling that sober little head of yours with the fumes of your papa's
+tawny port. I asked you how you liked Olivia."
+
+Mary blushed again.
+
+"I don't know Miss Arundel well enough to like her--yet," she answered
+timidly.
+
+"But shall you like her when you've known her longer? Don't be
+jesuitical, Polly. Likings and dislikings are instantaneous and
+instinctive. I liked you before I'd eaten half a dozen mouthfuls of the
+roll you buttered for me at that breakfast in Oakley Street, Polly. You
+don't like my cousin Olivia, miss; I can see that very plainly. You're
+jealous of her."
+
+"Jealous of her!"
+
+The bright colour faded out of Mary Marchmont's face, and left her ashy
+pale.
+
+"Do _you_ like her, then?" she asked.
+
+But Mr. Arundel was not such a coxcomb as to catch at the secret so
+naïvely betrayed in that breathless question.
+
+"No, Polly," he said, laughing; "she's my cousin, you know, and I've
+known her all my life; and cousins are like sisters. One likes to tease
+and aggravate them, and all that; but one doesn't fall in love with
+them. But I think I could mention somebody who thinks a great deal of
+Olivia."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Your papa."
+
+Mary looked at the young soldier in utter bewilderment.
+
+"Papa!" she echoed.
+
+"Yes, Polly. How would you like a stepmamma? How would you like your
+papa to marry again?"
+
+Mary Marchmont started to her feet, as if she would have gone to her
+father in the midst of all those spectators. John was standing near
+Olivia and her father, talking to them, and playing nervously with his
+slender watch-chain when he addressed the young lady.
+
+"My papa--marry again!" gasped Mary. "How dare you say such a thing,
+Mr. Arundel?"
+
+Her childish devotion to her father arose in all its force; a flood of
+passionate emotion that overwhelmed her sensitive nature. Marry again!
+marry a woman who would separate him from his only child! Could he ever
+dream for one brief moment of such a horrible cruelty?
+
+She looked at Olivia's sternly handsome face, and trembled. She could
+almost picture that very woman standing between her and her father, and
+putting her away from him. Her indignation quickly melted into grief.
+Indignation, however intense, was always short-lived in that gentle
+nature.
+
+"Oh, Mr Arundel!" she said, piteously appealing to the young man, "papa
+would never, never, never marry again,--would he?"
+
+"Not if it was to grieve you, Polly, I dare say," Edward answered
+soothingly.
+
+He had been dumbfounded by Mary's passionate sorrow. He had expected
+that she would have been rather pleased, than otherwise, at the idea of
+a young stepmother,--a companion in those vast lonely rooms, an
+instructress and a friend as she grew to womanhood.
+
+"I was only talking nonsense, Polly darling," he said. "You mustn't
+make yourself unhappy about any absurd fancies of mine. I think your
+papa admires my cousin Olivia: and I thought, perhaps, you'd be glad to
+have a stepmother."
+
+"Glad to have any one who'd take papa's love away from me?" Mary said
+plaintively. "Oh, Mr. Arundel, how could you think so?"
+
+In all their familiarity the little girl had never learned to call her
+father's friend by his Christian name, though he had often told her to
+do so. She trembled to pronounce that simple Saxon name, which was so
+beautiful and wonderful because it was his: but when she read a very
+stupid novel, in which the hero was a namesake of Mr. Arundel's, the
+vapid pages seemed to be phosphorescent with light wherever the name
+appeared upon them.
+
+I scarcely know why John Marchmont lingered by Miss Arundel's chair. He
+had heard her praises from every one. She was a paragon of goodness, an
+uncanonised saint, for ever sacrificing herself for the benefit of
+others. Perhaps he was thinking that such a woman as this would be the
+best friend he could win for his little girl. He turned from the county
+matrons, the tender, kindly, motherly creatures, who would have been
+ready to take little Mary to the loving shelter of their arms, and
+looked to Olivia Arundel--this cold, perfect benefactress of the
+poor--for help in his difficulty.
+
+"She, who is so good to all her father's parishioners, could not refuse
+to be kind to my poor Mary?" he thought.
+
+But how was he to win this woman's friendship for his darling? He asked
+himself this question even in the midst of the frivolous people about
+him, and with the buzz of their conversation in his ears. He was
+perpetually tormenting himself about his little girl's future, which
+seemed more dimly perplexing now than it had ever appeared in Oakley
+Street, when the Lincolnshire property was a far-away dream, perhaps
+never to be realised. He felt that his brief lease of life was running
+out; he felt as if he and Mary had been standing upon a narrow tract of
+yellow sand; very bright, very pleasant under the sunshine; but with
+the slow-coming tide rising like a wall about them, and creeping
+stealthily onward to overwhelm them.
+
+Mary might gather bright-coloured shells and wet seaweed in her
+childish ignorance; but he, who knew that the flood was coming, could
+but grow sick at heart with the dull horror of that hastening doom. If
+the black waters had been doomed to close over them both, the father
+might have been content to go down under the sullen waves, with his
+daughter clasped to his breast. But it was not to be so. He was to sink
+in that unknown stream while she was left upon the tempest-tossed
+surface, to be beaten hither and thither, feebly battling with the
+stormy billows.
+
+Could John Marchmont be a Christian, and yet feel this horrible dread
+of the death which must separate him from his daughter? I fear this
+frail, consumptive widower loved his child with an intensity of
+affection that is scarcely reconcilable with Christianity. Such great
+passions as these must be put away before the cross can be taken up,
+and the troublesome path followed. In all love and kindness towards his
+fellow-creatures, in all patient endurance of the pains and troubles
+that befel himself, it would have been difficult to find a more
+single-hearted follower of Gospel-teaching than John Marchmont; but in
+this affection for his motherless child he was a very Pagan. He set up
+an idol for himself, and bowed down before it. Doubtful and fearful of
+the future, he looked hopelessly forward. He _could_ not trust his
+orphan child into the hands of God; and drop away himself into the
+fathomless darkness, serene in the belief that she would be cared for
+and protected. No; he could not trust. He could be faithful for
+himself; simple and confiding as a child; but not for her. He saw the
+gloomy rocks louring black in the distance; the pitiless waves beating
+far away yonder, impatient to devour the frail boat that was so soon to
+be left alone upon the waters. In the thick darkness of the future he
+could see no ray of light, except one,--a new hope that had lately
+risen in his mind; the hope of winning some noble and perfect woman to
+be the future friend of his daughter.
+
+The days were past in which, in his simplicity, he had looked to Edward
+Arundel as the future shelter of his child. The generous boy had grown
+into a stylish young man, a soldier, whose duty lay far away from
+Marchmont Towers. No; it was to a good woman's guardianship the father
+must leave his child.
+
+Thus the very intensity of his love was the one motive which led John
+Marchmont to contemplate the step that Mary thought such a cruel and
+bitter wrong to her.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It was not till long after the dinner-party at Marchmont Towers that
+these ideas resolved themselves into any positive form, and that John
+began to think that for his daughter's sake he might be led to
+contemplate a second marriage. Edward Arundel had spoken the truth when
+he told his cousin that John Marchmont had repeatedly mentioned her
+name; but the careless and impulsive young man had been utterly unable
+to fathom the feeling lurking in his friend's mind. It was not Olivia
+Arundel's handsome face which had won John's admiration; it was the
+constant reiteration of her praises upon every side which had led him
+to believe that this woman, of all others, was the one whom he would do
+well to win for his child's friend and guardian in the dark days that
+were to come.
+
+The knowledge that Olivia's intellect was of no common order, together
+with the somewhat imperious dignity of her manner, strengthened this
+belief in John Marchmont's mind. It was not a good woman only whom he
+must seek in the friend he needed for his child; it was a woman
+powerful enough to shield her in the lonely path she would have to
+tread; a woman strong enough to help her, perhaps, by-and-by to do
+battle with Paul Marchmont.
+
+So, in the blind paganism of his love, John refused to trust his child
+into the hands of Providence, and chose for himself a friend and
+guardian who should shelter his darling. He made his choice with so
+much deliberation, and after such long nights and days of earnest
+thought, that he may be forgiven if he believed he had chosen wisely.
+
+Thus it was that in the dark November days, while Edward and Mary
+played chess by the wide fireplace in the western drawing-room, or ball
+in the newly-erected tennis-court, John Marchmont sat in his study
+examining his papers, and calculating the amount of money at his own
+disposal, in serious contemplation of a second marriage.
+
+Did he love Olivia Arundel? No. He admired her and respected her, and
+he firmly believed her to be the most perfect of women. No impulse of
+affection had prompted the step he contemplated taking. He had loved
+his first wife truly and tenderly; but he had never suffered very
+acutely from any of those torturing emotions which form the several
+stages of the great tragedy called Love.
+
+But had he ever thought of the likelihood of his deliberate offer being
+rejected by the young lady who had been the object of such careful
+consideration? Yes; he had thought of this, and was prepared to abide
+the issue. He should, at least, have tried his uttermost to secure a
+friend for his darling.
+
+With such unloverlike feelings as these the owner of Marchmont Towers
+drove into Swampington one morning, deliberately bent upon offering
+Olivia Arundel his hand. He had consulted with his land-steward, and
+with Messrs. Paulette, and had ascertained how far he could endow his
+bride with the goods of this world. It was not much that he could give
+her, for the estate was strictly entailed; but there would be his own
+savings for the brief term of his life, and if he lived only a few
+years these savings might accumulate to a considerable amount, so
+limited were the expenses of the quiet Lincolnshire household; and
+there was a sum of money, something over nine thousand pounds, left him
+by Philip Marchmont, senior. He had something, then, to offer to the
+woman he sought to make his wife; and, above all, he had a supreme
+belief in Olivia Arundel's utter disinterestedness. He had seen her
+frequently since the dinner-party, and had always seen her the
+same,--grave, reserved, dignified; patiently employed in the strict
+performance of her duty.
+
+He found Miss Arundel sitting in her father's study, busily cutting out
+coarse garments for her poor. A newly-written sermon lay open on the
+table. Had Mr. Marchmont looked closely at the manuscript, he would
+have seen that the ink was wet, and that the writing was Olivia's. It
+was a relief to this strange woman to write sermons sometimes--fierce
+denunciatory protests against the inherent wickedness of the human
+heart. Can you imagine a woman with a wicked heart steadfastly trying
+to do good, and to be good? It is a dark and horrible picture; but it
+is the only true picture of the woman whom John Marchmont sought to win
+for his wife.
+
+The interview between Mary's father and Olivia Arundel was not a very
+sentimental one; but it was certainly the very reverse of commonplace.
+John was too simple-hearted to disguise the purpose of his wooing. He
+pleaded, not for a wife for himself, but a mother for his orphan child.
+He talked of Mary's helplessness in the future, not of his own love in
+the present. Carried away by the egotism of his one affection, he let
+his motives appear in all their nakedness. He spoke long and earnestly;
+he spoke until the blinding tears in his eyes made the face of her he
+looked at seem blotted and dim.
+
+Miss Arundel watched him as he pleaded; sternly, unflinchingly. But she
+uttered no word until he had finished; and then, rising suddenly, with
+a dusky flush upon her face, she began to pace up and down the narrow
+room. She had forgotten John Marchmont. In the strength and vigour of
+her intellect, this weak-minded widower, whose one passion was a
+pitiful love for his child, appeared to her so utterly insignificant,
+that for a few moments she had forgotten his presence in that room--his
+very existence, perhaps. She turned to him presently, and looked him
+full in the face.
+
+"You do not love me, Mr. Marchmont?" she said.
+
+"Pardon me," John stammered; "believe me, Miss Arundel, I respect, I
+esteem you so much, that--"
+
+"That you choose me as a fitting friend for your child. I understand. I
+am not the sort of woman to be loved. I have long comprehended that. My
+cousin Edward Arundel has often taken the trouble to tell me as much.
+And you wish me to be your wife in order that you may have a guardian
+for your child? It is very much the same thing as engaging a governess;
+only the engagement is to be more binding."
+
+"Miss Arundel," exclaimed John Marchmont, "forgive me! You
+misunderstand me; indeed you do. Had I thought that I could have
+offended you--"
+
+"I am not offended. You have spoken the truth where another man would
+have told a lie. I ought to be flattered by your confidence in me. It
+pleases me that people should think me good, and worthy of their
+trust."
+
+She broke into a sigh as she finished speaking.
+
+"And you will not reject my appeal?"
+
+"I scarcely know what to do," answered Olivia, pressing her hand to her
+forehead.
+
+She leaned against the angle of the deep casement window, looking out
+at the garden, desolate and neglected in the bleak winter weather. She
+was silent for some minutes. John Marchmont did not interrupt her; he
+was content to wait patiently until she should choose to speak.
+
+"Mr. Marchmont," she said at last, turning upon poor John with an
+abrupt vehemence that almost startled him, "I am three-and-twenty; and
+in the long, dull memory of the three-and-twenty years that have made
+my life, I cannot look back upon one joy--no, so help me Heaven, not
+one!" she cried passionately. "No prisoner in the Bastille, shut in a
+cell below the level of the Seine, and making companions of rats and
+spiders in his misery, ever led a life more hopelessly narrow, more
+pitifully circumscribed, than mine has been. These grass-grown streets
+have made the boundary of my existence. The flat fenny country round me
+is not flatter or more dismal than my life. You will say that I should
+take an interest in the duties which I do; and that they should be
+enough for me. Heaven knows I have tried to do so; but my life is hard.
+Do you think there has been nothing in all this to warp my nature? Do
+you think after hearing this, that I am the woman to be a second mother
+to your child?"
+
+She sat down as she finished speaking, and her hands dropped listlessly
+in her lap. The unquiet spirit raging in her breast had been stronger
+than herself, and had spoken. She had lifted the dull veil through
+which the outer world beheld her, and had showed John Marchmont her
+natural face.
+
+"I think you are a good woman, Miss Arundel," he said earnestly. "If I
+had thought otherwise, I should not have come here to-day. I want a
+good woman to be kind to my child; kind to her when I am dead and
+gone," he added, in a lower voice.
+
+Olivia Arundel sat silent and motionless, looking straight before her
+out into the black dulness of the garden. She was trying to think out
+the dark problem of her life.
+
+Strange as it may seem, there was a certain fascination for her in John
+Marchmont's offer. He offered her something, no matter what; it would
+be a change. She had compared herself to a prisoner in the Bastille;
+and I think she felt very much as such a prisoner might have felt upon
+his gaoler's offering to remove him to Vincennes. The new prison might
+be worse than the old one, perhaps; but it would be different. Life at
+Marchmont Towers might be more monotonous, more desolate, than at
+Swampington; but it would be a new monotony, another desolation. Have
+you never felt, when suffering the hideous throes of toothache, that it
+would be a relief to have the earache or the rheumatism; that variety
+even in torture would be agreeable?
+
+Then, again, Olivia Arundel, though unblest with many of the charms of
+womanhood, was not entirely without its weaknesses. To marry John
+Marchmont would be to avenge herself upon Edward Arundel. Alas! she
+forgot how impossible it is to inflict a dagger-thrust upon him who is
+guarded by the impenetrable armour of indifference. She saw herself the
+mistress of Marchmont Towers, waited upon by liveried servants,
+courted, not patronised by the country gentry; avenged upon the
+mercenary aunt who had slighted her, who had bade her go out and get
+her living as a nursery governess. She saw this; and all that was
+ignoble in her nature arose, and urged her to snatch the chance offered
+her--the one chance of lifting herself out of the horrible obscurity of
+her life. The ambition which might have made her an empress lowered its
+crest, and cried, "Take this; at least it is something." But, through
+all, the better voices which she had enlisted to do battle with the
+natural voice of her soul cried, "This is a temptation of the devil;
+put it away from thee."
+
+But this temptation came to her at the very moment when her life had
+become most intolerable; too intolerable to be borne, she thought. She
+knew now, fatally, certainly, that Edward Arundel did not love her;
+that the one only day-dream she had ever made for herself had been a
+snare and a delusion. The radiance of that foolish dream had been the
+single light of her life. That taken away from her, the darkness was
+blacker than the blackness of death; more horrible than the obscurity
+of the grave.
+
+In all the future she had not one hope: no, not one. She had loved
+Edward Arundel with all the strength of her soul; she had wasted a
+world of intellect and passion upon this bright-haired boy. This
+foolish, grovelling madness had been the blight of her life. But for
+this, she might have grown out of her natural self by force of her
+conscientious desire to do right; and might have become, indeed, a good
+and perfect woman. If her life had been a wider one, this wasted love
+would, perhaps, have shrunk into its proper insignificance; she would
+have loved, and suffered, and recovered; as so many of us recover from
+this common epidemic. But all the volcanic forces of an impetuous
+nature, concentrated into one narrow focus, wasted themselves upon this
+one feeling, until that which should have been a sentiment became a
+madness.
+
+To think that in some far-away future time she might cease to love
+Edward Arundel, and learn to love somebody else, would have seemed
+about as reasonable to Olivia as to hope that she could have new legs
+and arms in that distant period. She could cut away this fatal passion
+with a desperate stroke, it may be, just as she could cut off her arm;
+but to believe that a new love would grow in its place was quite as
+absurd as to believe in the growing of a new arm. Some cork monstrosity
+might replace the amputated limb; some sham and simulated affection
+might succeed the old love.
+
+Olivia Arundel thought of all these things, in about ten minutes by the
+little skeleton clock upon the mantel-piece, and while John Marchmont
+fidgeted rather nervously, with a pair of gloves in the crown of his
+hat, and waited for some definite answer to his appeal. Her mind came
+back at last, after all its passionate wanderings, to the rigid channel
+she had so laboriously worn for it,--the narrow groove of duty. Her
+first words testified this.
+
+"If I accept this responsibility, I will perform it faithfully," she
+said, rather to herself than to Mr. Marchmont.
+
+"I am sure you will, Miss Arundel," John answered eagerly; "I am sure
+you will. You mean to undertake it, then? you mean to consider my
+offer? May I speak to your father? may I tell him that I have spoken to
+you? may I say that you have given me a hope of your ultimate consent?"
+
+"Yes, yes," Olivia said, rather impatiently; "speak to my father; tell
+him anything you please. Let him decide for me; it is my duty to obey
+him."
+
+There was a terrible cowardice in this. Olivia Arundel shrank from
+marrying a man she did not love, prompted by no better desire than the
+mad wish to wrench herself away from her hated life. She wanted to
+fling the burden of responsibility in this matter away from her. Let
+another decide, let another urge her to do this wrong; and let the
+wrong be called a sacrifice.
+
+So for the first time she set to work deliberately to cheat her own
+conscience. For the first time she put a false mark upon the standard
+she had made for the measurement of her moral progress.
+
+She sank into a crouching attitude on a low stool by the fire-place, in
+utter prostration of body and mind, when John Marchmont had left her.
+She let her weary head fall heavily against the carved oaken shaft that
+supported the old-fashioned mantel-piece, heedless that her brow struck
+sharply against the corner of the wood-work.
+
+If she could have died then, with no more sinful secret than a woman's
+natural weakness hidden in her breast; if she could have died then,
+while yet the first step upon the dark pathway of her life was
+untrodden,--how happy for herself, how happy for others! How miserable
+a record of sin and suffering might have remained unwritten in the
+history of woman's life!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+She sat long in the same attitude. Once, and once only, two solitary
+tears gathered in her eyes, and rolled slowly down her pale cheeks.
+
+"Will you be sorry when I am married, Edward Arundel?" she murmured;
+"will you be sorry?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"WHEN SHALL I CEASE TO BE ALL ALONE?"
+
+
+Hubert Arundel was not so much surprised as might have been anticipated
+at the proposal made him by his wealthy neighbour. Edward had prepared
+his uncle for the possibility of such a proposal by sundry jocose
+allusions and arch hints upon the subject of John Marchmont's
+admiration for Olivia. The frank and rather frivolous young man thought
+it was his cousin's handsome face that had captivated the master of
+Marchmont Towers, and was quite unable to fathom the hidden motive
+underlying all John's talk about Miss Arundel.
+
+The Rector of Swampington, being a simple-hearted and not very
+far-seeing man, thanked God heartily for the chance that had befallen
+his daughter. She would be well off and well cared for, then, by the
+mercy of Providence, in spite of his own shortcomings, which had left
+her with no better provision for the future than a pitiful Policy of
+Assurance upon her father's life. She would be well provided for
+henceforward, and would live in a handsome house; and all those noble
+qualities which had been dwarfed and crippled in a narrow sphere would
+now expand, and display themselves in unlooked-for grandeur.
+
+"People have called her a good girl," he thought; "but how could they
+ever know her goodness, unless they had seen, as I have, the
+deprivations she has borne so uncomplainingly?"
+
+John Marchmont, being newly instructed by his lawyer, was able to give
+Mr. Arundel a very clear statement of the provision he could make for
+his wife's future. He could settle upon her the nine thousand pounds
+left him by Philip Marchmont. He would allow her five hundred a year
+pin-money during his lifetime; he would leave her his savings at his
+death; and he would effect an insurance upon his life for her benefit.
+The amount of these savings would, of course, depend upon the length of
+John's life; but the money would accumulate very quickly, as his income
+was eleven thousand a year, and his expenditure was not likely to
+exceed three.
+
+The Swampington living was worth little more than three hundred and
+fifty pounds a year; and out of that sum Hubert Arundel and his
+daughter had done treble as much good for the numerous poor of the
+parish as ever had been achieved by any previous Rector or his family.
+Hubert and his daughter had patiently endured the most grinding
+poverty, the burden ever falling heavier on Olivia, who had the heroic
+faculty of endurance as regards all physical discomfort. Can it be
+wondered, then, that the Rector of Swampington thought the prospect
+offered to his child a very brilliant one? Can it be wondered that he
+urged his daughter to accept this altered lot?
+
+He did urge her, pleading John Marchmont's cause a great deal more
+warmly than the widower had himself pleaded.
+
+"My darling," he said, "my darling girl! if I can live to see you
+mistress of Marchmont Towers, I shall go to my grave contented and
+happy. Think, my dear, of the misery from which this marriage will save
+you. Oh, my dear girl, I can tell you now what I never dared tell you
+before; I can tell you of the long, sleepless nights I have passed
+thinking of you, and of the wicked wrongs I have done you. Not wilful
+wrongs, my love," the Rector added, with the tears gathering in his
+eyes; "for you know how dearly I have always loved you. But a father's
+responsibility towards his children is a very heavy burden. I have only
+looked at it in this light lately, my dear,--now that I've let the time
+slip by, and it is too late to redeem the past. I've suffered very
+much, Olivia; and all this has seemed to separate us, somehow. But
+that's past now, isn't it, my dear? and you'll marry this Mr.
+Marchmont. He appears to be a very good, conscientious man, and I think
+he'll make you happy."
+
+The father and daughter were sitting together after dinner in the dusky
+November twilight, the room only lighted by the fire, which was low and
+dim. Hubert Arundel could not see his daughter's face as he talked to
+her; he could only see the black outline of her figure sharply defined
+against the grey window behind her, as she sat opposite to him. He
+could see by her attitude that she was listening to him, with her head
+drooping and her hands lying idle in her lap.
+
+She was silent for some little time after he had finished speaking; so
+silent that he feared his words might have touched her too painfully,
+and that she was crying.
+
+Heaven help this simple-hearted father! She had scarcely heard three
+consecutive words that he had spoken, but had only gathered dimly from
+his speech that he wanted her to accept John Marchmont's offer.
+
+Every great passion is a supreme egotism. It is not the object which we
+hug so determinedly; it is not the object which coils itself about our
+weak hearts: it is our own madness we worship and cleave to, our own
+pitiable folly which we refuse to put away from us. What is Bill Sykes'
+broken nose or bull-dog visage to Nancy? The creature she loves and
+will not part from is not Bill, but her own love for Bill,--the one
+delusion of a barren life; the one grand selfishness of a feeble
+nature.
+
+Olivia Arundel's thoughts had wandered far away while her father had
+spoken so piteously to her. She had been thinking of her cousin Edward,
+and had been asking herself the same question over and over again.
+Would he be sorry? would he be sorry if she married John Marchmont?
+
+But she understood presently that her father was waiting for her to
+speak; and, rising from her chair, she went towards him, and laid her
+hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"I am afraid I have not done my duty to you, papa," she said.
+
+Latterly she had been for ever harping upon this one theme,--her duty!
+That word was the keynote of her life; and her existence had latterly
+seemed to her so inharmonious, that it was scarcely strange she should
+repeatedly strike that leading note in the scale.
+
+"My darling," cried Mr. Arundel, "you have been all that is good!"
+
+"No, no, papa; I have been cold, reserved, silent."
+
+"A little silent, my dear," the Rector answered meekly; "but you have
+not been happy. I have watched you, my love, and I know you have not
+been happy. But that is not strange. This place is so dull, and your
+life has been so fatiguing. How different that would all be at
+Marchmont Towers!"
+
+"You wish me to many Mr. Marchmont, then, papa?"
+
+"I do, indeed, my love. For your own sake, of course," the Rector added
+deprecatingly.
+
+"You really wish it?"
+
+"Very, very much, my dear."
+
+"Then I will marry him, papa."
+
+She took her hand from the Rector's shoulder, and walked away from him
+to the uncurtained window, against which she stood with her back to her
+father, looking out into the grey obscurity.
+
+I have said that Hubert Arundel was not a very clever or far-seeing
+person; but he vaguely felt that this was not exactly the way in which
+a brilliant offer of marriage should be accepted by a young lady who
+was entirely fancy-free, and he had an uncomfortable apprehension that
+there was something hidden under his daughter's quiet manner.
+
+"But, my dear Olivia," he said nervously, "you must not for a moment
+suppose that I would force you into this marriage, if it is in any way
+repugnant to yourself. You--you may have formed some prior
+attachment--or, there may be somebody who loves you, and has loved you
+longer than Mr. Marchmont, who--"
+
+His daughter turned upon him sharply as he rambled on.
+
+"Somebody who loves me!" she echoed. "What have you ever seen that
+should make you think any one loved me?"
+
+The harshness of her tone jarred upon Mr. Arundel, and made him still
+more nervous.
+
+"My love, I beg your pardon, I have seen nothing. I--"
+
+"Nobody loves me, or has ever loved me,--but you," resumed Olivia,
+taking no heed of her father's feeble interruption. "I am not the sort
+of woman to be loved; I feel and know that. I have an aquiline nose,
+and a clear skin, and dark eyes, and people call me handsome; but
+nobody loves me, or ever will, so long as I live."
+
+"But Mr. Marchmont, my dear,--surely he loves and admires you?"
+remonstrated the Rector.
+
+"Mr. Marchmont wants a governess and _chaperone_ for his daughter, and
+thinks me a suitable person to fill such a post; that is all the _love_
+Mr. Marchmont has for me. No, papa; there is no reason I should shrink
+from this marriage. There is no one who will be sorry for it; no one! I
+am asked to perform a duty towards this little girl, and I am prepared
+to perform it faithfully. That is my part of the bargain. Do I commit a
+sin in marrying John Marchmont in this spirit, papa?"
+
+She asked the question eagerly, almost breathlessly; as if her decision
+depended upon her father's answer.
+
+"A sin, my dear! How can you ask such a question?"
+
+"Very well, then; if I commit no sin in accepting this offer, I will
+accept it."
+
+It was thus Olivia paltered with her conscience, holding back half the
+truth. The question she should have asked was this, "Do I commit a sin
+in marrying one man, while my heart is racked by a mad passion for
+another?"
+
+Miss Arundel could not visit her poor upon the day after this interview
+with her father. Her monotonous round of duty seemed more than ever
+abhorrent to her. She wandered across the dreary marshes, down by the
+lonely seashore, in the grey November fog.
+
+She stood for a long time, shivering with the cold dampness of the
+atmosphere, but not even conscious that she was cold, looking at a
+dilapidated boat that lay upon the rugged beach. The waters before her
+and the land behind her were hidden by a dense veil of mist. It seemed
+as if she stood alone in the world,--utterly isolated, utterly
+forgotten.
+
+"O my God!" she murmured, "if this boat at my feet could drift me away
+to some desert island, I could never be more desolate than I am,
+amongst the people who do not love me."
+
+Dim lights in distant windows were gleaming across the flats when she
+returned to Swampington, to find her father sitting alone and
+dispirited at his frugal dinner. Miss Arundel took her place quietly at
+the bottom of the table, no trace of emotion upon her face.
+
+"I am sorry I stayed out so long, papa" she said; "I had no idea it was
+so late."
+
+"Never mind, my dear, I know you have always enough to occupy you. Mr.
+Marchmont called while you were out. He seemed very anxious to hear
+your decision, and was delighted when he found that it was favourable
+to himself."
+
+Olivia dropped her knife and fork, and rose from her chair suddenly,
+with a strange look, which was almost terror, in her face.
+
+"It is quite decided, then?" she said.
+
+"Yes, my love. But you are not sorry, are you?"
+
+"Sorry! No; I am glad."
+
+She sank back into her chair with a sigh of relief. She _was_ glad. The
+prospect of this strange marriage offered a relief from the horrible
+oppression of her life.
+
+"Henceforward to think of Edward Arundel will be a sin," she thought.
+"I have not won another man's love; but I shall be another man's wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MARY'S STEPMOTHER.
+
+
+Perhaps there was never a quieter courtship than that which followed
+Olivia's acceptance of John Marchmont's offer. There had been no
+pretence of sentiment on either side; yet I doubt if John had been much
+more sentimental during his early love-making days, though he had very
+tenderly and truly loved his first wife. There were few sparks of the
+romantic or emotional fire in his placid nature. His love for his
+daughter, though it absorbed his whole being, was a silent and
+undemonstrative affection; a thoughtful and almost fearful devotion,
+which took the form of intense but hidden anxiety for his child's
+future, rather than any outward show of tenderness.
+
+Had his love been of a more impulsive and demonstrative character, he
+would scarcely have thought of taking such a step as that he now
+contemplated, without first ascertaining whether it would be agreeable
+to his daughter.
+
+But he never for a moment dreamt of consulting Mary's will upon this
+important matter. He looked with fearful glances towards the dim
+future, and saw his darling, a lonely figure upon a barren landscape,
+beset by enemies eager to devour her; and he snatched at this one
+chance of securing her a protectress, who would be bound to her by a
+legal as well as a moral tie; for John Marchmont meant to appoint his
+second wife the guardian of his child. He thought only of this; and he
+hurried on his suit at the Rectory, fearful lest death should come
+between him and his loveless bride, and thus deprive his darling of a
+second mother.
+
+This was the history of John Marchmont's marriage. It was not till a
+week before the day appointed for the wedding that he told his daughter
+what he was about to do. Edward Arundel knew the secret, but he had
+been warned not to reveal it to Mary.
+
+The father and daughter sat together late one evening in the first week
+of December, in the great western drawing-room. Edward had gone to a
+party at Swampington, and was to sleep at the Rectory; so Mary and her
+father were alone.
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock; but Miss Marchmont had insisted upon
+sitting up until her father should retire to rest. She had always sat
+up in Oakley Street, she had remonstrated, though she was much younger
+then. She sat on a velvet-covered hassock at her father's feet, with
+her loose hair falling over his knee, as her head lay there in loving
+abandonment. She was not talking to him; for neither John nor Mary were
+great talkers; but she was with him--that was quite enough.
+
+Mr. Marchmont's thin fingers twined themselves listlessly in and out of
+the fair curls upon his knee. Mary was thinking of Edward and the party
+at Swampington. Would he enjoy himself very, very much? Would he be
+sorry that she was not there? It was a grown-up party, and she wasn't
+old enough for grown-up parties yet. Would the pretty girls in blue be
+there? and would he dance with them?
+
+Her father's face was clouded by a troubled expression, as he looked
+absently at the red embers in the low fireplace. He spoke presently,
+but his observation was a very commonplace one. The opening speeches of
+a tragedy are seldom remarkable for any ominous or solemn meaning. Two
+gentlemen meet each other in a street very near the footlights, and
+converse rather flippantly about the aspect of affairs in general;
+there is no hint of bloodshed and agony till we get deeper into the
+play.
+
+So Mr. Marchmont, bent upon making rather an important communication to
+his daughter, and for the first time feeling very fearful as to how she
+would take it, began thus:
+
+"You really ought to go to bed earlier, Polly dear; you've been looking
+very pale lately, and I know such hours as these must be bad for you."
+
+"Oh, no, papa dear," cried the young lady; "I'm always pale; that's
+natural to me. Sitting up late doesn't hurt me, papa. It never did in
+Oakley Street, you know."
+
+John Marchmont shook his head sadly.
+
+"I don't know that," he said. "My darling had to suffer many evils
+through her father's poverty. If you had some one who loved you, dear,
+a lady, you know,--for a man does not understand these sort of
+things,--your health would be looked after more carefully,
+and--and--your education--and--in short, you would be altogether
+happier; wouldn't you, Polly darling?"
+
+He asked the question in an almost piteously appealing tone. A terrible
+fear was beginning to take possession of him. His daughter might be
+grieved at this second marriage. The very step which he had taken for
+her happiness might cause her loving nature pain and sorrow. In the
+utter cowardice of his affection he trembled at the thought of causing
+his darling any distress in the present, even for her own
+welfare,--even for her future good; and he _knew_ that the step he was
+about to take would secure that. Mary started from her reclining
+position, and looked up into her father's face.
+
+"You're not going to engage a governess for me, papa?" she cried
+eagerly. "Oh, please don't. We are so much better as it is. A governess
+would keep me away from you, papa; I know she would. The Miss Llandels,
+at Impley Grange, have a governess; and they only come down to dessert
+for half an hour, or go out for a drive sometimes, so that they very
+seldom see their papa. Lucy told me so; and they said they'd give the
+world to be always with their papa, as I am with you. Oh, pray, pray,
+papa darling, don't let me have a governess."
+
+The tears were in her eyes as she pleaded to him. The sight of those
+tears made him terribly nervous.
+
+"My own dear Polly," he said, "I'm not going to engage a governess.
+I--; Polly, Polly dear, you must be reasonable. You mustn't grieve your
+poor father. You are old enough to understand these things now, dear.
+You know what the doctors have said. I may die, Polly, and leave you
+alone in the world."
+
+She clung closely to her father, and looked up, pale and trembling, as
+she answered him.
+
+"When you die, papa, I shall die too. I could never, never live without
+you."
+
+"Yes, yes, my darling, you would. You will live to lead a happy life,
+please God, and a safe one; but if I die, and leave you very young,
+very inexperienced, and innocent, as I may do, my dear, you must not be
+without a friend to watch over you, to advise, to protect you. I have
+thought of this long and earnestly, Polly; and I believe that what I am
+going to do is right."
+
+"What you are going to do!" Mary cried, repeating her father's words,
+and looking at him in sudden terror. "What do you mean, papa? What are
+you going to do? Nothing that will part us! O papa, papa, you will
+never do anything to part us!"
+
+"No, Polly darling," answered Mr. Marchmont. "Whatever I do, I do for
+your sake, and for that alone. I'm going to be married, my dear."
+
+Mary burst into a low wail, more pitiful than any ordinary weeping.
+
+"O papa, papa," she cried, "you never will, you never will!"
+
+The sound of that piteous voice for a few moments quite unmanned John
+Marchmont; but he armed himself with a desperate courage. He determined
+not to be influenced by this child to relinquish the purpose which he
+believed was to achieve her future welfare.
+
+"Mary, Mary dear," he said reproachfully, "this is very cruel of you.
+Do you think I haven't consulted your happiness before my own? Do you
+think I shall love you less because I take this step for your sake? You
+are very cruel to me, Mary."
+
+The little girl rose from her kneeling attitude, and stood before her
+father, with the tears streaming down her white cheeks, but with a
+certain air of resolution about her. She had been a child for a few
+moments; a child, with no power to look beyond the sudden pang of that
+new sorrow which had come to her. She was a woman now, able to rise
+superior to her sorrow in the strength of her womanhood.
+
+"I won't be cruel, papa," she said; "I was selfish and wicked to talk
+like that. If it will make you happy to have another wife, papa, I'll
+not be sorry. No, I won't be sorry, even if your new wife separates
+us--a little."
+
+"But, my darling," John remonstrated, "I don't mean that she should
+separate us at all. I wish you to have a second friend, Polly; some one
+who can understand you better than I do, who may love you perhaps
+almost as well." Mary Marchmont shook her head; she could not realise
+this possibility. "Do you understand me, my dear?" her father continued
+earnestly. "I want you to have some one who will be a mother to you;
+and I hope--I am sure that Olivia--"
+
+Mary interrupted him by a sudden exclamation, that was almost like a
+cry of pain.
+
+"Not Miss Arundel!" she said. "O papa, it is not Miss Arundel you're
+going to marry!"
+
+Her father bent his head in assent.
+
+"What is the matter with you, Mary?" he said, almost fretfully, as he
+saw the look of mingled grief and terror in his daughter's face. "You
+are really quite unreasonable to-night. If I am to marry at all, who
+should I choose for a wife? Who could be better than Olivia Arundel?
+Everybody knows how good she is. Everybody talks of her goodness."
+
+In these two sentences Mr. Marchmont made confession of a fact he had
+never himself considered. It was not his own impulse, it was no
+instinctive belief in her goodness, that had led him to choose Olivia
+Arundel for his wife. He had been influenced solely by the reiterated
+opinions of other people.
+
+"I know she is very good, papa," Mary cried; "but, oh, why, why do you
+marry her? Do you love her so very, very much?"
+
+"Love her!" exclaimed Mr. Marchmont naïvely; "no, Polly dear; you know
+I never loved any one but you."
+
+"Why do you marry her then?"
+
+"For your sake, Polly; for your sake."
+
+"But don't then, papa; oh, pray, pray don't. I don't want her. I don't
+like her. I could never be happy with her."
+
+"Mary! Mary!"
+
+"Yes, I know it's very wicked to say so, but it's true, papa; I never,
+never, never could be happy with her. I know she is good, but I don't
+like her. If I did anything wrong, I should never expect her to forgive
+me for it; I should never expect her to have mercy upon me. Don't marry
+her, papa; pray, pray don't marry her."
+
+"Mary," said Mr. Marchmont resolutely, "this is very wrong of you. I
+have given my word, my dear, and I cannot recall it. I believe that I
+am acting for the best. You must not be childish now, Mary. You have
+been my comfort ever since you were a baby; you mustn't make me unhappy
+now."
+
+Her father's appeal went straight to her heart. Yes, she had been his
+help and comfort since her earliest infancy, and she was not unused to
+self-sacrifice: why should she fail him now? She had read of martyrs,
+patient and holy creatures, to whom suffering was glory; she would be a
+martyr, if need were, for his sake. She would stand steadfast amid the
+blazing fagots, or walk unflinchingly across the white-hot ploughshare,
+for his sake, for his sake.
+
+"Papa, papa," she cried, flinging herself upon her father's neck, "I
+will not make you sorry. I will be good and obedient to Miss Arundel,
+if you wish it."
+
+Mr. Marchmont carried his little girl up to her comfortable bedchamber,
+close at hand to his own. She was very calm when she bade him good
+night, and she kissed him with a smile upon her face; but all through
+the long hours before the late winter morning Mary Marchmont lay awake,
+weeping silently and incessantly in her new sorrow; and all through the
+same weary hours the master of that noble Lincolnshire mansion slept a
+fitful and troubled slumber, rendered hideous by confused and horrible
+dreams, in which the black shadow that came between him and his child,
+and the cruel hand that thrust him for ever from his darling, were
+Olivia Arundel's.
+
+But the morning light brought relief to John Marchmont and his child.
+Mary arose with the determination to submit patiently to her father's
+choice, and to conceal from him all traces of her foolish and
+unreasoning sorrow. John awoke from troubled dreams to believe in the
+wisdom of the step he had taken, and to take comfort from the thought
+that in the far-away future his daughter would have reason to thank and
+bless him for the choice he had made.
+
+So the few days before the marriage passed away--miserably short days,
+that flitted by with terrible speed; and the last day of all was made
+still more dismal by the departure of Edward Arundel, who left
+Marchmont Towers to go to Dangerfield Park, whence he was most likely
+to start once more for India.
+
+Mary felt that her narrow world of love was indeed crumbling away from
+her. Edward was lost, and to-morrow her father would belong to another.
+Mr. Marchmont dined at the Rectory upon that last evening; for there
+were settlements to be signed, and other matters to be arranged; and
+Mary was alone--quite alone--weeping over her lost happiness.
+
+"This would never have happened," she thought, "if we hadn't come to
+Marchmont Towers. I wish papa had never had the fortune; we were so
+happy in Oakley Street,--so very happy. I wouldn't mind a bit being
+poor again, if I could be always with papa."
+
+Mr. Marchmont had not been able to make himself quite comfortable in
+his mind, after that unpleasant interview with his daughter in which he
+had broken to her the news of his approaching marriage. Argue with
+himself as he might upon the advisability of the step he was about to
+take, he could not argue away the fact that he had grieved the child he
+loved so intensely. He could not blot away from his memory the pitiful
+aspect of her terror-stricken face as she had turned it towards him
+when he uttered the name of Olivia Arundel.
+
+No; he had grieved and distressed her. The future might reconcile her
+to that grief, perhaps, as a bygone sorrow which she had been allowed
+to suffer for her own ultimate advantage. But the future was a long way
+off: and in the meantime there was Mary's altered face, calm and
+resigned, but bearing upon it a settled look of sorrow, very close at
+hand; and John Marchmont could not be otherwise than unhappy in the
+knowledge of his darling's grief.
+
+I do not believe that any man or woman is ever suffered to take a fatal
+step upon the roadway of life without receiving ample warning by the
+way. The stumbling-blocks are placed in the fatal path by a merciful
+hand; but we insist upon clambering over them, and surmounting them in
+our blind obstinacy, to reach that shadowy something beyond, which we
+have in our ignorance appointed to be our goal. A thousand ominous
+whispers in his own breast warned John Marchmont that the step he
+considered so wise was not a wise one: and yet, in spite of all these
+subtle warnings, in spite of the ever-present reproach of his
+daughter's altered face, this man, who was too weak to trust blindly in
+his God, went on persistently upon his way, trusting, with a thousand
+times more fatal blindness, in his own wisdom.
+
+He could not be content to confide his darling and her altered fortunes
+to the Providence which had watched over her in her poverty, and
+sheltered her from every harm. He could not trust his child to the
+mercy of God; but he cast her upon the love of Olivia Arundel.
+
+A new life began for Mary Marchmont after the quiet wedding at
+Swampington Church. The bride and bridegroom went upon a brief
+honeymoon excursion far away amongst snow-clad Scottish mountains and
+frozen streams, upon whose bloomless margins poor John shivered
+dismally. I fear that Mr. Marchmont, having been, by the hard pressure
+of poverty, compelled to lead a Cockney life for the better half of his
+existence, had but slight relish for the grand and sublime in nature. I
+do not think he looked at the ruined walls which had once sheltered
+Macbeth and his strong-minded partner with all the enthusiasm which
+might have been expected of him. He had but one idea about Macbeth, and
+he was rather glad to get out of the neighbourhood associated with the
+warlike Thane; for his memories of the past presented King Duncan's
+murderer as a very stern and uncompromising gentleman, who was utterly
+intolerant of banners held awry, or turned with the blank and ignoble
+side towards the audience, and who objected vehemently to a violent fit
+of coughing on the part of any one of his guests during the blank
+barmecide feast of pasteboard and Dutch metal with which he was wont to
+entertain them. No; John Marchmont had had quite enough of Macbeth, and
+rather wondered at the hot enthusiasm of other red-nosed tourists,
+apparently indifferent to the frosty weather.
+
+I fear that the master of Marchmont Towers would have preferred Oakley
+Street, Lambeth, to Princes Street, Edinburgh; for the nipping and
+eager airs of the Modern Athens nearly blew him across the gulf between
+the new town and the old. A visit to the Calton Hill produced an attack
+of that chronic cough which had so severely tormented the weak-kneed
+supernumerary in the draughty corridors of Drury Lane. Melrose and
+Abbotsford fatigued this poor feeble tourist; he tried to be interested
+in the stereotyped round of associations beloved by other travellers,
+but he had a weary craving for rest, which was stronger than any
+hero-worship; and he discovered, before long, that he had done a very
+foolish thing in coming to Scotland in December and January, without
+having consulted his physician as to the propriety of such a step.
+
+But above all personal inconvenience, above all personal suffering,
+there was one feeling ever present in his heart--a sick yearning for
+the little girl he had left behind him; a mournful longing to be back
+with his child. Already Mary's sad forebodings had been in some way
+realised; already his new wife had separated him, unintentionally of
+course, from his daughter. The aches and pains he endured in the bleak
+Scottish atmosphere reminded him only too forcibly of the warnings he
+had received from his physicians. He was seized with a panic, almost,
+when he remembered his own imprudence. What if he had needlessly
+curtailed the short span of his life? What if he were to die
+soon--before Olivia had learned to love her stepdaughter; before Mary
+had grown affectionately familiar with her new guardian? Again and
+again he appealed to his wife, imploring her to be tender to the orphan
+child, if he should be snatched away suddenly.
+
+"I know you will love her by-and-by, Olivia," he said; "as much as I
+do, perhaps; for you will discover how good she is, how patient and
+unselfish. But just at first, and before you know her very well, you
+will be kind to her, won't you, Olivia? She has been used to great
+indulgence; she has been spoiled, perhaps; but you'll remember all
+that, and be very kind to her?"
+
+"I will try and do my duty," Mrs. Marchmont answered. "I pray that I
+never may do less."
+
+There was no tender yearning in Olivia Marchmont's heart towards the
+motherless girl. She herself felt that such a sentiment was wanting,
+and comprehended that it should have been there. She would have loved
+her stepdaughter in those early days, if she could have done so; but
+_she could not_--she could not. All that was tender or womanly in her
+nature had been wasted upon her hopeless love for Edward Arundel. The
+utter wreck of that small freight of affection had left her nature
+warped and stunted, soured, disappointed, unwomanly.
+
+How was she to love this child, this hazel-haired, dove-eyed girl,
+before whom woman's life, with all its natural wealth of affection,
+stretched far away, a bright and fairy vista? How was _she_ to love
+her,--she, whose black future was unchequered by one ray of light; who
+stood, dissevered from the past, alone in the dismal, dreamless
+monotony of the present?
+
+"No" she thought; "beggars and princes can never love one another. When
+this girl and I are equals,--when she, like me, stands alone upon a
+barren rock, far out amid the waste of waters, with not one memory to
+hold her to the past, with not one hope to lure her onward to the
+future, with nothing but the black sky above and the black waters
+around,--_then_ we may grow fond of each other."
+
+But always more or less steadfast to the standard she had set up for
+herself, Olivia Marchmont intended to do her duty to her stepdaughter.
+She had not failed in other duties, though no glimmer of love had
+brightened them, no natural affection had made them pleasant. Why
+should she fail in this?
+
+If this belief in her own power should appear to be somewhat arrogant,
+let it be remembered that she had set herself hard tasks before now,
+and had performed them. Would the new furnace through which she was to
+pass be more terrible than the old fires? She had gone to God's altar
+with a man for whom she had no more love than she felt for the lowest
+or most insignificant of the miserable sinners in her father's flock.
+She had sworn to honour and obey him, meaning at least faithfully to
+perform that portion of her vow; and on the night before her loveless
+bridal she had grovelled, white, writhing, mad, and desperate, upon the
+ground, and had plucked out of her lacerated heart her hopeless love
+for another man.
+
+Yes; she had done this. Another woman might have spent that bridal eve
+in vain tears and lamentations, in feeble prayers, and such weak
+struggles as might have been evidenced by the destruction of a few
+letters, a tress of hair, some fragile foolish tokens of a wasted love.
+She would have burnt five out of six letters, perhaps, that helpless,
+ordinary sinner, and would have kept the sixth, to hoard away hidden
+among her matrimonial trousseau; she would have thrown away
+fifteen-sixteenths of that tress of hair, and would have kept the
+sixteenth portion,--one delicate curl of gold, slender as the thread by
+which her shattered hopes had hung,--to be wept over and kissed in the
+days that were to come. An ordinary woman would have played fast and
+loose with love and duty; and so would have been true to neither.
+
+But Olivia Arundel did none of these things. She battled with her
+weakness as St George battled with the fiery dragon. She plucked the
+rooted serpent from her heart, reckless as to how much of that
+desperate heart was to be wrenched away with its roots. A cowardly
+woman would have killed herself, perhaps, rather than endure this
+mortal agony. Olivia Arundel killed more than herself; she killed the
+passion that had become stronger than herself.
+
+"Alone she did it;" unaided by any human sympathy or compassion,
+unsupported by any human counsel, not upheld by her God; for the
+religion she had made for herself was a hard creed, and the many words
+of tender comfort which must have been familiar to her were
+unremembered in that long night of anguish.
+
+It was the Roman's stern endurance, rather than the meek faithfulness
+of the Christian, which upheld this unhappy girl under her torture. She
+did not do this thing because it pleased her to be obedient to her God.
+She did not do it because she believed in the mercy of Him who
+inflicted the suffering, and looked forward hopefully, even amid her
+passionate grief, to the day when she should better comprehend that
+which she now saw so darkly. No; she fought the terrible fight, and she
+came forth out of it a conqueror, by reason of her own indomitable
+power of suffering, by reason of her own extraordinary strength of
+will.
+
+But she did conquer. If her weapon was the classic sword and not the
+Christian cross, she was nevertheless a conqueror. When she stood
+before the altar and gave her hand to John Marchmont, Edward Arundel
+was dead to her. The fatal habit of looking at him as the one centre of
+her narrow life was cured. In all her Scottish wanderings, her thoughts
+never once went back to him; though a hundred chance words and
+associations tempted her, though a thousand memories assailed her,
+though some trick of his face in the faces of other people, though some
+tone of his voice in the voices of strangers, perpetually offered to
+entrap her. No; she was steadfast.
+
+Dutiful as a wife as she had been dutiful as a daughter, she bore with
+her husband when his feeble health made him a wearisome companion. She
+waited upon him when pain made him fretful, and her duties became
+little less arduous than those of a hospital nurse. When, at the
+bidding of the Scotch physician who had been called in at Edinburgh,
+John Marchmont turned homewards, travelling slowly and resting often on
+the way, his wife was more devoted to him than his experienced servant,
+more watchful than the best-trained sick-nurse. She recoiled from
+nothing, she neglected nothing; she gave him full measure of the honour
+and obedience which she had promised upon her wedding-day. And when she
+reached Marchmont Towers upon a dreary evening in January, she passed
+beneath the solemn portal of the western front, carrying in her heart
+the full determination to hold as steadfastly to the other half of her
+bargain, and to do her duty to her stepchild.
+
+Mary ran out of the western drawing-room to welcome her father and his
+wife. She had cast off her black dresses in honour of Mr. Marchmont's
+marriage, and she wore some soft, silken fabric, of a pale shimmering
+blue, which contrasted exquisitely with her soft, brown hair, and her
+fair, tender face. She uttered a cry of mingled alarm and sorrow when
+she saw her father, and perceived the change that had been made in his
+looks by the northern journey; but she checked herself at a warning
+glance from her stepmother, and bade that dear father welcome, clinging
+about him with an almost desperate fondness. She greeted Olivia gently
+and respectfully.
+
+"I will try to be very good, mamma," she said, as she took the passive
+hand of the lady who had come to rule at Marchmont Towers.
+
+"I believe you will, my dear," Olivia answered, kindly.
+
+She had been startled a little as Mary addressed her by that endearing
+corruption of the holy word mother. The child had been so long
+motherless, that she felt little of that acute anguish which some
+orphans suffer when they have to look up in a strange face and say
+"mamma." She had taught herself the lesson of resignation, and she was
+prepared to accept this stranger as her new mother, and to look up to
+her and obey her henceforward. No thought of her own future position,
+as sole owner of that great house and all appertaining to it, ever
+crossed Mary Marchmont's mind, womanly as that mind had become in the
+sharp experiences of poverty. If her father had told her that he had
+cut off the entail, and settled Marchmont Towers upon his new wife, I
+think she would have submitted meekly to his will, and would have seen
+no injustice in the act. She loved him blindly and confidingly. Indeed,
+she could only love after one fashion. The organ of veneration must
+have been abnormally developed in Mary Marchmont's head. To believe
+that any one she loved was otherwise than perfect, would have been, in
+her creed, an infidelity against love. Had any one told her that Edward
+Arundel was not eminently qualified for the post of General-in-Chief of
+the Army of the Indus; or that her father could by any possible chance
+be guilty of a fault or folly: she would have recoiled in horror from
+the treasonous slanderer.
+
+A dangerous quality, perhaps, this quality of guilelessness which
+thinketh no evil, which cannot be induced to see the evil under its
+very nose. But surely, of all the beautiful and pure things upon this
+earth, such blind confidence is the purest and most beautiful. I knew a
+lady, dead and gone,--alas for this world, which could ill afford to
+lose so good a Christian!--who carried this trustfulness of spirit,
+this utter incapacity to believe in wrong, through all the strife and
+turmoil of a troubled life, unsullied and unlessened, to her grave. She
+was cheated and imposed upon, robbed and lied to, by people who loved
+her, perhaps, while they wronged her,--for to know her was to love her.
+She was robbed systematically by a confidential servant for years, and
+for years refused to believe those who told her of his delinquencies.
+She _could_ not believe that people were wicked. To the day of her
+death she had faith in the scoundrels and scamps who had profited by
+her sweet compassion and untiring benevolence; and indignantly defended
+them against those who dared to say that they were anything more than
+"unfortunate." To go to her was to go to a never-failing fountain of
+love and tenderness. To know her goodness was to understand the
+goodness of God; for her love approached the Infinite, and might have
+taught a sceptic the possibility of Divinity. Three-score years and ten
+of worldly experience left her an accomplished lady, a delightful
+companion; but in guilelessness a child.
+
+So Mary Marchmont, trusting implicitly in those she loved, submitted to
+her father's will, and prepared to obey her stepmother. The new life at
+the Towers began very peacefully; a perfect harmony reigned in the
+quiet household. Olivia took the reins of management with so little
+parade, that the old housekeeper, who had long been paramount in the
+Lincolnshire mansion, found herself superseded before she knew where
+she was. It was Olivia's nature to govern. Her strength of will
+asserted itself almost unconsciously. She took possession of Mary
+Marchmont as she had taken possession of her school-children at
+Swampington, making her own laws for the government of their narrow
+intellects. She planned a routine of study that was actually terrible
+to the little girl, whose education had hitherto been conducted in a
+somewhat slip-slop manner by a weakly-indulgent father. She came
+between Mary and her one amusement,--the reading of novels. The
+half-bound romances were snatched ruthlessly from this young devourer
+of light literature, and sent back to the shabby circulating library at
+Swampington. Even the gloomy old oak book-cases in the library at the
+Towers, and the Abbotsford edition of the Waverley Novels, were
+forbidden to poor Mary; for, though Sir Walter Scott's morality is
+irreproachable, it will not do for a young lady to be weeping over Lucy
+Ashton or Amy Robsart when she should be consulting her terrestrial
+globe, and informing herself as to the latitude and longitude of the
+Fiji Islands.
+
+So a round of dry and dreary lessons began for poor Miss Marchmont, and
+her brain grew almost dazed under that continuous and pelting shower of
+hard facts which many worthy people consider the one sovereign method
+of education. I have said that her mind was far in advance of her
+years; Olivia perceived this, and set her tasks in advance of her mind:
+in order that the perfection attained by a sort of steeple-chase of
+instruction might not be lost to her. If Mary learned difficult lessons
+with surprising rapidity, Mrs. Marchmont plied her with even yet more
+difficult lessons, thus keeping the spur perpetually in the side of
+this heavily-weighted racer on the road to learning. But it must not be
+thought that Olivia wilfully tormented or oppressed her stepdaughter.
+It was not so. In all this, John Marchmont's second wife implicitly
+believed that she was doing her duty to the child committed to her
+care. She fully believed that this dreary routine of education was wise
+and right, and would be for Mary's ultimate advantage. If she caused
+Miss Marchmont to get up at abnormal hours on bleak wintry mornings,
+for the purpose of wrestling with a difficult variation by Hertz or
+Schubert, she herself rose also, and sat shivering by the piano,
+counting the time of the music which her stepdaughter played.
+
+Whatever pains and trouble she inflicted on Mary, she most
+unshrinkingly endured herself. She waded through the dismal slough of
+learning side by side with the younger sufferer: Roman emperors,
+medieval schisms, early British manufactures, Philippa of Hainault,
+Flemish woollen stuffs, Magna Charta, the sidereal heavens, Luther,
+Newton, Huss, Galileo, Calvin, Loyola, Sir Robert Walpole, Cardinal
+Wolsey, conchology, Arianism in the Early Church, trial by jury, Habeas
+Corpus, zoology, Mr. Pitt, the American war, Copernicus, Confucius,
+Mahomet, Harvey, Jenner, Lycurgus, and Catherine of Arragon; through a
+very diabolical dance of history, science, theology, philosophy, and
+instruction of all kinds, did this devoted priestess lead her hapless
+victim, struggling onward towards that distant altar at which Pallas
+Athenë waited, pale and inscrutable, to receive a new disciple.
+
+But Olivia Marchmont did not mean to be unmerciful; she meant to be
+good to her stepdaughter. She did not love her; but, on the other hand,
+she did not dislike her. Her feelings were simply negative. Mary
+understood this, and the submissive obedience she rendered to her
+stepmother was untempered by affection. So for nearly two years these
+two people led a monotonous life, unbroken by any more important event
+than a dinner party at Marchmont Towers, or a brief visit to Harrowgate
+or Scarborough.
+
+This monotonous existence was not to go on for ever. The fatal day, so
+horribly feared by John Marchmont, was creeping closer and closer. The
+sorrow which had been shadowed in every childish dream, in every
+childish prayer, came at last; and Mary Marchmont was left an orphan.
+
+Poor John had never quite recovered the effects of his winter excursion
+to Scotland; neither his wife's devoted nursing, nor his physician's
+care, could avail for ever; and, late in the autumn of the second year
+of his marriage, he sank, slowly and peacefully enough as regards
+physical suffering, but not without bitter grief of mind.
+
+In vain Hubert Arundel talked to him; in vain did he himself pray for
+faith and comfort in this dark hour of trial. He _could_ not bear to
+leave his child alone in the world. In the foolishness of his love, he
+would have trusted in the strength of his own arm to shield her in the
+battle; yet he could not trust her hopefully to the arm of God. He
+prayed for her night and day during the last week of his illness; while
+she was praying passionately, almost madly, that he might be spared to
+her, or that she might die with him. Better for her, according to all
+mortal reasoning, if she had. Happier for her, a thousand times, if she
+could have died as she wished to die, clinging to her father's breast.
+
+The blow fell at last upon those two loving hearts. These were the
+awful shadows of death that shut his child's face from John Marchmont's
+fading sight. His feeble arms groped here and there for her in that dim
+and awful obscurity.
+
+Yes, this was death. The narrow tract of yellow sand had little by
+little grown narrower and narrower. The dark and cruel waters were
+closing in; the feeble boat went down into the darkness: and Mary stood
+alone, with her dead father's hand clasped in hers,--the last feeble
+link which bound her to the Past,--looking blankly forward to an
+unknown Future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE DAY OF DESOLATION.
+
+
+Yes; the terrible day had come. Mary Marchmont roamed hither and
+thither in the big gaunt rooms, up and down the long dreary corridors,
+white and ghostlike in her mute anguish, while the undertaker's men
+were busy in her father's chamber, and while John's widow sat in the
+study below, writing business letters, and making all necessary
+arrangements for the funeral.
+
+In those early days no one attempted to comfort the orphan. There was
+something more terrible than the loudest grief in the awful quiet of
+the girl's anguish. The wan eyes, looking wearily out of a white
+haggard face, that seemed drawn and contracted as if by some hideous
+physical torture, were tearless. Except the one long wail of despair
+which had burst from her lips in the awful moment of her father's death
+agony, no cry of sorrow, no utterance of pain, had given relief to Mary
+Marchmont's suffering.
+
+She suffered, and was still. She shrank away from all human
+companionship; she seemed specially to avoid the society of her
+stepmother. She locked the door of her room upon all who would have
+intruded on her, and flung herself upon the bed, to lie there in a dull
+stupor for hour after hour. But when the twilight was grey in the
+desolate corridors, the wretched girl wandered out into the gallery on
+which her father's room opened, and hovered near that solemn
+death-chamber; fearful to go in, fearful to encounter the watchers of
+the dead, lest they should torture her by their hackneyed expressions
+of sympathy, lest they should agonise her by their commonplace talk of
+the lost.
+
+Once during that brief interval, while the coffin still held terrible
+tenancy of the death-chamber, the girl wandered in the dead of the
+night, when all but the hired watchers were asleep, to the broad
+landing of the oaken staircase, and into a deep recess formed by an
+embayed window that opened over the great stone porch which sheltered
+the principal entrance to Marchmont Towers.
+
+The window had been left open; for even in the bleak autumn weather the
+atmosphere of the great house seemed hot and oppressive to its living
+inmates, whose spirits were weighed down by a vague sense of the Awful
+Presence in that Lincolnshire mansion. Mary had wandered to this open
+window, scarcely knowing whither she went, after remaining for a long
+time on her knees by the threshold of her father's room, with her head
+resting against the oaken panel of the door,--not praying; why should
+she pray now, unless her prayers could have restored the dead? She had
+come out upon the wide staircase, and past the ghostly pictured faces,
+that looked grimly down upon her from the oaken wainscot against which
+they hung; she had wandered here in the dim grey light--there was light
+somewhere in the sky, but only a shadowy and uncertain glimmer of
+fading starlight or coming dawn--and she stood now with her head
+resting against one of the angles of the massive stonework, looking out
+of the open window.
+
+The morning which was already glimmering dimly in the eastern sky
+behind Marchmont Towers was to witness poor John's funeral. For nearly
+six days Mary Marchmont had avoided all human companionship: for nearly
+six days she had shunned all human sympathy and comfort. During all
+that time she had never eaten, except when forced to do so by her
+stepmother; who had visited her from time to time, and had insisted
+upon sitting by her bedside while she took the food that had been
+brought to her. Heaven knows how often the girl had slept during those
+six dreary days; but her feverish slumbers had brought her very little
+rest or refreshment. They had brought her nothing but cruel dreams, in
+which her father was still alive; in which she felt his thin arms
+clasped round her neck, his faint and fitful breath warm upon her
+cheek.
+
+A great clock in the stables struck five while Mary Marchmont stood
+looking out of the Tudor window. The broad grey flat before the house
+stretched far away, melting into the shadowy horizon. The pale stars
+grew paler as Mary looked at them; the black-water pools began to
+glimmer faintly under the widening patch of light in the eastern sky.
+The girl's senses were bewildered by her suffering, and her head was
+light and dizzy.
+
+Her father's death had made so sudden and terrible a break in her
+existence, that she could scarcely believe the world had not come to an
+end, with all the joys and sorrows of its inhabitants. Would there be
+anything more after to-morrow? she thought; would the blank days and
+nights go monotonously on when the story that had given them a meaning
+and a purpose had come to its dismal end? Surely not; surely, after
+those gaunt iron gates, far away across the swampy waste that was
+called a park, had closed upon her father's funeral train, the world
+would come to an end, and there would be no more time or space. I think
+she really believed this in the semi-delirium into which she had fallen
+within the last hour. She believed that all would be over; and that she
+and her despair would melt away into the emptiness that was to engulf
+the universe after her father's funeral.
+
+Then suddenly the full reality of her grief flashed upon her with
+horrible force. She clasped her hands upon her forehead, and a low
+faint cry broke from her white lips.
+
+It was _not_ all over. Time and space would _not_ be annihilated. The
+weary, monotonous, workaday world would still go on upon its course.
+_Nothing_ would be changed. The great gaunt stone mansion would still
+stand, and the dull machinery of its interior would still go on: the
+same hours; the same customs; the same inflexible routine. John
+Marchmont would be carried out of the house that had owned him master,
+to lie in the dismal vault under Kemberling Church; and the world in
+which he had made so little stir would go on without him. The
+easy-chair in which he had been wont to sit would be wheeled away from
+its corner by the fireplace in the western drawing-room. The papers in
+his study would be sorted and put away, or taken possession of by
+strange hands. Cromwells and Napoleons die, and the earth reels for a
+moment, only to be "alive and bold" again in the next instant, to the
+astonishment of poets, and the calm satisfaction of philosophers; and
+ordinary people eat their breakfasts while the telegram lies beside
+them upon the table, and while the ink in which Mr. Reuter's message is
+recorded is still wet from the machine in Printing-house Square.
+
+Anguish and despair more terrible than any of the tortures she had felt
+yet took possession of Mary Marchmont's breast. For the first time she
+looked out at her own future. Until now she had thought only of her
+father's death. She had despaired because he was gone; but she had
+never contemplated the horror of her future life,--a life in which she
+was to exist without him. A sudden agony, that was near akin to
+madness, seized upon this girl, in whose sensitive nature affection had
+always had a morbid intensity. She shuddered with a wild dread at the
+prospect of that blank future; and as she looked out at the wide stone
+steps below the window from which she was leaning, for the first time
+in her young life the idea of self-destruction flashed across her mind.
+
+She uttered a cry, a shrill, almost unearthly cry, that was
+notwithstanding low and feeble, and clambered suddenly upon the broad
+stone sill of the Tudor casement. She wanted to fling herself down and
+dash her brains out upon the stone steps below; but in the utter
+prostration of her state she was too feeble to do this, and she fell
+backwards and dropped in a heap upon the polished oaken flooring of the
+recess, striking her forehead as she fell. She lay there unconscious
+until nearly seven o'clock, when one of the women-servants found her,
+and carried her off to her own room, where she suffered herself to be
+undressed and put to bed.
+
+Mary Marchmont did not speak until the good-hearted Lincolnshire
+housemaid had laid her in her bed, and was going away to tell Olivia of
+the state in which she had found the orphan girl.
+
+"Don't tell my stepmother anything about me, Susan," she said; "I think
+I was mad last night."
+
+This speech frightened the housemaid, and she went straight to the
+widow's room. Mrs. Marchmont, always an early riser, had been up and
+dressed for some time, and went at once to look at her stepdaughter.
+
+She found Mary very calm and reasonable. There was no trace of
+bewilderment or delirium now in her manner; and when the principal
+doctor of Swampington came a couple of hours afterwards to look at the
+young heiress, he declared that there was no cause for any alarm. The
+young lady was sensitive, morbidly sensitive, he said, and must be kept
+very quiet for a few days, and watched by some one whose presence would
+not annoy her. If there was any girl of her own age whom she had ever
+shown a predilection for, that girl would be the fittest companion for
+her just now. After a few days, it would be advisable that she should
+have change of air and change of scene. She must not be allowed to
+brood continuously on her father's death. The doctor repeated this last
+injunction more than once. It was most important that she should not
+give way too perpetually to her grief.
+
+So Mary Marchmont lay in her darkened room while her father's funeral
+train was moving slowly away from the western entrance. It happened
+that the orphan girl's apartments looked out into the quadrangle; so
+she heard none of the subdued sounds which attended the departure of
+that solemn procession. In her weakness she had grown submissive to the
+will of others. She thought this feebleness and exhaustion gave warning
+of approaching death. Her prayers would be granted, after all. This
+anguish and despair would be but of brief duration, and she would ere
+long be carried to the vault under Kemberling Church, to lie beside her
+father in the black stillness of that solemn place.
+
+Mrs. Marchmont strictly obeyed the doctor's injunctions. A girl of
+seventeen, the daughter of a small tenant farmer near the Towers, had
+been a special favourite with Mary, who was not apt to make friends
+amongst strangers. This girl, Hester Pollard, was sent for, and came
+willingly and gladly to watch her young patroness. She brought her
+needlework with her, and sat near the window busily employed, while
+Mary lay shrouded by the curtains of the bed. All active services
+necessary for the comfort of the invalid were performed by Olivia or
+her own special attendant--an old servant who had lived with the Rector
+ever since his daughter's birth, and had only left him to follow that
+daughter to Marchmont Towers after her marriage. So Hester Pollard had
+nothing to do but to keep very quiet, and patiently await the time when
+Mary might be disposed to talk to her. The farmer's daughter was a
+gentle, unobtrusive creature, very well fitted for the duty imposed
+upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+PAUL.
+
+
+Olivia Marchmont sat in her late husband's study while John's funeral
+train was moving slowly along under the misty October sky. A long
+stream of carriages followed the stately hearse, with its four black
+horses, and its voluminous draperies of rich velvet, and nodding plumes
+that were damp and heavy with the autumn atmosphere. The unassuming
+master of Marchmont Towers had won for himself a quiet popularity
+amongst the simple country gentry, and the best families in
+Lincolnshire had sent their chiefs to do honour to his burial, or at
+the least their empty carriages to represent them at that mournful
+ceremonial. Olivia sat in her dead husband's favourite chamber. Her
+head lay back upon the cushion of the roomy morocco-covered arm-chair
+in which he had so often sat. She had been working hard that morning,
+and indeed every morning since John Marchmont's death, sorting and
+arranging papers, with the aid of Richard Paulette, the Lincoln's Inn
+solicitor, and James Gormby, the land-steward. She knew that she had
+been left sole guardian of her stepdaughter, and executrix to her
+husband's will; and she had lost no time in making herself acquainted
+with the business details of the estate, and the full nature of the
+responsibilities intrusted to her.
+
+She was resting now. She had done all that could be done until after
+the reading of the will. She had attended to her stepdaughter. She had
+stood in one of the windows of the western drawing-room, watching the
+departure of the funeral _cortège_; and now she abandoned herself for a
+brief space to that idleness which was so unusual to her.
+
+A fire burned in the low grate at her feet, and a rough cur--half
+shepherd's dog, half Scotch deer-hound, who had been fond of John, but
+was not fond of Olivia--lay at the further extremity of the hearth-rug,
+watching her suspiciously.
+
+Mrs. Marchmont's personal appearance had not altered during the two
+years of her married life. Her face was thin and haggard; but it had
+been thin and haggard before her marriage. And yet no one could deny
+that the face was handsome, and the features beautifully chiselled. But
+the grey eyes were hard and cold, the line of the faultless eyebrows
+gave a stern expression to the countenance; the thin lips were rigid
+and compressed. The face wanted both light and colour. A sculptor
+copying it line by line would have produced a beautiful head. A painter
+must have lent his own glowing tints if he wished to represent Olivia
+Marchmont as a lovely woman.
+
+Her pale face looked paler, and her dead black hair blacker, against
+the blank whiteness of her widow's cap. Her mourning dress clung
+closely to her tall, slender figure. She was little more than
+twenty-five, but she looked a woman of thirty. It had been her
+misfortune to look older than she was from a very early period in her
+life.
+
+She had not loved her husband when she married him, nor had she ever
+felt for him that love which in most womanly natures grows out of
+custom and duty. It was not in her nature to love. Her passionate
+idolatry of her boyish cousin had been the one solitary affection that
+had ever held a place in her cold heart. All the fire of her nature had
+been concentrated in this one folly, this one passion, against which
+only heroic endurance had been able to prevail.
+
+Mrs. Marchmont felt no grief, therefore, at her husband's loss. She had
+felt the shock of his death, and the painful oppression of his dead
+presence in the house. She had faithfully nursed him through many
+illnesses; she had patiently tended him until the very last; she had
+done her duty. And now, for the first time, she had leisure to
+contemplate the past, and look forward to the future.
+
+So far this woman had fulfilled the task which she had taken upon
+herself; she had been true and loyal to the vow she had made before
+God's altar, in the church of Swampington. And now she was free. No,
+not quite free; for she had a heavy burden yet upon her hands; the
+solemn charge of her stepdaughter during the girl's minority. But as
+regarded marriage-vows and marriage-ties she was free.
+
+She was free to love Edward Arundel again.
+
+The thought came upon her with a rush and an impetus, wild and strong
+as the sudden uprising of a whirlwind, or the loosing of a
+mountain-torrent that had long been bound. She was a wife no longer. It
+was no longer a sin to think of the bright-haired soldier, fighting far
+away. She was free. When Edward returned to England by-and-by, he would
+find her free once more; a young widow,--young, handsome, and rich
+enough to be no bad prize for a younger son. He would come back and
+find her thus; and then--and then--!
+
+She flung one of her clenched hands up into the air, and struck it on
+her forehead in a sudden paroxysm of rage. What then? Would he love her
+any better then than he had loved her two years ago? No; he would treat
+her with the same cruel indifference, the same commonplace cousinly
+friendliness, with which he had mocked and tortured her before. Oh,
+shame! Oh, misery! Was there no pride in women, that there could be one
+among them fallen so low as her; ready to grovel at the feet of a
+fair-haired boy, and to cry aloud, "Love me, love me! or be pitiful,
+and strike me dead!"
+
+Better that John Marchmont should have lived for ever, better that
+Edward Arundel should die far away upon some Eastern battle-field,
+before some Affghan fortress, than that he should return to inflict
+upon her the same tortures she had writhed under two years before.
+
+"God grant that he may never come back!" she thought. "God grant that
+he may marry out yonder, and live and die there! God keep him from me
+for ever and far ever in this weary world!"
+
+And yet in the next moment, with the inconsistency which is the chief
+attribute of that madness we call love, her thoughts wandered away
+dreamily into visions of the future; and she pictured Edward Arundel
+back again at Swampington, at Marchmont Towers. Her soul burst its
+bonds and expanded, and drank in the sunlight of gladness: and she
+dared to think that it _might_ be so--there _might_ be happiness yet
+for her. He had been a boy when he went back to India--careless,
+indifferent. He would return a man,--graver, wiser, altogether changed:
+changed so much as to love her perhaps.
+
+She knew that, at least, no rival had shut her cousin's heart against
+her, when she and he had been together two years before. He had been
+indifferent to her; but he had been indifferent to others also. There
+was comfort in that recollection. She had questioned him very sharply
+as to his life in India and at Dangerfield, and she had discovered no
+trace of any tender memory of the past, no hint of a cherished dream of
+the future. His heart had been empty: a boyish, unawakened heart: a
+temple in which the niches were untenanted, the shrine unhallowed by
+the presence of a goddess.
+
+Olivia Marchmont thought of these things. For a few moments, if only
+for a few moments, she abandoned herself to such thoughts as these. She
+let herself go. She released the stern hold which it was her habit to
+keep upon her own mind; and in those bright moments of delicious
+abandonment the glorious sunshine streamed in upon her narrow life, and
+visions of a possible future expanded before her like a fairy panorama,
+stretching away into realms of vague light and splendour. It was
+_possible_; it was at least possible.
+
+But, again, in the next moment the magical panorama collapsed and
+shrivelled away, like a burning scroll; the fairy picture, whose
+gorgeous colouring she had looked upon with dazzled eyes, almost
+blinded by its overpowering glory, shrank into a handful of black
+ashes, and was gone. The woman's strong nature reasserted itself; the
+iron will rose up, ready to do battle with the foolish heart.
+
+"I _will_ not be fooled a second time," she cried. "Did I suffer so
+little when I blotted that image out of my heart? Did the destruction
+of my cruel Juggernaut cost me so small an agony that I must needs be
+ready to elevate the false god again, and crush out my heart once more
+under the brazen wheels of his chariot? _He will never love me!_"
+
+She writhed; this self-sustained and resolute woman writhed in her
+anguish as she uttered those five words, "He will never love me!" She
+knew that they were true; that of all the changes that Time could bring
+to pass, it would never bring such a change as that. There was not one
+element of sympathy between herself and the young soldier; they had not
+one thought in common. Nay, more; there was an absolute antagonism
+between them, which, in spite of her love, Olivia fully recognised.
+Over the gulf that separated them no coincidence of thought or fancy,
+no sympathetic emotion, ever stretched its electric chain to draw them
+together in mysterious union. They stood aloof, divided by the width of
+an intellectual universe. The woman knew this, and hated herself for
+her folly, scorning alike her love and its object; but her love was not
+the less because of her scorn. It was a madness, an isolated madness,
+which stood alone in her soul, and fought for mastery over her better
+aspirations, her wiser thoughts. We are all familiar with strange
+stories of wise and great minds which have been ridden by some
+hobgoblin fancy, some one horrible monomania; a bleeding head upon a
+dish, a grinning skeleton playing hide-and-seek in the folds of the
+bed-curtains; some devilry or other before which the master-spirit
+shrank and dwindled until the body withered and the victim died.
+
+Had Olivia Marchmont lived a couple of centuries before, she would have
+gone straight to the nearest old crone, and would have boldly accused
+the wretched woman of being the author of her misery.
+
+"You harbour a black cat and other noisome vermin, and you prowl about
+muttering to yourself o' nights" she might have said. "You have been
+seen to gather herbs, and you make strange and uncanny signs with your
+palsied old fingers. The black cat is the devil, your colleague; and
+the rats under your tumble-down roof are his imps, your associates. It
+is _you_ who have instilled this horrible madness into my soul; for it
+_could_ not come of itself."
+
+And Olivia Marchmont, being resolute and strong-minded, would not have
+rested until her tormentor had paid the penalty of her foul work at a
+stake in the nearest market-place.
+
+And indeed some of our madnesses are so mad, some of our follies are so
+foolish, that we might almost be forgiven if we believed that there was
+a company of horrible crones meeting somewhere on an invisible Brocken,
+and making incantations for our destruction. Take up a newspaper and
+read its hideous revelations of crime and folly; and it will be
+scarcely strange if you involuntarily wonder whether witchcraft is a
+dark fable of the middle ages, or a dreadful truth of the nineteenth
+century. Must not some of these miserable creatures whose stories we
+read be _possessed_; possessed by eager, relentless demons, who lash
+and goad them onward, until no black abyss of vice, no hideous gulf of
+crime, is black or hideous enough to content them?
+
+Olivia Marchmont might have been a good and great woman. She had all
+the elements of greatness. She had genius, resolution, an indomitable
+courage, an iron will, perseverance, self-denial, temperance, chastity.
+But against all these qualities was set a fatal and foolish love for a
+boy's handsome face and frank and genial manner. If Edward Arundel had
+never crossed her path, her unfettered soul might have taken the
+highest and grandest flight; but, chained down, bound, trammelled by
+her love for him, she grovelled on the earth like some maimed and
+wounded eagle, who sees his fellows afar off, high in the purple
+empyrean, and loathes himself for his impotence.
+
+"What do I love him for?" she thought. "Is it because he has blue eyes
+and chestnut hair, with wandering gleams of golden light in it? Is it
+because he has gentlemanly manners, and is easy and pleasant, genial
+and light-hearted? Is it because he has a dashing walk, and the air of
+a man of fashion? It must be for some of these attributes, surely; for
+I know nothing more in him. Of all the things he has ever said, I can
+remember nothing--and I remember his smallest words, Heaven help
+me!--that any sensible person could think worth repeating. He is brave,
+I dare say, and generous; but what of that? He is neither braver nor
+more generous than other men of his rank and position."
+
+She sat lost in such a reverie as this while her dead husband was being
+carried to the roomy vault set apart for the owners of Marchmont Towers
+and their kindred; she was absorbed in some such thoughts as these,
+when one of the grave, grey-headed old servants brought her a card upon
+a heavy salver emblazoned with the Marchmont arms.
+
+Olivia took the card almost mechanically. There are some thoughts which
+carry us a long way from the ordinary occupations of every-day life,
+and it is not always easy to return to the dull jog-trot routine. The
+widow passed her left hand across her brow before she looked at the
+name inscribed upon the card in her right.
+
+"Mr. Paul Marchmont."
+
+She started as she read the name. Paul Marchmont! She remembered what
+her husband had told her of this man. It was not much; for John's
+feelings on the subject of his cousin had been of so vague a nature
+that he had shrunk from expounding them to his stern, practical wife.
+He had told her, therefore, that he did not very much care for Paul,
+and that he wished no intimacy ever to arise between the artist and
+Mary; but he had said nothing more than this.
+
+"The gentleman is waiting to see me, I suppose?" Mrs. Marchmont said.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. The gentleman came to Kemberling by the 11.5 train from
+London, and has driven over here in one of Harris's flys."
+
+"Tell him I will come to him immediately. Is he in the drawing-room?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+The man bowed and left the room. Olivia rose from her chair and
+lingered by the fireplace with her foot on the fender, her elbow
+resting on the carved oak chimneypiece.
+
+"Paul Marchmont! He has come to the funeral, I suppose. And he expects
+to find himself mentioned in the will, I dare say. I think, from what
+my husband told me, he will be disappointed in that. Paul Marchmont! If
+Mary were to die unmarried, this man or his sisters would inherit
+Marchmont Towers."
+
+There was a looking-glass over the mantelpiece; a narrow, oblong glass,
+in an old-fashioned carved ebony frame, which was inclined forward.
+Olivia looked musingly in this glass, and smoothed the heavy bands of
+dead-black hair under her cap.
+
+"There are people who would call me handsome," she thought, as she
+looked with a moody frown at her image in the glass; "and yet I have
+seen Edward Arundel's eyes wander away from my face, even while I have
+been talking to him, to watch the swallows skimming by in the sun, or
+the ivy-leaves flapping against the wall."
+
+She turned from the glass with a sigh, and went out into a dusky
+corridor. The shutters of all the principal rooms and the windows upon
+the grand staircase were still closed; the wide hall was dark and
+gloomy, and drops of rain spattered every now and then upon the logs
+that smouldered on the wide old-fashioned hearth. The misty October
+morning had heralded a wet day.
+
+Paul Marchmont was sitting in a low easy-chair before a blazing fire in
+the western drawing-room, the red light full upon his face. It was a
+handsome face, or perhaps, to speak more exactly, it was one of those
+faces that are generally called "interesting." The features were very
+delicate and refined, the pale greyish-blue eyes were shaded by long
+brown lashes, and the small and rather feminine mouth was overshadowed
+by a slender auburn moustache, under which the rosy tint of the lips
+was very visible. But it was Paul Marchmont's hair which gave a
+peculiarity to a personal appearance that might otherwise have been in
+no way out of the common. This hair, fine, silky, and luxuriant, was
+_white_, although its owner could not have been more than thirty-seven
+years of age.
+
+The uninvited guest rose as Olivia Marchmont entered the room.
+
+"I have the honour of speaking to my cousin's widow?" he said, with a
+courteous smile.
+
+"Yes, I am Mrs. Marchmont."
+
+Olivia seated herself near the fire. The wet day was cold and
+cheerless. Mrs. Marchmont shivered as she extended her long thin hand
+to the blaze.
+
+"And you are doubtless surprised to see me here, Mrs. Marchmont?" the
+artist said, leaning upon the back of his chair in the easy attitude of
+a man who means to make himself at home. "But believe me, that although
+I never took advantage of a very friendly letter written to me by poor
+John----"
+
+Paul Marchmont paused for a moment, keeping sharp watch upon the
+widow's face; but no sorrowful expression, no evidence of emotion, was
+visible in that inflexible countenance.
+
+"Although, I repeat, I never availed myself of a sort of general
+invitation to come and shoot his partridges, or borrow money of him, or
+take advantage of any of those other little privileges generally
+claimed by a man's poor relations, it is not to be supposed, my dear
+Mrs. Marchmont, that I was altogether forgetful of either Marchmont
+Towers or its owner, my cousin. I did not come here, because I am a
+hard-working man, and the idleness of a country house would have been
+ruin to me. But I heard sometimes of my cousin from neighbours of his."
+
+"Neighbours!" repeated Olivia, in a tone of surprise.
+
+"Yes; people near enough to be called neighbours in the country. My
+sister lives at Stanfield. She is married to a surgeon who practises in
+that delightful town. You know Stanfield, of course?"
+
+"No, I have never been there. It is five-and-twenty miles from here."
+
+"Indeed! too far for a drive, then. Yes, my sister lives at Stanfield.
+John never knew much of her in his adversity; and therefore may be
+forgiven if he forgot her in his prosperity. But she did not forget
+him. We poor relations have excellent memories. The Stanfield people
+have so little to talk about, that it is scarcely any wonder if they
+are inquisitive about the affairs of the grand country gentry round
+about them. I heard of John through my sister; I heard of his marriage
+through her,"--he bowed to Olivia as he said this,--"and I wrote
+immediately to congratulate him upon that happy event,"--he bowed again
+here;--"and it was through Lavinia Weston, my sister, that I heard of
+poor John's death; one day before the announcement appeared in the
+columns of the 'Times.' I am sorry to find that I am too late for the
+funeral. I could have wished to have paid my cousin the last tribute of
+esteem that one man can pay another."
+
+"You would wish to hear the reading of the will?" Olivia said,
+interrogatively.
+
+Paul Marchmont shrugged his shoulders, with a low, careless laugh; not
+an indecorous laugh,--nothing that this man did or said ever appeared
+ill-advised or out of place. The people who disliked him were compelled
+to acknowledge that they disliked him unreasonably, and very much on
+the Doctor-Fell principle; for it was impossible to take objection to
+either his manners or his actions.
+
+"That important legal document can have very little interest for me, my
+dear Mrs. Marchmont," he said gaily. "John can have had nothing to
+leave me. I am too well acquainted with the terms of my grandfather's
+will to have any mercenary hopes in coming to Marchmont Towers."
+
+He stopped, and looked at Olivia's impassible face.
+
+"What on earth could have induced this woman to marry my cousin?" he
+thought. "John could have had very little to leave his widow."
+
+He played with the ornaments at his watch-chain, looking reflectively
+at the fire for some moments.
+
+"Miss Marchmont,--my cousin, Mary Marchmont, I should say,--bears her
+loss pretty well, I hope?"
+
+Olivia shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I am sorry to say that my stepdaughter displays very little Christian
+resignation," she said.
+
+And then a spirit within her arose and whispered, with a mocking voice,
+"What resignation do _you_ show beneath _your_ affliction,--you, who
+should be so good a Christian? How have _you_ learned to school your
+rebellious heart?"
+
+"My cousin is very young," Paul Marchmont said, presently.
+
+"She was fifteen last July."
+
+"Fifteen! Very young to be the owner of Marchmont Towers and an income
+of eleven thousand a year," returned the artist. He walked to one of
+the long windows, and drawing aside the edge of the blind, looked out
+upon the terrace and the wide flats before the mansion. The rain
+dripped and splashed upon the stone steps; the rain-drops hung upon the
+grim adornments of the carved balustrade, soaking into moss-grown
+escutcheons and half-obliterated coats-of-arms. The weird willows by
+the pools far away, and a group of poplars near the house, looked gaunt
+and black against the dismal grey sky.
+
+Paul Marchmont dropped the blind, and turned away from the gloomy
+landscape with a half-contemptuous gesture. "I don't know that I envy
+my cousin, after all," he said: "the place is as dreary as Tennyson's
+Moated Grange."
+
+There was the sound of wheels on the carriage-drive before the terrace,
+and presently a subdued murmur of hushed voices in the hall. Mr.
+Richard Paulette, and the two medical men who had attended John
+Marchmont, had returned to the Towers, for the reading of the will.
+Hubert Arundel had returned with them; but the other followers in the
+funeral train had departed to their several homes. The undertaker and
+his men had come back to the house by the side-entrance, and were
+making themselves very comfortable in the servants'-hall after the
+fulfilment of their mournful duties.
+
+The will was to be read in the dining-room; and Mr. Paulette and the
+clerk who had accompanied him to Marchmont Towers were already seated
+at one end of the long carved-oak table, busy with their papers and
+pens and ink, assuming an importance the occasion did not require.
+Olivia went out into the hall to speak to her father.
+
+"You will find Mr. Marchmont's solicitor in the dining-room," she said
+to Paul, who was looking at some of the old pictures on the
+drawing-room walls.
+
+A large fire was blazing in the wide grate at the end of the
+dining-room. The blinds had been drawn up. There was no longer need
+that the house should be wrapped in darkness. The Awful Presence had
+departed; and such light as there was in the gloomy October sky was
+free to enter the rooms, which the death of one quiet, unobtrusive
+creature had made for a time desolate.
+
+There was no sound in the room but the low voice of the two doctors
+talking of their late patient in undertones near the fireplace, and the
+occasional fluttering of the papers under the lawyer's hand. The clerk,
+who sat respectfully a little way behind his master, and upon the very
+edge of his ponderous morocco-covered chair, had been wont to give John
+Marchmont his orders, and to lecture him for being tardy with his work
+a few years before, in the Lincoln's Inn office. He was wondering now
+whether he should find himself remembered in the dead man's will, to
+the extent of a mourning ring or an old-fashioned silver snuff-box.
+
+Richard Paulette looked up as Olivia and her father entered the room,
+followed at a little distance by Paul Marchmont, who walked at a
+leisurely pace, looking at the carved doorways and the pictures against
+the wainscot, and appearing, as he had declared himself, very little
+concerned in the important business about to be transacted.
+
+"We shall want Miss Marchmont here, if you please," Mr. Paulette said,
+as he looked up from his papers.
+
+"Is it necessary that she should be present?" Olivia asked.
+
+"Very necessary."
+
+"But she is ill; she is in bed."
+
+"It is most important that she should be here when the will is read.
+Perhaps Mr. Bolton"--the lawyer looked towards one of the medical
+men--"will see. He will be able to tell us whether Miss Marchmont can
+safely come downstairs."
+
+Mr. Bolton, the Swampington surgeon who had attended Mary that morning,
+left the room with Olivia. The lawyer rose and warmed his hands at the
+blaze, talking to Hubert Arundel and the London physician as he did so.
+Paul Marchmont, who had not been introduced to any one, occupied
+himself entirely with the pictures for a little time; and then,
+strolling over to the fireplace, fell into conversation with the three
+gentlemen, contriving, adroitly enough, to let them know who he was.
+The lawyer looked at him with some interest,--a professional interest,
+no doubt; for Mr. Paulette had a copy of old Philip Marchmont's will in
+one of the japanned deed-boxes inscribed with poor John's name. He knew
+that this easy-going, pleasant-mannered, white-haired gentleman was the
+Paul Marchmont named in that document, and stood next in succession to
+Mary. Mary might die unmarried, and it was as well to be friendly and
+civil to a man who was at least a possible client.
+
+The four gentlemen stood upon the broad Turkey hearth-rug for some
+time, talking of the dead man, the wet weather, the cold autumn, the
+dearth of partridges, and other very safe topics of conversation.
+Olivia and the Swampington doctor were a long time absent; and Richard
+Paulette, who stood with his back to the fire, glanced every now and
+then towards the door.
+
+It opened at last, and Mary Marchmont came into the room, followed by
+her stepmother.
+
+Paul Marchmont turned at the sound of the opening of that ponderous
+oaken door, and for the first time saw his second cousin, the young
+mistress of Marchmont Towers. He started as he looked at her, though
+with a scarcely perceptible movement, and a change came over his face.
+The feminine pinky hue in his cheeks faded suddenly, and left them
+white. It had been a peculiarity of Paul Marchmont's, from his boyhood,
+always to turn pale with every acute emotion.
+
+What was the emotion which had now blanched his cheeks? Was he
+thinking, "Is _this_ fragile creature the mistress of Marchmont Towers?
+Is _this_ frail life all that stands between me and eleven thousand a
+year?"
+
+The light which shone out of that feeble earthly tabernacle did indeed
+seem a frail and fitful flame, likely to be extinguished by any rude
+breath from the coarse outer world. Mary Marchmont was deadly pale;
+black shadows encircled her wistful hazel eyes. Her new mourning-dress,
+with its heavy trimmings of lustreless crape, seemed to hang loose upon
+her slender figure; her soft brown hair, damp with the water with which
+her burning forehead had been bathed, fell in straight lank tresses
+about her shoulders. Her eyes were tearless, her mouth terribly
+compressed. The rigidity of her face betokened the struggle by which
+her sorrow was repressed. She sat in an easy-chair which Olivia
+indicated to her, and with her hands lying on the white handkerchief in
+her lap, and her swollen eyelids drooping over her eyes, waited for the
+reading of her father's will. It would be the last, the very last, she
+would ever hear of that dear father's words. She remembered this, and
+was ready to listen attentively; but she remembered nothing else. What
+was it to her that she was sole heiress of that great mansion, and of
+eleven thousand a year? She had never in her life thought of the
+Lincolnshire fortune with any reference to herself or her own
+pleasures; and she thought of it less than ever now.
+
+The will was dated February 4th, 1844, exactly two months after John's
+marriage. It had been made by the master of Marchmont Towers without
+the aid of a lawyer, and was only witnessed by John's housekeeper, and
+by Corson the old valet, a confidential servant who had attended upon
+Mr. Marchmont's predecessor.
+
+Richard Paulette began to read; and Mary, for the first time since she
+had taken her seat near the fire, lifted her eyes, and listened
+breathlessly, with faintly tremulous lips. Olivia sat near her
+stepdaughter; and Paul Marchmont stood in a careless attitude at one
+corner of the fireplace, with his shoulders resting against the massive
+oaken chimneypiece. The dead man's will ran thus:
+
+"I John Marchmont of Marchmont Towers declare this to be my last will
+and testament Being persuaded that my end is approaching I feel my dear
+little daughter Mary will be left unprotected by any natural guardian
+My young friend Edward Arundel I had hoped when in my poverty would
+have been a friend and adviser to her if not a protector but her tender
+years and his position in life must place this now out of the question
+and I may die before a fond hope which I have long cherished can be
+realised and which may now never be realised I now desire to make my
+will more particularly to provide as well as I am permitted for the
+guardianship and care of my dear little Mary during her minority Now I
+will and desire that my wife Olivia shall act as guardian adviser and
+mother to my dear little Mary and that she place herself under the
+charge and guardianship of my wife And as she will be an heiress of
+very considerable property I would wish her to be guided by the advice
+of my said wife in the management of her property and particularly in
+the choice of a husband As my dear little Mary will be amply provided
+for on my death I make no provision for her by this my will but I
+direct my executrix to present to her a diamond-ring which I wish her
+to wear in memory of her loving father so that she may always have me
+in her thoughts and particularly of these my wishes as to her future
+life until she shall be of age and capable of acting on her own
+judgment. I also request my executrix to present my young friend Edward
+Arundel also with a diamond-ring of the value of at least one hundred
+guineas as a slight tribute of the regard and esteem which I have ever
+entertained for him. . . . As to all the property as well real as
+personal over which I may at the time of my death have any control and
+capable of claiming or bequeathing I give devise and bequeath to my
+wife Olivia absolutely And I appoint my said wife sole executrix of
+this my will and guardian of my dear little Mary."
+
+There were a few very small legacies, including a mourning-ring to the
+expectant clerk; and this was all. Paul Marchmont had been quite right;
+nobody could be less interested than himself in this will.
+
+But he was apparently very much interested in John's widow and
+daughter. He tried to enter into conversation with Mary, but the girl's
+piteous manner seemed to implore him to leave her unmolested; and Mr.
+Bolton approached his patient almost immediately after the reading of
+the will, and in a manner took possession of her. Mary was very glad to
+leave the room once more, and to return to the dim chamber where Hester
+Pollard sat at needlework. Olivia left her stepdaughter to the care of
+this humble companion, and went back to the long dining-room, where the
+gentlemen still hung listlessly over the fire, not knowing very well
+what to do with themselves.
+
+Mrs. Marchmont could not do less than invite Paul to stay a few days at
+the Towers. She was virtually mistress of the house during Mary's
+minority, and on her devolved all the troubles, duties, and
+responsibilities attendant on such a position. Her father was going to
+stay with her till the end of the week; and he therefore would be able
+to entertain Mr. Marchmont. Paul unhesitatingly accepted the widow's
+hospitality. The old place was picturesque and interesting, he said;
+there were some genuine Holbeins in the hall and dining-room, and one
+good Lely in the drawing-room. He would give himself a couple of days'
+holiday, and go to Stanfield by an early train on Saturday.
+
+"I have not seen my sister for a long time," he said; "her life is dull
+enough and hard enough, Heaven knows, and she will be glad to see me
+upon my way back to London."
+
+Olivia bowed. She did not persuade Mr. Marchmont to extend his visit.
+The common courtesy she offered him was kept within the narrowest
+limits. She spent the best part of the time in the dead man's study
+during Paul's two-days' stay, and left the artist almost entirely to
+her father's companionship.
+
+But she was compelled to appear at dinner, and she took her accustomed
+place at the head of the table. Paul therefore had some opportunity of
+sounding the depths of the strangest nature he had ever tried to
+fathom. He talked to her very much, listening with unvarying attention
+to every word she uttered. He watched her--but with no obtrusive
+gaze--almost incessantly; and when he went away from Marchmont Towers,
+without having seen Mary since the reading of the will, it was of
+Olivia he thought; it was the recollection of Olivia which interested
+as much as it perplexed him.
+
+The few people waiting for the London train looked at the artist as he
+strolled up and down the quiet platform at Kemberling Station, with his
+head bent and his eyebrows slightly contracted. He had a certain easy,
+careless grace of dress and carriage, which harmonised well with his
+delicate face, his silken silvery hair, his carefully-trained auburn
+moustache, and rosy, womanish mouth. He was a romantic-looking man. He
+was the beau-ideal of the hero in a young lady's novel. He was a man
+whom schoolgirls would have called "a dear." But it had been better, I
+think, for any helpless wretch to be in the bull-dog hold of the
+sturdiest Bill Sykes ever loosed upon society by right of his
+ticket-of-leave, than in the power of Paul Marchmont, artist and
+teacher of drawing, of Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.
+
+He was thinking of Olivia as he walked slowly up and down the bare
+platform, only separated by a rough wooden paling from the flat open
+fields on the outskirts of Kemberling.
+
+"The little girl is as feeble as a pale February butterfly." he
+thought; "a puff of frosty wind might wither her away. But that woman,
+that woman--how handsome she is, with her accurate profile and iron
+mouth; but what a raging fire there is hidden somewhere in her breast,
+and devouring her beauty by day and night! If I wanted to paint the
+sleeping scene in _Macbeth_, I'd ask her to sit for the Thane's wicked
+wife. Perhaps she has some bloody secret as deadly as the murder of a
+grey-headed Duncan upon her conscience, and leaves her bedchamber in
+the stillness of the night to walk up and down those long oaken
+corridors at the Towers, and wring her hands and wail aloud in her
+sleep. Why did she marry John Marchmont? His life gave her little more
+than a fine house to live in; his death leaves her with nothing but ten
+or twelve thousand pounds in the Three per Cents. What is her
+mystery--what is her secret, I wonder? for she must surely have one."
+
+Such thoughts as these filled his mind as the train carried him away
+from the lonely little station, and away from the neighbourhood of
+Marchmont Towers, within whose stony walls Mary lay in her quiet
+chamber, weeping for her dead father, and wishing--God knows in what
+utter singleness of heart!--that she had been buried in the vault by
+his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+OLIVIA'S DESPAIR.
+
+
+The life which Mary and her stepmother led at Marchmont Towers after
+poor John's death was one of those tranquil and monotonous existences
+that leave very little to be recorded, except the slow progress of the
+weeks and months, the gradual changes of the seasons. Mary bore her
+sorrows quietly, as it was her nature to bear all things. The doctor's
+advice was taken, and Olivia removed her stepdaughter to Scarborough
+soon after the funeral. But the change of scene was slow to effect any
+change in the state of dull despairing sorrow into which the girl had
+fallen. The sea-breezes brought no colour into her pale cheeks. She
+obeyed her stepmother's behests unmurmuringly, and wandered wearily by
+the dreary seashore in the dismal November weather, in search of health
+and strength. But wherever she went, she carried with her the awful
+burden of her grief; and in every changing cadence of the low winter
+winds, in every varying murmur of the moaning waves, she seemed to hear
+her dead father's funeral dirge.
+
+I think that, young as Mary Marchmont was, this mournful period was the
+grand crisis of her life. The past, with its one great affection, had
+been swept away from her, and as yet there was no friendly figure to
+fill the dismal blank of the future. Had any kindly matron, any gentle
+Christian creature been ready to stretch out her arms to the desolate
+orphan, Mary's heart would have melted, and she would have crept to the
+shelter of that womanly embrace, to nestle there for ever. But there
+was no one. Olivia Marchmont obeyed the letter of her husband's solemn
+appeal, as she had obeyed the letter of those Gospel sentences that had
+been familiar to her from her childhood, but was utterly unable to
+comprehend its spirit. She accepted the charge intrusted to her. She
+was unflinching in the performance of her duty; but no one glimmer of
+the holy light of motherly love and tenderness, the semi-divine
+compassion of womanhood, ever illumined the dark chambers of her heart.
+Every night she questioned herself upon her knees as to her rigid
+performance of the level round of duty she had allotted to herself;
+every night--scrupulous and relentless as the hardest judge who ever
+pronounced sentence upon a criminal--she took note of her own
+shortcomings, and acknowledged her deficiencies.
+
+But, unhappily, this self-devotion of Olivia's pressed no less heavily
+upon Mary than on the widow herself. The more rigidly Mrs. Marchmont
+performed the duties which she understood to be laid upon her by her
+dead husband's last will and testament, the harder became the orphan's
+life. The weary treadmill of education worked on, when the young
+student was well-nigh fainting upon every step in that hopeless
+revolving ladder of knowledge. If Olivia, on communing with herself at
+night, found that the day just done had been too easy for both mistress
+and pupil, the morrow's allowance of Roman emperors and French grammar
+was made to do penance for yesterday's shortcomings.
+
+"This girl has been intrusted to my care, and one of my first duties is
+to give her a good education," Olivia Marchmont thought. "She is
+inclined to be idle; but I must fight against her inclination, whatever
+trouble the struggle entails upon myself. The harder the battle, the
+better for me if I am conqueror."
+
+It was only thus that Olivia Marchmont could hope to be a good woman.
+It was only by the rigid performance of hard duties, the patient
+practice of tedious rites, that she could hope to attain that eternal
+crown which simpler Christians seem to win so easily.
+
+Morning and night the widow and her stepdaughter read the Bible
+together; morning and night they knelt side by side to join in the same
+familiar prayers; yet all these readings and all these prayers failed
+to bring them any nearer together. No tender sentence of inspiration,
+not the words of Christ himself, ever struck the same chord in these
+two women's hearts, bringing both into sudden unison. They went to
+church three times upon every dreary Sunday,--dreary from the terrible
+uniformity which made one day a mechanical repetition of another,--and
+sat together in the same pew; and there were times when some solemn
+word, some sublime injunction, seemed to fall with a new meaning upon
+the orphan girl's heart; but if she looked at her stepmother's face,
+thinking to see some ray of that sudden light which had newly shone
+into her own mind reflected _there_, the blank gloom of Olivia's
+countenance seemed like a dead wall, across which no glimmer of
+radiance ever shone.
+
+They went back to Marchmont Towers in the early spring. People imagined
+that the young widow would cultivate the society of her husband's old
+friends, and that morning callers would be welcome at the Towers, and
+the stately dinner-parties would begin again, when Mrs. Marchmont's
+year of mourning was over. But it was not so; Olivia closed her doors
+upon almost all society, and devoted herself entirely to the education
+of her stepdaughter. The gossips of Swampington and Kemberling, the
+county gentry who had talked of her piety and patience, her unflinching
+devotion to the poor of her father's parish, talked now of her
+self-abnegation, the sacrifices she made for her stepdaughter's sake,
+the noble manner in which she justified John Marchmont's confidence in
+her goodness. Other women would have intrusted the heiress's education
+to some hired governess, people said; other women would have been upon
+the look-out for a second husband; other women would have grown weary
+of the dulness of that lonely Lincolnshire mansion, the monotonous
+society of a girl of sixteen. They were never tired of lauding Mrs.
+Marchmont as a model for all stepmothers in time to come.
+
+Did she sacrifice much, this woman, whose spirit was a raging fire, who
+had the ambition of a Semiramis, the courage of a Boadicea, the
+resolution of a Lady Macbeth? Did she sacrifice much in resigning such
+provincial gaieties as might have adorned her life,--a few
+dinner-parties, an occasional county ball, a flirtation with some
+ponderous landed gentleman or hunting squire?
+
+No; these things would very soon have grown odious to her--more odious
+than the monotony of her empty life, more wearisome even than the
+perpetual weariness of her own spirit. I said, that when she accepted a
+new life by becoming the wife of John Marchmont, she acted in the
+spirit of a prisoner, who is glad to exchange his old dungeon for a new
+one. But, alas! the novelty of the prison-house had very speedily worn
+off, and that which Olivia Arundel had been at Swampington Rectory,
+Olivia Marchmont was now in the gaunt country mansion,--a wretched
+woman, weary of herself and all the world, devoured by a slow-consuming
+and perpetual fire.
+
+This woman was, for two long melancholy years, Mary Marchmont's sole
+companion and instructress. I say sole companion advisedly; for the
+girl was not allowed to become intimate with the younger members of
+such few county families as still called occasionally at the Towers,
+lest she should become empty-headed and frivolous by their
+companionship. Alas, there was little fear of Mary becoming
+empty-headed! As she grew taller, and more slender, she seemed to get
+weaker and paler; and her heavy head drooped wearily under the load of
+knowledge which it had been made to carry, like some poor sickly flower
+oppressed by the weight of the dew-drops, which would have revivified a
+hardier blossom.
+
+Heaven knows to what end Mrs. Marchmont educated her stepdaughter! Poor
+Mary could have told the precise date of any event in universal
+history, ancient or modern; she could have named the exact latitude and
+longitude of the remotest island in the least navigable ocean, and
+might have given an accurate account of the manners and customs of its
+inhabitants, had she been called upon to do so. She was alarmingly
+learned upon the subject of tertiary and old red sandstone, and could
+have told you almost as much as Mr. Charles Kingsley himself about the
+history of a gravel-pit,--though I doubt if she could have conveyed her
+information in quite such a pleasant manner; she could have pointed out
+every star in the broad heavens above Lincolnshire, and could have told
+the history of its discovery; she knew the hardest names that science
+had given to the familiar field-flowers she met in her daily
+walks;--yet I cannot say that her conversation was any the more
+brilliant because of this, or that her spirits grew lighter under the
+influence of this general mental illumination.
+
+But Mrs. Marchmont did most earnestly believe that this laborious
+educationary process was one of the duties she owed her stepdaughter;
+and when, at seventeen years of age, Mary emerged from the struggle,
+laden with such intellectual spoils as I have described above, the
+widow felt a quiet satisfaction as she contemplated her work, and said
+to herself, "In this, at least, I have done my duty."
+
+Amongst all the dreary mass of instruction beneath which her health had
+very nearly succumbed, the girl had learned one thing that was a source
+of pleasure to herself; she had learned to become a very brilliant
+musician. She was not a musical genius, remember; for no such vivid
+flame as the fire of genius had ever burned in her gentle breast; but
+all the tenderness of her nature, all the poetry of a hyper-poetical
+mind, centred in this one accomplishment, and, condemned to perpetual
+silence in every other tongue, found a new and glorious language here.
+The girl had been forbidden to read Byron and Scott; but she was not
+forbidden to sit at her piano, when the day's toils were over, and the
+twilight was dusky in her quiet room, playing dreamy melodies by
+Beethoven and Mozart, and making her own poetry to Mendelssohn's
+wordless songs. I think her soul must have shrunk and withered away
+altogether had it not been for this one resource, this one refuge, in
+which her mind regained its elasticity, springing up, like a trampled
+flower, into new life and beauty.
+
+Olivia was well pleased to see the girl sit hour after hour at her
+piano. She had learned to play well and brilliantly herself, mastering
+all difficulties with the proud determination which was a part of her
+strong nature; but she had no special love for music. All things that
+compose the poetry and beauty of life had been denied to this woman, in
+common with the tenderness which makes the chief loveliness of
+womankind. She sat by the piano and listened while Mary's slight hands
+wandered over the keys, carrying the player's soul away into trackless
+regions of dream-land and beauty; but she heard nothing in the music
+except so many chords, so many tones and semitones, played in such or
+such a time.
+
+It would have been scarcely natural for Mary Marchmont, reserved and
+self-contained though she had been ever since her father's death, to
+have had no yearning for more genial companionship than that of her
+stepmother. The girl who had kept watch in her room, by the doctor's
+suggestion, was the one friend and confidante whom the young mistress
+of Marchmont Towers fain would have chosen. But here Olivia interposed,
+sternly forbidding any intimacy between the two girls. Hester Pollard
+was the daughter of a small tenant-farmer, and no fit associate for
+Mrs. Marchmont's stepdaughter. Olivia thought that this taste for
+obscure company was the fruit of Mary's early training--the taint left
+by those bitter, debasing days of poverty, in which John Marchmont and
+his daughter had lived in some wretched Lambeth lodging.
+
+"But Hester Pollard is fond of me, mamma," the girl pleaded; "and I
+feel so happy at the old farm house! They are all so kind to me when I
+go there,--Hester's father and mother, and little brothers and sisters,
+you know; and the poultry-yard, and the pigs and horses, and the green
+pond, with the geese cackling round it, remind me of my aunt's, in
+Berkshire. I went there once with poor papa for a day or two; it was
+_such_ a change after Oakley Street."
+
+But Mrs. Marchmont was inflexible upon this point. She would allow her
+stepdaughter to pay a ceremonial visit now and then to Farmer
+Pollard's, and to be entertained with cowslip-wine and pound-cake in
+the low, old-fashioned parlour, where all the polished mahogany chairs
+were so shining and slippery that it was a marvel how anybody ever
+contrived to sit down upon them. Olivia allowed such solemn visits as
+these now and then, and she permitted Mary to renew the farmer's lease
+upon sufficiently advantageous terms, and to make occasional presents
+to her favourite, Hester. But all stolen visits to the farmyard, all
+evening rambles with the farmer's daughter in the apple orchard at the
+back of the low white farmhouse, were sternly interdicted; and though
+Mary and Hester were friends still, they were fain to be content with a
+chance meeting once in the course of a dreary interval of months, and a
+silent pressure of the hand.
+
+"You mustn't think that I am proud of my money, Hester," Mary said to
+her friend, "or that I forget you now that we see each other so seldom.
+Papa used to let me come to the farm whenever I liked; but papa had
+seen a great deal of poverty. Mamma keeps me almost always at home at
+my studies; but she is very good to me, and of course I am bound to
+obey her; papa wished me to obey her."
+
+The orphan girl never for a moment forgot the terms of her father's
+will. _He_ had wished her to obey; what should she do, then, but be
+obedient? Her submission to Olivia's lightest wish was only a part of
+the homage which she paid to that beloved father's memory.
+
+It was thus she grew to early womanhood; a child in gentle obedience
+and docility; a woman by reason of that grave and thoughtful character
+which had been peculiar to her from her very infancy. It was in a life
+such as this, narrow, monotonous, joyless, that her seventeenth
+birthday came and went, scarcely noticed, scarcely remembered, in the
+dull uniformity of the days which left no track behind them; and Mary
+Marchmont was a woman,--a woman with all the tragedy of life before
+her; infantine in her innocence and inexperience of the world outside
+Marchmont Towers.
+
+The passage of time had been so long unmarked by any break in its
+tranquil course, the dull routine of life had been so long undisturbed
+by change, that I believe the two women thought their lives would go on
+for ever and ever. Mary, at least, had never looked beyond the dull
+horizon of the present. Her habit of castle-building had died out with
+her father's death. What need had she to build castles, now that he
+could no longer inhabit them? Edward Arundel, the bright boy she
+remembered in Oakley Street, the dashing young officer who had come to
+Marchmont Towers, had dropped back into the chaos of the past. Her
+father had been the keystone in the arch of Mary's existence: he was
+gone, and a mass of chaotic ruins alone remained of the familiar
+visions which had once beguiled her. The world had ended with John
+Marchmont's death, and his daughter's life since that great sorrow had
+been at best only a passive endurance of existence. They had heard very
+little of the young soldier at Marchmont Towers. Now and then a letter
+from some member of the family at Dangerfield had come to the Rector of
+Swampington. The warfare was still raging far away in the East, cruel
+and desperate battles were being fought, and brave Englishmen were
+winning loot and laurels, or perishing under the scimitars of Sikhs and
+Affghans, as the case might be. Squire Arundel's youngest son was not
+doing less than his duty, the letters said. He had gained his
+captaincy, and was well spoken of by great soldiers, whose very names
+were like the sound of the war-trumpet to English ears.
+
+Olivia heard all this. She sat by her father, sometimes looking over
+his shoulder at the crumpled letter, as he read aloud to her of her
+cousin's exploits. The familiar name seemed to be all ablaze with lurid
+light as the widow's greedy eyes devoured it. How commonplace the
+letters were! What frivolous nonsense Letitia Arundel intermingled with
+the news of her brother!--"You'll be glad to hear that my grey pony has
+got the better of his lameness. Papa gave a hunting-breakfast on
+Tuesday week. Lord Mountlitchcombe was present; but the hunting-men are
+very much aggravated about the frost, and I fear we shall have no
+crocuses. Edward has got his captaincy, papa told me to tell you. Sir
+Charles Napier and Major Outram have spoken very highly of him; but
+he--Edward, I mean--got a sabre-cut on his left arm, besides a wound on
+his forehead, and was laid up for nearly a month. I daresay you
+remember old Colonel Tollesly, at Halburton Lodge? He died last
+November; and has left all his money to----" and the young lady ran on
+thus, with such gossip as she thought might be pleasing to her uncle;
+and there were no more tidings of the young soldier, whose life-blood
+had so nearly been spilt for his country's glory.
+
+Olivia thought of him as she rode back to Marchmont Towers. She thought
+of the sabre-cut upon his arm, and pictured him wounded and bleeding,
+lying beneath the canvass-shelter of a tent, comfortless, lonely,
+forsaken.
+
+"Better for me if he had died," she thought; "better for me if I were
+to hear of his death to-morrow!"
+
+And with the idea the picture of such a calamity arose before her so
+vividly and hideously distinct, that she thought for one brief moment
+of agony, "This is not a fancy, it is a presentiment; it is second
+sight; the thing will occur."
+
+She imagined herself going to see her father as she had gone that
+morning. All would be the same: the low grey garden-wall of the
+Rectory; the ceaseless surging of the sea; the prim servant-maid; the
+familiar study, with its litter of books and papers; the smell of stale
+cigar-smoke; the chintz curtains flapping in the open window; the dry
+leaves fluttering in the garden without. There would be nothing changed
+except her father's face, which would be a little graver than usual.
+And then, after a little hesitation--after a brief preamble about the
+uncertainty of life, the necessity for looking always beyond this
+world, the horrors of war,--the dreadful words would be upon his lips,
+when she would read all the hideous truth in his face, and fall prone
+to the ground, before he could say, "Edward Arundel is dead!"
+
+Yes; she felt all the anguish. It would be this--this sudden paralysis
+of black despair. She tested the strength of her endurance by this
+imaginary torture,--scarcely imaginary, surely, when it seemed so
+real,--and asked herself a strange question: "Am I strong enough to
+bear this, or would it be less terrible to go on, suffering for
+ever--for ever abased and humiliated by the degradation of my love for
+a man who does not care for me?"
+
+So long as John Marchmont had lived, this woman would have been true to
+the terrible victory she had won upon the eve of her bridal. She would
+have been true to herself and to her marriage-vow; but her husband's
+death, in setting her free, had cast her back upon the madness of her
+youth. It was no longer a sin to think of Edward Arundel. Having once
+suffered this idea to arise in her mind, her idol grew too strong for
+her, and she thought of him by night and day.
+
+Yes; she thought of him for ever and ever. The narrow life to which she
+doomed herself, the self-immolation which she called duty, left her a
+prey to this one thought. Her work was not enough for her. Her powerful
+mind wasted and shrivelled for want of worthy employment. It was like
+one vast roll of parchment whereon half the wisdom of the world might
+have been inscribed, but on which was only written over and over again,
+in maddening repetition, the name of Edward Arundel. If Olivia
+Marchmont could have gone to America, and entered herself amongst the
+feminine professors of law or medicine,--if she could have turned
+field-preacher, like simple Dinah Morris, or set up a printing-press in
+Bloomsbury, or even written a novel,--I think she might have been
+saved. The superabundant energy of her mind would have found a new
+object. As it was, she did none of these things. She had only dreamt
+one dream, and by force of perpetual repetition the dream had become a
+madness.
+
+But the monotonous life was not to go on for ever. The dull, grey,
+leaden sky was to be illumined by sudden bursts of sunshine, and swept
+by black thunder-clouds, whose stormy violence was to shake the very
+universe for these two solitary women.
+
+John Marchmont had been dead nearly three years. Mary's humble friend,
+the farmer's daughter, had married a young tradesman in the village of
+Kemberling, a mile and a half from the Towers. Mary was a woman now,
+and had seen the last of the Roman emperors and all the dry-as-dust
+studies of her early girlhood. She had nothing to do but accompany her
+stepmother hither and thither amongst the poor cottagers about
+Kemberling and two or three other small parishes within a drive of the
+Towers, "doing good," after Olivia's fashion, by line and rule. At home
+the young lady did what she pleased, sitting for hours together at her
+piano, or wading through gigantic achievements in the way of
+embroidery-work. She was even allowed to read novels now, but only such
+novels as were especially recommended to Olivia, who was one of the
+patronesses of a book-club at Swampington: novels in which young ladies
+fell in love with curates, and didn't marry them: novels in which
+everybody suffered all manner of misery, and rather liked it: novels in
+which, if the heroine did marry the man she loved--and this happy
+conclusion was the exception, and not the rule--the smallpox swept away
+her beauty, or a fatal accident deprived him of his legs, or eyes, or
+arms before the wedding-day.
+
+The two women went to Kemberling Church together three times every
+Sunday. It was rather monotonous--the same church, the same rector and
+curate, the same clerk, the same congregation, the same old organ-tunes
+and droning voices of Lincolnshire charity-children, the same sermons
+very often. But Mary had grown accustomed to monotony. She had ceased
+to hope or care for anything since her father's death, and was very
+well contented to be let alone, and allowed to dawdle through a dreary
+life which was utterly without aim or purpose. She sat opposite her
+stepmother on one particular afternoon in the state-pew at Kemberling,
+which was lined with faded red baize, and raised a little above the
+pews of meaner worshippers; she was sitting with her listless hands
+lying in her lap, looking thoughtfully at her stepmother's stony face,
+and listening to the dull droning of the rector's voice above her head.
+It was a sunny afternoon in early June, and the church was bright with
+a warm yellow radiance; one of the old diamond-paned windows was open,
+and the tinkling of a sheep-bell far away in the distance, and the hum
+of bees in the churchyard, sounded pleasantly in the quiet of the hot
+atmosphere.
+
+The young mistress of Marchmont Towers felt the drowsy influence of
+that tranquil summer weather creeping stealthily upon her. The heavy
+eyelids drooped over her soft brown eyes, those wistful eyes which had
+so long looked wearily out upon a world in which there seemed so little
+joy. The rector's sermon was a very long one this warm afternoon, and
+there was a low sound of snoring somewhere in one of the shadowy and
+sheltered pews beneath the galleries. Mary tried very hard to keep
+herself awake. Mrs. Marchmont had frowned darkly at her once or twice
+already, for to fall asleep in church was a dire iniquity in Olivia's
+rigid creed; but the drowsiness was not easily to be conquered, and the
+girl was sinking into a peaceful slumber in spite of her stepmother's
+menacing frowns, when the sound of a sharp footfall on one of the
+gravel pathways in the churchyard aroused her attention.
+
+Heaven knows why she should have been awoke out of her sleep by the
+sound of that step. It was different, perhaps, to the footsteps of the
+Kemberling congregation. The brisk, sharp sound of the tread striking
+lightly but firmly on the gravel was not compatible with the shuffling
+gait of the tradespeople and farmers' men who formed the greater part
+of the worshippers at that quiet Lincolnshire church. Again, it would
+have been a monstrous sin in that tranquil place for any one member of
+the congregation to disturb the devotions of the rest by entering at
+such a time as this. It was a stranger, then, evidently. What did it
+matter? Miss Marchmont scarcely cared to lift her eyelids to see who or
+what the stranger was; but the intruder let in such a flood of June
+sunshine when he pushed open the ponderous oaken door under the
+church-porch, that she was dazzled by that sudden burst of light, and
+involuntarily opened her eyes.
+
+The stranger let the door swing softly to behind him, and stood beneath
+the shadow of the porch, not caring to advance any further, or to
+disturb the congregation by his presence.
+
+Mary could not see him very plainly at first. She could only dimly
+define the outline of his tall figure, the waving masses of chestnut
+hair tinged with gleams of gold; but little by little his face seemed
+to grow out of the shadow, until she saw it all,--the handsome
+patrician features, the luminous blue eyes, the amber moustache,--the
+face which, in Oakley Street eight years ago, she had elected as her
+type of all manly perfection, her ideal of heroic grace.
+
+Yes; it was Edward Arundel. Her eyes lighted up with an unwonted
+rapture as she looked at him; her lips parted; and her breath came in
+faint gasps. All the monotonous years, the terrible agonies of sorrow,
+dropped away into the past; and Mary Marchmont was conscious of nothing
+except the unutterable happiness of the present.
+
+The one friend of her childhood had come back. The one link, the almost
+forgotten link, that bound her to every day-dream of those foolish
+early days, was united once more by the presence of the young soldier.
+All that happy time, nearly five years ago,--that happy time in which
+the tennis-court had been built, and the boat-house by the river
+restored,--those sunny autumn days before her father's second
+marriage,--returned to her. There was pleasure and joy in the world,
+after all; and then the memory of her father came back to her mind, and
+her eyes filled with tears. How sorry Edward would be to see his old
+friend's empty place in the western drawing-room; how sorry for her,
+and for her loss! Olivia Marchmont saw the change in her stepdaughter's
+face, and looked at her with stern amazement. But, after the first
+shock of that delicious surprise, Mary's training asserted itself. She
+folded her hands,--they trembled a little, but Olivia did not see
+that,--and waited patiently, with her eyes cast down and a faint flush
+lighting up her pale cheeks, until the sermon was finished, and the
+congregation began to disperse. She was not impatient. She felt as if
+she could have waited thus peacefully and contentedly for ever, knowing
+that the only friend she had on earth was near her.
+
+Olivia was slow to leave her pew; but at last she opened the door and
+went out into the quiet aisle, followed by Mary, out under the shadowy
+porch and into the gravel-walk in the churchyard, where Edward Arundel
+was waiting for the two ladies.
+
+John Marchmont's widow uttered no cry of surprise when she saw her
+cousin standing a little way apart from the slowly-dispersing
+Kemberling congregation. Her dark face faded a little, and her heart
+seemed to stop its pulsation suddenly, as if she had been turned into
+stone; but this was only for a moment. She held out her hand to Mr.
+Arundel in the next instant, and bade him welcome to Lincolnshire.
+
+"I did not know you were in England," she said.
+
+"Scarcely any one knows it yet," the young man answered; "and I have
+not even been home. I came to Marchmont Towers at once."
+
+He turned from his cousin to Mary, who was standing a little behind her
+stepmother.
+
+"Dear Polly," he said, taking both her hands in his, "I was so sorry
+for you, when I heard----"
+
+He stopped, for he saw the tears welling up to her eyes. It was not his
+allusion to her father's death that had distressed her. He had called
+her Polly, the old familiar name, which she had never heard since that
+dead father's lips had last spoken it.
+
+The carriage was waiting at the gate of the churchyard, and Edward
+Arundel went back to Marchmont Towers with the two ladies. He had
+reached the house a quarter of an hour after they had left it for
+afternoon church, and had walked over to Kemberling.
+
+"I was so anxious to see you, Polly," he said, "after all this long
+time, that I had no patience to wait until you and Livy came back from
+church."
+
+Olivia started as the young man said this. It was Mary Marchmont whom
+he had come to see, then--not herself. Was _she_ never to be anything?
+Was she to be for ever insulted by this humiliating indifference? A
+dark flush came over her face, as she drew her head up with the air of
+an offended empress, and looked angrily at her cousin. Alas! he did not
+even see that indignant glance. He was bending over Mary, telling her,
+in a low tender voice, of the grief he had felt at learning the news of
+her father's death.
+
+Olivia Marchmont looked with an eager, scrutinising gaze at her
+stepdaughter. Could it be possible that Edward Arundel might ever come
+to love this girl? _Could_ such a thing be possible? A hideous depth of
+horror and confusion seemed to open before her with the thought. In all
+the past, amongst all things she had imagined, amongst all the
+calamities she had pictured to herself, she had never thought of
+anything like this. Would such a thing ever come to pass? Would she
+ever grow to hate this girl--this girl, who had been intrusted to her
+by her dead husband--with the most terrible hatred that one woman can
+feel towards another?
+
+In the next moment she was angry with herself for the abject folly of
+this new terror. She had never yet learned to think of Mary as a woman.
+She had never thought of her otherwise than as the pale childlike girl
+who had come to her meekly, day after day, to recite difficult lessons,
+standing in a submissive attitude before her, and rendering obedience
+to her in all things. Was it likely, was it possible, that this
+pale-faced girl would enter into the lists against her in the great
+battle of her life? Was it likely that she was to find her adversary
+and her conqueror here, in the meek child who had been committed to her
+charge?
+
+She watched her stepdaughter's face with a jealous, hungry gaze. Was it
+beautiful? No! The features were delicate; the brown eyes soft and
+dovelike, almost lovely, now that they were irradiated by a new light,
+as they looked shyly up at Edward Arundel. But the girl's face was wan
+and colourless. It lacked the splendour of beauty. It was only after
+you had looked at Mary for a very long time that you began to think her
+rather pretty.
+
+The five years during which Edward Arundel had been away had made
+little alteration in him. He was rather taller, perhaps; his amber
+moustache thicker; his manner more dashing than of old. The mark of a
+sabre-cut under the clustering chestnut curls upon the temple gave him
+a certain soldierly dignity. He seemed a man of the world now, and Mary
+Marchmont was rather afraid of him. He was so different to the
+Lincolnshire squires, the bashful younger sons who were to be educated
+for the Church: he was so dashing, so elegant, so splendid! From the
+waving grace of his hair to the tip of the polished boot peeping out of
+his well-cut trouser (there were no pegtops in 1847, and it was _le
+genre_ to show very little of the boot), he was a creature to be
+wondered at, to be almost reverenced, Mary thought. She could not help
+admiring the cut of his coat, the easy _nonchalance_ of his manner, the
+waxed ends of his curved moustache, the dangling toys of gold and
+enamel that jingled at his watch-chain, the waves of perfume that
+floated away from his cambric handkerchief. She was childish enough to
+worship all these external attributes in her hero.
+
+"Shall I invite him to Marchmont Towers?" Olivia thought; and while she
+was deliberating upon this question, Mary Marchmont cried out, "You
+will stop at the Towers, won't you, Mr. Arundel, as you did when poor
+papa was alive?"
+
+"Most decidedly, Miss Marchmont," the young man answered. "I mean to
+throw myself upon your hospitality as confidingly as I did a long time
+ago in Oakley Street, when you gave me hot rolls for my breakfast."
+
+Mary laughed aloud--perhaps for the first time since her father's
+death. Olivia bit her lip. She was of so little account, then, she
+thought, that they did not care to consult her. A gloomy shadow spread
+itself over her face. Already, already she began to hate this
+pale-faced, childish orphan girl, who seemed to be transformed into a
+new being under the spell of Edward Arundel's presence.
+
+But she made no attempt to prevent his stopping at the Towers, though a
+word from her would have effectually hindered his coming. A dull torpor
+of despair took possession of her; a black apprehension paralysed her
+mind. She felt that a pit of horror was opening before her ignorant
+feet. All that she had suffered was as nothing to what she was about to
+suffer. Let it be, then! What could she do to keep this torture away
+from her? Let it come, since it seemed that it must come in some shape
+or other.
+
+She thought all this, while she sat back in a corner of the carriage
+watching the two faces opposite to her, as Edward and Mary, seated with
+their backs to the horses, talked together in low confidential tones,
+which scarcely reached her ear. She thought all this during the short
+drive between Kemberling and Marchmont Towers; and when the carriage
+drew up before the low Tudor portico, the dark shadow had settled on
+her face. Her mind was made up. Let Edward Arundel come; let the worst
+come. She had struggled; she had tried to do her duty; she had striven
+to be good. But her destiny was stronger than herself, and had brought
+this young soldier over land and sea, safe out of every danger, rescued
+from every peril, to be her destruction. I think that in this crisis of
+her life the last faint ray of Christian light faded out of this lost
+woman's soul, leaving utter darkness and desolation. The old landmarks,
+dimly descried in the weary desert, sank for ever down into the
+quicksands, and she was left alone,--alone with her despair. Her
+jealous soul prophesied the evil which she dreaded. This man, whose
+indifference to her was almost an insult, would fall in love with Mary
+Marchmont,--with Mary Marchmont, whose eyes lit up into new beauty
+under the glances of his, whose pale face blushed into faint bloom as
+he talked to her. The girl's undisguised admiration would flatter the
+young man's vanity, and he would fall in love with her out of very
+frivolity and weakness of purpose.
+
+"He is weak and vain, and foolish and frivolous, I daresay," Olivia
+thought; "and if I were to fling myself upon my knees at his feet, and
+tell him that I loved him, he would be flattered and grateful, and
+would be ready to return my affection. If I could tell him what this
+girl tells him in every look and word, he would be as pleased with me
+as he is with her."
+
+Her lip curled with unutterable scorn as she thought this. She was so
+despicable to herself by the deep humiliation of her wasted love, that
+the object of that foolish passion seemed despicable also. She was for
+ever weighing Edward Arundel against all the tortures she had endured
+for his sake, and for ever finding him wanting. He must have been a
+demigod if his perfections could have outweighed so much misery; and
+for this reason she was unjust to her cousin, and could not accept him
+for that which he really was,--a generous-hearted, candid, honourable
+young man (not a great man or a wonderful man),--a brave and
+honest-minded soldier, very well worthy of a good woman's love.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Mr. Arundel stayed at the Towers, occupying the room which had been his
+in John Marchmont's lifetime; and a new existence began for Mary. The
+young man was delighted with his old friend's daughter. Among all the
+Calcutta belles whom he had danced with at Government-House balls and
+flirted with upon the Indian racecourse, he could remember no one as
+fascinating as this girl, who seemed as childlike now, in her early
+womanhood, as she had been womanly while she was a child. Her naïve
+tenderness for himself bewitched and enraptured him. Who could have
+avoided being charmed by that pure and innocent affection, which was as
+freely given by the girl of eighteen as it had been by the child, and
+was unchanged in character by the lapse of years? The young officer had
+been so much admired and caressed in Calcutta, that perhaps, by reason
+of his successes, he had returned to England heart-whole; and he
+abandoned himself, without any _arrière-pensée_, to the quiet happiness
+which he felt in Mary Marchmont's society. I do not say that he was
+intoxicated by her beauty, which was by no means of the intoxicating
+order, or that he was madly in love with her. The gentle fascination of
+her society crept upon him before he was aware of its influence. He had
+never taken the trouble to examine his own feelings; they were
+disengaged,--as free as butterflies to settle upon which flower might
+seem the fairest; and he had therefore no need to put himself under a
+course of rigorous self-examination. As yet he believed that the
+pleasure he now felt in Mary's society was the same order of enjoyment
+he had experienced five years before, when he had taught her chess, and
+promised her long rambles by the seashore.
+
+They had no long rambles now in solitary lanes and under flowering
+hedgerows beside the waving green corn. Olivia watched them with
+untiring eyes. The tortures to which a jealous woman may condemn
+herself are not much greater than those she can inflict upon others.
+Mrs. Marchmont took good care that her ward and her cousin were not
+_too_ happy. Wherever they went, she went also; whenever they spoke,
+she listened; whatever arrangement was most likely to please them was
+opposed by her. Edward was not coxcomb enough to have any suspicion of
+the reason of this conduct on his cousin's part. He only smiled and
+shrugged his shoulders; and attributed her watchfulness to an
+overstrained sense of her responsibility, and the necessity of
+_surveillance_.
+
+"Does she think me such a villain and a traitor," he thought, "that she
+fears to leave me alone with my dead friend's orphan daughter, lest I
+should whisper corruption into her innocent ear? How little these good
+women know of us, after all! What vulgar suspicions and narrow-minded
+fears influence them against us! Are they honourable and honest towards
+one another, I wonder, that they can entertain such pitiful doubts of
+our honour and honesty?"
+
+So, hour after hour, and day after day, Olivia Marchmont kept watch and
+ward over Edward and Mary. It seems strange that love could blossom in
+such an atmosphere; it seems strange that the cruel gaze of those hard
+grey eyes did not chill the two innocent hearts, and prevent their free
+expansion. But it was not so; the egotism of love was all-omnipotent.
+Neither Edward nor Mary was conscious of the evil light in the glance
+that so often rested upon them. The universe narrowed itself to the one
+spot of earth upon which these two stood side by side.
+
+Edward Arundel had been more than a month at Marchmont Towers when
+Olivia went, upon a hot July evening, to Swampington, on a brief visit
+to the Rector,--a visit of duty. She would doubtless have taken Mary
+Marchmont with her; but the girl had been suffering from a violent
+headache throughout the burning summer day, and had kept her room.
+Edward Arundel had gone out early in the morning upon a fishing
+excursion to a famous trout-stream seven or eight miles from the
+Towers, and was not likely to return until after nightfall. There was
+no chance, therefore, of a meeting between Mary and the young officer,
+Olivia thought--no chance of any confidential talk which she would not
+be by to hear.
+
+Did Edward Arundel love the pale-faced girl, who revealed her devotion
+to him with such childlike unconsciousness? Olivia Marchmont had not
+been able to answer that question. She had sounded the young man
+several times upon his feelings towards her stepdaughter; but he had
+met her hints and insinuations with perfect frankness, declaring that
+Mary seemed as much a child to him now as she had appeared nearly nine
+years before in Oakley Street, and that the pleasure he took in her
+society was only such as he might have felt in that of any innocent and
+confiding child.
+
+"Her simplicity is so bewitching, you know, Livy," he said; "she looks
+up in my face, and trusts me with all her little secrets, and tells me
+her dreams about her dead father, and all her foolish, innocent
+fancies, as confidingly as if I were some playfellow of her own age and
+sex. She's so refreshing after the artificial belles of a Calcutta
+ballroom, with their stereotyped fascinations and their complete manual
+of flirtation, the same for ever and ever. She is such a pretty little
+spontaneous darling, with her soft, shy, brown eyes, and her low voice,
+which always sounds to me like the cooing of the doves in the
+poultry-yard."
+
+I think that Olivia, in the depth of her gloomy despair, took some
+comfort from such speeches as these. Was this frank expression of
+regard for Mary Marchmont a token of _love_? No; not as the widow
+understood the stormy madness. Love to her had been a dark and terrible
+passion, a thing to be concealed, as monomaniacs have sometimes
+contrived to keep the secret of their mania, until it burst forth at
+last, fatal and irrepressible, in some direful work of wreck and ruin.
+
+So Olivia Marchmont took an early dinner alone, and drove away from the
+Towers at four o'clock on a blazing summer afternoon, more at peace
+perhaps than she had been since Edward Arundel's coming. She paid her
+dutiful visit to her father, sat with him for some time, talked to the
+two old servants who waited upon him, walked two or three times up and
+down the neglected garden, and then drove back to the Towers.
+
+The first object upon which her eyes fell as she entered the hall was
+Edward Arundel's fishing-tackle lying in disorder upon an oaken bench
+near the broad arched door that opened out into the quadrangle. An
+angry flush mounted to her face as she turned upon the servant near
+her.
+
+"Mr. Arundel has come home?" she said.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, he came in half an hour ago; but he went out again almost
+directly with Miss Marchmont."
+
+"Indeed! I thought Miss Marchmont was in her room?"
+
+"No, ma'am; she came down to the drawing-room about an hour after you
+left. Her head was better, ma'am, she said."
+
+"And she went out with Mr. Arundel? Do you know which way they went?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; I heard Mr. Arundel say he wanted to look at the old
+boat-house by the river."
+
+"And they have gone there?"
+
+"I think so, ma'am."
+
+"Very good; I will go down to them. Miss Marchmont must not stop out in
+the night-air. The dew is falling already."
+
+The door leading into the quadrangle was open; and Olivia swept across
+the broad threshold, haughty and self-possessed, very stately-looking
+in her long black garments. She still wore mourning for her dead
+husband. What inducement had she ever had to cast off that sombre
+attire; what need had she to trick herself out in gay colours? What
+loving eyes would be charmed by her splendour? She went out of the
+door, across the quadrangle, under a stone archway, and into the low
+stunted wood, which was gloomy even in the summer-time. The setting sun
+was shining upon the western front of the Towers; but here all seemed
+cold and desolate. The damp mists were rising from the sodden ground
+beneath the tree; the frogs were croaking down by the river-side. With
+her small white teeth set, and her breath coming in fitful gasps,
+Olivia Marchmont hurried to the water's edge, winding in and out
+between the trees, tearing her black dress amongst the brambles,
+scorning all beaten paths, heedless where she trod, so long as she made
+her way speedily to the spot she wanted to reach.
+
+At last the black sluggish river and the old boat-house came in sight,
+between a long vista of ugly distorted trunks and gnarled branches of
+pollard oak and willow. The building was dreary and
+dilapidated-looking, for the improvements commenced by Edward Arundel
+five years ago had never been fully carried out; but it was
+sufficiently substantial, and bore no traces of positive decay. Down by
+the water's edge there was a great cavernous recess for the shelter of
+the boats, and above this there was a pavilion, built of brick and
+stone, containing two decent-sized chambers, with latticed windows
+overlooking the river. A flight of stone steps with an iron balustrade
+led up to the door of this pavilion, which was supported upon the solid
+side-walls of the boat-house below.
+
+In the stillness of the summer twilight Olivia heard the voices of
+those whom she came to seek. They were standing down by the edge of the
+water, upon a narrow pathway that ran along by the sedgy brink of the
+river, and only a few paces from the pavilion. The door of the
+boat-house was open; a long-disused wherry lay rotting upon the damp
+and mossy flags. Olivia crept into the shadowy recess. The door that
+faced the river had fallen from its rusty hinges, and the slimy
+woodwork lay in ruins upon the shore. Sheltered by the stone archway
+that had once been closed by this door, Olivia listened to the voices
+beside the still water.
+
+Mary Marchmont was standing close to the river's edge; Edward stood
+beside her, leaning against the trunk of a willow that hung over the
+water.
+
+"My childish darling," the young man murmured, as if in reply to
+something his companion had said, "and so you think, because you are
+simple-minded and innocent, I am not to love you. It is your innocence
+I love, Polly dear,--let me call you Polly, as I used five years
+ago,--and I wouldn't have you otherwise for all the world. Do you know
+that sometimes I am almost sorry I ever came back to Marchmont Towers?"
+
+"Sorry you came back?" cried Mary, in a tone of alarm. "Oh, why do you
+say that, Mr. Arundel?"
+
+"Because you are heiress to eleven thousand a year, Mary, and the
+Moated Grange behind us; and this dreary wood, and the river,--the
+river is yours, I daresay, Miss Marchmont;--and I wish you joy of the
+possession of so much sluggish water and so many square miles of swamp
+and fen."
+
+"But what then?" Mary asked wonderingly.
+
+"What then? Do you know, Polly darling, that if I ask you to marry me
+people will call me a fortune-hunter, and declare that I came to
+Marchmont Towers bent upon stealing its heiress's innocent heart,
+before she had learned the value of the estate that must go along with
+it? God knows they'd wrong me, Polly, as cruelly as ever an honest man
+was wronged; for, so long as I have money to pay my tailor and
+tobacconist,--and I've more than enough for both of them,--I want
+nothing further of the world's wealth. What should I do with all this
+swamp and fen, Miss Marchmont--with all that horrible complication of
+expired leases to be renewed, and income-taxes to be appealed against,
+that rich people have to endure? If you were not rich, Polly, I----"
+
+He stopped and laughed, striking the toe of his boot amongst the weeds,
+and knocking the pebbles into the water. The woman crouching in the
+shadow of the archway listened with whitened cheeks and glaring eyes;
+listened as she might have listened to the sentence of her death,
+drinking in every syllable, in her ravenous desire to lose no breath
+that told her of her anguish.
+
+"If I were not rich!" murmured Mary; "what if I were not rich?"
+
+"I should tell you how dearly I love you, Polly, and ask you to be my
+wife by-and-by."
+
+The girl looked up at him for a few moments in silence, shyly at first,
+and then more boldly, with a beautiful light kindling in her eyes.
+
+"I love you dearly too, Mr. Arundel," she said at last; "and I would
+rather you had my money than any one else in the world; and there was
+something in papa's will that made me think--"
+
+"There was something that made you think he would wish this, Polly,"
+cried the young man, clasping the trembling little figure to his
+breast. "Mr. Paulette sent me a copy of the will, Polly, when he sent
+my diamond-ring; and I think there were some words in it that hinted at
+such a wish. Your father said he left me this legacy, darling,--I have
+his letter still,--the legacy of a helpless girl. God knows I will try
+to be worthy of such a trust, Mary dearest; God knows I will be
+faithful to my promise, made nine years ago."
+
+The woman listening in the dark archway sank down upon the damp flags
+at her feet, amongst the slimy rotten wood and rusty iron nails and
+broken bolts and hinges. She sat there for a long time, not
+unconscious, but quite motionless, her white face leaning against the
+moss-grown arch, staring blankly out of the black shadows. She sat
+there and listened, while the lovers talked in low tender murmurs of
+the sorrowful past and of the unknown future; that beautiful untrodden
+region, in which they were to go hand in hand through all the long
+years of quiet happiness between the present moment and the grave. She
+sat and listened till the moonlight faintly shimmered upon the water,
+and the footsteps of the lovers died away upon the narrow pathway by
+which they went back to the house.
+
+Olivia Marchmont did not move until an hour after they had gone. Then
+she raised herself with an effort, and walked with stiffened limbs
+slowly and painfully to the house, and to her own room, where she
+locked her door, and flung herself upon the ground in the darkness.
+
+Mary came to her to ask why she did not come to the drawing-room, and
+Mrs. Marchmont answered, with a hoarse voice, that she was ill, and
+wished to be alone. Neither Mary, nor the old woman-servant who had
+been Olivia's nurse long ago, and who had some little influence over
+her, could get any other answer than this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+DRIVEN AWAY.
+
+
+Mary Marchmont and Edward Arundel were happy. They were happy; and how
+should they guess the tortures of that desperate woman, whose benighted
+soul was plunged in a black gulf of horror by reason of their innocent
+love? How should these two--very children in their ignorance of all
+stormy passions, all direful emotions--know that in the darkened
+chamber where Olivia Marchmont lay, suffering under some vague illness,
+for which the Swampington doctor was fain to prescribe quinine, in
+utter unconsciousness as to the real nature of the disease which he was
+called upon to cure,--how should they know that in that gloomy chamber
+a wicked heart was abandoning itself to all the devils that had so long
+held patient watch for this day?
+
+Yes; the struggle was over. Olivia Marchmont flung aside the cross she
+had borne in dull, mechanical obedience, rather than in Christian love
+and truth. Better to have been sorrowful Magdalene, forgiven for her
+love and tears, than this cold, haughty, stainless woman, who had never
+been able to learn the sublime lessons which so many sinners have taken
+meekly to heart. The religion which was wanting in the vital principle
+of Christianity, the faith which showed itself only in dogged
+obedience, failed this woman in the hour of her agony. Her pride arose;
+the defiant spirit of the fallen angel asserted its gloomy grandeur.
+
+"What have I done that I should suffer like this?" she thought. "What
+am I that an empty-headed soldier should despise me, and that I should
+go mad because of his indifference? Is this the recompense for my long
+years of obedience? Is this the reward Heaven bestows upon me for my
+life of duty!"
+
+She remembered the histories of other women,--women who had gone their
+own way and had been happy; and a darker question arose in her mind;
+almost the question which Job asked in his agony.
+
+"Is there neither truth nor justice in the dealings of God?" she
+thought. "Is it useless to be obedient and submissive, patient and
+untiring? Has all my life been a great mistake, which is to end in
+confusion and despair?"
+
+And then she pictured to herself the life that might have been hers if
+Edward Arundel had loved her. How good she would have been! The
+hardness of her iron nature would have teen melted and subdued. By
+force of her love and tenderness for him, she would have learned to be
+loving and tender to others. Her wealth of affection for him would have
+overflowed in gentleness and consideration for every creature in the
+universe. The lurking bitterness which had lain hidden in her heart
+ever since she had first loved Edward Arundel, and first discovered his
+indifference to her; and the poisonous envy of happier women, who had
+loved and were beloved,--would have been blotted away. Her whole nature
+would have undergone a wondrous transfiguration, purified and exalted
+by the strength of her affection. All this might have come to pass if
+he had loved her,--if he had only loved her. But a pale-faced child had
+come between her and this redemption; and there was nothing left for
+her but despair.
+
+Nothing but despair? Yes; perhaps something further,--revenge.
+
+But this last idea took no tangible shape. She only knew that, in the
+black darkness of the gulf into which her soul had gone down, there
+was, far away somewhere, one ray of lurid light. She only knew this as
+yet, and that she hated Mary Marchmont with a mad and wicked hatred. If
+she could have thought meanly of Edward Arundel,--if she could have
+believed him to be actuated by mercenary motives in his choice of the
+orphan girl,--she might have taken some comfort from the thought of his
+unworthiness, and of Mary's probable sorrow in the days to come. But
+she _could_ not think this. Little as the young soldier had said in the
+summer twilight beside the river, there had been that in his tones and
+looks which had convinced the wretched watcher of his truth. Mary might
+have been deceived by the shallowest pretender; but Olivia's eyes
+devoured every glance; Olivia's greedy ears drank in every tone; and
+she _knew_ that Edward Arundel loved her stepdaughter.
+
+She knew this, and she hated Mary Marchmont. What had she done, this
+girl, who had never known what it was to fight a battle with her own
+rebellious heart? what had she done, that all this wealth of love and
+happiness should drop into her lap unsought,--comparatively unvalued,
+perhaps?
+
+John Marchmont's widow lay in her darkened chamber thinking over these
+things; no longer fighting the battle with her own heart, but utterly
+abandoning herself to her desperation,--reckless, hardened, impenitent.
+
+Edward Arundel could not very well remain at the Towers while the
+reputed illness of his hostess kept her to her room. He went over to
+Swampington, therefore, upon a dutiful visit to his uncle; but rode to
+the Towers every day to inquire very particularly after his cousin's
+progress, and to dawdle on the sunny western terrace with Mary
+Marchmont.
+
+Their innocent happiness needs little description. Edward Arundel
+retained a good deal of that boyish chivalry which had made him so
+eager to become the little girl's champion in the days gone by. Contact
+with the world had not much sullied the freshness of the young man's
+spirit. He loved his innocent, childish companion with the purest and
+truest devotion; and he was proud of the recollection that in the day
+of his poverty John Marchmont had chosen _him_ as the future shelterer
+of this tender blossom.
+
+"You must never grow any older or more womanly, Polly," he said
+sometimes to the young mistress of Marchmont Towers. "Remember that I
+always love you best when I think of you as the little girl in the
+shabby pinafore, who poured out my tea for me one bleak December
+morning in Oakley Street."
+
+They talked a great deal of John Marchmont. It was such a happiness to
+Mary to be able to talk unreservedly of her father to some one who had
+loved and comprehended him.
+
+"My stepmamma was very good to poor papa, you know, Edward," she said,
+"and of course he was very grateful to her; but I don't think he ever
+loved her quite as he loved you. You were the friend of his poverty,
+Edward; he never forgot that."
+
+Once, as they strolled side by side together upon the terrace in the
+warm summer noontide, Mary Marchmont put her little hand through her
+lover's arm, and looked up shyly in his face.
+
+"Did papa say that, Edward?" she whispered; "did he really say that?"
+
+"Did he really say what, darling?"
+
+"That he left me to you as a legacy?"
+
+"He did indeed, Polly," answered the young man. "I'll bring you the
+letter to-morrow."
+
+And the next day he showed Mary Marchmont the yellow sheet of
+letter-paper and the faded writing, which had once been black and wet
+under her dead father's hand. Mary looked through her tears at the old
+familiar Oakley-street address, and the date of the very day upon which
+Edward Arundel had breakfasted in the shabby lodging. Yes--there were
+the words: "The legacy of a child's helplessness is the only bequest I
+can leave to the only friend I have."
+
+"And you shall never know what it is to be helpless while I am near
+you, Polly darling," the soldier said, as he refolded his dead friend's
+epistle. "You may defy your enemies henceforward, Mary--if you have any
+enemies. O, by-the-bye, you have never heard any thing of that Paul
+Marchmont, I suppose?"
+
+"Papa's cousin--Mr Marchmont the artist?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He came to the reading of papa's will."
+
+"Indeed! and did you see much of him?"
+
+"Oh, no, very little. I was ill, you know," the girl added, the tears
+rising to her eyes at the recollection of that bitter time,--"I was
+ill, and I didn't notice any thing. I know that Mr. Marchmont talked to
+me a little; but I can't remember what he said."
+
+"And he has never been here since?"
+
+"Never."
+
+Edward Arundel shrugged his shoulders. This Paul Marchmont could not be
+such a designing villain, after all, or surely he would have tried to
+push his acquaintance with his rich cousin!
+
+"I dare say John's suspicion of him was only one of the poor fellow's
+morbid fancies," he thought. "He was always full of morbid fancies."
+
+Mrs. Marchmont's rooms were in the western front of the house; and
+through her open windows she heard the fresh young voices of the lovers
+as they strolled up and down the terrace. The cavalry officer was
+content to carry a watering-pot full of water, for the refreshment of
+his young mistress's geraniums in the stone vases on the balustrade,
+and to do other under-gardener's work for her pleasure. He talked to
+her of the Indian campaign; and she asked a hundred questions about
+midnight marches and solitary encampments, fainting camels, lurking
+tigers in the darkness of the jungle, intercepted supplies of
+provisions, stolen ammunition, and all the other details of the war.
+
+Olivia arose at last, before the Swampington surgeon's saline draughts
+and quinine mixtures had subdued the fiery light in her eyes, or cooled
+the raging fever that devoured her. She arose because she could no
+longer lie still in her desolation knowing that, for two hours in each
+long summer's day, Edward Arundel and Mary Marchmont could be happy
+together in spite of her. She came down stairs, therefore, and renewed
+her watch--chaining her stepdaughter to her side, and interposing
+herself for ever between the lovers.
+
+The widow arose from her sick-bed an altered woman, as it appeared to
+all who knew her. A mad excitement seemed to have taken sudden
+possession of her. She flung off her mourning garments, and ordered
+silks and laces, velvets and satins, from a London milliner; she
+complained of the absence of society, the monotonous dulness of her
+Lincolnshire life; and, to the surprise of every one, sent out cards of
+invitation for a ball at the Towers in honour of Edward Arundel's
+return to England. She seemed to be seized with a desire to do
+something, she scarcely cared what, to disturb the even current of her
+days.
+
+During the brief interval between Mrs. Marchmont's leaving her room and
+the evening appointed for the ball, Edward Arundel found no very
+convenient opportunity of informing his cousin of the engagement
+entered into between himself and Mary. He had no wish to hurry this
+disclosure; for there was something in the orphan girl's childishness
+and innocence that kept all definite ideas of an early marriage very
+far away from her lover's mind. He wanted to go back to India, and win
+more laurels, to lay at the feet of the mistress of Marchmont Towers.
+He wanted to make a name for himself, which should cause the world to
+forget that he was a younger son,--a name that the vilest tongue would
+never dare to blacken with the epithet of fortune-hunter.
+
+The young man was silent therefore, waiting for a fitting opportunity
+in which to speak to Mary's stepmother. Perhaps he rather dreaded the
+idea of discussing his attachment with Olivia; for she had looked at
+him with cold angry eyes, and a brow as black as thunder, upon those
+occasions on which she had sounded him as to his feelings for Mary.
+
+"She wants poor Polly to marry some grandee, I dare say," he thought,
+"and will do all she can to oppose my suit. But her trust will cease
+with Mary's majority; and I don't want my confiding little darling to
+marry me until she is old enough to choose for herself, and to choose
+wisely. She will be one-and-twenty in three years; and what are three
+years? I would wait as long as Jacob for my pet, and serve my fourteen
+years' apprenticeship under Sir Charles Napier, and be true to her all
+the time."
+
+Olivia Marchmont hated her stepdaughter. Mary was not slow to perceive
+the change in the widow's manner towards her. It had always been cold,
+and sometimes severe; but it was now almost abhorrent. The girl shrank
+appalled from the sinister light in her stepmother's gray eyes, as they
+followed her unceasingly, dogging her footsteps with a hungry and evil
+gaze. The gentle girl wondered what she had done to offend her
+guardian, and then, being unable to think of any possible delinquency
+by which she might have incurred Mrs. Marchmont's displeasure, was fain
+to attribute the change in Olivia's manner to the irritation consequent
+upon her illness, and was thus more gentle and more submissive than of
+old; enduring cruel looks, returning no answer to bitter speeches, but
+striving to conciliate the supposed invalid by her sweetness and
+obedience.
+
+But the girl's amiability only irritated the despairing woman. Her
+jealousy fed upon every charm of the rival who had supplanted her. That
+fatal passion fed upon Edward Arundel's every look and tone, upon the
+quiet smile which rested on Mary's face as the girl sat over her
+embroidery, in meek silence, thinking of her lover. The self-tortures
+which Olivia Marchmont inflicted upon herself were so horrible to bear,
+that she turned, with a mad desire for relief, upon those she had the
+power to torture. Day by day, and hour by hour, she contrived to
+distress the gentle girl, who had so long obeyed her, now by a word,
+now by a look, but always with that subtle power of aggravation which
+some women possess in such an eminent degree--until Mary Marchmont's
+life became a burden to her, or would have so become, but for that
+inexpressible happiness, of which her tormentor could not deprive
+her,--the joy she felt in her knowledge of Edward Arundel's love.
+
+She was very careful to keep the secret of her stepmother's altered
+manner from the young soldier. Olivia was his cousin, and he had said
+long ago that she was to love her. Heaven knows she had tried to do so,
+and had failed most miserably; but her belief in Olivia's goodness was
+still unshaken. If Mrs. Marchmont was now irritable, capricious, and
+even cruel, there was doubtless some good reason for the alteration in
+her conduct; and it was Mary's duty to be patient. The orphan girl had
+learned to suffer quietly when the great affliction of her father's
+death had fallen upon her; and she suffered so quietly now, that even
+her lover failed to perceive any symptoms of her distress. How could
+she grieve him by telling him of her sorrows, when his very presence
+brought such unutterable joy to her?
+
+So, on the morning of the ball at Marchmont Towers,--the first
+entertainment of the kind that had been given in that grim Lincolnshire
+mansion since young Arthur Marchmont's untimely death,--Mary sat in her
+room, with her old friend Farmer Pollard's daughter, who was now Mrs.
+Jobson, the wife of the most prosperous carpenter in Kemberling. Hester
+had come up to the Towers to pay a dutiful visit to her young
+patroness; and upon this particular occasion Olivia had not cared to
+prevent Mary and her humble friend spending half an hour together. Mrs.
+Marchmont roamed from room to room upon this day, with a perpetual
+restlessness. Edward Arundel was to dine at the Towers, and was to
+sleep there after the ball. He was to drive his uncle over from
+Swampington, as the Rector had promised to show himself for an hour or
+two at his daughter's entertainment. Mary had met her stepmother
+several times that morning, in the corridors and on the staircase; but
+the widow had passed her in silence, with a dark face, and a shivering,
+almost abhorrent gesture.
+
+The bright July day dragged itself out at last, with hideous slowness
+for the desperate woman, who could not find peace or rest in all those
+splendid rooms, on all that grassy flat, dry and burning under the
+blazing summer sun. She had wandered out upon the waste of barren turf,
+with her head bared to the hot sky, and had loitered here and there by
+the still pools, looking gloomily at the black tideless water, and
+wondering what the agony of drowning was like. Not that she had any
+thought of killing herself. No: the idea of death was horrible to her;
+for after her death Edward and Mary would be happy. Could she ever find
+rest in the grave, knowing this? Could there be any possible extinction
+that would blot out her jealous fury? Surely the fire of her hate--it
+was no longer love, but hate, that raged in her heart--would defy
+annihilation, eternal by reason of its intensity. When the dinner-hour
+came, and Edward and his uncle arrived at the Towers, Olivia
+Marchmont's pale face was lit up with eyes that flamed like fire; but
+she took her accustomed place very quietly, with her father opposite to
+her, and Mary and Edward upon either side.
+
+"I'm sure you're ill, Livy," the young man said; "you're as pale as
+death, and your hand is dry and burning. I'm afraid you've not been
+obedient to the Swampington doctor."
+
+Mrs. Marchmont shrugged her shoulders with a short contemptuous laugh.
+
+"I am well enough," she said. "Who cares whether I am well or ill?"
+
+Her father looked up at her in mute surprise. The bitterness of her
+tone startled and alarmed him; but Mary never lifted her eyes. It was
+in such a tone as this that her stepmother had spoken constantly of
+late.
+
+But two or three hours afterwards, when the flats before the house were
+silvered by the moonlight, and the long ranges of windows glittered
+with the lamps within, Mrs. Marchmont emerged from her dressing-room
+another creature, as it seemed.
+
+Edward and his uncle were walking up and down the great oaken
+banqueting-hall, which had been decorated and fitted up as a ballroom
+for the occasion, when Olivia crossed the wide threshold of the
+chamber. The young officer looked up with an involuntary expression of
+surprise. In all his acquaintance with his cousin, he had never seen
+her thus. The gloomy black-robed woman was transformed into a
+Semiramis. She wore a voluminous dress of a deep claret-coloured
+velvet, that glowed with the warm hues of rich wine in the lamplight.
+Her massive hair was coiled in a knot at the back of her head, and
+diamonds glittered amidst the thick bands that framed her broad white
+brow. Her stern classical beauty was lit up by the unwonted splendour
+of her dress, and asserted itself as obviously as if she had said, "Am
+I a woman to be despised for the love of a pale-faced child?"
+
+Mary Marchmont came into the room a few minutes after her stepmother.
+Her lover ran to welcome her, and looked fondly at her simple dress of
+shadowy white crape, and the pearl circlet that crowned her soft brown
+hair. The pearls she wore upon this night had been given to her by her
+father on her fourteenth birthday.
+
+Olivia watched the young man as he bent over Mary Marchmont.
+
+He wore his uniform to-night for the special gratification of his young
+mistress, and he was looking down with a tender smile at her childish
+admiration of the bullion ornaments upon his coat, and the decoration
+he had won in India.
+
+The widow looked from the two lovers to an antique glass upon an ebony
+bureau in a niche opposite to her, which reflected her own face,--her
+own face, more beautiful than she had ever seen it before, with a
+feverish glow of vivid crimson lighting up her hollow cheeks.
+
+"I might have been beautiful if he had loved me," she thought; and then
+she turned to her father, and began to talk to him of his parishioners,
+the old pensioners upon her bounty, whose little histories were so
+hatefully familiar to her. Once more she made a feeble effort to tread
+the old hackneyed pathway, which she had toiled upon with such weary
+feet; but she could not,--she could not. After a few minutes she turned
+abruptly from the Rector, and seated herself in a recess of the window,
+from which she could see Edward and Mary.
+
+But Mrs. Marchmont's duties as hostess soon demanded her attention. The
+county families began to arrive; the sound of carriage-wheels seemed
+perpetual upon the crisp gravel-drive before the western front; the
+names of half the great people in Lincolnshire were shouted by the old
+servants in the hall. The band in the music-gallery struck up a
+quadrille, and Edward Arundel led the youthful mistress of the mansion
+to her place in the dance.
+
+To Olivia that long night seemed all glare and noise and confusion. She
+did the honours of the ballroom, she received her guests, she meted out
+due attention to all; for she had been accustomed from her earliest
+girlhood to the stereotyped round of country society. She neglected no
+duty; but she did all mechanically, scarcely knowing what she said or
+did in the feverish tumult of her soul.
+
+Yet, amidst all the bewilderment of her senses, in all the confusion of
+her thoughts, two figures were always before her. Wherever Edward
+Arundel and Mary Marchmont went, her eyes followed them--her fevered
+imagination pursued them. Once, and once only, in the course of that
+long night she spoke to her stepdaughter.
+
+"How often do you mean to dance with Captain Arundel, Miss Marchmont?"
+she said.
+
+But before Mary could answer, her stepmother had moved away upon the
+arm of a portly country squire, and the girl was left in sorrowful
+wonderment as to the reason of Mrs. Marchmont's angry tone.
+
+Edward and Mary were standing in one of the deep embayed windows of the
+banqueting-hall, when the dancers began to disperse, long after supper.
+The girl had been very happy that evening, in spite of her stepmother's
+bitter words and disdainful glances. For almost the first time in her
+life, the young mistress of Marchmont Towers had felt the contagious
+influence of other people's happiness. The brilliantly-lighted
+ballroom, the fluttering dresses of the dancers, the joyous music, the
+low sound of suppressed laughter, the bright faces which smiled at each
+other upon every side, were as new as any thing in fairyland to this
+girl, whose narrow life had been overshadowed by the gloomy figure of
+her stepmother, for ever interposed between her and the outer world.
+The young spirit arose and shook off its fetters, fresh and radiant as
+the butterfly that escapes from its chrysalis. The new light of
+happiness illumined the orphan's delicate face, until Edward Arundel
+began to wonder at her loveliness, as he had wondered once before that
+night at the fiery splendour of his cousin Olivia.
+
+"I had no idea that Olivia was so handsome, or you so pretty, my
+darling," he said, as he stood with Mary in the embrasure of the
+window. "You look like Titania, the queen of the fairies, Polly, with
+your cloudy draperies and crown of pearls."
+
+The window was open, and Captain Arundel looked wistfully at the broad
+flagged quadrangle beautified by the light of the full summer moon. He
+glanced back into the room; it was nearly empty now; and Mrs. Marchmont
+was standing near the principal doorway, bidding the last of her guests
+goodnight.
+
+"Come into the quadrangle, Polly," he said, "and take a turn with me
+under the colonnade. It was a cloister once, I dare say, in the good
+old days before Harry the Eighth was king; and cowled monks have paced
+up and down under its shadow, muttering mechanical aves and
+paternosters, as the beads of their rosaries dropped slowly through
+their shrivelled old fingers. Come out into the quadrangle, Polly; all
+the people we know or case about are gone; and we'll go out and walk in
+the moonlight as true lovers ought."
+
+The soldier led his young companion across the threshold of the window,
+and out into a cloister-like colonnade that ran along one side of the
+house. The shadows of the Gothic pillars were black upon the moonlit
+flags of the quadrangle, which was as light now as in the day; but a
+pleasant obscurity reigned in the sheltered colonnade.
+
+"I think this little bit of pre-Lutheran masonry is the best of all
+your possessions, Polly," the young man said, laughing. "By-and-by,
+when I come home from India a general,--as I mean to do, Miss
+Marchmont, before I ask you to become Mrs. Arundel,--I shall stroll up
+and down here in the still summer evenings, smoking my cheroots. You
+will let me smoke out of doors, won't you, Polly? But suppose I should
+leave some of my limbs on the banks of the Sutlej, and come limping
+home to you with a wooden leg, would you have me then, Mary; or would
+you dismiss me with ignominy from your sweet presence, and shut the
+doors of your stony mansion upon myself and my calamities? I'm afraid,
+from your admiration of my gold epaulettes and silk sash, that glory in
+the abstract would have very little attraction for you."
+
+Mary Marchmont looked up at her lover with widely-opened and wondering
+eyes, and the clasp of her hand tightened a little upon his arm.
+
+"There is nothing that could ever happen to you that would make me love
+you less _now_," she said naïvely. "I dare say at first I liked you a
+little because you were handsome, and different to every one else I had
+ever seen. You were so very handsome, you know," she added
+apologetically; "but it was not because of that _only_ that I loved
+you. I loved you because papa told me you were good and generous, and
+his true friend when he was in cruel need of a friend. Yes; you were
+his friend at school, when your cousin, Martin Mostyn, and the other
+pupils sneered at him and ridiculed him. How can I ever forget that,
+Edward? How can I ever love you enough to repay you for that?" In the
+enthusiasm of her innocent devotion, she lifted her pure young brow,
+and the soldier bent down and kissed that white throne of all virginal
+thoughts, as the lovers stood side by side; half in the moonlight, half
+in the shadow.
+
+Olivia Marchmont came into the embrasure of the open window, and took
+her place there to watch them.
+
+She came again to the torture. From the remotest end of the long
+banqueting-room she had seen the two figures glide out into the
+moonlight. She had seen them, and had gone on with her courteous
+speeches, and had repeated her formula of hospitality, with the fire in
+her heart devouring and consuming her. She came again, to watch and to
+listen, and to endure her self-imposed agonies--as mad and foolish in
+her fatal passion as some besotted wretch who should come willingly to
+the wheel upon which his limbs had been well-nigh broken, and
+supplicate for a renewal of the torture. She stood rigid and motionless
+in the shadow of the arched window, hiding herself, as she had hidden
+in the dark cavernous recess by the river; she stood and listened to
+all the childish babble of the lovers as they loitered up and down the
+vaulted cloister. How she despised them, in the haughty superiority of
+an intellect which might have planned a revolution, or saved a sinking
+state! What bitter scorn curled her lip, as their foolish talk fell
+upon her ear! They talked like Florizel and Perdita, like Romeo and
+Juliet, like Paul and Virginia; and they talked a great deal of
+nonsense, no doubt--soft harmonious foolishness, with little more
+meaning in it than there is in the cooing of doves, but tender and
+musical, and more than beautiful, to each other's ears. A tigress,
+famished and desolate, and but lately robbed of her whelps, would not
+be likely to listen very patiently to the communing of a pair of
+prosperous ringdoves. Olivia Marchmont listened with her brain on fire,
+and the spirit of a murderess raging in her breast. What was she that
+she should be patient? All the world was lost to her. She was thirty
+years of age, and she had never yet won the love of any human being.
+She was thirty years of age, and all the sublime world of affection was
+a dismal blank for her. From the outer darkness in which she stood, she
+looked with wild and ignorant yearning into that bright region which
+her accursed foot had never trodden, and saw Mary Marchmont wandering
+hand-in-hand with the only man _she_ could have loved--the only
+creature who had ever had the power to awake the instinct of womanhood
+in her soul.
+
+She stood and waited until the clock in the quadrangle struck the first
+quarter after three: the moon was fading out, and the colder light of
+early morning glimmered in the eastern sky.
+
+"I mustn't keep you out here any longer, Polly," Captain Arundel said,
+pausing near the window. "It's getting cold, my dear, and it's high
+time the mistress of Marchmont should retire to her stony bower.
+Good-night, and God bless you, my darling! I'll stop in the quadrangle
+and smoke a cheroot before I go to my room. Your stepmamma will be
+wondering what has become of you, Mary, and we shall have a lecture
+upon the proprieties to-morrow; so, once more, good-night."
+
+He kissed the fair young brow under the coronal of pearls, stopped to
+watch Mary while she crossed the threshold of the open window, and then
+strolled away into the flagged court, with his cigar-case in his hand.
+
+Olivia Marchmont stood a few paces from the window when her
+stepdaughter entered the room, and Mary paused involuntarily, terrified
+by the cruel aspect of the face that frowned upon her: terrified by
+something that she had never seen before,--the horrible darkness that
+overshadows the souls of the lost.
+
+"Mamma!" the girl cried, clasping her hands in sudden affright--"mamma!
+why do you look at me like that? Why have you been so changed to me
+lately? I cannot tell you how unhappy I have been. Mamma, mamma! what
+have I done to offend you?"
+
+Olivia Marchmont grasped the trembling hands uplifted entreatingly to
+her, and held them in her own,--held them as if in a vice. She stood
+thus, with her stepdaughter pinioned in her grasp, and her eyes fixed
+upon the girl's face. Two streams of lurid light seemed to emanate from
+those dilated gray eyes; two spots of crimson blazed in the widow's
+hollow cheeks.
+
+"_What_ have you done?" she cried. "Do you think I have toiled for
+nothing to do the duty which I promised my dead husband to perform for
+your sake? Has all my care of you been so little, that I am to stand by
+now and be silent, when I see what you are? Do you think that I am
+blind, or deaf, or besotted; that you defy me and outrage me, day by
+day, and hour by hour, by your conduct?"
+
+"Mamma, mamma! what do you mean?"
+
+"Heaven knows how rigidly you have been educated; how carefully you
+have been secluded from all society, and sheltered from every
+influence, lest harm or danger should come to you. I have done my duty,
+and I wash my hands of you. The debasing taint of your mother's low
+breeding reveals itself in your every action. You run after my cousin
+Edward Arundel, and advertise your admiration of him, to himself, and
+every creature who knows you. You fling yourself into his arms, and
+offer him yourself and your fortune: and in your low cunning you try to
+keep the secret from me, your protectress and guardian, appointed by
+the dead father whom you pretend to have loved so dearly."
+
+Olivia Marchmont still held her stepdaughter's wrists in her iron
+grasp. The girl stared wildly at her with her trembling lips apart. She
+began to think that the widow had gone mad.
+
+"I blush for you--I am ashamed of you!" cried Olivia. It seemed as if
+the torrent of her words burst forth almost in spite of herself. "There
+is not a village girl in Kemberling, there is not a scullerymaid in
+this house, who would have behaved as you have done. I have watched
+you, Mary Marchmont, remember, and I know all. I know your wanderings
+down by the river-side. I heard you--yes, by the Heaven above me!--I
+heard you offer yourself to my cousin."
+
+Mary drew herself up with an indignant gesture, and over the whiteness
+of her face there swept a sudden glow of vivid crimson that faded as
+quickly as it came. Her submissive nature revolted against her
+stepmother's horrible tyranny. The dignity of innocence arose and
+asserted itself against Olivia's shameful upbraiding.
+
+"If I offered myself to Edward Arundel, mamma," she said, "it was
+because we love each other very truly, and because I think and believe
+papa wished me to marry his old friend."
+
+"Because _we_ love each other very truly!" Olivia echoed in a tone of
+unmitigated scorn. "You can answer for Captain Arundel's heart, I
+suppose, then, as well as for your own? You must have a tolerably good
+opinion of yourself, Miss Marchmont, to be able to venture so much.
+Bah!" she cried suddenly, with a disdainful gesture of her head; "do
+you think your pitiful face has won Edward Arundel? Do you think he has
+not had women fifty times your superior, in every quality of mind and
+body, at his feet out yonder in India? Are you idiotic and besotted
+enough to believe that it is anything but your fortune this man cares
+for? Do you know the vile things people will do, the lies they will
+tell, the base comedies of guilt and falsehood they will act, for the
+love of eleven thousand a year? And you think that he loves you! Child,
+dupe, fool! are you weak enough to be deluded by a fortune-hunter's
+pretty pastoral flatteries? Are you weak enough to be duped by a man of
+the world, worn out and jaded, no doubt, as to the world's
+pleasures--in debt perhaps, and in pressing need of money, who comes
+here to try and redeem his fortunes by a marriage with a semi-imbecile
+heiress?"
+
+Olivia Marchmont released her hold of the shrinking girl, who seemed to
+have become transfixed to the spot upon which she stood, a pale statue
+of horror and despair.
+
+The iron will of the strong and resolute woman rode roughshod over the
+simple confidence of the ignorant girl. Until this moment, Mary
+Marchmont had believed in Edward Arundel as implicitly as she had
+trusted in her dead father. But now, for the first time, a dreadful
+region of doubt opened before her; the foundations of her world reeled
+beneath her feet. Edward Arundel a fortune-hunter! This woman, whom she
+had obeyed for five weary years, and who had acquired that ascendancy
+over her which a determined and vigorous nature must always exercise
+over a morbidly sensitive disposition, told her that she had been
+deluded. This woman laughed aloud in bitter scorn of her credulity.
+This woman, who could have no possible motive for torturing her, and
+who was known to be scrupulously conscientious in all her dealings,
+told her, as plainly as the most cruel words could tell a cruel truth,
+that her own charms could not have won Edward Arundel's affection.
+
+All the beautiful day-dreams of her life melted away from her. She had
+never questioned herself as to her worthiness of her lover's devotion.
+She had accepted it as she accepted the sunshine and the starlight--as
+something beautiful and incomprehensible, that came to her by the
+beneficence of God, and not through any merits of her own. But as the
+fabric of her happiness dwindled away, the fatal spell exercised over
+the girl's weak nature by Olivia's violent words evoked a hundred
+doubts. How should he love her? why should he love her in preference to
+every other woman in the world? Set any woman to ask herself this
+question, and you fill her mind with a thousand suspicions, a thousand
+jealous doubts of her lover, though he were the truest and noblest in
+the universe.
+
+Olivia Marchmont stood a few paces from her stepdaughter, watching her
+while the black shadow of doubt blotted every joy from her heart, and
+utter despair crept slowly into her innocent breast. The widow expected
+that the girl's self-esteem would assert itself--that she would
+contradict and defy the traducer of her lover's truth; but it was not
+so. When Mary spoke again, her voice was low and subdued, her manner as
+submissive as it had been two or three years before, when she had stood
+before her stepmother, waiting to repeat some difficult lesson.
+
+"I dare say you are right, mamma," she said in a low dreamy tone,
+looking not at her stepmother, but straight before her into vacancy, as
+if her tearless eyes ware transfixed by the vision of all her shattered
+hopes, filling with wreck and ruin the desolate foreground of a blank
+future. "I dare say you are right, mamma; it was very foolish of me to
+think that Edward--that Captain Arundel could care for me, for--for--my
+own sake; but if--if he wants my fortune, I should wish him to have it.
+The money will never be any good to me, you know, mamma; and he was so
+kind to papa in his poverty--so kind! I will never, never believe
+anything against him;--but I couldn't expect him to love me. I
+shouldn't have offered to be his wife; I ought only to have offered him
+my fortune."
+
+She heard her lover's footstep in the quadrangle without, in the
+stillness of the summer morning, and shivered at the sound. It was less
+than a quarter of an hour since she had been walking with him up and
+down that cloistered way, in which his footsteps were echoing with a
+hollow sound; and now----. Even in the confusion of her anguish, Mary
+Marchmont could not help wondering, as she thought in how short a time
+the happiness of a future might be swept away into chaos.
+
+"Good-night, mamma," she said presently, with an accent of weariness.
+She did not look at her stepmother (who had turned away from her now,
+and had walked towards the open window), but stole quietly from the
+room, crossed the hall, and went up the broad staircase to her own
+lonely chamber. Heiress though she was, she had no special attendant of
+her own: she had the privilege of summoning Olivia's maid whenever she
+had need of assistance; but she retained the simple habits of her early
+life, and very rarely troubled Mrs. Marchmont's grim and elderly
+Abigail.
+
+Olivia stood looking out into the stony quadrangle. It was broad
+daylight now; the cocks were crowing in the distance, and a skylark
+singing somewhere in the blue heaven, high up above Marchmont Towers.
+The faded garlands in the banqueting-room looked wan in the morning
+sunshine; the lamps were burning still, for the servants waited until
+Mrs. Marchmont should have retired, before they entered the room.
+Edward Arundel was walking up and down the cloister, smoking his second
+cigar.
+
+He stopped presently, seeing his cousin at the window.
+
+"What, Livy!" he cried, "not gone to bed yet?"
+
+"No; I am going directly."
+
+"Mary has gone, I hope?"
+
+"Yes; she has gone. Good-night."
+
+"Good _morning_, my dear Mrs. Marchmont," the young man answered,
+laughing. "If the partridges were in, I should be going out shooting,
+this lovely morning, instead of crawling ignominiously to bed, like a
+worn-out reveller who has drunk too much sparkling hock. I like the
+still best, by-the-bye,--the Johannisberger, that poor John's
+predecessor imported from the Rhine. But I suppose there is no help for
+it, and I must go to bed in the face of all that eastern glory. I
+should be mounting for a gallop on the race-course, if I were in
+Calcutta. But I'll go to bed, Mrs Marchmont, and humbly await your
+breakfast-hour. They're stacking the new hay in the meadows beyond the
+park. Don't you smell it?"
+
+Olivia shrugged her shoulders with an impatient frown. Good heavens!
+how frivolous and senseless this man's talk seemed to her! She was
+plunging her soul into an abyss of sin and ruin for his sake; and she
+hated him, and rebelled against him, because he was so little worthy of
+the sacrifice.
+
+"Good morning," she said abruptly; "I'm tired to death."
+
+She moved away, and left him.
+
+Five minutes afterwards, he went up the great oak-staircase after her,
+whistling a serenade from _Fra Diavolo_ as he went. He was one of those
+people to whom life seems all holiday. Younger son though he was, he
+had never known any of the pitfalls of debt and difficulty into which
+the junior members of rich families are so apt to plunge headlong in
+early youth, and from which they emerge enfeebled and crippled, to
+endure an after-life embittered by all the shabby miseries which wait
+upon aristocratic pauperism. Brave, honourable, and simple-minded,
+Edward Arundel had fought the battle of life like a good soldier, and
+had carried a stainless shield when the fight was thickest, and victory
+hard to win. His sunshiny nature won him friends, and his better
+qualities kept them. Young men trusted and respected him; and old men,
+gray in the service of their country, spoke well of him. His handsome
+face was a pleasant decoration at any festival; his kindly voice and
+hearty laugh at a dinner-table were as good as music in the gallery at
+the end of the banqueting-chamber.
+
+He had that freshness of spirit which is the peculiar gift of some
+natures; and he had as yet never known sorrow, except, indeed, such
+tender and compassionate sympathy as he had often felt for the
+calamities of others.
+
+Olivia Marchmont heard her cousin's cheery tenor voice as he passed her
+chamber. "How happy he is!" she thought. "His very happiness is one
+insult the more to me."
+
+The widow paced up and down her room in the morning sunshine, thinking
+of the things she had said in the banqueting-hall below, and of her
+stepdaughter's white despairing face. What had she done? What was the
+extent of the sin she had committed? Olivia Marchmont asked herself
+these two questions. The old habit of self-examination was not quite
+abandoned yet. She sinned, and then set herself to work to try and
+justify her sin.
+
+"How should he love her?" she thought. "What is there in her pale
+unmeaning face that should win the love of a man who despises me?"
+
+She stopped before a cheval-glass, and surveyed herself from head to
+foot, frowning angrily at her handsome image, hating herself for her
+despised beauty. Her white shoulders looked like stainless marble
+against the rich ruby darkness of her velvet dress. She had snatched
+the diamond ornaments from her head, and her long black hair fell about
+her bosom in thick waveless tresses.
+
+"I am handsomer than she is, and cleverer; and I love him better, ten
+thousand times, than she loves him," Olivia Marchmont thought, as she
+turned contemptuously from the glass. "Is it likely, then, that he
+cares for anything but her fortune? Any other woman in the world would
+have argued as I argued to-night. Any woman would have believed that
+she did her duty in warning this besotted girl against her folly. What
+do I know of Edward Arundel that should lead me to think him better or
+nobler than other men? and how many men sell themselves for the love of
+a woman's wealth! Perhaps good may come of my mad folly, after all; and
+I may have saved this girl from a life of misery by the words I have
+spoken to-night."
+
+The devils--for ever lying in wait for this woman, whose gloomy pride
+rendered her in some manner akin to themselves--may have laughed at her
+as she argued thus with herself.
+
+She lay down at last to sleep, worn out by the excitement of the long
+night, and to dream horrible dreams. The servants, with the exception
+of one who rose betimes to open the great house, slept long after the
+unwonted festival. Edward Arundel slumbered as heavily as any member of
+that wearied household; and thus it was that there was no one in the
+way to see a shrinking, trembling figure creep down the
+sunlit-staircase, and steal across the threshold of the wide hall door.
+
+There was no one to see Mary Marchmont's silent flight from the gaunt
+Lincolnshire mansion in which she had known so little real happiness.
+There was no one to comfort the sorrow-stricken girl in her despair and
+desolation of spirit. She crept away, like some escaped prisoner, in
+the early morning, from the house which the law called her own.
+
+And the hand of the woman whom John Marchmont had chosen to be his
+daughter's friend and counsellor was the hand which drove that daughter
+from the shelter of her home. The voice of her whom the weak father had
+trusted in, fearful to confide his child into the hand of God, but
+blindly confident in his own judgment--was the voice which had uttered
+the lying words, whose every syllable had been as a separate dagger
+thrust in the orphan girl's lacerated heart. It was her father,--her
+father, who had placed this woman over her, and had entailed upon her
+the awful agony that drove her out into an unknown world, careless
+whither she went in her despair.
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of John Marchmont's Legacy, Volume I (of
+3), by Mary E. Braddon
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of John Marchmont's Legacy, Volume I (of 3), by
+Mary E. Braddon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: John Marchmont's Legacy, Volume I (of 3)
+
+Author: Mary E. Braddon
+
+Release Date: December 1, 2010 [EBook #34539]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY, VOL I ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Clare Graham, using scans from the Internet Archive
+
+
+
+
+JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY.
+
+
+BY [M.E. Braddon] THE AUTHOR OF
+"LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET,"
+ETC. ETC. ETC.
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+VOL.I.
+
+
+Published by Tinsley Brothers of London in 1863 (third edition).
+
+
+THIS STORY
+
+Is Dedicated
+
+TO
+
+MY MOTHER
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+  CHAPTER I. THE MAN WITH THE BANNER.
+  CHAPTER II. LITTLE MARY.
+  CHAPTER III. ABOUT THE LINCOLNSHIRE PROPERTY.
+  CHAPTER IV. GOING AWAY.
+  CHAPTER V. MARCHMONT TOWERS.
+  CHAPTER VI. THE YOUNG SOLDIER'S RETURN.
+  CHAPTER VII. OLIVIA.
+  CHAPTER VIII. "MY LIFE IS COLD, AND DARK, AND DREARY."
+  CHAPTER IX. "WHEN SHALL I CEASE TO BE ALL ALONE?"
+  CHAPTER X. MARY'S STEPMOTHER.
+  CHAPTER XI. THE DAY OF DESOLATION.
+  CHAPTER XII. PAUL.
+  CHAPTER XIII. OLIVIA'S DESPAIR.
+  CHAPTER XIV. DRIVEN AWAY.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE MAN WITH THE BANNER.
+
+
+The history of Edward Arundel, second son of Christopher Arundel
+Dangerfield Arundel, of Dangerfield Park, Devonshire, began on a
+certain dark winter's night upon which the lad, still a schoolboy, went
+with his cousin, Martin Mostyn, to witness a blank-verse tragedy at one
+of the London theatres.
+
+There are few men who, looking back at the long story of their lives,
+cannot point to one page in the record of the past at which the actual
+history of life began. The page may come in the very middle of the
+book, perhaps; perhaps almost at the end. But let it come where it
+will, it is, after all, only the actual commencement. At an appointed
+hour in man's existence, the overture which has been going on ever
+since he was born is brought to a sudden close by the sharp vibration
+of the prompter's signal-bell; the curtain rises, and the drama of life
+begins. Very insignificant sometimes are the first scenes of the
+play,--common-place, trite, wearisome; but watch them closely, and
+interwoven with every word, dimly recognisable in every action, may be
+seen the awful hand of Destiny. The story has begun: already we, the
+spectators, can make vague guesses at the plot, and predicate the
+solemn climax; it is only the actors who are ignorant of the meaning of
+their several parts, and who are stupidly reckless of the obvious
+catastrophe.
+
+The story of young Arundel's life began when he was a light-hearted,
+heedless lad of seventeen, newly escaped for a brief interval from the
+care of his pastors and masters.
+
+The lad had come to London on a Christmas visit to his father's sister,
+a worldly-minded widow, with a great many sons and daughters, and an
+income only large enough to enable her to keep up the appearances of
+wealth essential to the family pride of one of the Arundels of
+Dangerfield.
+
+Laura Arundel had married a Colonel Mostyn, of the East India Company's
+service, and had returned from India after a wandering life of some
+years, leaving her dead husband behind her, and bringing away with her
+five daughters and three sons, most of whom had been born under canvas.
+
+Mrs. Mostyn bore her troubles bravely, and contrived to do more with
+her pension, and an additional income of four hundred a year from a
+small fortune of her own, than the most consummate womanly management
+can often achieve. Her house in Montague Square was elegantly
+furnished, her daughters were exquisitely dressed, her sons sensibly
+educated, her dinners well cooked. She was not an agreeable woman; she
+was perhaps, if any thing, too sensible,--so very sensible as to be
+obviously intolerant of anything like folly in others. She was a good
+mother; but by no means an indulgent one. She expected her sons to
+succeed in life, and her daughters to marry rich men; and would have
+had little patience with any disappointment in either of these
+reasonable expectations. She was attached to her brother Christopher
+Arundel, and she was very well pleased to spend the autumn months at
+Dangerfield, where the hunting-breakfasts gave her daughters an
+excellent platform for the exhibition of charming demi-toilettes and
+social and domestic graces, perhaps more dangerous to the susceptible
+hearts of rich young squires than the fascinations of a _valse a deux
+temps_ or an Italian scena.
+
+But the same Mrs. Mostyn, who never forgot to keep up her
+correspondence with the owner of Dangerfield Park, utterly ignored the
+existence of another brother, a certain Hubert Arundel, who had,
+perhaps, much more need of her sisterly friendship than the wealthy
+Devonshire squire. Heaven knows, the world seemed a lonely place to
+this younger son, who had been educated for the Church, and was fain to
+content himself with a scanty living in one of the dullest and dampest
+towns in fenny Lincolnshire. His sister might have very easily made
+life much more pleasant to the Rector of Swampington and his only
+daughter; but Hubert Arundel was a great deal too proud to remind her
+of this. If Mrs. Mostyn chose to forget him,--the brother and sister
+had been loving friends and dear companions long ago, under the beeches
+at Dangerfield,--she was welcome to do so. She was better off than he
+was; and it is to be remarked, that if A's income is three hundred a
+year, and B's a thousand, the chances are as seven to three that B will
+forget any old intimacy that may have existed between himself and A.
+Hubert Arundel had been wild at college, and had put his autograph
+across so many oblong slips of blue paper, acknowledging value received
+that had been only half received, that by the time the claims of all
+the holders of these portentous morsels of stamped paper had been
+satisfied, the younger son's fortune had melted away, leaving its
+sometime possessor the happy owner of a pair of pointers, a couple of
+guns by crack makers, a good many foils, single-sticks, boxing-gloves,
+wire masks, basket helmets, leathern leg-guards, and other
+paraphernalia, a complete set of the old _Sporting Magazine_, from 1792
+to the current year, bound in scarlet morocco, several boxes of very
+bad cigars, a Scotch terrier, and a pipe of undrinkable port.
+
+Of all these possessions, only the undrinkable port now remained to
+show that Hubert Arundel had once had a decent younger son's fortune,
+and had succeeded most admirably in making ducks and drakes of it. The
+poor about Swampington believed in the sweet red wine, which had been
+specially concocted for Israelitish dealers in jewelry, cigars,
+pictures, wines, and specie. The Rector's pensioners smacked their lips
+over the mysterious liquid and confidently affirmed that it did them
+more good than all the doctor's stuff the parish apothecary could send
+them. Poor Hubert Arundel was well content to find that at least this
+scanty crop of corn had grown up from the wild oats he had sown at
+Cambridge. The wine pleased the poor creatures who drank it, and was
+scarcely likely to do them any harm; and there was a reasonable
+prospect that the last bottle would by-and-by pass out of the rectory
+cellars, and with it the last token of that bitterly regretted past.
+
+I have no doubt that Hubert Arundel felt the sting of his only sister's
+neglect, as only a poor and proud man can feel such an insult; but he
+never let any confession of this sentiment escape his lips; and when
+Mrs. Mostyn, being seized with a fancy for doing this forgotten brother
+a service, wrote him a letter of insolent advice, winding up with an
+offer to procure his only child a situation as nursery governess, the
+Rector of Swampington only crushed the missive in his strong hand, and
+flung it into his study-fire, with a muttered exclamation that sounded
+terribly like an oath.
+
+"A _nursery_ governess!" he repeated, savagely; "yes; an underpaid
+drudge, to teach children their A B C, and mend their frocks and make
+their pinafores. I should like Mrs. Mostyn to talk to my little Livy
+for half an hour. I think my girl would have put the lady down so
+completely by the end of that time, that we should never hear any more
+about nursery governesses."
+
+He laughed bitterly as he repeated the obnoxious phrase; but his laugh
+changed to a sigh.
+
+Was it strange that the father should sigh as he remembered how he had
+seen the awful hand of Death fall suddenly upon younger and stronger
+men than himself? What if he were to die, and leave his only child
+unmarried? What would become of her, with her dangerous gifts, with her
+fatal dowry of beauty and intellect and pride?
+
+"But she would never do any thing wrong," the father thought. "Her
+religious principles are strong enough to keep her right under any
+circumstances, in spite of any temptation. Her sense of duty is more
+powerful than any other sentiment. She would never be false to that;
+she would never be false to that."
+
+In return for the hospitality of Dangerfield Park, Mrs. Mostyn was in
+the habit of opening her doors to either Christopher Arundel or his
+sons, whenever any one of the three came to London. Of course she
+infinitely preferred seeing Arthur Arundel, the eldest son and heir,
+seated at her well-spread table, and flirting with one of his pretty
+cousins, than to be bored with his rackety younger brother, a noisy lad
+of seventeen, with no better prospects than a commission in her
+Majesty's service, and a hundred and fifty pounds a year to eke out his
+pay; but she was, notwithstanding, graciously pleased to invite Edward
+to spend his Christmas holidays in her comfortable household; and it
+was thus it came to pass that on the 29th of December, in the year
+1838, the story of Edward Arundel's life began in a stage-box at Drury
+Lane Theatre.
+
+The box had been sent to Mrs. Mostyn by the fashionable editor of a
+fashionable newspaper; but that lady and her daughters being previously
+engaged, had permitted the two boys to avail themselves of the
+editorial privilege.
+
+The tragedy was the dull production of a distinguished literary
+amateur, and even the great actor who played the principal character
+could not make the performance particularly enlivening. He certainly
+failed in impressing Mr. Edward Arundel, who flung himself back in his
+chair and yawned dolefully during the earlier part of the
+entertainment.
+
+"It ain't particularly jolly, is it, Martin?" he said naively, "Let's
+go out and have some oysters, and come in again just before the
+pantomime begins."
+
+"Mamma made me promise that we wouldn't leave the theatre till we left
+for good, Ned," his cousin answered; "and then we're to go straight
+home in a cab."
+
+Edward Arundel sighed.
+
+"I wish we hadn't come till half-price, old fellow," he said drearily.
+"If I'd known it was to be a tragedy, I wouldn't have come away from
+the Square in such a hurry. I wonder why people write tragedies, when
+nobody likes them."
+
+He turned his back to the stage, and folded his arms upon the velvet
+cushion of the box preparatory to indulging himself in a deliberate
+inspection of the audience. Perhaps no brighter face looked upward that
+night towards the glare and glitter of the great chandelier than that
+of the fair-haired lad in the stage-box. His candid blue eyes beamed
+with a more radiant sparkle than any of the myriad lights in the
+theatre; a nimbus of golden hair shone about his broad white forehead;
+glowing health, careless happiness, truth, good-nature, honesty, boyish
+vivacity, and the courage of a young lion,--all were expressed in the
+fearless smile, the frank yet half-defiant gaze. Above all, this lad of
+seventeen looked especially what he was,--a thorough gentleman. Martin
+Mostyn was prim and effeminate, precociously tired of life,
+precociously indifferent to everything but his own advantage; but the
+Devonshire boy's talk was still fragrant with the fresh perfume of
+youth and innocence, still gay with the joyous recklessness of early
+boyhood. He was as impatient for the noisy pantomime overture, and the
+bright troops of fairies in petticoats of spangled muslin, as the most
+inveterate cockney cooling his snub-nose against the iron railing of
+the gallery. He was as ready to fall in love with the painted beauty of
+the ill-paid ballet-girls, as the veriest child in the wide circle of
+humanity about him. Fresh, untainted, unsuspicious, he looked out at
+the world, ready to believe in everything and everybody.
+
+"How you do fidget, Edward!" whispered Martin Mostyn peevishly; "why
+don't you look at the stage? It's capital fun."
+
+"Fun!"
+
+"Yes; I don't mean the tragedy you know, but the supernumeraries. Did
+you ever see such an awkward set of fellows in all your life? There's a
+man there with weak legs and a heavy banner, that I've been watching
+all the evening. He's more fun than all the rest of it put together."
+
+Mr. Mostyn, being of course much too polite to point out the man in
+question, indicated him with a twitch of his light eyebrows; and Edward
+Arundel, following that indication, singled out the banner-holder from
+a group of soldiers in medieval dress, who had been standing wearily
+enough upon one side of the stage during a long, strictly private and
+confidential dialogue between the princely hero of the tragedy and one
+of his accommodating satellites. The lad uttered a cry of surprise as
+he looked at the weak-legged banner-holder.
+
+Mr. Mostyn turned upon his cousin with some vexation.
+
+"I can't help it, Martin," exclaimed young Arundel; "I can't be
+mistaken--yes--poor fellow, to think that he should come to this!--you
+haven't forgotten him, Martin, surely?"
+
+"Forgotten what--forgotten whom? My dear Edward, what _do_ you mean?"
+
+"John Marchmont, the poor fellow who used to teach us mathematics at
+Vernon's; the fellow the governor sacked because----"
+
+"Well, what of him?"
+
+"The poor chap with the banner!" exclaimed the boy, in a breathless
+whisper; "don't you see, Martin? didn't you recognise him? It's
+Marchmont, poor old Marchmont, that we used to chaff, and that the
+governor sacked because he had a constitutional cough, and wasn't
+strong enough for his work."
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember him well enough," Mr. Mostyn answered,
+indifferently. "Nobody could stand his cough, you know; and he was a
+vulgar fellow, into the bargain."
+
+"He wasn't a vulgar fellow," said Edward indignantly;--"there, there's
+the curtain down again;--he belonged to a good family in Lincolnshire,
+and was heir-presumptive to a stunning fortune. I've heard him say so
+twenty times."
+
+Martin Mostyn did not attempt to repress an involuntary sneer, which
+curled his lips as his cousin spoke.
+
+"Oh, I dare say you've heard _him_ say so, my dear boy," he murmured
+superciliously.
+
+"Ah, and it was true," cried Edward; "he wasn't a fellow to tell lies;
+perhaps he'd have suited Mr. Vernon better if he had been. He had bad
+health, and was weak, and all that sort of thing; but he wasn't a snob.
+He showed me a signet-ring once that he used to wear on his
+watch-chain----"
+
+"A _silver_ watch-chain," simpered Mr. Mostyn, "just like a
+carpenter's."
+
+"Don't be such a supercilious cad, Martin. He was very kind to me, poor
+Marchmont; and I know I was always a nuisance to him, poor old fellow;
+for you know I never could get on with Euclid. I'm sorry to see him
+here. Think, Martin, what an occupation for him! I don't suppose he
+gets more than nine or ten shillings a week for it."
+
+"A shilling a night is, I believe, the ordinary remuneration of a
+stage-soldier. They pay as much for the real thing as for the sham, you
+see; the defenders of our country risk their lives for about the same
+consideration. Where are you going, Ned?"
+
+Edward Arundel had left his place, and was trying to undo the door of
+the box.
+
+"To see if I can get at this poor fellow."
+
+"You persist in declaring, then, that the man with the weak legs is our
+old mathematical drudge? Well, I shouldn't wonder. The fellow was
+coughing all through the five acts, and that's uncommonly like
+Marchmont. You're surely not going to renew your acquaintance with
+him?"
+
+But young Arundel had just succeeded in opening the door, and he left
+the box without waiting to answer his cousin's question. He made his
+way very rapidly out of the theatre, and fought manfully through the
+crowds who were waiting about the pit and gallery doors, until he found
+himself at the stage-entrance. He had often looked with reverent wonder
+at the dark portal; but he had never before essayed to cross the sacred
+threshold. But the guardian of the gate to this theatrical paradise,
+inhabited by fairies at a guinea a week, and baronial retainers at a
+shilling a night, is ordinarily a very inflexible individual, not to be
+corrupted by any mortal persuasion, and scarcely corruptible by the
+more potent influence of gold or silver. Poor Edward's half-a-crown had
+no effect whatever upon the stern door-keeper, who thanked him for his
+donation, but told him that it was against his orders to let anybody go
+up-stairs.
+
+"But I want to see some one so particularly," the boy said eagerly.
+"Don't you think you could manage it for me, you know? He's an old
+friend of mine,--one of the supernu--what's-its-names?" added Edward,
+stumbling over the word. "He carried a banner in the tragedy, you know;
+and he's got such an awful cough, poor chap."
+
+"Ze man who garried ze panner vith a gough," said the door-keeper
+reflectively. He was an elderly German, and had kept guard at that
+classic doorway for half-a-century or so; "Parking Cheremiah."
+
+"Barking Jeremiah!"
+
+"Yes, sir. They gall him Parking pecause he's berbetually goughin' his
+poor veag head off; and they gall him Cheremiah pecause he's alvays
+belangholy."
+
+"Oh, do let me see him," cried Mr. Edward Arundel. "I know you can
+manage it; so do, that's a good fellow. I tell you he's a friend of
+mine, and quite a gentleman too. Bless you, there isn't a move in
+mathematics he isn't up to; and he'll come into a fortune some of these
+days--"
+
+"Yaase," interrupted the door-keeper, sarcastically, "Zey bake von of
+him pegause off dad."
+
+"And can I see him?"
+
+"I phill dry and vind him vor you. Here, you Chim," said the
+door-keeper, addressing a dirty youth, who had just nailed an official
+announcement of the next morning's rehearsal upon the back of a
+stony-hearted swing-door, which was apt to jam the fingers of the
+uninitiated,--"vot is ze name off yat zuber vith ze pad gough, ze man
+zay gall Parking."
+
+"Oh, that's Morti-more."
+
+"To you know if he's on in ze virsd zene?"
+
+"Yes. He's one of the demons; but the scene's just over. Do you want
+him?"
+
+"You gan dake ub zis young chendleman's gard do him, and dell him to
+slib town here if he has kod a vaid," said the door-keeper.
+
+Mr. Arundel handed his card to the dirty boy.
+
+"He'll come to me fast enough, poor fellow," he muttered. "I usen't to
+chaff him as the others did, and I'm glad I didn't, now."
+
+Edward Arundel could not easily forget that one brief scrutiny in which
+he had recognised the wasted face of the schoolmaster's hack, who had
+taught him mathematics only two years before. Could there be anything
+more piteous than that degrading spectacle? The feeble frame, scarcely
+able to sustain that paltry one-sided banner of calico and tinsel; the
+two rude daubs of coarse vermilion upon the hollow cheeks; the black
+smudges that were meant for eyebrows; the wretched scrap of horsehair
+glued upon the pinched chin in dismal mockery of a beard; and through
+all this the pathetic pleading of large hazel eyes, bright with the
+unnatural lustre of disease, and saying perpetually, more plainly than
+words can speak, "Do not look at me; do not despise me; do not even
+pity me. It won't last long."
+
+That fresh-hearted schoolboy was still thinking of this, when a wasted
+hand was laid lightly and tremulously on his arm, and looking up he saw
+a man in a hideous mask and a tight-fitting suit of scarlet and gold
+standing by his side.
+
+"I'll take off my mask in a minute, Arundel," said a faint voice, that
+sounded hollow and muffled within a cavern of pasteboard and
+wickerwork. "It was very good of you to come round; very, very good!"
+
+"I was so sorry to see you here, Marchmont; I knew you in a moment, in
+spite of the disguise."
+
+The supernumerary had struggled out of his huge head-gear by this time,
+and laid the fabric of papier-mache and tinsel carefully aside upon a
+shelf. He had washed his face before putting on the mask, for he was
+not called upon to appear before a British public in martial semblance
+any more upon that evening. The pale wasted face was interesting and
+gentlemanly, not by any means handsome, but almost womanly in its
+softness of expression. It was the face of a man who had not yet seen
+his thirtieth birthday; who might never live to see it, Edward Arundel
+thought mournfully.
+
+"Why do you do this, Marchmont?" the boy asked bluntly.
+
+"Because there was nothing else left for me to do," the stage-demon
+answered with a sad smile. "I can't get a situation in a school, for my
+health won't suffer me to take one; or it won't suffer any employer to
+take me, for fear of my falling ill upon his hands, which comes to the
+same thing; so I do a little copying for the law-stationers, and this
+helps out that, and I get on as well as I can. I wouldn't so much mind
+if it wasn't for--"
+
+He stopped suddenly, interrupted by a paroxysm of coughing.
+
+"If it wasn't for whom, old fellow?"
+
+"My poor little girl; my poor little motherless Mary."
+
+Edward Arundel looked grave, and perhaps a little ashamed of himself.
+He had forgotten until this moment that his old tutor had been left a
+widower at four-and-twenty, with a little daughter to support out of
+his scanty stipend.
+
+"Don't be down-hearted, old fellow," the lad whispered, tenderly;
+"perhaps I shall be able to help you, you know. And the little girl can
+go down to Dangerfield; I know my mother would take care of her, and
+will keep her there till you get strong and well. And then you might
+start a fencing-room, or a shooting-gallery, or something of that sort,
+at the West End; and I'd come to you, and bring lots of fellows to you,
+and you'd get on capitally, you know."
+
+Poor John Marchmont, the asthmatic supernumerary, looked perhaps the
+very last person in the world whom it could be possible to associate
+with a pair of foils, or a pistol and a target; but he smiled faintly
+at his old pupil's enthusiastic talk.
+
+"You were always a good fellow, Arundel," he said, gravely. "I don't
+suppose I shall ever ask you to do me a service; but if, by-and-by,
+this cough makes me knock under, and my little Polly should be
+left--I--I think you'd get your mother to be kind to her,--wouldn't
+you, Arundel?"
+
+A picture rose before the supernumerary's weary eyes as he said this;
+the picture of a pleasant lady whose description he had often heard
+from the lips of a loving son, a rambling old mansion, wide-spreading
+lawns, and long arcades of oak and beeches leading away to the blue
+distance. If this Mrs. Arundel, who was so tender and compassionate and
+gentle to every red-cheeked cottage-girl who crossed her
+pathway,--Edward had told him this very often,--would take compassion
+also upon this little one! If she would only condescend to see the
+child, the poor pale neglected flower, the fragile lily, the frail
+exotic blossom, that was so cruelly out of place upon the bleak
+pathways of life!
+
+"If that's all that troubles you," young Arundel cried eagerly, "you
+may make your mind easy, and come and have some oysters. We'll take
+care of the child. I'll adopt her, and my mother shall educate her, and
+she shall marry a duke. Run away, now, old fellow, and change your
+clothes, and come and have oysters, and stout out of the pewter."
+
+Mr. Marchmont shook his head.
+
+"My time's just up," he said; "I'm on in the next scene. It was very
+kind of you to come round, Arundel; but this isn't exactly the best
+place for you. Go back to your friends, my dear boy, and don't think
+any more of me. I'll write to you some day about little Mary."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind," exclaimed the boy. "You'll give me
+your address instanter, and I'll come to see you the first thing
+to-morrow morning, and you'll introduce me to little Mary; and if she
+and I are not the best friends in the world, I shall never again boast
+of my successes with lovely woman. What's the number, old fellow?"
+
+Mr. Arundel had pulled out a smart morocco pocket-book and a gold
+pencil-case.
+
+"Twenty-seven, Oakley Street, Lambeth. But I'd rather you wouldn't
+come, Arundel; your friends wouldn't like it."
+
+"My friends may go hang themselves. I shall do as I like, and I'll be
+with you to breakfast, sharp ten."
+
+The supernumerary had no time to remonstrate. The progress of the
+music, faintly audible from the lobby in which this conversation had
+taken place, told him that his scene was nearly on.
+
+"I can't stop another moment. Go back to your friends, Arundel. Good
+night. God bless you!"
+
+"Stay; one word. The Lincolnshire property--"
+
+"Will never come to me, my boy," the demon answered sadly, through his
+mask; for he had been busy re-investing himself in that demoniac guise.
+"I tried to sell my reversion, but the Jews almost laughed in my face
+when they heard me cough. Good night."
+
+He was gone, and the swing-door slammed in Edward Arundel's face. The
+boy hurried back to his cousin, who was cross and dissatisfied at his
+absence. Martin Mostyn had discovered that the ballet-girls were all
+either old or ugly, the music badly chosen, the pantomime stupid, the
+scenery a failure. He asked a few supercilious questions about his old
+tutor, but scarcely listened to Edward's answers; and was intensely
+aggravated with his companion's pertinacity in sitting out the comic
+business--in which poor John Marchmont appeared and re-appeared; now as
+a well-dressed passenger carrying a parcel, which he deliberately
+sacrificed to the felonious propensities of the clown; now as a
+policeman, now as a barber, now as a chemist, now as a ghost; but
+always buffeted, or cajoled, or bonneted, or imposed upon; always
+piteous, miserable, and long-suffering; with arms that ached from
+carrying a banner through five acts of blank-verse weariness, with a
+head that had throbbed under the weight of a ponderous edifice of
+pasteboard and wicker, with eyes that were sore with the evil influence
+of blue-fire and gunpowder smoke, with a throat that had been poisoned
+by sulphurous vapours, with bones that were stiff with the playful
+pummelling of clown and pantaloon; and all for--a shilling a night!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LITTLE MARY.
+
+
+Poor John Marchmont had given his address unwillingly enough to his old
+pupil. The lodging in Oakley Street was a wretched back-room upon the
+second-floor of a house whose lower regions were devoted to that
+species of establishment commonly called a "ladies' wardrobe." The poor
+gentleman, the teacher of mathematics, the law-writer, the Drury-Lane
+supernumerary, had shrunk from any exposure of his poverty; but his
+pupil's imperious good-nature had overridden every objection, and John
+Marchmont awoke upon the morning after the meeting at Drury-Lane to the
+rather embarrassing recollection that he was to expect a visitor to
+breakfast with him.
+
+How was he to entertain this dashing, high-spirited young schoolboy,
+whose lot was cast in the pleasant pathways of life, and who was no
+doubt accustomed to see at his matutinal meal such luxuries as John
+Marchmont had only beheld in the fairy-like realms of comestible beauty
+exhibited to hungry foot-passengers behind the plate-glass windows of
+Italian warehouses?
+
+"He has hams stewed in Madeira, and Perigord pies, I dare say, at his
+Aunt Mostyn's," John thought, despairingly. "What can I give him to
+eat?"
+
+But John Marchmont, after the manner of the poor, was apt to
+over-estimate the extravagance of the rich. If he could have seen the
+Mostyn breakfast then preparing in the lower regions of Montague
+Square, he might have been considerably relieved; for he would have
+only beheld mild infusions of tea and coffee--in silver vessels,
+certainly--four French rolls hidden under a glistening damask napkin,
+six triangular fragments of dry toast, cut from a stale half-quartern,
+four new-laid eggs, and about half a pound of bacon cut into rashers of
+transcendental delicacy. Widow ladies who have daughters to marry do
+not plunge very deep into the books of Messrs. Fortnum and Mason.
+
+"He used to like hot rolls when I was at Vernon's," John thought,
+rather more hopefully; "I wonder whether he likes hot rolls still?"
+
+Pondering thus, Mr. Marchmont dressed himself,--very neatly, very
+carefully; for he was one of those men whom even poverty cannot rob of
+man's proudest attribute, his individuality. He made no noisy protest
+against the humiliations to which he was compelled to submit; he
+uttered no boisterous assertions of his own merit; he urged no
+clamorous demand to be treated as a gentleman in his day of misfortune;
+but in his own mild, undemonstrative way he did assert himself, quite
+as effectually as if he had raved all day upon the hardship of his lot,
+and drunk himself mad and blind under the pressure of his calamities.
+He never abandoned the habits which had been peculiar to him from his
+childhood. He was as neat and orderly in his second-floor-back as he
+had been seven or eight years before in his simple apartments at
+Cambridge. He did not recognise that association which most men
+perceive between poverty and shirt-sleeves, or poverty and beer. He was
+content to wear threadbare cloth, but adhered most obstinately to a
+prejudice in favour of clean linen. He never acquired those lounging
+vagabond habits peculiar to some men in the day of trouble. Even
+amongst the supernumeraries of Drury Lane, he contrived to preserve his
+self-respect; if they nicknamed him Barking Jeremiah, they took care
+only to pronounce that playful sobriquet when the gentleman-super was
+safely out of hearing. He was so polite in the midst of his reserve,
+that the person who could wilfully have offended him must have been
+more unkindly than any of her Majesty's servants. It is true, that the
+great tragedian, on more than one occasion, apostrophised the
+weak-kneed banner-holder as "BEAST" when the super's cough had
+peculiarly disturbed his composure; but the same great man gave poor
+John Marchmont a letter to a distinguished physician, compassionately
+desiring the relief of the same pulmonary affection. If John Marchmont
+had not been prompted by his own instincts to struggle against the evil
+influences of poverty, he would have done battle sturdily for the sake
+of one who was ten times dearer to him than himself.
+
+If he _could_ have become a swindler or a reprobate,--it would have
+been about as easy for him to become either as to have burst at once,
+and without an hour's practice, into a full-blown Leotard or
+Olmar,--his daughter's influence would have held him back as securely
+as if the slender arms twined tenderly about him had been chains of
+adamant forged by an enchanter's power.
+
+How could he be false to his little one, this helpless child, who had
+been confided to him in the darkest hour of his existence; the hour in
+which his wife had yielded to the many forces arrayed against her in
+life's battle, and had left him alone in the world to fight for his
+little girl?
+
+"If I were to die, I think Arundel's mother would be kind to her," John
+Marchmont thought, as he finished his careful toilet. "Heaven knows, I
+have no right to ask or expect such a thing; but Polly will be rich
+by-and-by, perhaps, and will be able to repay them."
+
+A little hand knocked lightly at the door of his room while he was
+thinking this, and a childish voice said,
+
+"May I come in, papa?"
+
+The little girl slept with one of the landlady's children, in a room
+above her father's. John opened the door, and let her in. The pale
+wintry sunshine, creeping in at the curtainless window near which Mr.
+Marchmont sat, shone full upon the child's face as she came towards
+him. It was a small, pale face, with singularly delicate features, a
+tiny straight nose, a pensive mouth, and large thoughtful hazel eyes.
+The child's hair fell loosely upon her shoulders; not in those
+corkscrew curls so much affected by mothers in the humbler walks of
+life, nor yet in those crisp undulations lately adopted in Belgravian
+nurseries; but in soft silken masses, only curling at the extreme end
+of each tress. Miss Marchmont--she was always called Miss Marchmont in
+that Oakley Street household--wore her brown-stuff frock and scanty
+diaper pinafore as neatly as her father wore his threadbare coat and
+darned linen. She was very pretty, very lady-like, very interesting;
+but it was impossible to look at her without a vague feeling of pain,
+that was difficult to understand. You knew, by-and-by, why you were
+sorry for this little girl. She had never been a child. That divine
+period of perfect innocence,--innocence of all sorrow and trouble,
+falsehood and wrong,--that bright holiday-time of the soul, had never
+been hers. The ruthless hand of poverty had snatched away from her the
+gift which God had given her in her cradle; and at eight years old she
+was a woman,--a woman invested with all that is most beautiful amongst
+womanly attributes--love, tenderness, compassion, carefulness for
+others, unselfish devotion, uncomplaining patience, heroic endurance.
+She was a woman by reason of all these virtues; but she was no longer a
+child. At three years old she had bidden farewell for ever to the
+ignorant selfishness, the animal enjoyment of childhood, and had
+learned what it was to be sorry for poor papa and mamma; and from that
+first time of awakening to the sense of pity and love, she had never
+ceased to be the comforter of the helpless young husband who was so
+soon to be left wifeless.
+
+John had been compelled to leave his child, in order to get a living
+for her and for himself in the hard service of Mr. Laurence Vernon, the
+principal of the highly select and expensive academy at which Edward
+Arundel and Martin Mostyn had been educated. But he had left her in
+good hands; and when the bitter day of his dismissal came, he was
+scarcely as sorry as he ought to have been for the calamity which
+brought him back to his little Mary. It is impossible for any words of
+mine to tell how much he loved the child; but take into consideration
+his hopeless poverty, his sensitive and reserved nature, his utter
+loneliness, the bereavement that had cast a shadow upon his youth, and
+you will perhaps understand an affection that was almost morbid in its
+intensity, and which was reciprocated most fully by its object. The
+little girl loved her father _too much_. When he was with her, she was
+content to sit by his side, watching him as he wrote; proud to help
+him, if even by so much as wiping his pens or handing him his
+blotting-paper; happy to wait upon him, to go out marketing for him, to
+prepare his scanty meals, to make his tea, and arrange and re-arrange
+every object in the slenderly furnished second-floor back-room. They
+talked sometimes of the Lincolnshire fortune,--the fortune which
+_might_ come to Mr. Marchmont, if three people, whose lives when Mary's
+father had last heard of them, were each worth three times his own
+feeble existence, would be so obliging as to clear the way for the
+heir-at-law, by taking an early departure to the churchyard. A more
+practical man than John Marchmont would have kept a sharp eye upon
+these three lives, and by some means or other contrived to find out
+whether number one was consumptive, or number two dropsical, or number
+three apoplectic; but John was utterly incapable of any such
+Machiavellian proceeding. I think he sometimes beguiled his weary walks
+between Oakley Street and Drury Lane by the dreaming of such childish
+day-dreams as I should be almost ashamed to set down upon this sober
+page. The three lives might all happen to be riding in the same express
+upon the occasion of a terrible collision; but the poor fellow's gentle
+nature shrank appalled before the vision he had invoked. He could not
+sacrifice a whole train-full of victims, even for little Mary. He
+contented himself with borrowing a "Times" newspaper now and then, and
+looking at the top of the second column, with the faint hope that he
+should see his own name in large capitals, coupled with the
+announcement that by applying somewhere he might hear of something to
+his advantage. He contented himself with this, and with talking about
+the future to little Mary in the dim firelight. They spent long hours
+in the shadowy room, only lighted by the faint flicker of a pitiful
+handful of coals; for the commonest dip-candles are
+sevenpence-halfpenny a pound, and were dearer, I dare say, in the year
+'38. Heaven knows what splendid castles in the air these two
+simple-hearted creatures built for each other's pleasure by that
+comfortless hearth. I believe that, though the father made a pretence
+of talking of these things only for the amusement of his child, he was
+actually the more childish of the two. It was only when he left that
+fire-lit room, and went back into the hard, reasonable, commonplace
+world, that he remembered how foolish the talk was, and how it was
+impossible--yes, impossible--that he, the law-writer and supernumerary,
+could ever come to be master of Marchmont Towers.
+
+Poor little Mary was in this less practical than her father. She
+carried her day-dreams into the street, until all Lambeth was made
+glorious by their supernal radiance. Her imagination ran riot in a
+vision of a happy future, in which her father would be rich and
+powerful. I am sorry to say that she derived most of her ideas of
+grandeur from the New Cut. She furnished the drawing-room at Marchmont
+Towers from the splendid stores of an upholsterer in that thoroughfare.
+She laid flaming Brussels carpets upon the polished oaken floors which
+her father had described to her, and hung cheap satin damask of
+gorgeous colours before the great oriel windows. She put gilded vases
+of gaudy artificial flowers on the high carved mantel-pieces in the old
+rooms, and hung a disreputable gray parrot--for sale at a
+greengrocer's, and given to the use of bad language--under the stone
+colonnnade at the end of the western wing. She appointed the
+tradespeople who should serve the far-away Lincolnshire household; the
+small matter of distance would, of course, never stand in the way of
+her gratitude and benevolence. Her papa would employ the civil
+greengrocer who gave such excellent halfpennyworths of watercresses;
+the kind butterman who took such pains to wrap up a quarter of a pound
+of the best eighteenpenny fresh butter for the customer whom he always
+called "little lady;" the considerate butcher who never cut _more_ than
+the three-quarters of a pound of rump-steak, which made an excellent
+dinner for Mr. Marchmont and his little girl. Yes, all these people
+should be rewarded when the Lincolnshire property came to Mary's papa.
+Miss Marchmont had some thoughts of building a shop close to Marchmont
+Towers for the accommodating butcher, and of adopting the greengrocer's
+eldest daughter for her confidante and companion. Heaven knows how many
+times the little girl narrowly escaped being run over while walking the
+material streets in some ecstatic reverie such as this; but Providence
+was very careful of the motherless girl, and she always returned safely
+to Oakley Street with her pitiful little purchases of tea and sugar,
+butter and meat. You will say, perhaps, that at least these foolish
+day-dreams were childish; but I maintain still, that Mary's soul had
+long ago bade adieu to infancy, and that even in these visions she was
+womanly; for she was always thoughtful of others rather than of
+herself, and there was a great deal more of the practical business of
+life mingled with the silvery web of her fancies than there should have
+been so soon after her eighth birthday. At times, too, an awful horror
+would quicken the pulses of her loving heart as she heard the hacking
+sound of her father's cough; and a terrible dread would seize her,--the
+fear that John Marchmont might never live to inherit the Lincolnshire
+fortune. The child never said her prayers without adding a little
+extempore supplication, that she might die when her father died. It was
+a wicked prayer, perhaps; and a clergyman might have taught her that
+her life was in the hands of Providence; and that it might please Him
+who had created her to doom her to many desolate years of loneliness;
+and that it was not for her, in her wretched and helpless ignorance, to
+rebel against His divine will. I think if the Archbishop of Canterbury
+had driven from Lambeth Palace to Oakley Street to tell little Mary
+this, he would have taught her in vain; and that she would have fallen
+asleep that night with the old prayer upon her lips, the fond foolish
+prayer that the bonds which love had woven so firmly might never be
+roughly broken by death.
+
+Miss Marchmont heard the story of last night's meeting with great
+pleasure, though it must be owned she looked a little grave when she
+was told that the generous-hearted school-boy was coming to breakfast;
+but her gravity was only that of a thoughtful housekeeper, who ponders
+ways and means, and even while you are telling her the number and
+quality of your guests, sketches out a rough ground-plan of her dishes,
+considers the fish in season, and the soups most fitting to precede
+them, and balances the contending advantages of Palestine and Julienne
+or Hare and Italian.
+
+"A 'nice' breakfast you say, papa," she said, when her father had
+finished speaking; "then we must have watercresses, _of course_."
+
+"And hot rolls, Polly dear. Arundel was always fond of hot rolls."
+
+"And hot rolls, four for threepence-halfpenny in the Cut."--(I am
+ashamed to say that this benighted child talked as deliberately of the
+"Cut" as she might have done of the "Row.")--"There'll be one left for
+tea, papa; for we could never eat four rolls. They'll take _such_ a lot
+of butter, though."
+
+The little housekeeper took out an antediluvian bead-purse, and began
+to examine her treasury. Her father handed all his money to her, as he
+would have done to his wife; and Mary doled him out the little sums he
+wanted,--money for half an ounce of tobacco, money for a pint of beer.
+There were no penny papers in those days, or what a treat an occasional
+"Telegraph" would have been to poor John Marchmont!
+
+Mary had only one personal extravagance. She read novels,--dirty,
+bloated, ungainly volumes,--which she borrowed from a snuffy old woman
+in a little back street, who charged her the smallest hire ever known
+in the circulating-library business, and who admired her as a wonder of
+precocious erudition. The only pleasure the child knew in her father's
+absence was the perusal of these dingy pages; she neglected no duty,
+she forgot no tender office of ministering care for the loved one who
+was absent; but when all the little duties had been finished, how
+delicious it was to sit down to "Madeleine the Deserted," or "Cosmo the
+Pirate," and to lose herself far away in illimitable regions, peopled
+by wandering princesses in white satin, and gentlemanly bandits, who
+had been stolen from their royal fathers' halls by vengeful hordes of
+gipsies. During these early years of poverty and loneliness, John
+Marchmont's daughter stored up, in a mind that was morbidly sensitive
+rather than strong, a terrible amount of dim poetic sentiment; the
+possession of which is scarcely, perhaps, the best or safest dower for
+a young lady who has life's journey all before her.
+
+At half-past nine o'clock, all the simple preparations necessary for
+the reception of a visitor had been completed by Mr. Marchmont and his
+daughter. All vestiges of John's bed had disappeared; leaving, it is
+true, rather a suspicious-looking mahogany chest of drawers to mark the
+spot where once a bed had been. The window had been opened, the room
+aired and dusted, a bright little fire burned in the shining grate, and
+the most brilliant of tin tea-kettles hissed upon the hob. The white
+table-cloth was darned in several places; but it was a remnant of the
+small stock of linen with which John had begun married life; and the
+Irish damask asserted its superior quality, in spite of many darns, as
+positively as Mr. Marchmont's good blood asserted itself in spite of
+his shabby coat. A brown teapot full of strong tea, a plate of French
+rolls, a pat of fresh butter, and a broiled haddock, do not compose a
+very epicurean repast; but Mary Marchmont looked at the humble
+breakfast as a prospective success.
+
+"We could have haddocks every day at Marchmont Towers, couldn't we,
+papa?" she said naively.
+
+But the little girl was more than delighted when Edward Arundel dashed
+up the narrow staircase, and burst into the room, fresh, radiant,
+noisy, splendid, better dressed even than the waxen preparations of
+elegant young gentlemen exhibited at the portal of a great outfitter in
+the New Cut, and yet not at all like either of those red-lipped types
+of fashion. How delighted the boy declared himself with every thing! He
+had driven over in a cabriolet, and he was awfully hungry, he informed
+his host. The rolls and watercresses disappeared before him as if by
+magic; little Mary shivered at the slashing cuts he made at the butter;
+the haddock had scarcely left the gridiron before it was no more.
+
+"This is ten times better than Aunt Mostyn's skinny breakfasts," the
+young gentleman observed candidly. "You never get enough with her. Why
+does she say, 'You won't take another egg, will you, Edward?' if she
+wants me to have one? You should see our hunting-breakfasts at
+Dangerfield, Marchmont. Four sorts of claret, and no end of Moselle and
+champagne. You shall go to Dangerfield some day, to see my mother, Miss
+Mary."
+
+He called her "Miss Mary," and seemed rather shy of speaking to her.
+Her womanliness impressed him in spite of himself. He had a fancy that
+she was old enough to feel the humiliation of her father's position,
+and to be sensitive upon the matter of the two-pair back; and he was
+sorry the moment after he had spoken of Dangerfield.
+
+"What a snob I am!" he thought; "always bragging of home."
+
+But Mr. Arundel was not able to stop very long in Oakley Street, for
+the supernumerary had to attend a rehearsal at twelve o'clock; so at
+half-past eleven John Marchmont and his pupil went out together, and
+little Mary was left alone to clear away the breakfast, and perform the
+rest of her household duties.
+
+She had plenty of time before her, so she did not begin at once, but
+sat upon a stool near the fender, gazing dreamily at the low fire.
+
+"How good and kind he is!" she thought; "just like Cosmo,--only Cosmo
+was dark; or like Reginald Ravenscroft,--but then he was dark too. I
+wonder why the people in novels are always dark? How kind he is to
+papa! Shall we ever go to Dangerfield, I wonder, papa and I? Of course
+I wouldn't go without papa."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ABOUT THE LINCOLNSHIRE PROPERTY.
+
+
+While Mary sat absorbed in such idle visions as these, Mr. Marchmont
+and his old pupil walked towards Waterloo Bridge together.
+
+"I'll go as far as the theatre with you, Marchmont," the boy said;
+"it's my holidays now, you know, and I can do as I like. I am going to
+a private tutor in another month, and he's to prepare me for the army.
+I want you to tell me all about that Lincolnshire property, old boy. Is
+it anywhere near Swampington?"
+
+"Yes; within nine miles."
+
+"Goodness gracious me! Lord bless my soul! what an extraordinary
+coincidence! My uncle Hubert's Rector of Swampington--such a hole! I go
+there sometimes to see him and my cousin Olivia. Isn't she a stunner,
+though! Knows more Greek and Latin than I, and more mathematics than
+you. Could eat our heads off at any thing."
+
+John Marchmont did not seem very much impressed by the coincidence that
+appeared so extraordinary to Edward Arundel; but, in order to oblige
+his friend, he explained very patiently and lucidly how it was that
+only three lives stood between him and the possession of Marchmont
+Towers, and all lands and tenements appertaining thereto.
+
+"The estate's a very large one," he said finally; "but the idea of _my_
+ever getting it is, of course, too preposterous."
+
+"Good gracious me! I don't see that at all," exclaimed Edward with
+extraordinary vivacity. "Let me see, old fellow; if I understand your
+story right, this is how the case stands: your first cousin is the
+present possessor of Marchmont Towers; he has a son, fifteen years of
+age, who may or may not marry; only one son, remember. But he has also
+an uncle--a bachelor uncle, and your uncle, too--who, by the terms of
+your grandfather's will, must get the property before you can succeed
+to it. Now, this uncle is an old man: so of course _he'll_ die soon.
+The present possessor himself is a middle-aged man; so I shouldn't
+think _he_ can be likely to last long. I dare say he drinks too much
+port, or hunts, or something of that sort; goes to sleep after dinner,
+and does all manner of apoplectic things, I'll be bound. Then there's
+the son, only fifteen, and not yet marriageable; consumptive, I dare
+say. Now, will you tell me the chances are not six to six he dies
+unmarried? So you see, my dear old boy, you're sure to get the fortune;
+for there's nothing to keep you out of it, except--"
+
+"Except three lives, the worst of which is better than mine. It's kind
+of you to look at it in this sanguine way, Arundel; but I wasn't born
+to be a rich man. Perhaps, after all, Providence has used me better
+than I think. I mightn't have been happy at Marchmont Towers. I'm a
+shy, awkward, humdrum fellow. If it wasn't for Mary's sake--"
+
+"Ah, to be sure!" cried Edward Arundel. "You're not going to forget all
+about--Miss Marchmont!" He was going to say "little Mary," but had
+checked himself abruptly at the sudden recollection of the earnest
+hazel eyes that had kept wondering watch upon his ravages at the
+breakfast-table. "I'm sure Miss Marchmont's born to be an heiress. I
+never saw such a little princess."
+
+"What!" demanded John Marchmont sadly, "in a darned pinafore and a
+threadbare frock?"
+
+The boy's face flushed, almost indignantly, as his old master said
+this.
+
+"You don't think I'm such a snob as to admire a lady"--he spoke thus of
+Miss Mary Marchmont, yet midway between her eighth and ninth
+birthday--"the less because she isn't rich? But of course your daughter
+will have the fortune by-and-by, even if--"
+
+He stopped, ashamed of his want of tact; for he knew John would divine
+the meaning of that sudden pause.
+
+"Even if I should die before Philip Marchmont," the teacher of
+mathematics answered, quietly. "As far as that goes, Mary's chance is
+as remote as my own. The fortune can only come to her in the event of
+Arthur dying without issue, or, having issue, failing to cut off the
+entail, I believe they call it."
+
+"Arthur! that's the son of the present possessor?"
+
+"Yes. If I and my poor little girl, who is delicate like her mother,
+should die before either of these three men, there is another who will
+stand in my shoes, and will look out perhaps more eagerly than I have
+done for his chances of getting the property."
+
+"Another!" exclaimed Mr. Arundel. "By Jove, Marchmont, it's the most
+complicated affair I ever heard of. It's worse than those sums you used
+to set me in barter: 'If A. sells B. 999 Stilton cheeses at 9 1/2_d_ a
+pound,' and all that sort of thing, you know. Do make me understand it,
+old fellow, if you can."
+
+John Marchmont sighed.
+
+"It's a wearisome story, Arundel," he said. "I don't know why I should
+bore you with it."
+
+"But you don't bore me with it," cried the boy energetically. "I'm
+awfully interested in it, you know; and I could walk up and down here
+all day talking about it."
+
+The two gentlemen had passed the Surrey toll-gate of Waterloo Bridge by
+this time. The South-Western Terminus had not been built in the year
+'38, and the bridge was about the quietest thoroughfare any two
+companions confidentially inclined could have chosen. The shareholders
+knew this, to their cost.
+
+Perhaps Mr. Marchmont might have been beguiled into repeating the old
+story, which he had told so often in the dim firelight to his little
+girl; but the great clock of St. Paul's boomed forth the twelve
+ponderous strokes that told the hour of noon, and a hundred other
+steeples upon either side of the water made themselves clamorous with
+the same announcement.
+
+"I must leave you, Arundel," the supernumerary said hurriedly; he had
+just remembered that it was time for him to go and be browbeaten by a
+truculent stage-manager. "God bless you, my dear boy! It was very good
+of you to want to see me, and the sight of your fresh face has made me
+very happy. I _should_ like you to understand all about the
+Lincolnshire property. God knows there's small chance of its ever
+coming to me or to my child; but when I am dead and gone, Mary will be
+left alone in the world, and it would be some comfort to me to know
+that she was not without _one_ friend--generous and disinterested like
+you, Arundel,--who, if the chance _did_ come, would see her righted."
+
+"And so I would," cried the boy eagerly. His face flushed, and his eyes
+fired. He was a preux chevalier already, in thought, going forth to do
+battle for a hazel-eyed mistress.
+
+"I'll _write_ the story, Arundel," John Marchmont said; "I've no time
+to tell it, and you mightn't remember it either. Once more, good-bye;
+once more, God bless you!"
+
+"Stop!" exclaimed Edward Arundel, flushing a deeper red than
+before,--he had a very boyish habit of blushing,--"stop, dear old boy.
+You must borrow this of me, please. I've lots of them. I should only
+spend it on all sorts of bilious things; or stop out late and get
+tipsy. You shall pay me with interest when you get Marchmont Towers. I
+shall come and see you again soon. Good-bye."
+
+The lad forced some crumpled scrap of paper into his old tutor's hand,
+bolted through the toll-bar, and jumped into a cabriolet, whose
+high-stepping charger was dawdling along Lancaster Place.
+
+The supernumerary hurried on to Drury Lane as fast as his weak legs
+could carry him. He was obliged to wait for a pause in the rehearsal
+before he could find an opportunity of looking at the parting gift
+which his old pupil had forced upon him. It was a crumpled and rather
+dirty five-pound note, wrapped round two half-crowns, a shilling, and
+half-a-sovereign.
+
+The boy had given his friend the last remnant of his slender stock of
+pocket-money. John Marchmont turned his face to the dark wing that
+sheltered him, and wept silently. He was of a gentle and rather womanly
+disposition, be it remembered; and he was in that weak state of health
+in which a man's eyes are apt to moisten, in spite of himself, under
+the influence of any unwonted emotion.
+
+He employed a part of that afternoon in writing the letter which he had
+promised to send to his boyish friend:--
+
+"MY DEAR ARUNDEL,
+
+"My purpose in writing to you to-day is so entirely connected with the
+future welfare of my beloved and only child, that I shall carefully
+abstain from any subject not connected with her interests. I say
+nothing, therefore, respecting your conduct of this morning, which,
+together with my previous knowledge of your character, has decided me
+upon confiding to you the doubts and fears which have long tormented me
+upon the subject of my darling's future.
+
+"I am a doomed man, Arundel! The doctors have told me this; but they
+have told me also that, though I can never escape the sentence of death
+which was passed upon me long ago, I may live for some years if I live
+the careful life which only a rich man can lead. If I go on carrying
+banners and breathing sulphur, I cannot last long. My little girl will
+be left penniless, but not quite friendless; for there are humble
+people, relatives of her poor mother, who would help her kindly, I am
+sure, in their own humble way. The trials which I fear for my orphan
+girl are not so much the trials of poverty as the dangers of wealth. If
+the three men who, on my death, would alone stand between Mary and the
+Lincolnshire property die childless, my poor darling will become the
+only obstacle in the pathway of a man whom, I will freely own to you, I
+distrust.
+
+"My father, John Marchmont, was the third of four brothers. The eldest,
+Philip, died leaving one son, also called Philip, and the present
+possessor of Marchmont Towers. The second, Marmaduke, is still alive, a
+bachelor. The third, John, left four children, of whom I alone survive.
+The fourth, Paul, left a son and two daughters. The son is an artist,
+exercising his profession now in London; one of the daughters is
+married to a parish surgeon, who practises at Stanfield, in
+Lincolnshire; the other is an old maid, and entirely dependent upon her
+brother.
+
+"It is this man, Paul Marchmont the artist, whom I fear.
+
+"Do not think me weak, or foolishly suspicious, Arundel, when I tell
+you that the very thought of this man brings the cold sweat upon my
+forehead, and seems to stop the beating of my heart. I know that this
+is a prejudice, and an unworthy one. I do not believe Paul Marchmont is
+a good man; but I can assign no sufficient reason for my hatred and
+terror of him. It is impossible for you, a frank and careless boy, to
+realise the feelings of a man who looks at his only child, and
+remembers that she may soon be left, helpless and defenceless, to fight
+the battle of life with a bad man. Sometimes I pray to God that the
+Marchmont property may never come to my child after my death; for I
+cannot rid myself of the thought--may Heaven forgive me for its
+unworthiness!--that Paul Marchmont would leave no means untried,
+however foul, to wrest the fortune from her. I dare say worldly people
+would laugh at me for writing this letter to you, my dear Arundel; but
+I address myself to the best friend I have,--the only creature I know
+whom the influence of a bad man is never likely to corrupt. _Noblesse
+oblige!_ I am not afraid that Edward Dangerfield Arundel will betray
+any trust, however foolish, that may have been confided to him.
+
+"Perhaps, in writing to you thus, I may feel something of that blind
+hopefulness--amid the shipwreck of all that commonly gives birth to
+hope--which the mariner cast away upon some desert island feels, when
+he seals his simple story in a bottle, and launches it upon the waste
+of waters that close him in on every side. Before my little girl is
+four years older, you will be a man, Arundel--with a man's intellect, a
+man's courage, and, above all, a man's keen sense of honour. So long as
+my darling remains poor, her humble friends will be strong enough to
+protect her; but if ever Providence should think fit to place her in a
+position of antagonism to Paul Marchmont,--for he would look upon any
+one as an enemy who stood between him and fortune,--she would need a
+far more powerful protector than any she could find amongst her poor
+mother's relatives. Will _you_ be that protector, Edward Arundel? I am
+a drowning man, you see, and catch at the frailest straw that floats
+past me. I believe in you, Edward, as much as I distrust Paul
+Marchmont. If the day ever comes in which my little girl should have to
+struggle with this man, will you help her to fight the battle? It will
+not be an easy one.
+
+"Subjoined to this letter I send you an extract from the copy of my
+grandfather's will, which will explain to you how he left his property.
+Do not lose either the letter or the extract. If you are willing to
+undertake the trust which I confide to you to-day, you may have need to
+refer to them after my death. The legacy of a child's helplessness is
+the only bequest which I can leave to the only friend I have.
+
+"JOHN MARCHMONT.
+
+"27, OAKLEY STREET, LAMBETH,
+
+"_December_ 30_th_, 1838.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+"EXTRACT FROM THE WILL OF PHILIP MARCHMONT, SENIOR, OF MARCHMONT
+TOWERS.
+
+"'I give and devise all that my estate known as Marchmont Towers and
+appurtenances thereto belonging to the use of my eldest son Philip
+Marchmont during his natural life without impeachment of waste and from
+and after his decease then to the use of my grandson Philip the first
+son of my said son Philip during the term of his natural life without
+impeachment of waste and after the decease of my said grandson Philip
+to the use of the first and every other son of my said grandson
+severally and successively according to their respective seniority in
+tail and for default of such issue to the use of all and every the
+daughters and daughter of my said grandson Philip as tenants in common
+in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if
+all the daughters of my said grandson Philip except one shall die
+without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the
+use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue
+then to the use of the second and every other son of my said eldest son
+severally and successively according to his respective seniority in
+tail and in default of such issue to the use of all and every the
+daughters and daughter of my said eldest son Philip as tenants in
+common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them in tail
+and in default of such issue to the use of my second son Marmaduke and
+his assigns during the term of his natural life without impeachment of
+waste and after his decease to the use of the first and every son of my
+said son Marmaduke severally and successively according to their
+respective seniorities in tail and for default of such issue to the use
+of all and every the daughters and daughter of my said son Marmaduke as
+tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them
+in tail and if all the daughters of my said son Marmaduke except one
+shall die without issue or if there shall be but one such daughter then
+to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in default of such
+issue then to the use of my third son John during the term of his
+natural life without impeachment of waste and from and after his
+decease then to the use of my grandson John the first son of my said
+son John during the term of his natural life without impeachment of
+waste and after the decease of my said grandson John to the use of the
+first and every other son of my said grandson John severally and
+successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for
+default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and
+daughter of my said grandson John as tenants in common in tail with
+cross remainders between or among them in tail and if all the daughters
+of my said grandson John except one shall die without issue or if there
+shall be but one such daughter' [_This, you will see, is my little
+Mary_] 'then to the use of such one or only daughter in tail and in
+default of such issue then to the use of the second and every other son
+of my said third son John severally and successively according to his
+respective seniority in tail and in default of such issue to the use of
+all and every the daughters and daughter of my said third son John as
+tenants in common in tail with cross remainders between or amongst them
+in tail and in default of such issue to the use of my fourth son Paul
+during the term of his natural life without impeachment of waste and
+from and after his decease then to the use of my grandson Paul the son
+of my said son Paul during his natural life without impeachment of
+waste and after the decease of my said grandson Paul to the use of the
+first and every other son of my said grandson severally and
+successively according to their respective seniority in tail and for
+default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and
+daughter of my said grandson Paul as tenants in common in tail with
+cross remainders between or amongst them in tail and if all the
+daughters of my said grandson Paul except one shall die without issue
+or if there shall be but one such daughter then to the use of such one
+or only daughter in tail and in default of such issue then to the use
+of the second and every other son of my said fourth son Paul severally
+and successively according to his respective seniority in tail and in
+default of such issue to the use of all and every the daughters and
+daughter of my said fourth son Paul as tenants in common in tail with
+cross remainders between or amongst them in tail,' &c. &c.
+
+"P.S.--Then comes what the lawyers call a general devise to trustees,
+to preserve the contingent remainders before devised from being
+destroyed; but what that means, perhaps you can get somebody to tell
+you. I hope it may be some legal jargon to preserve my _very_
+contingent remainder."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The tone of Edward Arundel's answer to this letter was more
+characteristic of the writer than in harmony with poor John's solemn
+appeal.
+
+"You dear, foolish old Marchmont," the lad wrote, "of course I shall
+take care of Miss Mary; and my mother shall adopt her, and she shall
+live at Dangerfield, and be educated with my sister Letitia, who has
+the jolliest French governess, and a German maid for conversation; and
+don't let Paul Marchmont try on any of his games with me, that's all!
+But what do you mean, you ridiculous old boy, by talking about dying,
+and drowning, and shipwrecked mariners, and catching at straws, and all
+that sort of humbug, when you know very well that you'll live to
+inherit the Lincolnshire property, and that I'm coming to you every
+year to shoot, and that you're going to build a tennis-court,--of
+course there _is_ a billiard-room,--and that you're going to have a
+stud of hunters, and be master of the hounds, and no end of bricks to
+
+"Your ever devoted Roman countryman and lover,
+
+"EDGARDO?
+
+"42, MONTAGUE SQUARE,
+
+"_December_ 3l_st_, 1838.
+
+"P.S.--By-the-bye, don't you think a situation in a lawyer's office
+would suit you better than the T. R. D. L.? If you do, I think I could
+manage it. A happy new year to Miss Mary!"
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It was thus that Mr. Edward Arundel accepted the solemn trust which his
+friend confided to him in all simplicity and good faith. Mary Marchmont
+herself was not more innocent in the ways of the world outside Oakley
+Street, the Waterloo Road, and the New Cut, than was the little girl's
+father; nothing seemed more natural to him than to intrust the doubtful
+future of his only child to the bright-faced handsome boy, whose early
+boyhood had been unblemished by a mean sentiment or a dishonourable
+action. John Marchmont had spent three years in the Berkshire Academy
+at which Edward and his cousin, Martin Mostyn, had been educated; and
+young Arundel, who was far behind his kinsman in the comprehension of a
+problem in algebra, had been wise enough to recognise that paradox
+which Martin Mostyn could not understand--a gentleman in a shabby coat.
+It was thus that a friendship had arisen between the teacher of
+mathematics and his handsome pupil; and it was thus that an unreasoning
+belief in Edward Arundel had sprung up in John's simple mind.
+
+"If my little girl were certain of inheriting the fortune," Mr.
+Marchmont thought, "I might find many who would be glad to accept my
+trust, and to serve her well and faithfully. But the chance is such a
+remote one. I cannot forget how the Jews laughed at me two years ago,
+when I tried to borrow money upon my reversionary interest. No! I must
+trust this brave-hearted boy, for I have no one else to confide in; and
+who else is there who would not ridicule my fear of my cousin Paul?"
+
+Indeed, Mr. Marchmont had some reason to be considerably ashamed of his
+antipathy to the young artist working for his bread, and for the bread
+of his invalid mother and unmarried sister, in that bitter winter of
+'38; working patiently and hopefully, in despite of all discouragement,
+and content to live a joyless and monotonous life in a dingy lodging
+near Fitzroy Square. I can find no excuse for John Marchmont's
+prejudice against an industrious and indefatigable young man, who was
+the sole support of two helpless women. Heaven knows, if to be adored
+by two women is any evidence of a man's virtue, Paul must have been the
+best of men; for Stephanie Marchmont, and her daughter Clarisse,
+regarded the artist with a reverential idolatry that was not without a
+tinge of romance. I can assign no reason, then, for John's dislike of
+his cousin. They had been schoolfellows at a wretched suburban school,
+where the children of poor people were boarded, lodged, and educated
+all the year round for a pitiful stipend of something under twenty
+pounds. One of the special points of the prospectus was the
+announcement that there were no holidays; for the jovial Christmas
+gatherings of merry faces, which are so delightful to the wealthy
+citizens of Bloomsbury or Tyburnia, take another complexion in
+poverty-stricken households, whose scantily-stocked larders can ill
+support the raids of rawboned lads clamorous for provender. The two
+boys had met at a school of this calibre, and had never met since. They
+may not have been the best friends, perhaps, at the classical academy;
+but their quarrels were by no means desperate. They may have rather
+freely discussed their several chances of the Lincolnshire property;
+but I have no romantic story to tell of a stirring scene in the humble
+schoolroom--no exciting record of deadly insult and deep vows of
+vengeance. No inkstand was ever flung by one boy into the face of the
+other; no savage blow from a horsewhip ever cut a fatal scar across the
+brow of either of the cousins. John Marchmont would have been almost as
+puzzled to account for his objection to his kinsman, as was the
+nameless gentleman who so naively confessed his dislike of Dr. Fell. I
+fear that a great many of our likings and dislikings are too apt to be
+upon the Dr. Fell principle. Mr. Wilkie Collins's Basil could not tell
+_why_ he fell madly in love with the lady whom it was his evil fortune
+to meet in an omnibus; nor why he entertained an uncomfortable feeling
+about the gentleman who was to be her destroyer. David Copperfield
+disliked Uriah Heep even before he had any substantial reason for
+objecting to the evil genius of Agnes Wickfield's father. The boy
+disliked the snake-like schemer of Canterbury because his eyes were
+round and red, and his hands clammy and unpleasant to the touch.
+Perhaps John Marchmont's reasons for his aversion to his cousin were
+about as substantial as those of Master Copperfield. It may be that the
+schoolboy disliked his comrade because Paul Marchmont's handsome grey
+eyes were a little too near together; because his thin and delicately
+chiselled lips were a thought too tightly compressed; because his
+cheeks would fade to an awful corpse-like whiteness under circumstances
+which would have brought the rushing life-blood, hot and red, into
+another boy's face; because he was silent and suppressed when it would
+have been more natural to be loud and clamorous; because he could smile
+under provocations that would have made another frown; because, in
+short, there was that about him which, let it be found where it will,
+always gives birth to suspicion,--MYSTERY!
+
+So the cousins had parted, neither friends nor foes, to tread their
+separate roads in the unknown country, which is apt to seem barren and
+desolate enough to travellers who foot it in hobnailed boots
+considerably the worse for wear; and as the iron hand of poverty held
+John Marchmont even further back than Paul upon the hard road which
+each had to tread, the quiet pride of the teacher of mathematics most
+effectually kept him out of his kinsman's way. He had only heard enough
+of Paul to know that he was living in London, and working hard for a
+living; working as hard as John himself, perhaps; but at least able to
+keep afloat in a higher social position than the law-stationer's hack
+and the banner-holder of Drury Lane.
+
+But Edward Arundel did not forget his friends in Oakley Street. The boy
+made a morning call upon his father's solicitors, Messrs. Paulette,
+Paulette, and Mathewson, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was so extremely
+eloquent in his needy friend's cause, as to provoke the good-natured
+laughter of one of the junior partners, who declared that Mr. Edward
+Arundel ought to wear a silk gown before he was thirty. The result of
+this interview was, that before the first month of the new year was
+out, John Marchmont had abandoned the classic banner and the demoniac
+mask to a fortunate successor, and had taken possession of a
+hard-seated, slim-legged stool in one of the offices of Messrs.
+Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson, as copying and out-door clerk, at a
+salary of thirty shillings a week.
+
+So little Mary entered now upon a golden age, in which her evenings
+were no longer desolate and lonely, but spent pleasantly with her
+father in the study of such learning as was suited to her years, or
+perhaps rather to her capacity, which was far beyond her years; and on
+certain delicious nights, to be remembered ever afterwards, John
+Marchmont took his little girl to the gallery of one or other of the
+transpontine theatres; and I am sorry to say that my heroine--for she
+is to be my heroine by-and-by--sucked oranges, ate Abernethy biscuits,
+and cooled her delicate nose against the iron railing of the gallery,
+after the manner of the masses when they enjoy the British Drama.
+
+But all this time John Marchmont was utterly ignorant of one rather
+important fact in the history of those three lives which he was apt to
+speak of as standing between him and Marchmont Towers. Young Arthur
+Marchmont, the immediate heir of the estate, had been shot to death
+upon the 1st of September, 1838, without blame to anyone or anything
+but his own boyish carelessness, which had induced him to scramble
+through a hedge with his fowling-piece, the costly present of a doating
+father, loaded and on full-cock. This melancholy event, which had been
+briefly recorded in all the newspapers, had never reached the knowledge
+of poor John Marchmont, who had no friends to busy themselves about his
+interests, or to rush eagerly to carry him any intelligence affecting
+his prosperity. Nor had he read the obituary notice respecting
+Marmaduke Marchmont, the bachelor, who had breathed his last stertorous
+breath in a fit of apoplexy exactly one twelvemonth before the day upon
+which Edward Arundel breakfasted in Oakley Street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+GOING AWAY.
+
+
+Edward Arundel went from Montague Square straight into the household of
+the private tutor of whom he had spoken, there to complete his
+education, and to be prepared for the onerous duties of a military
+life. From the household of this private tutor he went at once into a
+cavalry regiment; after sundry examinations, which were not nearly so
+stringent in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty, as they
+have since become. Indeed, I think the unfortunate young cadets who are
+educated upon the high-pressure system, and who are expected to give a
+synopsis of Portuguese political intrigue during the eighteenth
+century, a scientific account of the currents of the Red Sea, and a
+critical disquisition upon the comedies of Aristophanes as compared
+with those of Pedro Calderon de la Barca, not forgetting to glance at
+the effect of different ages and nationalities upon the respective
+minds of the two playwrights, within a given period of, say
+half-an-hour,--would have envied Mr. Arundel for the easy manner in
+which he obtained his commission in a distinguished cavalry regiment.
+Mr. Edward Arundel therefore inaugurated the commencement of the year
+1840 by plunging very deeply into the books of a crack military-tailor
+in New Burlington Street, and by a visit to Dangerfield Park; where he
+went to make his adieux before sailing for India, whither his regiment
+had just been ordered.
+
+I do not doubt that Mrs Arundel was very sorrowful at this sudden
+parting with her yellow-haired younger son. The boy and his mother
+walked together in the wintry sunset under the leafless beeches at
+Dangerfield, and talked of the dreary voyage that lay before the lad;
+the arid plains and cruel jungles far away; perils by sea and perils by
+land; but across them all, Fame waving her white beckoning arms to the
+young soldier, and crying, "Come, conqueror that shall be! come,
+through trial and danger, through fever and famine,--come to your rest
+upon my bloodstained lap!" Surely this boy, being only just eighteen
+years of age, may be forgiven if he is a little romantic, a little over
+eager and impressionable, a little too confident that the next thing to
+going out to India as a sea-sick subaltern in a great transport-ship is
+coming home with the reputation of a Clive. Perhaps he may be forgiven,
+too, if, in his fresh enthusiasm, he sometimes forgot the shabby friend
+whom he had helped little better than a twelvemonth before, and the
+earnest hazel eyes that had shone upon him in the pitiful Oakley Street
+chamber. I do not say that he was utterly unmindful of his old teacher
+of mathematics. It was not in his nature to forget anyone who had need
+of his services; for this boy, so eager to be a soldier, was of the
+chivalrous temperament, and would have gone out to die for his
+mistress, or his friend, if need had been. He had received two or three
+grateful letters from John Marchmont; and in these letters the lawyer's
+clerk had spoken pleasantly of his new life, and hopefully of his
+health, which had improved considerably, he said, since his resignation
+of the tragic banner and the pantomimic mask. Neither had Edward quite
+forgotten his promise of enlisting Mrs. Arundel's sympathies in aid of
+the motherless little girl. In one of these wintry walks beneath the
+black branches at Dangerfield, the lad had told the sorrowful story of
+his well-born tutor's poverty and humiliation.
+
+"Only think, mother!" he cried at the end of the little history. "I saw
+the poor fellow carrying a great calico flag, and marching about at the
+heel of a procession, to be laughed at by the costermongers in the
+gallery; and I know that he belongs to a capital Lincolnshire family,
+and will come in for no end of money if he only lives long enough. But
+if he should die, mother, and leave his little girl destitute, you'll
+look after her, won't you?"
+
+I don't know whether Mrs. Arundel quite entered into her son's ideas
+upon the subject of adopting Mary Marchmont, or whether she had any
+definite notion of bringing the little girl home to Dangerfield for the
+natural term of her life, in the event of the child being left an
+orphan. But she was a kind and charitable lady, and she scarcely cared
+to damp her boy's spirits by holding forth upon the doubtful wisdom of
+his adopting, or promising to adopt, any stray orphans who might cross
+his pathway.
+
+"I hope the little girl may not lose her father, Edward," she said
+gently. "Besides, dear, you say that Mr. Marchmont tells you he has
+humble friends, who would take the child if anything happened to him.
+He does not wish us to adopt the little girl; he only asks us to
+interest ourselves in her fate."
+
+"And you will do that, mother darling?" cried the boy. "You will take
+an interest in her, won't you? You couldn't help doing so, if you were
+to see her. She's not like a child, you know,--not a bit like Letitia.
+She's as grave and quiet as you are, mother,--or graver, I think; and
+she looks like a lady, in spite of her poor, shabby pinafore and
+frock."
+
+"Does she wear shabby frocks?" said the mother. "I could help her in
+that matter, at all events, Ned. I might send her a great trunk-full of
+Letitia's things: she outgrows them before they have been worn long
+enough to be shabby."
+
+The boy coloured, and shook his head.
+
+"It's very kind of you to think of it, mother dear; but I don't think
+that would quite answer," he said.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because, you see, John Marchmont is a gentleman; and, you know, though
+he's so dreadfully poor now, he _is_ heir to Marchmont Towers. And
+though he didn't mind doing any thing in the world to earn a few
+shillings a week, he mightn't like to take cast-off clothes."
+
+So nothing more was to be said or done upon the subject.
+
+Edward Arundel wrote his humble friend a pleasant letter, in which he
+told John that he had enlisted his mother's sympathy in Mary's cause,
+and in which he spoke in very glowing terms of the Indian expedition
+that lay before him.
+
+"I wish I could come to say good-bye to you and Miss Mary before I go,"
+he wrote; "but that's impossible. I go straight from here to
+Southampton by coach at the end of this month, and the _Auckland_ sails
+on the 2nd of February. Tell Miss Mary I shall bring her home all kinds
+of pretty presents from Affghanistan,--ivory fans, and Cashmere shawls,
+and Chinese puzzles, and embroidered slippers with turned-up toes, and
+diamonds, and attar-of-roses, and suchlike; and remember that I expect
+you to write to me, and to give me the earliest news of your coming
+into the Lincolnshire property."
+
+John Marchmont received this letter in the middle of January. He gave a
+despondent sigh as he refolded the boyish epistle, after reading it to
+his little girl.
+
+"We haven't so many friends, Polly," he said, "that we should be
+indifferent to the loss of this one."
+
+Mary Marchmont's cheek grew paler at her father's sorrowful speech.
+That imaginative temperament, which was, as I have said, almost morbid
+in its intensity, presented every object to the little girl in a light
+in which things are looked at by very few children. Only these few
+words, and her fancy roamed far away to that cruel land whose perils
+her father had described to her. Only these few words, and she was away
+in the rocky Bolan Pass, under hurricanes of drifting snow; she saw the
+hungry soldiers fighting with savage dogs for the possession of foul
+carrion. She had heard all the perils and difficulties which had
+befallen the Army of the Indus in the year '39, and the womanly heart
+ached with the pain of those cruel memories.
+
+"He will go to India and be killed, papa dear," she said. "Oh! why, why
+do they let him go? His mother can't love him, can she? She would never
+let him go, if she did."
+
+John Marchmont was obliged to explain to his daughter that motherly
+love must not go so far as to deprive a nation of its defenders; and
+that the richest jewels which Cornelia can give to her country are
+those ruby life-drops which flow from the hearts of her bravest and
+brightest sons. Mary was no political economist; she could not reason
+upon the necessity of chastising Persian insolence, or checking Russian
+encroachments upon the far-away shores of the Indus. Was Edward
+Arundel's bright head, with its aureola of yellow hair, to be cloven
+asunder by an Affghan renegade's sabre, because the young Shah of
+Persia had been contumacious?
+
+Mary Marchmont wept silently that day over a three-volume novel, while
+her father was away serving writs upon wretched insolvents, in his
+capacity of out-door clerk to Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and
+Mathewson.
+
+The young lady no longer spent her quiet days in the two-pair back. Mr.
+Marchmont and his daughter had remained faithful to Oakley Street and
+the proprietress of the ladies' wardrobe, who was a good, motherly
+creature; but they had descended to the grandeur of the first floor,
+whose gorgeous decorations Mary had glanced at furtively in the days
+gone by, when the splendid chambers were occupied by an elderly and
+reprobate commission-agent, who seemed utterly indifferent to the
+delights of a convex mirror, surmounted by a maimed eagle, whose
+dignity was somewhat impaired by the loss of a wing; but which bijou
+appeared, to Mary, to be a fitting adornment for the young Queen's
+palace in St. James's Park.
+
+But neither the eagle nor the third volume of a thrilling romance could
+comfort Mary upon this bleak January day. She shut her book, and stood
+by the window, looking out into the dreary street, that seemed so
+blotted and dim under the falling snow.
+
+"It snowed in the Pass of Bolan," she thought; "and the treacherous
+Indians harassed the brave soldiers, and killed their camels. What will
+become of him in that dreadful country? Shall we ever see him again?"
+
+Yes, Mary, to your sorrow! Indian scimitars will let him go scatheless;
+famine and fever will pass him by; but the hand which points to that
+far-away day on which you and he are to meet, will never fail or falter
+in its purpose until the hour of your meeting comes.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+We have no need to dwell upon the preparations which were made for the
+young soldier's departure from home, nor on the tender farewells
+between the mother and her son.
+
+Mr. Arundel was a country gentleman _pur et simple_; a hearty,
+broad-shouldered squire, who had no thought above his farm and his
+dog-kennel, or the hunting of the red deer with which his neighbourhood
+abounded. He sent his younger son to India as coolly as he had sent the
+elder to Oxford. The boy had little to inherit, and must be provided
+for in a gentlemanly manner. Other younger sons of the House of Arundel
+had fought and conquered in the Honourable East India Company's
+service; and was Edward any better than they, that there should be
+sentimental whining because the lad was going away to fight his way to
+fortune, if he could? Mr. Arundel went even further than this, and
+declared that Master Edward was a lucky dog to be going out at such a
+time, when there was plenty of fighting, and a very fair chance of
+speedy promotion for a good soldier.
+
+He gave the young cadet his blessing, reminded him of the limit of such
+supplies as he was to expect from home, bade him keep clear of the
+brandy-bottle and the dice-box; and having done this, believed that he
+had performed his duty as an Englishman and a father.
+
+If Mrs. Arundel wept, she wept in secret, loth to discourage her son by
+the sight of those natural, womanly tears. If Miss Letitia Arundel was
+sorry to lose her brother, she mourned with most praiseworthy
+discretion, and did not forget to remind the young traveller that she
+expected to receive a muslin frock, embroidered with beetle-wings, by
+an early mail. And as Algernon Fairfax Dangerfield Arundel, the heir,
+was away at college, there was no one else to mourn. So Edward left the
+home of his forefathers by a branch-coach, which started from the
+"Arundel Arms" in time to meet the "Telegraph" at Exeter; and no noisy
+lamentations shook the sky above Dangerfield Park--no mourning voices
+echoed through the spacious rooms. The old servants were sorry to lose
+the younger-born, whose easy, genial temperament had made him an
+especial favourite; but there was a certain admixture of joviality with
+their sorrow, as there generally is with all mourning in the basement;
+and the strong ale, the famous Dangerfield October, went faster upon
+that 31st of January than on any day since Christmas.
+
+I doubt if any one at Dangerfield Park sorrowed as bitterly for the
+departure of the boyish soldier as a romantic young lady, of nine years
+old, in Oakley Street, Lambeth; whose one sentimental
+day-dream--half-childish, half-womanly--owned Edward Arundel as its
+centre figure.
+
+So the curtain falls on the picture of a brave ship sailing eastward,
+her white canvas strained against the cold grey February sky, and a
+little girl weeping over the tattered pages of a stupid novel in a
+shabby London lodging.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MARCHMONT TOWERS.
+
+
+There is a lapse of three years and a half between the acts; and the
+curtain rises to reveal a widely-different picture:--the picture of a
+noble mansion in the flat Lincolnshire country; a stately pile of
+building, standing proudly forth against a background of black
+woodland; a noble building, supported upon either side by an octagon
+tower, whose solid masonry is half-hidden by the ivy which clings about
+the stonework, trailing here and there, and flapping restlessly with
+every breath of wind against the narrow casements.
+
+A broad stone terrace stretches the entire length of the grim facade,
+from tower to tower; and three flights of steps lead from the terrace
+to the broad lawn, which loses itself in a vast grassy flat, only
+broken by a few clumps of trees and a dismal pool of black water, but
+called by courtesy a park. Grim stone griffins surmount the
+terrace-steps, and griffins' heads and other architectural
+monstrosities, worn and moss-grown, keep watch and ward over every door
+and window, every archway and abutment--frowning threat and defiance
+upon the daring visitor who approaches the great house by this, the
+formidable chief entrance.
+
+The mansion looks westward: but there is another approach, a low
+archway on the southern side, which leads into a quadrangle, where
+there is a quaint little door under a stone portico, ivy-covered like
+the rest; a comfortable little door of massive oak, studded with knobs
+of rusty iron,--a door generally affected by visitors familiar with the
+house.
+
+This is Marchmont Towers,--a grand and stately mansion, which had been
+a monastery in the days when England and the Pope were friends and
+allies; and which had been bestowed upon Hugh Marchmont, gentleman, by
+his Sovereign Lord and Most Christian Majesty the King Henry VIII, of
+blessed memory, and by that gentleman-commoner extended and improved at
+considerable outlay. This is Marchmont Towers,--a splendid and a
+princely habitation truly, but perhaps scarcely the kind of dwelling
+one would choose for the holy resting-place we call home. The great
+mansion is a little too dismal in its lonely grandeur: it lacks shelter
+when the dreary winds come sweeping across the grassy flats in the
+bleak winter weather; it lacks shade when the western sun blazes on
+every window-pane in the stifling summer evening. It is at all times
+rather too stony in its aspect; and is apt to remind one almost
+painfully of every weird and sorrowful story treasured in the
+storehouse of memory. Ancient tales of enchantment, dark German
+legends, wild Scottish fancies, grim fragments of half-forgotten
+demonology, strange stories of murder, violence, mystery, and wrong,
+vaguely intermingle in the stranger's mind as he looks, for the first
+time, at Marchmont Towers.
+
+But of course these feelings wear off in time. So invincible is the
+power of custom, that we might make ourselves comfortable in the Castle
+of Otranto, after a reasonable sojourn within its mysterious walls:
+familiarity would breed contempt for the giant helmet, and all the
+other grim apparitions of the haunted dwelling. The commonplace and
+ignoble wants of every-day life must surely bring disenchantment with
+them. The ghost and the butcher's boy cannot well exist
+contemporaneously; and the avenging shade can scarcely continue to lurk
+beneath the portal which is visited by the matutinal milkman. Indeed,
+this is doubtless the reason that the most restless and impatient
+spirit, bent on early vengeance and immediate retribution, will yet
+wait until the shades of night have fallen before he reveals himself,
+rather than run the risk of an ignominious encounter with the postman
+or the parlour-maid. Be it how it might, the phantoms of Marchmont
+Towers were not intrusive. They may have perambulated the long
+tapestried corridors, the tenantless chambers, the broad black
+staircase of shining oak; but, happily, no dweller in the mansion was
+ever scared by the sight of their pale faces. All the dead-and-gone
+beauties, and soldiers, and lawyers, and parsons, and simple
+country-squires of the Marchmont race may have descended from their
+picture-frames to hold a witches' sabbath in the old mansion; but as
+the Lincolnshire servants were hearty eaters and heavy sleepers, the
+ghosts had it all to themselves. I believe there was one dismal story
+attached to the house,--the story of a Marchmont of the time of Charles
+I, who had murdered his coachman in a fit of insensate rage; and it was
+even asserted, upon the authority of an old housekeeper, that John
+Marchmont's grandmother, when a young woman and lately come as a bride
+to the Towers, had beheld the murdered coachman stalk into her chamber,
+ghastly and blood-bedabbled, in the dim summer twilight. But as this
+story was not particularly romantic, and possessed none of the elements
+likely to insure popularity,--such as love, jealousy, revenge, mystery,
+youth, and beauty,--it had never been very widely disseminated.
+
+I should think that the new owner of Marchmont Towers--new within the
+last six months--was about the last person in Christendom to be
+hypercritical, or to raise fanciful objections to his dwelling; for
+inasmuch as he had come straight from a wretched transpontine lodging
+to this splendid Lincolnshire mansion, and had at the same time
+exchanged a stipend of thirty shillings a week for an income of eleven
+thousand a year (derivable from lands that spread far away, over fenny
+flats and low-lying farms, to the solitary seashore), he had ample
+reason to be grateful to Providence, and well pleased with his new
+abode.
+
+Yes; Philip Marchmont, the childless widower, had died six months
+before, at the close of the year '43, of a broken heart,--his old
+servants said, broken by the loss of his only and idolised son; after
+which loss he had never been known to smile. He was one of those
+undemonstrative men who can take a great sorrow quietly, and only--die
+of it. Philip Marchmont lay in a velvet-covered coffin, above his
+son's, in the stone recess set apart for them in the Marchmont vault
+beneath Kemberling Church, three miles from the Towers; and John
+reigned in his stead. John Marchmont, the supernumerary, the
+banner-holder of Drury Lane, the patient, conscientious copying and
+outdoor clerk of Lincoln's Inn, was now sole owner of the Lincolnshire
+estate, sole master of a household of well-trained old servants, sole
+proprietor of a very decent country-gentleman's stud, and of chariots,
+barouches, chaises, phaetons, and other vehicles--a little shabby and
+out of date it may be, but very comfortable to a man for whom an
+omnibus ride had long been a treat and a rarity. Nothing had been
+touched or disturbed since Philip Marchmont's death. The rooms he had
+used were still the occupied apartments; the chambers he had chosen to
+shut up were still kept with locked doors; the servants who had served
+him waited upon his successor, whom they declared to be a quiet, easy
+gentleman, far too wise to interfere with old servants, every one of
+whom knew the ways of the house a great deal better than he did, though
+he was the master of it.
+
+There was, therefore, no shadow of change in the stately mansion. The
+dinner-bell still rang at the same hour; the same tradespeople left the
+same species of wares at the low oaken door; the old housekeeper,
+arranging her simple _menu_, planned her narrow round of soups and
+roasts, sweets and made-dishes, exactly as she had been wont to do, and
+had no new tastes to consult. A grey-haired bachelor, who had been
+own-man to Philip, was now own-man to John. The carriage which had
+conveyed the late lord every Sunday to morning and afternoon service at
+Kemberling conveyed the new lord, who sat in the same seat that his
+predecessor had occupied in the great family-pew, and read his prayers
+out of the same book,--a noble crimson, morocco-covered volume, in
+which George, our most gracious King and Governor, and all manner of
+dead-and-gone princes and princesses were prayed for.
+
+The presence of Mary Marchmont made the only change in the old house;
+and even that change was a very trifling one. Mary and her father were
+as closely united at Marchmont Towers as they had been in Oakley
+Street. The little girl clung to her father as tenderly as ever--more
+tenderly than ever perhaps; for she knew something of that which the
+physicians had said, and she knew that John Marchmont's lease of life
+was not a long one. Perhaps it would be better to say that he had no
+lease at all. His soul was a tenant on sufferance in its frail earthly
+habitation, receiving a respite now and again, when the flicker of the
+lamp was very low--every chance breath of wind threatening to
+extinguish it for ever. It was only those who knew John Marchmont very
+intimately who were fully acquainted with the extent of his danger. He
+no longer bore any of those fatal outward signs of consumption, which
+fatigue and deprivation had once made painfully conspicuous. The hectic
+flush and the unnatural brightness of the eyes had subsided; indeed,
+John seemed much stronger and heartier than of old; and it is only
+great medical practitioners who can tell to a nicety what is going on
+_inside_ a man, when he presents a very fair exterior to the
+unprofessional eye. But John was decidedly better than he had been. He
+might live three years, five, seven, possibly even ten years; but he
+must live the life of a man who holds himself perpetually upon his
+defence against death; and he must recognise in every bleak current of
+wind, in every chilling damp, or perilous heat, or over-exertion, or
+ill-chosen morsel of food, or hasty emotion, or sudden passion, an
+insidious ally of his dismal enemy.
+
+Mary Marchmont knew all this,--or divined it, perhaps, rather than knew
+it, with the child-woman's subtle power of divination, which is even
+stronger than the actual woman's; for her father had done his best to
+keep all sorrowful knowledge from her. She knew that he was in danger;
+and she loved him all the more dearly, as the one precious thing which
+was in constant peril of being snatched away. The child's love for her
+father has not grown any less morbid in its intensity since Edward
+Arundel's departure for India; nor has Mary become more childlike since
+her coming to Marchmont Towers, and her abandonment of all those sordid
+cares, those pitiful every-day duties, which had made her womanly.
+
+It may be that the last lingering glamour of childhood had for ever
+faded away with the realisation of the day-dream which she had carried
+about with her so often in the dingy transpontine thoroughfares around
+Oakley Street. Marchmont Towers, that fairy palace, whose lighted
+windows had shone upon her far away across a cruel forest of poverty
+and trouble, like the enchanted castle which appears to the lost
+wanderer of the child's story, was now the home of the father she
+loved. The grim enchanter Death, the only magician of our modern
+histories, had waved his skeleton hand, more powerful than the
+star-gemmed wand of any fairy godmother, and the obstacles which had
+stood between John Marchmont and his inheritance had one by one been
+swept away.
+
+But was Marchmont Towers quite as beautiful as that fairy palace of
+Mary's day-dream? No, not quite--not quite. The rooms were
+handsome,--handsomer and larger, even, than the rooms she had dreamed
+of; but perhaps none the better for that. They were grand and gloomy
+and magnificent; but they were not the sunlit chambers which her fancy
+had built up, and decorated with such shreds and patches of splendour
+as her narrow experience enabled her to devise. Perhaps it was rather a
+disappointment to Miss Marchmont to discover that the mansion was
+completely furnished, and that there was no room in it for any of those
+splendours which she had so often contemplated in the New Cut. The
+parrot at the greengrocer's was a vulgar bird, and not by any means
+admissible in Lincolnshire. The carrying away and providing for Mary's
+favourite tradespeople was not practicable; and John Marchmont had
+demurred to her proposal of adopting the butcher's daughter.
+
+There is always something to be given up even when our brightest
+visions are realised; there is always some one figure (a low one
+perhaps) missing in the fullest sum of earthly happiness. I dare say if
+Alnaschar had married the Vizier's daughter, he would have found her a
+shrew, and would have looked back yearningly to the humble days in
+which he had been an itinerant vendor of crockery-ware.
+
+If, therefore, Mary Marchmont found her sunlit fancies not quite
+realised by the great stony mansion that frowned upon the fenny
+countryside, the wide grassy flat, the black pool, with its dismal
+shelter of weird pollard-willows, whose ugly reflections, distorted on
+the bosom of the quiet water, looked like the shadows of hump-backed
+men;--if these things did not compose as beautiful a picture as that
+which the little girl had carried so long in her mind, she had no more
+reason to be sorry than the rest of us, and had been no more foolish
+than other dreamers. I think she had built her airy castle too much
+after the model of a last scene in a pantomime, and that she expected
+to find spangled waters twinkling in perpetual sunshine, revolving
+fountains, ever-expanding sunflowers, and gilded clouds of
+rose-coloured gauze,--every thing except the fairies, in short,--at
+Marchmont Towers. Well, the dream was over: and she was quite a woman
+now, and very grateful to Providence when she remembered that her
+father had no longer need to toil for his daily bread, and that he was
+luxuriously lodged, and could have the first physicians in the land at
+his beck and call.
+
+"Oh, papa, it is so nice to be rich!" the young lady would exclaim now
+and then, in a fleeting transport of enthusiasm. "How good we ought to
+be to the poor people, when we remember how poor we once were!"
+
+And the little girl did not forget to be good to the poor about
+Kemberling and Marchmont Towers. There were plenty of poor, of
+course--free-and-easy pensioners, who came to the Towers for brandy,
+and wine, and milk, and woollen stuffs, and grocery, precisely as they
+would have gone to a shop, except that there was to be no bill. The
+housekeeper doled out her bounties with many short homilies upon the
+depravity and ingratitude of the recipients, and gave tracts of an
+awful and denunciatory nature to the pitiful petitioners--tracts
+interrogatory, and tracts fiercely imperative; tracts that asked,
+"Where are you going?" "Why are you wicked?" "What will become of you?"
+and other tracts which cried, "Stop, and think!" "Pause, while there is
+time!" "Sinner, consider!" "Evil-doer, beware!" Perhaps it may not be
+the wisest possible plan to begin the work of reformation by
+frightening, threatening, and otherwise disheartening the wretched
+sinner to be reformed. There is a certain sermon in the New Testament,
+containing sacred and comforting words which were spoken upon a
+mountain near at hand to Jerusalem, and spoken to an auditory amongst
+which there must have been many sinful creatures; but there is more of
+blessing than cursing in that sublime discourse, and it might be rather
+a tender father pleading gently with his wayward children than an
+offended Deity dealing out denunciation upon a stubborn and refractory
+race. But the authors of the tracts may have never read this sermon,
+perhaps; and they may take their ideas of composition from that
+comforting service which we read on Ash-Wednesday, cowering in fear and
+trembling in our pews, and calling down curses upon ourselves and our
+neighbours. Be it as it might, the tracts were not popular amongst the
+pensioners of Marchmont Towers. They infinitely preferred to hear Mary
+read a chapter in the New Testament, or some pretty patriarchal story
+of primitive obedience and faith. The little girl would discourse upon
+the Scripture histories in her simple, old-fashioned manner; and many a
+stout Lincolnshire farm-labourer was content to sit over his hearth,
+with a pipe of shag-tobacco and a mug of fettled beer, while Miss
+Marchmont read and expounded the history of Abraham and Isaac, or
+Joseph and his brethren.
+
+"It's joost loike a story-book to hear her," the man would say to his
+wife; "and yet she brings it all hoame, too, loike. If she reads about
+Abraham, she'll say, maybe, 'That's joost how you gave your only son to
+be a soldier, you know, Muster Moggins;'--she allus says Muster
+Moggins;--'you gave un into God's hands, and you troosted God would
+take care of un; and whatever cam' to un would be the best, even if it
+was death.' That's what she'll say, bless her little heart! so gentle
+and tender loike. The wust o' chaps couldn't but listen to her."
+
+Mary Marchmont's morbidly sensitive nature adapted her to all
+charitable offices. No chance word in her simple talk ever inflicted a
+wound upon the listener. She had a subtle and intuitive comprehension
+of other people's feelings, derived from the extreme susceptibility of
+her own. She had never been vulgarised by the associations of poverty;
+for her self-contained nature took no colour from the things that
+surrounded her, and she was only at Marchmont Towers that which she had
+been from the age of six--a little lady, grave and gentle, dignified,
+discreet, and wise.
+
+There was one bright figure missing out of the picture which Mary had
+been wont of late years to make of the Lincolnshire mansion, and that
+was the figure of the yellow-haired boy who had breakfasted upon
+haddocks and hot rolls in Oakley Street. She had imagined Edward
+Arundel an inhabitant of that fair Utopia. He would live with them; or,
+if he could not live with them, he would be with them as a
+visitor,--often--almost always. He would leave off being a soldier, for
+of course her papa could give him more money than he could get by being
+a soldier--(you see that Mary's experience of poverty had taught her to
+take a mercantile and sordid view of military life)--and he would come
+to Marchmont Towers, and ride, and drive, and play tennis (what was
+tennis? she wondered), and read three-volume novels all day long. But
+that part of the dream was at least broken. Marchmont Towers was Mary's
+home, but the young soldier was far away; in the Pass of Bolan,
+perhaps,--Mary had a picture of that cruel rocky pass almost always in
+her mind,--or cutting his way through a black jungle, with the yellow
+eyes of hungry tigers glaring out at him through the rank tropical
+foliage; or dying of thirst and fever under a scorching sun, with no
+better pillow than the neck of a dead camel, with no more tender
+watcher than the impatient vulture flapping her wings above his head,
+and waiting till he, too, should be carrion. What was the good of
+wealth, if it could not bring this young soldier home to a safe shelter
+in his native land? John Marchmont smiled when his daughter asked this
+question, and implored her father to write to Edward Arundel, recalling
+him to England.
+
+"God knows how glad I should be to have the boy here, Polly!" John
+said, as he drew his little girl closer to his breast,--she sat on his
+knee still, though she was thirteen years of age. "But Edward has a
+career before him, my dear, and could not give it up for an inglorious
+life in this rambling old house. It isn't as if I could hold out any
+inducement to him: you know, Polly, I can't; for I mustn't leave any
+money away from my little girl."
+
+"But he might have half my money, papa, or all of it," Mary added
+piteously. "What could I do with money, if----?"
+
+She didn't finish the sentence; she never could complete any such
+sentence as this; but her father knew what she meant.
+
+So six months had passed since a dreary January day upon which John
+Marchmont had read, in the second column of the "Times," that he could
+hear of something greatly to his advantage by applying to a certain
+solicitor, whose offices were next door but one to those of Messrs.
+Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson's. His heart began to beat very
+violently when he read that advertisement in the supplement, which it
+was one of his duties to air before the fire in the clerks' office; but
+he showed no other sign of emotion. He waited until he took the papers
+to his employer; and as he laid them at Mr. Mathewson's elbow, murmured
+a respectful request to be allowed to go out for half-an-hour, upon his
+own business.
+
+"Good gracious me, Marchmont!" cried the lawyer; "what can you want to
+go out for at this time in the morning? You've only just come; and
+there's that agreement between Higgs and Sandyman must be copied
+before----"
+
+"Yes, I know, sir. I'll be back in time to attend to it; but I--I think
+I've come into a fortune, sir; and I should like to go and see about
+it."
+
+The solicitor turned in his revolving library-chair, and looked aghast
+at his clerk. Had this Marchmont--always rather unnaturally reserved
+and eccentric--gone suddenly mad? No; the copying-clerk stood by his
+employer's side, grave, self-possessed as ever, with his forefinger
+upon the advertisement.
+
+"Marchmont--John--call--Messrs. Tindal and Trollam--" gasped Mr.
+Mathewson. "Do you mean to tell me it's _you_?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Egad, I'll go with you!" cried the solicitor, hooking his arm through
+that of his clerk, snatching his hat from an adjacent stand, and
+dashing through the outer office, down the great staircase, and into
+the next door but one before John Marchmont knew where he was.
+
+John had not deceived his employer. Marchmont Towers was his, with all
+its appurtenances. Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson took him
+in hand, much to the chagrin of Messrs. Tindal and Trollam, and proved
+his identity in less than a week. On a shelf above the high wooden desk
+at which John had sat, copying law-papers, with a weary hand and an
+aching spine, appeared two bran-new deed-boxes, inscribed, in white
+letters, with the name and address of JOHN MARCHMONT, ESQ., MARCHMONT
+TOWERS. The copying-clerk's sudden accession to fortune was the talk of
+all the _employes_ in "The Fields." Marchmont Towers was exaggerated
+into half Lincolnshire, and a tidy slice of Yorkshire; eleven thousand
+a year was expanded into an annual million. Everybody expected largesse
+from the legatee. How fond people had been of the quiet clerk, and how
+magnanimously they had concealed their sentiments during his poverty,
+lest they should wound him, as they urged, "which" they knew he was
+sensitive; and how expansively they now dilated on their
+long-suppressed emotions! Of course, under these circumstances, it is
+hardly likely that everybody could be satisfied; so it is a small thing
+to say that the dinner which John gave--by his late employers'
+suggestion (he was about the last man to think of giving a dinner)--at
+the "Albion Tavern," to the legal staff of Messrs. Paulette, Paulette,
+and Mathewson, and such acquaintance of the legal profession as they
+should choose to invite, was a failure; and that gentlemen who were
+pretty well used to dine upon liver and bacon, or beefsteak and onions,
+or the joint, vegetables, bread, cheese, and celery for a shilling,
+turned up their noses at the turbot, murmured at the paucity of green
+fat in the soup, made light of red mullet and ortolans, objected to the
+flavour of the truffles, and were contemptuous about the wines.
+
+John knew nothing of this. He had lived a separate and secluded
+existence; and his only thought now was of getting away to Marchmont
+Towers, which had been familiar to him in his boyhood, when he had been
+wont to go there on occasional visits to his grandfather. He wanted to
+get away from the turmoil and confusion of the big, heartless city, in
+which he had endured so much; he wanted to carry away his little girl
+to a quiet country home, and live and die there in peace. He liberally
+rewarded all the good people about Oakley Street who had been kind to
+little Mary; and there was weeping in the regions of the Ladies'
+Wardrobe when Mr. Marchmont and his daughter went away one bitter
+winter's morning in a cab, which was to carry them to the hostelry
+whence the coach started for Lincoln.
+
+It is strange to think how far those Oakley-street days of privation
+and endurance seem to have receded in the memories of both father and
+daughter. The impalpable past fades away, and it is difficult for John
+and his little girl to believe that they were once so poor and
+desolate. It is Oakley Street now that is visionary and unreal. The
+stately county families bear down upon Marchmont Towers in great
+lumbering chariots, with brazen crests upon the hammer-cloths, and
+sulky coachmen in Brown-George wigs. The county mammas patronise and
+caress Miss Marchmont--what a match she will be for one of the county
+sons by-and-by!--the county daughters discourse with Mary about her
+poor, and her fancy-work, and her piano. She is getting on slowly
+enough with her piano, poor little girl! under the tuition of the
+organist of Swampington, who gives lessons to that part of the county.
+And there are solemn dinners now and then at Marchmont Towers--dinners
+at which Miss Mary appears when the cloth has been removed, and
+reflects in silent wonder upon the change that has come to her father
+and herself. Can it be true that she has ever lived in Oakley Street,
+whither came no more aristocratic visitors than her Aunt Sophia, who
+was the wife of a Berkshire farmer, and always brought hogs' puddings,
+and butter, and home-made bread, and other rustic delicacies to her
+brother-in-law; or Mrs. Brigsome, the washer-woman, who made a
+morning-call every Monday, to fetch John Marchmont's shabby shirts? The
+shirts were not shabby now; and it was no longer Mary's duty to watch
+them day by day, and manipulate them tenderly when the linen grew
+frayed at the sharp edges of the folds, or the buttonholes gave signs
+of weakness. Corson, Mr. Marchmont's own-man, had care of the shirts
+now: and John wore diamond-studs and a black-satin waistcoat, when he
+gave a dinner-party. They were not very lively, those Lincolnshire
+dinner-parties; though the dessert was a sight to look upon, in Mary's
+eyes. The long shining table, the red and gold and purple Indian china,
+the fluffy woollen d'oyleys, the sparkling cut-glass, the sticky
+preserved ginger and guava-jelly, and dried orange rings and chips, and
+all the stereotyped sweetmeats, were very grand and beautiful, no
+doubt; but Mary had seen livelier desserts in Oakley Street, though
+there had been nothing better than a brown-paper bag of oranges from
+the Westminster Road, and a bottle of two-and-twopenny Marsala from a
+licensed victualler's in the Borough, to promote conviviality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE YOUNG SOLDIER'S RETURN.
+
+
+The rain beats down upon the battlemented roof of Marchmont Towers this
+July day, as if it had a mind to flood the old mansion. The flat waste
+of grass, and the lonely clumps of trees, are almost blotted out by the
+falling rain. The low grey sky shuts out the distance. This part of
+Lincolnshire--fenny, misty, and flat always--seems flatter and mistier
+than usual to-day. The rain beats hopelessly upon the leaves in the
+wood behind Marchmont Towers, and splashes into great pools beneath the
+trees, until the ground is almost hidden by the fallen water, and the
+trees seem to be growing out of a black lake. The land is lower behind
+Marchmont Towers, and slopes down gradually to the bank of a dismal
+river, which straggles through the Marchmont property at a snail's
+pace, to gain an impetus farther on, until it hurries into the sea
+somewhere northward of Grimsby. The wood is not held in any great
+favour by the household at the Towers; and it has been a pet project of
+several Marchmonts to level and drain it, but a project not very easily
+to be carried out. Marchmont Towers is said to be unhealthy, as a
+dwelling-house, by reason of this wood, from which miasmas rise in
+certain states of the weather; and it is on this account that the back
+of the house--the eastern front, at least, as it is called--looking to
+the wood is very little used.
+
+Mary Marchmont sits at a window in the western drawing-room, watching
+the ceaseless falling of the rain upon this dreary summer afternoon.
+She is little changed since the day upon which Edward Arundel saw her
+in Oakley Street. She is taller, of course, but her figure is as
+slender and childish as ever: it is only her face in which the
+earnestness of premature womanhood reveals itself in a grave and sweet
+serenity very beautiful to contemplate. Her soft brown eyes have a
+pensive shadow in their gentle light; her mouth is even more pensive.
+It has been said of Jane Grey, of Mary Stuart, of Marie Antoinette,
+Charlotte Corday, and other fated women, that in the gayest hours of
+their youth they bore upon some feature, or in some expression, the
+shadow of the End--an impalpable, indescribable presage of an awful
+future, vaguely felt by those who looked upon them.
+
+Is it thus with Mary Marchmont? Has the solemn hand of Destiny set that
+shadowy brand upon the face of this child, that even in her prosperity,
+as in her adversity, she should be so utterly different from all other
+children? Is she already marked out for some womanly martyrdom--already
+set apart for more than common suffering?
+
+She sits alone this afternoon, for her father is busy with his agent.
+Wealth does not mean immunity from all care and trouble; and Mr.
+Marchmont has plenty of work to get through, in conjunction with his
+land-steward, a hard-headed Yorkshireman, who lives at Kemberling, and
+insists on doing his duty with pertinacious honesty.
+
+The large brown eyes looked wistfully out at the dismal waste and the
+falling rain. There was a wretched equestrian making his way along the
+carriage-drive.
+
+"Who can come to see us on such a day?" Mary thought. "It must be Mr.
+Gormby, I suppose;"--the agent's name was Gormby. "Mr. Gormby never
+cares about the wet; but then I thought he was with papa. Oh, I hope it
+isn't anybody coming to call."
+
+But Mary forgot all about the struggling equestrian the next moment.
+She had some morsel of fancy-work upon her lap, and picked it up and
+went on with it, setting slow stitches, and letting her thoughts wander
+far away from Marchmont Towers--to India, I am afraid; or to that
+imaginary India which she had created for herself out of such images as
+were to be picked up in the "Arabian Nights." She was roused suddenly
+by the opening of a door at the farther end of the room, and by the
+voice of a servant, who mumbled a name which sounded something like Mr.
+Armenger.
+
+She rose, blushing a little, to do honour to one of her father's county
+acquaintance, as she thought; when a fair-haired gentleman dashed in,
+very much excited and very wet, and made his way towards her.
+
+"I _would_ come, Miss Marchmont," he said,--"I would come, though the
+day was so wet. Everybody vowed I was mad to think of it, and it was as
+much as my poor brute of a horse could do to get over the ten miles of
+swamp between this and my uncle's house; but I would come! Where's
+John? I want to see John. Didn't I always tell him he'd come into the
+Lincolnshire property? Didn't I always say so, now? You should have
+seen Martin Mostyn's face--he's got a capital berth in the War Office,
+and he's such a snob!--when I told him the news: it was as long as my
+arm! But I must see John, dear old fellow! I long to congratulate him."
+
+Mary stood with her hands clasped, and her breath coming quickly. The
+blush had quite faded out, and left her unusually pale. But Edward
+Arundel did not see this: young gentlemen of four-and-twenty are not
+very attentive to every change of expression in little girls of
+thirteen.
+
+"Oh, is it you, Mr. Arundel? Is it really you?"
+
+She spoke in a low voice, and it was almost difficult to keep the
+rushing tears back while she did so. She had pictured him so often in
+peril, in famine, in sickness, in death, that to see him here, well,
+happy, light-hearted, cordial, handsome, and brave, as she had seen him
+four-and-a-half years before in the two-pair back in Oakley Street, was
+almost too much for her to bear without the relief of tears. But she
+controlled her emotion as bravely as if she had been a woman of twenty.
+
+"I am so glad to see you," she said quietly; "and papa will be so glad
+too! It is the only thing we want, now we are rich; to have you with
+us. We have talked of you so often; and I--we--have been so unhappy
+sometimes, thinking that----"
+
+"That I should be killed, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; or wounded very, very badly. The battles in India have been
+dreadful, have they not?"
+
+Mr. Arundel smiled at her earnestness.
+
+"They have not been exactly child's play," he said, shaking back his
+chesnut hair and smoothing his thick moustache. He was a man now, and a
+very handsome one; something of that type which is known in this year
+of grace as "swell"; but brave and chivalrous withal, and not afflicted
+with any impediment in his speech. "The men who talk of the Affghans as
+a chicken-hearted set of fellows are rather out of their reckoning. The
+Indians can fight, Miss Mary, and fight like the devil; but we can lick
+'em!"
+
+He walked over to the fireplace, where--upon this chilly wet day, there
+was a fire burning--and began to shake himself dry. Mary, following him
+with her eyes, wondered if there was such another soldier in all Her
+Majesty's dominions, and how soon he would be made General-in-Chief of
+the Army of the Indus.
+
+"Then you've not been wounded at all, Mr. Arundel?" she said, after a
+pause.
+
+"Oh, yes, I've been wounded; I got a bullet in my shoulder from an
+Affghan musket, and I'm home on sick-leave."
+
+This time he saw the expression of her face, and interpreted her look
+of alarm.
+
+"But I'm not ill, you know, Miss Marchmont," he said, laughing. "Our
+fellows are very glad of a wound when they feel home-sick. The 8th come
+home before long, all of 'em; and I've a twelvemonth's leave of
+absence; and we're pretty sure to be ordered out again by the end of
+that time, as I don't believe there's much chance of quiet over there."
+
+"You will go out again!----"
+
+Edward Arundel smiled at her mournful tone.
+
+"To be sure, Miss Mary. I have my captaincy to win, you know; I'm only
+a lieutenant, as yet."
+
+It was only a twelvemonth's reprieve, after all, then, Mary thought. He
+would go back again--to suffer, and to be wounded, and to die, perhaps.
+But then, on the other hand, there was a twelvemonth's respite; and her
+father might in that time prevail upon the young soldier to stay at
+Marchmont Towers. It was such inexpressible happiness to see him once
+more, to know that he was safe and well, that Mary could scarcely do
+otherwise than see all things in a sunny light just now.
+
+She ran to John Marchmont's study to tell him of the coming of this
+welcome visitor; but she wept upon her father's shoulder before she
+could explain who it was whose coming had made her so glad. Very few
+friendships had broken the monotony of her solitary existence; and
+Edward Arundel was the only chivalrous image she had ever known, out of
+her books.
+
+John Marchmont was scarcely less pleased than his child to see the man
+who had befriended him in his poverty. Never has more heartfelt welcome
+been given than that which greeted Edward Arundel at Marchmont Towers.
+
+"You will stay with us, of course, my dear Arundel," John said; "you
+will stop for September and the shooting. You know you promised you'd
+make this your shooting-box; and we'll build the tennis-court. Heaven
+knows, there's room enough for it in the great quadrangle; and there's
+a billiard-room over this, though I'm afraid the table is out of order.
+But we can soon set that right, can't we, Polly?"
+
+"Yes, yes, papa; out of my pocket-money, if you like."
+
+Mary Marchmont said this in all good faith. It was sometimes difficult
+for her to remember that her father was really rich, and had no need of
+help out of her pocket-money. The slender savings in her little purse
+had often given him some luxury that he would not otherwise have had,
+in the time gone by.
+
+"You got my letter, then?" John said; "the letter in which I told
+you----"
+
+"That Marchmont Towers was yours. Yes, my dear old boy. That letter was
+amongst a packet my agent brought me half-an-hour before I left
+Calcutta. God bless you, dear old fellow; how glad I was to hear of it!
+I've only been in England a fortnight. I went straight from Southampton
+to Dangerfield to see my father and mother, stayed there little over
+ten days, and then offended them all by running away. I reached
+Swampington yesterday, slept at my uncle Hubert's, paid my respects to
+my cousin Olivia, who is,--well, I've told you what she is,--and rode
+over here this morning, much to the annoyance of the inhabitants of the
+Rectory. So, you see, I've been doing nothing but offending people for
+your sake, John; and for yours, Miss Mary. By-the-by, I've brought you
+such a doll!"
+
+A doll! Mary's pale face flushed a faint crimson. Did he think her
+still a child, then, this soldier; did he think her only a silly child,
+with no thought above a doll, when she would have gone out to India,
+and braved every peril of that cruel country, to be his nurse and
+comfort in fever and sickness, like the brave Sisters of Mercy she had
+read of in some of her novels?
+
+Edward Arundel saw that faint crimson glow lighting up in her face.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Marchmont," he said. "I was only joking; of
+course you are a young lady now, almost grown up, you know. Can you
+play chess?"
+
+"No, Mr. Arundel."
+
+"I am sorry for that; for I have brought you a set of chessmen that
+once belonged to Dost Mahommed Khan. But I'll teach you the game, if
+you like?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Mr. Arundel; I should like it very, very much."
+
+The young soldier could not help being amused by the little girl's
+earnestness. She was about the same age as his sister Letitia; but, oh,
+how widely different to that bouncing and rather wayward young lady,
+who tore the pillow-lace upon her muslin frocks, rumpled her long
+ringlets, rasped the skin off the sharp points of her elbows, by
+repeated falls upon the gravel-paths at Dangerfield, and tormented a
+long-suffering Swiss attendant, half-lady's-maid, half-governess, from
+morning till night. No fold was awry in Mary Marchmont's simple
+black-silk frock; no plait disarranged in the neat cambric tucker that
+encircled the slender white throat. Intellect here reigned supreme.
+Instead of the animal spirits of a thoughtless child, there was a
+woman's loving carefulness for others, a woman's unselfishness and
+devotion.
+
+Edward Arundel did not understand all this, but I think he had a dim
+comprehension of the greater part of it.
+
+"She is a dear little thing," he thought, as he watched her clinging to
+her father's arm; and then he began to talk about Marchmont Towers, and
+insisted upon being shown over the house; and, perhaps for the first
+time since the young heir had shot himself to death upon a bright
+September morning in a stubble-field within earshot of the park, the
+sound of merry laughter echoed through the long corridors, and
+resounded in the unoccupied rooms.
+
+Edward Arundel was in raptures with everything. "There never was such a
+dear old place," he said. "'Gloomy?' 'dreary?' 'draughty?' pshaw! Cut a
+few logs out of that wood at the back there, pile 'em up in the wide
+chimneys, and set a light to 'em, and Marchmont Towers would be like a
+baronial mansion at Christmas-time." He declared that every dingy
+portrait he looked at was a Rubens or a Velasquez, or a Vandyke, a
+Holbein, or a Lely.
+
+"Look at that fur border to the old woman's black-velvet gown, John;
+look at the colouring of the hands! Do you think anybody but Peter Paul
+could have painted that? Do you see that girl with the blue-satin
+stomacher and the flaxen ringlets?--one of your ancestresses, Miss
+Mary, and very like you. If that isn't in Sir Peter Lely's best
+style,--his earlier style, you know, before he was spoiled by royal
+patronage, and got lazy,--I know nothing of painting."
+
+The young soldier ran on in this manner, as he hurried his host from
+room to room; now throwing open windows to look out at the wet
+prospect; now rapping against the wainscot to find secret hiding-places
+behind sliding panels; now stamping on the oak-flooring in the hope of
+discovering a trap-door. He pointed out at least ten eligible sites for
+the building of the tennis-court; he suggested more alterations and
+improvements than a builder could have completed in a lifetime. The
+place brightened under the influence of his presence, as a landscape
+lights up under a burst of sudden sunshine breaking through a dull grey
+sky.
+
+Mary Marchmont did not wait for the removal of the table-cloth that
+evening, but dined with her father and his friend in a snug
+oak-panelled chamber, half-breakfast-room, half-library, which opened
+out of the western drawing-room. How different Edward Arundel was to
+all the rest of the world, Miss Marchmont thought; how gay, how bright,
+how genial, how happy! The county families, mustered in their fullest
+force, couldn't make such mirth amongst them as this young soldier
+created in his single person.
+
+The evening was an evening in fairy-land. Life was sometimes like the
+last scene in a pantomime, after all, with rose-coloured cloud and
+golden sunlight.
+
+One of the Marchmont servants went over to Swampington early the next
+day to fetch Mr. Arundel's portmanteaus from the Rectory; and after
+dinner upon that second evening, Mary Marchmont took her seat opposite
+Edward, and listened reverently while he explained to her the moves
+upon the chessboard.
+
+"So you don't know my cousin Olivia?" the young soldier said by-and-by.
+"That's odd! I should have thought she would have called upon you long
+before this."
+
+Mary Marchmont shook her head.
+
+"No," she said; "Miss Arundel has never been to see us; and I should so
+like to have seen her, because she would have told me about you. Mr.
+Arundel has called one or twice upon papa; but I have never seen him.
+He is not our clergyman, you know; Marchmont Towers belongs to
+Kemberling parish."
+
+"To be sure; and Swampington is ten miles off. But, for all that, I
+should have thought Olivia would have called upon you. I'll drive you
+over to-morrow, if John thinks me whip enough to trust you with me, and
+you shall see Livy. The Rectory's such a queer old place!"
+
+Perhaps Mr. Marchmont was rather doubtful as to the propriety of
+committing his little girl to Edward Arundel's charioteership for a
+ten-mile drive upon a wretched road. Be it as it might, a lumbering
+barouche, with a pair of over-fed horses, was ordered next morning,
+instead of the high, old-fashioned gig which the soldier had proposed
+driving; and the safety of the two young people was confided to a sober
+old coachman, rather sulky at the prospect of a drive to Swampington so
+soon after the rainy weather.
+
+It does not rain always, even in this part of Lincolnshire; and the
+July morning was bright and pleasant, the low hedges fragrant with
+starry opal-tinted wild roses and waxen honeysuckle, the yellowing corn
+waving in the light summer breeze. Mary assured her companion that she
+had no objection whatever to the odour of cigar-smoke; so Mr. Arundel
+lolled upon the comfortable cushions of the barouche, with his back to
+the horses, smoking cheroots, and talking gaily, while Miss Marchmont
+sat in the place of state opposite to him. A happy drive; a drive in a
+fairy chariot through regions of fairyland, for ever and for ever to be
+remembered by Mary Marchmont.
+
+They left the straggling hedges and the yellowing corn behind them
+by-and-by, as they drew near the outskirts of Swampington. The town
+lies lower even than the surrounding country, flat and low as that
+country is. A narrow river crawls at the base of a half-ruined wall,
+which once formed part of the defences of the place. Black barges lie
+at anchor here; and a stone bridge, guarded by a toll-house, spans the
+river. Mr. Marchmont's carriage lumbered across this bridge, and under
+an archway, low, dark, stony, and grim, into a narrow street of solid,
+well-built houses, low, dark, stony, and grim, like the archway, but
+bearing the stamp of reputable occupation. I believe the grass grew,
+and still grows, in this street, as it does in all the other streets
+and in the market-place of Swampington. They are all pretty much in the
+same style, these streets,--all stony, narrow, dark, and grim; and they
+wind and twist hither and thither, and in and out, in a manner utterly
+bewildering to the luckless stranger, who, seeing that they are all
+alike, has no landmarks for his guidance.
+
+There are two handsome churches, both bearing an early date in the
+history of Norman supremacy: one crowded into an inconvenient corner of
+a back street, and choked by the houses built up round about it; the
+other lying a little out of the town, upon a swampy waste looking
+towards the sea, which flows within a mile of Swampington. Indeed,
+there is no lack of water in that Lincolnshire borough. The river winds
+about the outskirts of the town; unexpected creeks and inlets meet you
+at every angle; shallow pools lie here and there about the marshy
+suburbs; and in the dim distance the low line of the grey sea meets the
+horizon.
+
+But perhaps the positive ugliness of the town is something redeemed by
+a vague air of romance and old-world mystery which pervades it. It is
+an exceptional place, and somewhat interesting thereby. The great
+Norman church upon the swampy waste, the scattered tombstones, bordered
+by the low and moss-grown walls, make a picture which is apt to dwell
+in the minds of those who look upon it, although it is by no means a
+pretty picture. The Rectory lies close to the churchyard; and a
+wicket-gate opens from Mr. Arundel's garden into a narrow pathway,
+leading across a patch of tangled grass and through a lane of sunken
+and lopsided tombstones, to the low vestry door. The Rectory itself is
+a long irregular building, to which one incumbent after another has
+built the additional chamber, or chimney, or porch, or bow-window,
+necessary for his accommodation. There is very little garden in front
+of the house, but a patch of lawn and shrubbery and a clump of old
+trees at the back.
+
+"It's not a pretty house, is it, Miss Marchmont?" asked Edward, as he
+lifted his companion out of the carriage.
+
+"No, not very pretty," Mary answered; "but I don't think any thing is
+pretty in Lincolnshire. Oh, there's the sea!" she cried, looking
+suddenly across the marshes to the low grey line in the distance. "How
+I wish we were as near the sea at Marchmont Towers!"
+
+The young lady had something of a romantic passion for the
+wide-spreading ocean. It was an unknown region, that stretched far
+away, and was wonderful and beautiful by reason of its solemn mystery.
+All her Corsair stories were allied to that far, fathomless deep. The
+white sail in the distance was Conrad's, perhaps; and he was speeding
+homeward to find Medora dead in her lonely watch-tower, with fading
+flowers upon her breast. The black hull yonder, with dirty canvas
+spread to the faint breeze, was the bark of some terrible pirate bound
+on rapine and ravage. (She was a coal-barge, I have no doubt, sailing
+Londonward with her black burden.) Nymphs and Lurleis, Mermaids and
+Mermen, and tiny water-babies with silvery tails, for ever splashing in
+the sunshine, were all more or less associated with the long grey line
+towards which Mary Marchmont looked with solemn, yearning eyes.
+
+"We'll drive down to the seashore some morning, Polly," said Mr.
+Arundel. He was beginning to call her Polly, now and then, in the easy
+familiarity of their intercourse. "We'll spend a long day on the sands,
+and I'll smoke cheroots while you pick up shells and seaweed."
+
+Miss Marchmont clasped her hands in silent rapture. Her face was
+irradiated by the new light of happiness. How good he was to her, this
+brave soldier, who must undoubtedly be made Commander-in-Chief of the
+Army of the Indus in a year or so!
+
+Edward Arundel led his companion across the flagged way between the
+iron gate of the Rectory garden and a half-glass door leading into the
+hall. Out of this simple hall, only furnished with a couple of chairs,
+a barometer, and an umbrella-stand, they went, without announcement,
+into a low, old-fashioned room, half-study, half-parlour, where a young
+lady was sitting at a table writing.
+
+She rose as Edward opened the door, and came to meet him.
+
+"At last!" she said; "I thought your rich friends engrossed all your
+attention."
+
+She paused, seeing Mary.
+
+"This is Miss Marchmont, Olivia," said Edward; "the only daughter of my
+old friend. You must be very fond of her, please; for she is a dear
+little girl, and I know she means to love you."
+
+Mary lifted her soft brown eyes to the face of the young lady, and then
+dropped her eyelids suddenly, as if half-frightened by what she had
+seen there.
+
+What was it? What was it in Olivia Arundel's handsome face from which
+those who looked at her so often shrank, repelled and disappointed?
+Every line in those perfectly-modelled features was beautiful to look
+at; but, as a whole, the face was not beautiful. Perhaps it was too
+much like a marble mask, exquisitely chiselled, but wanting in variety
+of expression. The handsome mouth was rigid; the dark grey eyes had a
+cold light in them. The thick bands of raven-black hair were drawn
+tightly off a square forehead, which was the brow of an intellectual
+and determined man rather than of a woman. Yes; womanhood was the
+something wanted in Olivia Arundel's face. Intellect, resolution,
+courage, are rare gifts; but they are not the gifts whose tokens we
+look for most anxiously in a woman's face. If Miss Arundel had been a
+queen, her diadem would have become her nobly; and she might have been
+a very great queen: but Heaven help the wretched creature who had
+appealed from minor tribunals to _her_ mercy! Heaven help delinquents
+of every kind whose last lingering hope had been in her compassion!
+
+Perhaps Mary Marchmont vaguely felt something of all this. At any rate,
+the enthusiasm with which she had been ready to regard Edward Arundel's
+cousin cooled suddenly beneath the winter in that pale, quiet face.
+
+Miss Arundel said a few words to her guest; kindly enough; but rather
+too much as if she had been addressing a child of six. Mary, who was
+accustomed to be treated as a woman, was wounded by her manner.
+
+"How different she is from Edward!" thought Miss Marchmont. "I shall
+never like her as I like him."
+
+"So this is the pale-faced child who is to have Marchmont Towers
+by-and-by," thought Miss Arundel; "and these rich friends are the
+people for whom Edward stays away from us."
+
+The lines about the rigid mouth grew harder, the cold light in the grey
+eyes grew colder, as the young lady thought this.
+
+It was thus that these two women met: while one was but a child in
+years; while the other was yet in the early bloom of womanhood: these
+two, who were predestined to hate each other, and inflict suffering
+upon each other in the days that were to come. It was thus that they
+thought of one another; each with an unreasonable dread, an undefined
+aversion gathering in her breast.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Six weeks passed, and Edward Arundel kept his promise of shooting the
+partridges on the Marchmont preserves. The wood behind the Towers, and
+the stubbled corn-fields on the home-farm, bristled with game. The
+young soldier heartily enjoyed himself through that delicious first
+week in September; and came home every afternoon, with a heavy game-bag
+and a light heart, to boast of his prowess before Mary and her father.
+
+The young man was by this time familiar with every nook and corner of
+Marchmont Towers; and the builders were already at work at the
+tennis-court which John had promised to erect for his friend's
+pleasure. The site ultimately chosen was a bleak corner of the eastern
+front, looking to the wood; but as Edward declared the spot in every
+way eligible, John had no inclination to find fault with his friend's
+choice. There was other work for the builders; for Mr. Arundel had
+taken a wonderful fancy to a ruined boat-house upon the brink of the
+river; and this boat-house was to be rebuilt and restored, and made
+into a delightful pavilion, in the upper chambers of which Mary might
+sit with her father in the hot summer weather, while Mr. Arundel kept a
+couple of trim wherries in the recesses below.
+
+So, you see, the young man made himself very much at home, in his own
+innocent, boyish fashion, at Marchmont Towers. But as he had brought
+life and light to the old Lincolnshire mansion, nobody was inclined to
+quarrel with him for any liberties which he might choose to take: and
+every one looked forward sorrowfully to the dark days before Christmas,
+at which time he was under a promise to return to Dangerfield Park;
+there to spend the remainder of his leave of absence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+OLIVIA.
+
+
+While busy workmen were employed at Marchmont Towers, hammering at the
+fragile wooden walls of the tennis-court,--while Mary Marchmont and
+Edward Arundel wandered, with the dogs at their heels, amongst the
+rustle of the fallen leaves in the wood behind the great gaunt
+Lincolnshire mansion,--Olivia, the Rector's daughter, sat in her
+father's quiet study, or walked to and fro in the gloomy streets of
+Swampington, doing her duty day by day.
+
+Yes, the life of this woman is told in these few words: she did her
+duty. From the earliest age at which responsibility can begin, she had
+done her duty, uncomplainingly, unswervingly, as it seemed to those who
+watched her.
+
+She was a good woman. The bishop of the diocese had specially
+complimented her for her active devotion to that holy work which falls
+somewhat heavily upon the only daughter of a widowed rector. All the
+stately dowagers about Swampington were loud in their praises of Olivia
+Arundel. Such devotion, such untiring zeal in a young person of
+three-and-twenty years of age, were really most laudable, these solemn
+elders said, in tones of supreme patronage; for the young saint of whom
+they spoke wore shabby gowns, and was the portionless daughter of a
+poor man who had let the world slip by him, and who sat now amid the
+dreary ruins of a wasted life, looking yearningly backward, with hollow
+regretful eyes, and bewailing the chances he had lost. Hubert Arundel
+loved his daughter; loved her with that sorrowful affection we feel for
+those who suffer for our sins, whose lives have been blighted by our
+follies.
+
+Every shabby garment which Olivia wore was a separate reproach to her
+father; every deprivation she endured stung him as cruelly as if she
+had turned upon him and loudly upbraided him for his wasted life and
+his squandered patrimony. He loved her; and he watched her day after
+day, doing her duty to him as to all others; doing her duty for ever
+and for ever; but when he most yearned to take her to his heart, her
+own cold perfections arose, and separated him from the child he loved.
+What was he but a poor, vacillating, erring creature; weak, supine,
+idle, epicurean; unworthy to approach this girl, who never seemed to
+sicken of the hardness of her life, who never grew weary of well-doing?
+
+But how was it that, for all her goodness, Olivia Arundel won so small
+a share of earthly reward? I do not allude to the gold and jewels and
+other worldly benefits with which the fairies in our children's
+story-books reward the benevolent mortals who take compassion upon them
+when they experimentalise with human nature in the guise of old women;
+but I speak rather of the love and gratitude, the tenderness and
+blessings, which usually wait upon the footsteps of those who do good
+deeds. Olivia Arundel's charities were never ceasing; her life was one
+perpetual sacrifice to her father's parishioners. There was no natural
+womanly vanity, no simple girlish fancy, which this woman had not
+trodden under foot, and trampled out in the hard pathway she had chosen
+for herself.
+
+The poor people knew this. Rheumatic men and women, crippled and
+bed-ridden, knew that the blankets which covered them had been bought
+out of money that would have purchased silk dresses for the Rector's
+handsome daughter, or luxuries for the frugal table at the Rectory.
+They knew this. They knew that, through frost and snow, through storm
+and rain, Olivia Arundel would come to sit beside their dreary hearths,
+their desolate sick-beds, and read holy books to them; sublimely
+indifferent to the foul weather without, to the stifling atmosphere
+within, to dirt, discomfort, poverty, inconvenience; heedless of all,
+except the performance of the task she had set herself.
+
+People knew this; and they were grateful to Miss Arundel, and
+submissive and attentive in her presence; they gave her such return as
+they were able to give for the benefits, spiritual and temporal, which
+she bestowed upon them: but they did not love her.
+
+They spoke of her in reverential accents, and praised her whenever her
+name was mentioned; but they spoke with tearless eyes and unfaltering
+voices. Her virtues were beautiful, of course, as virtue in the
+abstract must always be; but I think there was a want of individuality
+in her goodness, a lack of personal tenderness in her kindness, which
+separated her from the people she benefited.
+
+Perhaps there was something almost chilling in the dull monotony of
+Miss Arundel's benevolence. There was no blemish of mortal weakness
+upon the good deeds she performed; and the recipients of her bounties,
+seeing her so far off, grew afraid of her, even by reason of her
+goodness, and _could_ not love her.
+
+She made no favourites amongst her father's parishioners. Of all the
+school-children she had taught, she had never chosen one curly-headed
+urchin for a pet. She had no good days and bad days; she was never
+foolishly indulgent or extravagantly cordial. She was always the
+same,--Church-of-England charity personified; meting out all mercies by
+line and rule; doing good with a note-book and a pencil in her hand;
+looking on every side with calm, scrutinising eyes; rigidly just,
+terribly perfect.
+
+It was a fearfully monotonous, narrow, and uneventful life which Olivia
+Arundel led at Swampington Rectory. At three-and-twenty years of age
+she could have written her history upon a few pages. The world outside
+that dull Lincolnshire town might be shaken by convulsions, and made
+irrecognisable by repeated change; but all those outer changes and
+revolutions made themselves but little felt in the quiet grass-grown
+streets, and the flat surrounding swamps, within whose narrow boundary
+Olivia Arundel had lived from infancy to womanhood; performing and
+repeating the same duties from day to day, with no other progress to
+mark the lapse of her existence than the slow alternation of the
+seasons, and the dark hollow circles which had lately deepened beneath
+her grey eyes, and the depressed lines about the corners of her firm
+lower-lip.
+
+These outward tokens, beyond her own control, alone betrayed this
+woman's secret. She was weary of her life. She sickened under the dull
+burden which she had borne so long, and carried so patiently. The slow
+round of duty was loathsome to her. The horrible, narrow, unchanging
+existence, shut in by cruel walls, which bounded her on every side and
+kept her prisoner to herself, was odious to her. The powerful intellect
+revolted against the fetters that bound and galled it. The proud heart
+beat with murderous violence against the bonds that kept it captive.
+
+"Is my life always to be this--always, always, always?" The passionate
+nature burst forth sometimes, and the voice that had so long been
+stifled cried aloud in the black stillness of the night, "Is it to go
+on for ever and for ever; like the slow river that creeps under the
+broken wall? O my God! is the lot of other women never to be mine? Am I
+never to be loved and admired; never to be sought and chosen? Is my
+life to be all of one dull, grey, colourless monotony; without one
+sudden gleam of sunshine, without one burst of rainbow-light?"
+
+How shall I anatomise this woman, who, gifted with no womanly
+tenderness of nature, unendowed with that pitiful and unreasoning
+affection which makes womanhood beautiful, yet tried, and tried
+unceasingly, to do her duty, and to be good; clinging, in the very
+blindness of her soul, to the rigid formulas of her faith, but unable
+to seize upon its spirit? Some latent comprehension of the want in her
+nature made her only the more scrupulous in the performance of those
+duties which she had meted out for herself. The holy sentences she had
+heard, Sunday after Sunday, feebly read by her father, haunted her
+perpetually, and would not be put away from her. The tenderness in
+every word of those familiar gospels was a reproach to the want of
+tenderness in her own heart. She could be good to her father's
+parishioners, and she could make sacrifices for them; but she could not
+love them, any more than they could love her.
+
+That divine and universal pity, that spontaneous and boundless
+affection, which is the chief loveliness of womanhood and Christianity,
+had no part in her nature. She could understand Judith with the
+Assyrian general's gory head held aloft in her uplifted hand; but she
+could not comprehend that diviner mystery of sinful Magdalene sitting
+at her Master's feet, with the shame and love in her face half hidden
+by a veil of drooping hair.
+
+No; Olivia Arundel was not a good woman, in the commoner sense we
+attach to the phrase. It was not natural to her to be gentle and
+tender, to be beneficent, compassionate, and kind, as it is to the
+women we are accustomed to call "good." She was a woman who was for
+ever fighting against her nature; who was for ever striving to do
+right; for ever walking painfully upon the difficult road mapped out
+for her; for ever measuring herself by the standard she had set up for
+her self-abasement. And who shall say that such a woman as this, if she
+persevere unto the end, shall not wear a brighter crown than her more
+gentle sisters,--the starry circlet of a martyr?
+
+If she persevere unto the end! But was Olivia Arundel the woman to do
+this? The deepening circles about her eyes, the hollowing cheeks, and
+the feverish restlessness of manner which she could not always control,
+told how terrible the long struggle had become to her. If she could
+have died then,--if she had fallen beneath the weight of her
+burden,--what a record of sin and anguish might have remained unwritten
+in the history of woman's life! But this woman was one of those who can
+suffer, and yet not die. She bore her burden a little longer; only to
+fling it down by-and-by, and to abandon herself to the eager devils who
+had been watching for her so untiringly.
+
+Hubert Arundel was afraid of his daughter. The knowledge that he had
+wronged her,--wronged her even before her birth by the foolish waste of
+his patrimony, and wronged her through life by his lack of energy in
+seeking such advancement as a more ambitious man might have won,--the
+knowledge of this, and of his daughter's superior virtues, combined to
+render the father ashamed and humiliated by the presence of his only
+child. The struggle between this fear and his remorseful love of her
+was a very painful one; but fear had the mastery, and the Rector of
+Swampington was content to stand aloof, mutely watchful of his
+daughter, wondering feebly whether she was happy, striving vainly to
+discover that one secret, that keystone of the soul, which must exist
+in every nature, however outwardly commonplace.
+
+Mr. Arundel had hoped that his daughter would marry, and marry well,
+even at Swampington; for there were rich young landowners who visited
+at the Rectory. But Olivia's handsome face won her few admirers, and at
+three-and-twenty Miss Arundel had received no offer of marriage. The
+father reproached himself for this. It was he who had blighted the life
+of his penniless girl; it was his fault that no suitors came to woo his
+motherless child. Yet many dowerless maidens have been sought and
+loved; and I do not think it was Olivia's lack of fortune which kept
+admirers at bay. I believe it was rather that inherent want of
+tenderness which chilled and dispirited the timid young Lincolnshire
+squires.
+
+Had Olivia ever been in love? Hubert Arundel constantly asked himself
+this question. He did so because he saw that some blighting influence,
+even beyond the poverty and dulness of her home, had fallen upon the
+life of his only child. What was it? What was it? Was it some hopeless
+attachment, some secret tenderness, which had never won the sweet
+return of love for love?
+
+He would no more have ventured to question his daughter upon this
+subject than he would have dared to ask his fair young Queen, newly
+married in those days, whether she was happy with her handsome husband.
+
+Miss Arundel stood by the Rectory gate in the early September evening,
+watching the western sunlight on the low sea-line beyond the marshes.
+She was wearied and worn out by a long day devoted to visiting amongst
+her parishioners; and she stood with her elbow leaning on the gate, and
+her head resting on her hand, in an attitude peculiarly expressive of
+fatigue. She had thrown off her bonnet, and her black hair was pushed
+carelessly from her forehead. Those masses of hair had not that purple
+lustre, nor yet that wandering glimmer of red gold, which gives
+peculiar beauty to some raven tresses. Olivia's hair was long and
+luxuriant; but it was of that dead, inky blackness, which is all
+shadow. It was dark, fathomless, inscrutable, like herself. The cold
+grey eyes looked thoughtfully seaward. Another day's duty had been
+done. Long chapters of Holy Writ had been read to troublesome old women
+afflicted with perpetual coughs; stifling, airless cottages had been
+visited; the dull, unvarying track had been beaten by the patient feet,
+and the yellow sun was going down upon another joyless day. But did the
+still evening hour bring peace to that restless spirit? No; by the
+rigid compression of the lips, by the feverish lustre in the eyes, by
+the faint hectic flush in the oval cheeks, by every outward sign of
+inward unrest, Olivia Arundel was not at peace! The listlessness of her
+attitude was merely the listlessness of physical fatigue. The mental
+struggle was not finished with the close of the day's work.
+
+The young lady looked up suddenly as the tramp of a horse's hoofs, slow
+and lazy-sounding on the smooth road, met her ear. Her eyes dilated,
+and her breath went and came more rapidly; but she did not stir from
+her weary attitude.
+
+The horse was from the stables at Marchmont Towers, and the rider was
+Mr. Arundel. He came smiling to the Rectory gate, with the low sunshine
+glittering in his chesnut hair, and the light of careless, indifferent
+happiness irradiating his handsome face.
+
+"You must have thought I'd forgotten you and my uncle, my dear Livy,"
+he said, as he sprang lightly from his horse. "We've been so busy with
+the tennis-court, and the boat-house, and the partridges, and goodness
+knows what besides at the Towers, that I couldn't get the time to ride
+over till this evening. But to-day we dined early, on purpose that I
+might have the chance of getting here. I come upon an important
+mission, Livy, I assure you."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+There was no change in Miss Arundel's voice when she spoke to her
+cousin; but there was a change, not easily to be defined, in her face
+when she looked at him. It seemed as if that weary hopelessness of
+expression which had settled on her countenance lately grew more weary,
+more hopeless, as she turned towards this bright young soldier,
+glorious in the beauty of his own light-heartedness. It may have been
+merely the sharpness of contrast which produced this effect. It may
+have been an actual change arising out of some secret hidden in
+Olivia's breast.
+
+"What do you mean by an important mission, Edward?" she said.
+
+She had need to repeat the question; for the young man's attention had
+wandered from her, and he was watching his horse as the animal cropped
+the tangled herbage about the Rectory gate.
+
+"Why, I've come with an invitation to a dinner at Marchmont Towers.
+There's to be a dinner-party; and, in point of fact, it's to be given
+on purpose for you and my uncle. John and Polly are full of it. You'll
+come, won't you, Livy?"
+
+Miss Arundel shrugged her shoulders, with an impatient sigh.
+
+"I hate dinner-parties," she said; "but, of course, if papa accepts Mr.
+Marchmont's invitation, I cannot refuse to go. Papa must choose for
+himself."
+
+There had been some interchange of civilities between Marchmont Towers
+and Swampington Rectory during the six weeks which had passed since
+Mary's introduction to Olivia Arundel; and this dinner-party was the
+result of John's simple desire to do honour to his friend's kindred.
+
+"Oh, you must come, Livy," Mr. Arundel exclaimed. "The tennis-court is
+going on capitally. I want you to give us your opinion again. Shall I
+take my horse round to the stables? I am going to stop an hour or two,
+and ride back by moonlight."
+
+Edward Arundel took the bridle in his hand, and the cousins walked
+slowly round by the low garden-wall to a dismal and rather dilapidated
+stable-yard at the back of the Rectory, where Hubert Arundel kept a
+wall-eyed white horse, long-legged, shallow-chested, and large-headed,
+and a fearfully and wonderfully made phaeton, with high wheels and a
+mouldy leathern hood.
+
+Olivia walked by the young soldier's side with that air of hopeless
+indifference that had so grown upon her very lately. Her eyelids
+drooped with a look of sullen disdain; but the grey eyes glanced
+furtively now and again at her companion's handsome face. He was very
+handsome. The glitter of reddish gold in his hair, and the light in his
+fearless blue eyes; the careless grace peculiar to the kind of man we
+call "a swell;" the gay _insouciance_ of an easy, candid, generous
+nature,--all combined to make Edward Arundel singularly attractive.
+These spoiled children of nature demand our admiration, in very spite
+of ourselves. These beautiful, useless creatures call upon us to
+rejoice in their valueless beauty, like the flaunting poppies in the
+cornfield, and the gaudy wild-flowers in the grass.
+
+The darkness of Olivia's face deepened after each furtive glance she
+cast at her cousin. Could it be that this girl, to whom nature had
+given strength but denied grace, envied the superficial attractions of
+the young man at her side? She did envy him; she envied him that sunny
+temperament which was so unlike her own; she envied him that wondrous
+power of taking life lightly. Why should existence be so bright and
+careless to him; while to her it was a terrible fever-dream, a long
+sickness, a never-ceasing battle?
+
+"Is my uncle in the house?" Mr. Arundel asked, as he strolled from the
+stable into the garden with his cousin by his side.
+
+"No; he has been out since dinner," Olivia answered; "but I expect him
+back every minute. I came out into the garden,--the house seemed so hot
+and stifling to-night, and I have been sitting in close cottages all
+day."
+
+"Sitting in close cottages!" repeated Edward. "Ah, to be sure; visiting
+your rheumatic old pensioners, I suppose. How good you are, Olivia!"
+
+"Good!"
+
+She echoed the word in the very bitterness of a scorn that could not be
+repressed.
+
+"Yes; everybody says so. The Millwards were at Marchmont Towers the
+other day, and they were talking of you, and praising your goodness,
+and speaking of your schools, and your blanket-associations, and your
+invalid-societies, and your mutual-help clubs, and all your plans for
+the parish. Why, you must work as hard as a prime-minister, Livy, by
+their account; you, who are only a few years older than I."
+
+Only a few years! She started at the phrase, and bit her lip.
+
+"I was three-and-twenty last month," she said.
+
+"Ah, yes; to be sure. And I'm one-and-twenty. Then you're only two
+years older than I, Livy. But, then, you see, you're so clever, that
+you seem much older than you are. You'd make a fellow feel rather
+afraid of you, you know. Upon my word you do, Livy."
+
+Miss Arundel did not reply to this speech of her cousin's. She was
+walking by his side up and down a narrow gravelled pathway, bordered by
+a hazel-hedge; she had gathered one of the slender twigs, and was idly
+stripping away the fluffy buds.
+
+"What do you think, Livy?" cried Edward suddenly, bursting out laughing
+at the end of the question. "What do you think? It's my belief you've
+made a conquest."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"There you go; turning upon a fellow as if you could eat him. Yes,
+Livy; it's no use your looking savage. You've made a conquest; and of
+one of the best fellows in the world, too. John Marchmont's in love
+with you."
+
+Olivia Arundel's face flushed a vivid crimson to the roots of her black
+hair.
+
+"How dare you come here to insult me, Edward Arundel?" she cried
+passionately.
+
+"Insult you? Now, Livy dear, that's too bad, upon my word,"
+remonstrated the young man. "I come and tell you that as good a man as
+ever breathed is over head and ears in love with you, and that you may
+be mistress of one of the finest estates in Lincolnshire if you please,
+and you turn round upon me like no end of furies."
+
+"Because I hate to hear you talk nonsense," answered Olivia, her bosom
+still heaving with that first outburst of emotion, but her voice
+suppressed and cold. "Am I so beautiful, or so admired or beloved, that
+a man who has not seen me half a dozen times should fall in love with
+me? Do those who know me estimate me so much, or prize me so highly,
+that a stranger should think of me? You _do_ insult me, Edward Arundel,
+when you talk as you have talked to-night."
+
+She looked out towards the low yellow light in the sky with a black
+gloom upon her face, which no reflected glimmer of the sinking sun
+could illumine; a settled darkness, near akin to the utter blackness of
+despair.
+
+"But, good heavens, Olivia, what do you mean?" cried the young man. "I
+tell you something that I think a good joke, and you go and make a
+tragedy out of it. If I'd told Letitia that a rich widower had fallen
+in love with her, she'd think it the finest fun in the world."
+
+"I'm not your sister Letitia."
+
+"No; but I wish you'd half as good a temper as she has, Livy. However,
+never mind; I'll say no more. If poor old Marchmont has fallen in love
+with you, that's his look-out. Poor dear old boy, he's let out the
+secret of his weakness half a dozen ways within these last few days.
+It's Miss Arundel this, and Miss Arundel the other; so unselfish, so
+accomplished, so ladylike, so good! That's the way he goes on, poor
+simple old dear; without having the remotest notion that he's making a
+confounded fool of himself."
+
+Olivia tossed the rumpled hair from her forehead with an impatient
+gesture of her hand.
+
+"Why should this Mr. Marchmont think all this of me?" she said,
+"when--" she stopped abruptly.
+
+"When--what, Livy?"
+
+"When other people don't think it."
+
+"How do you know what other people think? You haven't asked them, I
+suppose?"
+
+The young soldier treated his cousin in very much the same
+free-and-easy manner which he displayed towards his sister Letitia. It
+would have been almost difficult for him to recognise any degree in his
+relationship to the two girls. He loved Letitia better than Olivia; but
+his affection for both was of exactly the same character.
+
+Hubert Arundel came into the garden, wearied out, like his daughter,
+while the two cousins were walking under the shadow of the neglected
+hazels. He declared his willingness to accept the invitation to
+Marchmont Towers, and promised to answer John's ceremonious note the
+next day.
+
+"Cookson, from Kemberling, will be there, I suppose," he said, alluding
+to a brother parson, "and the usual set? Well, I'll come, Ned, if you
+wish it. You'd like to go, Olivia?"
+
+"If you like, papa."
+
+There was a duty to be performed now--the duty of placid obedience to
+her father; and Miss Arundel's manner changed from angry impatience to
+grave respect. She owed no special duty, be it remembered, to her
+cousin. She had no line or rule by which to measure her conduct to him.
+
+She stood at the gate nearly an hour later, and watched the young man
+ride away in the dim moonlight. If every separate tramp of his horse's
+hoofs had struck upon her heart, it could scarcely have given her more
+pain than she felt as the sound of those slow footfalls died away in
+the distance.
+
+"O my God," she cried, "is this madness to undo all that I have done?
+Is this folly to be the climax of my dismal life? Am I to die for the
+love of a frivolous, fair-haired boy, who laughs in my face when he
+tells me that his friend has pleased to 'take a fancy to me'?"
+
+She walked away towards the house; then stopping, with a sudden shiver,
+she turned, and went back to the hazel-alley she had paced with Edward
+Arundel.
+
+"Oh, my narrow life!" she muttered between her set teeth; "my narrow
+life! It is that which has made me the slave of this madness. I love
+him because he is the brightest and fairest thing I have ever seen. I
+love him because he brings me all I have ever known of a more beautiful
+world than that I live in. Bah! why do I reason with myself?" she
+cried, with a sudden change of manner. "I love him because I am mad."
+
+She paced up and down the hazel-shaded pathway till the moonlight grew
+broad and full, and every ivy-grown gable of the Rectory stood sharply
+out against the vivid purple of the sky. She paced up and down, trying
+to trample the folly within her under her feet as she went; a fierce,
+passionate, impulsive woman, fighting against her mad love for a
+bright-faced boy.
+
+"Two years older--only two years!" she said; "but he spoke of the
+difference between us as if it had been half a century. And then I am
+so clever, that I seem older than I am; and he is afraid of me! Is it
+for this that I have sat night after night in my father's study, poring
+over the books that were too difficult for him? What have I made of
+myself in my pride of intellect? What reward have I won for my
+patience?"
+
+Olivia Arundel looked back at her long life of duty--a dull, dead
+level, unbroken by one of those monuments which mark the desert of the
+past; a desolate flat, unlovely as the marshes between the low Rectory
+wall and the shimmering grey sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+"MY LIFE IS COLD, AND DARK, AND DREARY."
+
+
+Mr. Richard Paulette, of that eminent legal firm, Paulette, Paulette,
+and Mathewson, coming to Marchmont Towers on business, was surprised to
+behold the quiet ease with which the sometime copying-clerk received
+the punctilious country gentry who came to sit at his board and do him
+honour.
+
+Of all the legal fairy-tales, of all the parchment-recorded romances,
+of all the poetry run into affidavits, in which the solicitor had ever
+been concerned, this story seemed the strangest. Not so very strange in
+itself, for such romances are not uncommon in the history of a lawyer's
+experience; but strange by reason of the tranquil manner in which John
+Marchmont accepted his new position, and did the honours of his house
+to his late employer.
+
+"Ah, Paulette," Edward Arundel said, clapping the solicitor on the
+back, "I don't suppose you believed me when I told you that my friend
+here was heir-presumptive to a handsome fortune."
+
+The dinner-party at the Towers was conducted with that stately grandeur
+peculiar to such solemnities. There was the usual round of country-talk
+and parish-talk; the hunting squires leading the former section of the
+discourse, the rectors and rectors' wives supporting the latter part of
+the conversation. You heard on one side that Martha Harris' husband had
+left off drinking, and attended church morning and evening; and on the
+other that the old grey fox that had been hunted nine seasons between
+Crackbin Bottom and Hollowcraft Gorse had perished ignobly in the
+poultry-yard of a recusant farmer. While your left ear became conscious
+of the fact that little Billy Smithers had fallen into a copper of
+scalding water, your right received the dismal tidings that all the
+young partridges had been drowned by the rains after St. Swithin, and
+that there were hardly any of this year's birds, sir, and it would be a
+very blue look-out for next season.
+
+Mary Marchmont had listened to gayer talk in Oakley Street than any
+that was to be heard that night in her father's drawing-rooms, except
+indeed when Edward Arundel left off flirting with some pretty girls in
+blue, and hovered near her side for a little while, quizzing the
+company. Heaven knows the young soldier's jokes were commonplace
+enough; but Mary admired him as the most brilliant and accomplished of
+wits.
+
+"How do you like my cousin, Polly?" he asked at last.
+
+"Your cousin, Miss Arundel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"She is very handsome."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," the young man answered carelessly. "Everybody says
+that Livy's handsome; but it's rather a cold style of beauty, isn't it?
+A little too much of the Pallas Athene about it for my taste. I like
+those girls in blue, with the crinkly auburn hair,--there's a touch of
+red in it in the light,--and the dimples. You've a dimple, Polly, when
+you smile."
+
+Miss Marchmont blushed as she received this information, and her brown
+eyes wandered away, looking very earnestly at the pretty girls in blue.
+She looked at them with a strange interest, eager to discover what it
+was that Edward admired.
+
+"But you haven't answered my question, Polly," said Mr. Arundel. "I am
+afraid you have been drinking too much wine, Miss Marchmont, and
+muddling that sober little head of yours with the fumes of your papa's
+tawny port. I asked you how you liked Olivia."
+
+Mary blushed again.
+
+"I don't know Miss Arundel well enough to like her--yet," she answered
+timidly.
+
+"But shall you like her when you've known her longer? Don't be
+jesuitical, Polly. Likings and dislikings are instantaneous and
+instinctive. I liked you before I'd eaten half a dozen mouthfuls of the
+roll you buttered for me at that breakfast in Oakley Street, Polly. You
+don't like my cousin Olivia, miss; I can see that very plainly. You're
+jealous of her."
+
+"Jealous of her!"
+
+The bright colour faded out of Mary Marchmont's face, and left her ashy
+pale.
+
+"Do _you_ like her, then?" she asked.
+
+But Mr. Arundel was not such a coxcomb as to catch at the secret so
+naively betrayed in that breathless question.
+
+"No, Polly," he said, laughing; "she's my cousin, you know, and I've
+known her all my life; and cousins are like sisters. One likes to tease
+and aggravate them, and all that; but one doesn't fall in love with
+them. But I think I could mention somebody who thinks a great deal of
+Olivia."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Your papa."
+
+Mary looked at the young soldier in utter bewilderment.
+
+"Papa!" she echoed.
+
+"Yes, Polly. How would you like a stepmamma? How would you like your
+papa to marry again?"
+
+Mary Marchmont started to her feet, as if she would have gone to her
+father in the midst of all those spectators. John was standing near
+Olivia and her father, talking to them, and playing nervously with his
+slender watch-chain when he addressed the young lady.
+
+"My papa--marry again!" gasped Mary. "How dare you say such a thing,
+Mr. Arundel?"
+
+Her childish devotion to her father arose in all its force; a flood of
+passionate emotion that overwhelmed her sensitive nature. Marry again!
+marry a woman who would separate him from his only child! Could he ever
+dream for one brief moment of such a horrible cruelty?
+
+She looked at Olivia's sternly handsome face, and trembled. She could
+almost picture that very woman standing between her and her father, and
+putting her away from him. Her indignation quickly melted into grief.
+Indignation, however intense, was always short-lived in that gentle
+nature.
+
+"Oh, Mr Arundel!" she said, piteously appealing to the young man, "papa
+would never, never, never marry again,--would he?"
+
+"Not if it was to grieve you, Polly, I dare say," Edward answered
+soothingly.
+
+He had been dumbfounded by Mary's passionate sorrow. He had expected
+that she would have been rather pleased, than otherwise, at the idea of
+a young stepmother,--a companion in those vast lonely rooms, an
+instructress and a friend as she grew to womanhood.
+
+"I was only talking nonsense, Polly darling," he said. "You mustn't
+make yourself unhappy about any absurd fancies of mine. I think your
+papa admires my cousin Olivia: and I thought, perhaps, you'd be glad to
+have a stepmother."
+
+"Glad to have any one who'd take papa's love away from me?" Mary said
+plaintively. "Oh, Mr. Arundel, how could you think so?"
+
+In all their familiarity the little girl had never learned to call her
+father's friend by his Christian name, though he had often told her to
+do so. She trembled to pronounce that simple Saxon name, which was so
+beautiful and wonderful because it was his: but when she read a very
+stupid novel, in which the hero was a namesake of Mr. Arundel's, the
+vapid pages seemed to be phosphorescent with light wherever the name
+appeared upon them.
+
+I scarcely know why John Marchmont lingered by Miss Arundel's chair. He
+had heard her praises from every one. She was a paragon of goodness, an
+uncanonised saint, for ever sacrificing herself for the benefit of
+others. Perhaps he was thinking that such a woman as this would be the
+best friend he could win for his little girl. He turned from the county
+matrons, the tender, kindly, motherly creatures, who would have been
+ready to take little Mary to the loving shelter of their arms, and
+looked to Olivia Arundel--this cold, perfect benefactress of the
+poor--for help in his difficulty.
+
+"She, who is so good to all her father's parishioners, could not refuse
+to be kind to my poor Mary?" he thought.
+
+But how was he to win this woman's friendship for his darling? He asked
+himself this question even in the midst of the frivolous people about
+him, and with the buzz of their conversation in his ears. He was
+perpetually tormenting himself about his little girl's future, which
+seemed more dimly perplexing now than it had ever appeared in Oakley
+Street, when the Lincolnshire property was a far-away dream, perhaps
+never to be realised. He felt that his brief lease of life was running
+out; he felt as if he and Mary had been standing upon a narrow tract of
+yellow sand; very bright, very pleasant under the sunshine; but with
+the slow-coming tide rising like a wall about them, and creeping
+stealthily onward to overwhelm them.
+
+Mary might gather bright-coloured shells and wet seaweed in her
+childish ignorance; but he, who knew that the flood was coming, could
+but grow sick at heart with the dull horror of that hastening doom. If
+the black waters had been doomed to close over them both, the father
+might have been content to go down under the sullen waves, with his
+daughter clasped to his breast. But it was not to be so. He was to sink
+in that unknown stream while she was left upon the tempest-tossed
+surface, to be beaten hither and thither, feebly battling with the
+stormy billows.
+
+Could John Marchmont be a Christian, and yet feel this horrible dread
+of the death which must separate him from his daughter? I fear this
+frail, consumptive widower loved his child with an intensity of
+affection that is scarcely reconcilable with Christianity. Such great
+passions as these must be put away before the cross can be taken up,
+and the troublesome path followed. In all love and kindness towards his
+fellow-creatures, in all patient endurance of the pains and troubles
+that befel himself, it would have been difficult to find a more
+single-hearted follower of Gospel-teaching than John Marchmont; but in
+this affection for his motherless child he was a very Pagan. He set up
+an idol for himself, and bowed down before it. Doubtful and fearful of
+the future, he looked hopelessly forward. He _could_ not trust his
+orphan child into the hands of God; and drop away himself into the
+fathomless darkness, serene in the belief that she would be cared for
+and protected. No; he could not trust. He could be faithful for
+himself; simple and confiding as a child; but not for her. He saw the
+gloomy rocks louring black in the distance; the pitiless waves beating
+far away yonder, impatient to devour the frail boat that was so soon to
+be left alone upon the waters. In the thick darkness of the future he
+could see no ray of light, except one,--a new hope that had lately
+risen in his mind; the hope of winning some noble and perfect woman to
+be the future friend of his daughter.
+
+The days were past in which, in his simplicity, he had looked to Edward
+Arundel as the future shelter of his child. The generous boy had grown
+into a stylish young man, a soldier, whose duty lay far away from
+Marchmont Towers. No; it was to a good woman's guardianship the father
+must leave his child.
+
+Thus the very intensity of his love was the one motive which led John
+Marchmont to contemplate the step that Mary thought such a cruel and
+bitter wrong to her.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+It was not till long after the dinner-party at Marchmont Towers that
+these ideas resolved themselves into any positive form, and that John
+began to think that for his daughter's sake he might be led to
+contemplate a second marriage. Edward Arundel had spoken the truth when
+he told his cousin that John Marchmont had repeatedly mentioned her
+name; but the careless and impulsive young man had been utterly unable
+to fathom the feeling lurking in his friend's mind. It was not Olivia
+Arundel's handsome face which had won John's admiration; it was the
+constant reiteration of her praises upon every side which had led him
+to believe that this woman, of all others, was the one whom he would do
+well to win for his child's friend and guardian in the dark days that
+were to come.
+
+The knowledge that Olivia's intellect was of no common order, together
+with the somewhat imperious dignity of her manner, strengthened this
+belief in John Marchmont's mind. It was not a good woman only whom he
+must seek in the friend he needed for his child; it was a woman
+powerful enough to shield her in the lonely path she would have to
+tread; a woman strong enough to help her, perhaps, by-and-by to do
+battle with Paul Marchmont.
+
+So, in the blind paganism of his love, John refused to trust his child
+into the hands of Providence, and chose for himself a friend and
+guardian who should shelter his darling. He made his choice with so
+much deliberation, and after such long nights and days of earnest
+thought, that he may be forgiven if he believed he had chosen wisely.
+
+Thus it was that in the dark November days, while Edward and Mary
+played chess by the wide fireplace in the western drawing-room, or ball
+in the newly-erected tennis-court, John Marchmont sat in his study
+examining his papers, and calculating the amount of money at his own
+disposal, in serious contemplation of a second marriage.
+
+Did he love Olivia Arundel? No. He admired her and respected her, and
+he firmly believed her to be the most perfect of women. No impulse of
+affection had prompted the step he contemplated taking. He had loved
+his first wife truly and tenderly; but he had never suffered very
+acutely from any of those torturing emotions which form the several
+stages of the great tragedy called Love.
+
+But had he ever thought of the likelihood of his deliberate offer being
+rejected by the young lady who had been the object of such careful
+consideration? Yes; he had thought of this, and was prepared to abide
+the issue. He should, at least, have tried his uttermost to secure a
+friend for his darling.
+
+With such unloverlike feelings as these the owner of Marchmont Towers
+drove into Swampington one morning, deliberately bent upon offering
+Olivia Arundel his hand. He had consulted with his land-steward, and
+with Messrs. Paulette, and had ascertained how far he could endow his
+bride with the goods of this world. It was not much that he could give
+her, for the estate was strictly entailed; but there would be his own
+savings for the brief term of his life, and if he lived only a few
+years these savings might accumulate to a considerable amount, so
+limited were the expenses of the quiet Lincolnshire household; and
+there was a sum of money, something over nine thousand pounds, left him
+by Philip Marchmont, senior. He had something, then, to offer to the
+woman he sought to make his wife; and, above all, he had a supreme
+belief in Olivia Arundel's utter disinterestedness. He had seen her
+frequently since the dinner-party, and had always seen her the
+same,--grave, reserved, dignified; patiently employed in the strict
+performance of her duty.
+
+He found Miss Arundel sitting in her father's study, busily cutting out
+coarse garments for her poor. A newly-written sermon lay open on the
+table. Had Mr. Marchmont looked closely at the manuscript, he would
+have seen that the ink was wet, and that the writing was Olivia's. It
+was a relief to this strange woman to write sermons sometimes--fierce
+denunciatory protests against the inherent wickedness of the human
+heart. Can you imagine a woman with a wicked heart steadfastly trying
+to do good, and to be good? It is a dark and horrible picture; but it
+is the only true picture of the woman whom John Marchmont sought to win
+for his wife.
+
+The interview between Mary's father and Olivia Arundel was not a very
+sentimental one; but it was certainly the very reverse of commonplace.
+John was too simple-hearted to disguise the purpose of his wooing. He
+pleaded, not for a wife for himself, but a mother for his orphan child.
+He talked of Mary's helplessness in the future, not of his own love in
+the present. Carried away by the egotism of his one affection, he let
+his motives appear in all their nakedness. He spoke long and earnestly;
+he spoke until the blinding tears in his eyes made the face of her he
+looked at seem blotted and dim.
+
+Miss Arundel watched him as he pleaded; sternly, unflinchingly. But she
+uttered no word until he had finished; and then, rising suddenly, with
+a dusky flush upon her face, she began to pace up and down the narrow
+room. She had forgotten John Marchmont. In the strength and vigour of
+her intellect, this weak-minded widower, whose one passion was a
+pitiful love for his child, appeared to her so utterly insignificant,
+that for a few moments she had forgotten his presence in that room--his
+very existence, perhaps. She turned to him presently, and looked him
+full in the face.
+
+"You do not love me, Mr. Marchmont?" she said.
+
+"Pardon me," John stammered; "believe me, Miss Arundel, I respect, I
+esteem you so much, that--"
+
+"That you choose me as a fitting friend for your child. I understand. I
+am not the sort of woman to be loved. I have long comprehended that. My
+cousin Edward Arundel has often taken the trouble to tell me as much.
+And you wish me to be your wife in order that you may have a guardian
+for your child? It is very much the same thing as engaging a governess;
+only the engagement is to be more binding."
+
+"Miss Arundel," exclaimed John Marchmont, "forgive me! You
+misunderstand me; indeed you do. Had I thought that I could have
+offended you--"
+
+"I am not offended. You have spoken the truth where another man would
+have told a lie. I ought to be flattered by your confidence in me. It
+pleases me that people should think me good, and worthy of their
+trust."
+
+She broke into a sigh as she finished speaking.
+
+"And you will not reject my appeal?"
+
+"I scarcely know what to do," answered Olivia, pressing her hand to her
+forehead.
+
+She leaned against the angle of the deep casement window, looking out
+at the garden, desolate and neglected in the bleak winter weather. She
+was silent for some minutes. John Marchmont did not interrupt her; he
+was content to wait patiently until she should choose to speak.
+
+"Mr. Marchmont," she said at last, turning upon poor John with an
+abrupt vehemence that almost startled him, "I am three-and-twenty; and
+in the long, dull memory of the three-and-twenty years that have made
+my life, I cannot look back upon one joy--no, so help me Heaven, not
+one!" she cried passionately. "No prisoner in the Bastille, shut in a
+cell below the level of the Seine, and making companions of rats and
+spiders in his misery, ever led a life more hopelessly narrow, more
+pitifully circumscribed, than mine has been. These grass-grown streets
+have made the boundary of my existence. The flat fenny country round me
+is not flatter or more dismal than my life. You will say that I should
+take an interest in the duties which I do; and that they should be
+enough for me. Heaven knows I have tried to do so; but my life is hard.
+Do you think there has been nothing in all this to warp my nature? Do
+you think after hearing this, that I am the woman to be a second mother
+to your child?"
+
+She sat down as she finished speaking, and her hands dropped listlessly
+in her lap. The unquiet spirit raging in her breast had been stronger
+than herself, and had spoken. She had lifted the dull veil through
+which the outer world beheld her, and had showed John Marchmont her
+natural face.
+
+"I think you are a good woman, Miss Arundel," he said earnestly. "If I
+had thought otherwise, I should not have come here to-day. I want a
+good woman to be kind to my child; kind to her when I am dead and
+gone," he added, in a lower voice.
+
+Olivia Arundel sat silent and motionless, looking straight before her
+out into the black dulness of the garden. She was trying to think out
+the dark problem of her life.
+
+Strange as it may seem, there was a certain fascination for her in John
+Marchmont's offer. He offered her something, no matter what; it would
+be a change. She had compared herself to a prisoner in the Bastille;
+and I think she felt very much as such a prisoner might have felt upon
+his gaoler's offering to remove him to Vincennes. The new prison might
+be worse than the old one, perhaps; but it would be different. Life at
+Marchmont Towers might be more monotonous, more desolate, than at
+Swampington; but it would be a new monotony, another desolation. Have
+you never felt, when suffering the hideous throes of toothache, that it
+would be a relief to have the earache or the rheumatism; that variety
+even in torture would be agreeable?
+
+Then, again, Olivia Arundel, though unblest with many of the charms of
+womanhood, was not entirely without its weaknesses. To marry John
+Marchmont would be to avenge herself upon Edward Arundel. Alas! she
+forgot how impossible it is to inflict a dagger-thrust upon him who is
+guarded by the impenetrable armour of indifference. She saw herself the
+mistress of Marchmont Towers, waited upon by liveried servants,
+courted, not patronised by the country gentry; avenged upon the
+mercenary aunt who had slighted her, who had bade her go out and get
+her living as a nursery governess. She saw this; and all that was
+ignoble in her nature arose, and urged her to snatch the chance offered
+her--the one chance of lifting herself out of the horrible obscurity of
+her life. The ambition which might have made her an empress lowered its
+crest, and cried, "Take this; at least it is something." But, through
+all, the better voices which she had enlisted to do battle with the
+natural voice of her soul cried, "This is a temptation of the devil;
+put it away from thee."
+
+But this temptation came to her at the very moment when her life had
+become most intolerable; too intolerable to be borne, she thought. She
+knew now, fatally, certainly, that Edward Arundel did not love her;
+that the one only day-dream she had ever made for herself had been a
+snare and a delusion. The radiance of that foolish dream had been the
+single light of her life. That taken away from her, the darkness was
+blacker than the blackness of death; more horrible than the obscurity
+of the grave.
+
+In all the future she had not one hope: no, not one. She had loved
+Edward Arundel with all the strength of her soul; she had wasted a
+world of intellect and passion upon this bright-haired boy. This
+foolish, grovelling madness had been the blight of her life. But for
+this, she might have grown out of her natural self by force of her
+conscientious desire to do right; and might have become, indeed, a good
+and perfect woman. If her life had been a wider one, this wasted love
+would, perhaps, have shrunk into its proper insignificance; she would
+have loved, and suffered, and recovered; as so many of us recover from
+this common epidemic. But all the volcanic forces of an impetuous
+nature, concentrated into one narrow focus, wasted themselves upon this
+one feeling, until that which should have been a sentiment became a
+madness.
+
+To think that in some far-away future time she might cease to love
+Edward Arundel, and learn to love somebody else, would have seemed
+about as reasonable to Olivia as to hope that she could have new legs
+and arms in that distant period. She could cut away this fatal passion
+with a desperate stroke, it may be, just as she could cut off her arm;
+but to believe that a new love would grow in its place was quite as
+absurd as to believe in the growing of a new arm. Some cork monstrosity
+might replace the amputated limb; some sham and simulated affection
+might succeed the old love.
+
+Olivia Arundel thought of all these things, in about ten minutes by the
+little skeleton clock upon the mantel-piece, and while John Marchmont
+fidgeted rather nervously, with a pair of gloves in the crown of his
+hat, and waited for some definite answer to his appeal. Her mind came
+back at last, after all its passionate wanderings, to the rigid channel
+she had so laboriously worn for it,--the narrow groove of duty. Her
+first words testified this.
+
+"If I accept this responsibility, I will perform it faithfully," she
+said, rather to herself than to Mr. Marchmont.
+
+"I am sure you will, Miss Arundel," John answered eagerly; "I am sure
+you will. You mean to undertake it, then? you mean to consider my
+offer? May I speak to your father? may I tell him that I have spoken to
+you? may I say that you have given me a hope of your ultimate consent?"
+
+"Yes, yes," Olivia said, rather impatiently; "speak to my father; tell
+him anything you please. Let him decide for me; it is my duty to obey
+him."
+
+There was a terrible cowardice in this. Olivia Arundel shrank from
+marrying a man she did not love, prompted by no better desire than the
+mad wish to wrench herself away from her hated life. She wanted to
+fling the burden of responsibility in this matter away from her. Let
+another decide, let another urge her to do this wrong; and let the
+wrong be called a sacrifice.
+
+So for the first time she set to work deliberately to cheat her own
+conscience. For the first time she put a false mark upon the standard
+she had made for the measurement of her moral progress.
+
+She sank into a crouching attitude on a low stool by the fire-place, in
+utter prostration of body and mind, when John Marchmont had left her.
+She let her weary head fall heavily against the carved oaken shaft that
+supported the old-fashioned mantel-piece, heedless that her brow struck
+sharply against the corner of the wood-work.
+
+If she could have died then, with no more sinful secret than a woman's
+natural weakness hidden in her breast; if she could have died then,
+while yet the first step upon the dark pathway of her life was
+untrodden,--how happy for herself, how happy for others! How miserable
+a record of sin and suffering might have remained unwritten in the
+history of woman's life!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+She sat long in the same attitude. Once, and once only, two solitary
+tears gathered in her eyes, and rolled slowly down her pale cheeks.
+
+"Will you be sorry when I am married, Edward Arundel?" she murmured;
+"will you be sorry?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+"WHEN SHALL I CEASE TO BE ALL ALONE?"
+
+
+Hubert Arundel was not so much surprised as might have been anticipated
+at the proposal made him by his wealthy neighbour. Edward had prepared
+his uncle for the possibility of such a proposal by sundry jocose
+allusions and arch hints upon the subject of John Marchmont's
+admiration for Olivia. The frank and rather frivolous young man thought
+it was his cousin's handsome face that had captivated the master of
+Marchmont Towers, and was quite unable to fathom the hidden motive
+underlying all John's talk about Miss Arundel.
+
+The Rector of Swampington, being a simple-hearted and not very
+far-seeing man, thanked God heartily for the chance that had befallen
+his daughter. She would be well off and well cared for, then, by the
+mercy of Providence, in spite of his own shortcomings, which had left
+her with no better provision for the future than a pitiful Policy of
+Assurance upon her father's life. She would be well provided for
+henceforward, and would live in a handsome house; and all those noble
+qualities which had been dwarfed and crippled in a narrow sphere would
+now expand, and display themselves in unlooked-for grandeur.
+
+"People have called her a good girl," he thought; "but how could they
+ever know her goodness, unless they had seen, as I have, the
+deprivations she has borne so uncomplainingly?"
+
+John Marchmont, being newly instructed by his lawyer, was able to give
+Mr. Arundel a very clear statement of the provision he could make for
+his wife's future. He could settle upon her the nine thousand pounds
+left him by Philip Marchmont. He would allow her five hundred a year
+pin-money during his lifetime; he would leave her his savings at his
+death; and he would effect an insurance upon his life for her benefit.
+The amount of these savings would, of course, depend upon the length of
+John's life; but the money would accumulate very quickly, as his income
+was eleven thousand a year, and his expenditure was not likely to
+exceed three.
+
+The Swampington living was worth little more than three hundred and
+fifty pounds a year; and out of that sum Hubert Arundel and his
+daughter had done treble as much good for the numerous poor of the
+parish as ever had been achieved by any previous Rector or his family.
+Hubert and his daughter had patiently endured the most grinding
+poverty, the burden ever falling heavier on Olivia, who had the heroic
+faculty of endurance as regards all physical discomfort. Can it be
+wondered, then, that the Rector of Swampington thought the prospect
+offered to his child a very brilliant one? Can it be wondered that he
+urged his daughter to accept this altered lot?
+
+He did urge her, pleading John Marchmont's cause a great deal more
+warmly than the widower had himself pleaded.
+
+"My darling," he said, "my darling girl! if I can live to see you
+mistress of Marchmont Towers, I shall go to my grave contented and
+happy. Think, my dear, of the misery from which this marriage will save
+you. Oh, my dear girl, I can tell you now what I never dared tell you
+before; I can tell you of the long, sleepless nights I have passed
+thinking of you, and of the wicked wrongs I have done you. Not wilful
+wrongs, my love," the Rector added, with the tears gathering in his
+eyes; "for you know how dearly I have always loved you. But a father's
+responsibility towards his children is a very heavy burden. I have only
+looked at it in this light lately, my dear,--now that I've let the time
+slip by, and it is too late to redeem the past. I've suffered very
+much, Olivia; and all this has seemed to separate us, somehow. But
+that's past now, isn't it, my dear? and you'll marry this Mr.
+Marchmont. He appears to be a very good, conscientious man, and I think
+he'll make you happy."
+
+The father and daughter were sitting together after dinner in the dusky
+November twilight, the room only lighted by the fire, which was low and
+dim. Hubert Arundel could not see his daughter's face as he talked to
+her; he could only see the black outline of her figure sharply defined
+against the grey window behind her, as she sat opposite to him. He
+could see by her attitude that she was listening to him, with her head
+drooping and her hands lying idle in her lap.
+
+She was silent for some little time after he had finished speaking; so
+silent that he feared his words might have touched her too painfully,
+and that she was crying.
+
+Heaven help this simple-hearted father! She had scarcely heard three
+consecutive words that he had spoken, but had only gathered dimly from
+his speech that he wanted her to accept John Marchmont's offer.
+
+Every great passion is a supreme egotism. It is not the object which we
+hug so determinedly; it is not the object which coils itself about our
+weak hearts: it is our own madness we worship and cleave to, our own
+pitiable folly which we refuse to put away from us. What is Bill Sykes'
+broken nose or bull-dog visage to Nancy? The creature she loves and
+will not part from is not Bill, but her own love for Bill,--the one
+delusion of a barren life; the one grand selfishness of a feeble
+nature.
+
+Olivia Arundel's thoughts had wandered far away while her father had
+spoken so piteously to her. She had been thinking of her cousin Edward,
+and had been asking herself the same question over and over again.
+Would he be sorry? would he be sorry if she married John Marchmont?
+
+But she understood presently that her father was waiting for her to
+speak; and, rising from her chair, she went towards him, and laid her
+hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"I am afraid I have not done my duty to you, papa," she said.
+
+Latterly she had been for ever harping upon this one theme,--her duty!
+That word was the keynote of her life; and her existence had latterly
+seemed to her so inharmonious, that it was scarcely strange she should
+repeatedly strike that leading note in the scale.
+
+"My darling," cried Mr. Arundel, "you have been all that is good!"
+
+"No, no, papa; I have been cold, reserved, silent."
+
+"A little silent, my dear," the Rector answered meekly; "but you have
+not been happy. I have watched you, my love, and I know you have not
+been happy. But that is not strange. This place is so dull, and your
+life has been so fatiguing. How different that would all be at
+Marchmont Towers!"
+
+"You wish me to many Mr. Marchmont, then, papa?"
+
+"I do, indeed, my love. For your own sake, of course," the Rector added
+deprecatingly.
+
+"You really wish it?"
+
+"Very, very much, my dear."
+
+"Then I will marry him, papa."
+
+She took her hand from the Rector's shoulder, and walked away from him
+to the uncurtained window, against which she stood with her back to her
+father, looking out into the grey obscurity.
+
+I have said that Hubert Arundel was not a very clever or far-seeing
+person; but he vaguely felt that this was not exactly the way in which
+a brilliant offer of marriage should be accepted by a young lady who
+was entirely fancy-free, and he had an uncomfortable apprehension that
+there was something hidden under his daughter's quiet manner.
+
+"But, my dear Olivia," he said nervously, "you must not for a moment
+suppose that I would force you into this marriage, if it is in any way
+repugnant to yourself. You--you may have formed some prior
+attachment--or, there may be somebody who loves you, and has loved you
+longer than Mr. Marchmont, who--"
+
+His daughter turned upon him sharply as he rambled on.
+
+"Somebody who loves me!" she echoed. "What have you ever seen that
+should make you think any one loved me?"
+
+The harshness of her tone jarred upon Mr. Arundel, and made him still
+more nervous.
+
+"My love, I beg your pardon, I have seen nothing. I--"
+
+"Nobody loves me, or has ever loved me,--but you," resumed Olivia,
+taking no heed of her father's feeble interruption. "I am not the sort
+of woman to be loved; I feel and know that. I have an aquiline nose,
+and a clear skin, and dark eyes, and people call me handsome; but
+nobody loves me, or ever will, so long as I live."
+
+"But Mr. Marchmont, my dear,--surely he loves and admires you?"
+remonstrated the Rector.
+
+"Mr. Marchmont wants a governess and _chaperone_ for his daughter, and
+thinks me a suitable person to fill such a post; that is all the _love_
+Mr. Marchmont has for me. No, papa; there is no reason I should shrink
+from this marriage. There is no one who will be sorry for it; no one! I
+am asked to perform a duty towards this little girl, and I am prepared
+to perform it faithfully. That is my part of the bargain. Do I commit a
+sin in marrying John Marchmont in this spirit, papa?"
+
+She asked the question eagerly, almost breathlessly; as if her decision
+depended upon her father's answer.
+
+"A sin, my dear! How can you ask such a question?"
+
+"Very well, then; if I commit no sin in accepting this offer, I will
+accept it."
+
+It was thus Olivia paltered with her conscience, holding back half the
+truth. The question she should have asked was this, "Do I commit a sin
+in marrying one man, while my heart is racked by a mad passion for
+another?"
+
+Miss Arundel could not visit her poor upon the day after this interview
+with her father. Her monotonous round of duty seemed more than ever
+abhorrent to her. She wandered across the dreary marshes, down by the
+lonely seashore, in the grey November fog.
+
+She stood for a long time, shivering with the cold dampness of the
+atmosphere, but not even conscious that she was cold, looking at a
+dilapidated boat that lay upon the rugged beach. The waters before her
+and the land behind her were hidden by a dense veil of mist. It seemed
+as if she stood alone in the world,--utterly isolated, utterly
+forgotten.
+
+"O my God!" she murmured, "if this boat at my feet could drift me away
+to some desert island, I could never be more desolate than I am,
+amongst the people who do not love me."
+
+Dim lights in distant windows were gleaming across the flats when she
+returned to Swampington, to find her father sitting alone and
+dispirited at his frugal dinner. Miss Arundel took her place quietly at
+the bottom of the table, no trace of emotion upon her face.
+
+"I am sorry I stayed out so long, papa" she said; "I had no idea it was
+so late."
+
+"Never mind, my dear, I know you have always enough to occupy you. Mr.
+Marchmont called while you were out. He seemed very anxious to hear
+your decision, and was delighted when he found that it was favourable
+to himself."
+
+Olivia dropped her knife and fork, and rose from her chair suddenly,
+with a strange look, which was almost terror, in her face.
+
+"It is quite decided, then?" she said.
+
+"Yes, my love. But you are not sorry, are you?"
+
+"Sorry! No; I am glad."
+
+She sank back into her chair with a sigh of relief. She _was_ glad. The
+prospect of this strange marriage offered a relief from the horrible
+oppression of her life.
+
+"Henceforward to think of Edward Arundel will be a sin," she thought.
+"I have not won another man's love; but I shall be another man's wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+MARY'S STEPMOTHER.
+
+
+Perhaps there was never a quieter courtship than that which followed
+Olivia's acceptance of John Marchmont's offer. There had been no
+pretence of sentiment on either side; yet I doubt if John had been much
+more sentimental during his early love-making days, though he had very
+tenderly and truly loved his first wife. There were few sparks of the
+romantic or emotional fire in his placid nature. His love for his
+daughter, though it absorbed his whole being, was a silent and
+undemonstrative affection; a thoughtful and almost fearful devotion,
+which took the form of intense but hidden anxiety for his child's
+future, rather than any outward show of tenderness.
+
+Had his love been of a more impulsive and demonstrative character, he
+would scarcely have thought of taking such a step as that he now
+contemplated, without first ascertaining whether it would be agreeable
+to his daughter.
+
+But he never for a moment dreamt of consulting Mary's will upon this
+important matter. He looked with fearful glances towards the dim
+future, and saw his darling, a lonely figure upon a barren landscape,
+beset by enemies eager to devour her; and he snatched at this one
+chance of securing her a protectress, who would be bound to her by a
+legal as well as a moral tie; for John Marchmont meant to appoint his
+second wife the guardian of his child. He thought only of this; and he
+hurried on his suit at the Rectory, fearful lest death should come
+between him and his loveless bride, and thus deprive his darling of a
+second mother.
+
+This was the history of John Marchmont's marriage. It was not till a
+week before the day appointed for the wedding that he told his daughter
+what he was about to do. Edward Arundel knew the secret, but he had
+been warned not to reveal it to Mary.
+
+The father and daughter sat together late one evening in the first week
+of December, in the great western drawing-room. Edward had gone to a
+party at Swampington, and was to sleep at the Rectory; so Mary and her
+father were alone.
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock; but Miss Marchmont had insisted upon
+sitting up until her father should retire to rest. She had always sat
+up in Oakley Street, she had remonstrated, though she was much younger
+then. She sat on a velvet-covered hassock at her father's feet, with
+her loose hair falling over his knee, as her head lay there in loving
+abandonment. She was not talking to him; for neither John nor Mary were
+great talkers; but she was with him--that was quite enough.
+
+Mr. Marchmont's thin fingers twined themselves listlessly in and out of
+the fair curls upon his knee. Mary was thinking of Edward and the party
+at Swampington. Would he enjoy himself very, very much? Would he be
+sorry that she was not there? It was a grown-up party, and she wasn't
+old enough for grown-up parties yet. Would the pretty girls in blue be
+there? and would he dance with them?
+
+Her father's face was clouded by a troubled expression, as he looked
+absently at the red embers in the low fireplace. He spoke presently,
+but his observation was a very commonplace one. The opening speeches of
+a tragedy are seldom remarkable for any ominous or solemn meaning. Two
+gentlemen meet each other in a street very near the footlights, and
+converse rather flippantly about the aspect of affairs in general;
+there is no hint of bloodshed and agony till we get deeper into the
+play.
+
+So Mr. Marchmont, bent upon making rather an important communication to
+his daughter, and for the first time feeling very fearful as to how she
+would take it, began thus:
+
+"You really ought to go to bed earlier, Polly dear; you've been looking
+very pale lately, and I know such hours as these must be bad for you."
+
+"Oh, no, papa dear," cried the young lady; "I'm always pale; that's
+natural to me. Sitting up late doesn't hurt me, papa. It never did in
+Oakley Street, you know."
+
+John Marchmont shook his head sadly.
+
+"I don't know that," he said. "My darling had to suffer many evils
+through her father's poverty. If you had some one who loved you, dear,
+a lady, you know,--for a man does not understand these sort of
+things,--your health would be looked after more carefully,
+and--and--your education--and--in short, you would be altogether
+happier; wouldn't you, Polly darling?"
+
+He asked the question in an almost piteously appealing tone. A terrible
+fear was beginning to take possession of him. His daughter might be
+grieved at this second marriage. The very step which he had taken for
+her happiness might cause her loving nature pain and sorrow. In the
+utter cowardice of his affection he trembled at the thought of causing
+his darling any distress in the present, even for her own
+welfare,--even for her future good; and he _knew_ that the step he was
+about to take would secure that. Mary started from her reclining
+position, and looked up into her father's face.
+
+"You're not going to engage a governess for me, papa?" she cried
+eagerly. "Oh, please don't. We are so much better as it is. A governess
+would keep me away from you, papa; I know she would. The Miss Llandels,
+at Impley Grange, have a governess; and they only come down to dessert
+for half an hour, or go out for a drive sometimes, so that they very
+seldom see their papa. Lucy told me so; and they said they'd give the
+world to be always with their papa, as I am with you. Oh, pray, pray,
+papa darling, don't let me have a governess."
+
+The tears were in her eyes as she pleaded to him. The sight of those
+tears made him terribly nervous.
+
+"My own dear Polly," he said, "I'm not going to engage a governess.
+I--; Polly, Polly dear, you must be reasonable. You mustn't grieve your
+poor father. You are old enough to understand these things now, dear.
+You know what the doctors have said. I may die, Polly, and leave you
+alone in the world."
+
+She clung closely to her father, and looked up, pale and trembling, as
+she answered him.
+
+"When you die, papa, I shall die too. I could never, never live without
+you."
+
+"Yes, yes, my darling, you would. You will live to lead a happy life,
+please God, and a safe one; but if I die, and leave you very young,
+very inexperienced, and innocent, as I may do, my dear, you must not be
+without a friend to watch over you, to advise, to protect you. I have
+thought of this long and earnestly, Polly; and I believe that what I am
+going to do is right."
+
+"What you are going to do!" Mary cried, repeating her father's words,
+and looking at him in sudden terror. "What do you mean, papa? What are
+you going to do? Nothing that will part us! O papa, papa, you will
+never do anything to part us!"
+
+"No, Polly darling," answered Mr. Marchmont. "Whatever I do, I do for
+your sake, and for that alone. I'm going to be married, my dear."
+
+Mary burst into a low wail, more pitiful than any ordinary weeping.
+
+"O papa, papa," she cried, "you never will, you never will!"
+
+The sound of that piteous voice for a few moments quite unmanned John
+Marchmont; but he armed himself with a desperate courage. He determined
+not to be influenced by this child to relinquish the purpose which he
+believed was to achieve her future welfare.
+
+"Mary, Mary dear," he said reproachfully, "this is very cruel of you.
+Do you think I haven't consulted your happiness before my own? Do you
+think I shall love you less because I take this step for your sake? You
+are very cruel to me, Mary."
+
+The little girl rose from her kneeling attitude, and stood before her
+father, with the tears streaming down her white cheeks, but with a
+certain air of resolution about her. She had been a child for a few
+moments; a child, with no power to look beyond the sudden pang of that
+new sorrow which had come to her. She was a woman now, able to rise
+superior to her sorrow in the strength of her womanhood.
+
+"I won't be cruel, papa," she said; "I was selfish and wicked to talk
+like that. If it will make you happy to have another wife, papa, I'll
+not be sorry. No, I won't be sorry, even if your new wife separates
+us--a little."
+
+"But, my darling," John remonstrated, "I don't mean that she should
+separate us at all. I wish you to have a second friend, Polly; some one
+who can understand you better than I do, who may love you perhaps
+almost as well." Mary Marchmont shook her head; she could not realise
+this possibility. "Do you understand me, my dear?" her father continued
+earnestly. "I want you to have some one who will be a mother to you;
+and I hope--I am sure that Olivia--"
+
+Mary interrupted him by a sudden exclamation, that was almost like a
+cry of pain.
+
+"Not Miss Arundel!" she said. "O papa, it is not Miss Arundel you're
+going to marry!"
+
+Her father bent his head in assent.
+
+"What is the matter with you, Mary?" he said, almost fretfully, as he
+saw the look of mingled grief and terror in his daughter's face. "You
+are really quite unreasonable to-night. If I am to marry at all, who
+should I choose for a wife? Who could be better than Olivia Arundel?
+Everybody knows how good she is. Everybody talks of her goodness."
+
+In these two sentences Mr. Marchmont made confession of a fact he had
+never himself considered. It was not his own impulse, it was no
+instinctive belief in her goodness, that had led him to choose Olivia
+Arundel for his wife. He had been influenced solely by the reiterated
+opinions of other people.
+
+"I know she is very good, papa," Mary cried; "but, oh, why, why do you
+marry her? Do you love her so very, very much?"
+
+"Love her!" exclaimed Mr. Marchmont naively; "no, Polly dear; you know
+I never loved any one but you."
+
+"Why do you marry her then?"
+
+"For your sake, Polly; for your sake."
+
+"But don't then, papa; oh, pray, pray don't. I don't want her. I don't
+like her. I could never be happy with her."
+
+"Mary! Mary!"
+
+"Yes, I know it's very wicked to say so, but it's true, papa; I never,
+never, never could be happy with her. I know she is good, but I don't
+like her. If I did anything wrong, I should never expect her to forgive
+me for it; I should never expect her to have mercy upon me. Don't marry
+her, papa; pray, pray don't marry her."
+
+"Mary," said Mr. Marchmont resolutely, "this is very wrong of you. I
+have given my word, my dear, and I cannot recall it. I believe that I
+am acting for the best. You must not be childish now, Mary. You have
+been my comfort ever since you were a baby; you mustn't make me unhappy
+now."
+
+Her father's appeal went straight to her heart. Yes, she had been his
+help and comfort since her earliest infancy, and she was not unused to
+self-sacrifice: why should she fail him now? She had read of martyrs,
+patient and holy creatures, to whom suffering was glory; she would be a
+martyr, if need were, for his sake. She would stand steadfast amid the
+blazing fagots, or walk unflinchingly across the white-hot ploughshare,
+for his sake, for his sake.
+
+"Papa, papa," she cried, flinging herself upon her father's neck, "I
+will not make you sorry. I will be good and obedient to Miss Arundel,
+if you wish it."
+
+Mr. Marchmont carried his little girl up to her comfortable bedchamber,
+close at hand to his own. She was very calm when she bade him good
+night, and she kissed him with a smile upon her face; but all through
+the long hours before the late winter morning Mary Marchmont lay awake,
+weeping silently and incessantly in her new sorrow; and all through the
+same weary hours the master of that noble Lincolnshire mansion slept a
+fitful and troubled slumber, rendered hideous by confused and horrible
+dreams, in which the black shadow that came between him and his child,
+and the cruel hand that thrust him for ever from his darling, were
+Olivia Arundel's.
+
+But the morning light brought relief to John Marchmont and his child.
+Mary arose with the determination to submit patiently to her father's
+choice, and to conceal from him all traces of her foolish and
+unreasoning sorrow. John awoke from troubled dreams to believe in the
+wisdom of the step he had taken, and to take comfort from the thought
+that in the far-away future his daughter would have reason to thank and
+bless him for the choice he had made.
+
+So the few days before the marriage passed away--miserably short days,
+that flitted by with terrible speed; and the last day of all was made
+still more dismal by the departure of Edward Arundel, who left
+Marchmont Towers to go to Dangerfield Park, whence he was most likely
+to start once more for India.
+
+Mary felt that her narrow world of love was indeed crumbling away from
+her. Edward was lost, and to-morrow her father would belong to another.
+Mr. Marchmont dined at the Rectory upon that last evening; for there
+were settlements to be signed, and other matters to be arranged; and
+Mary was alone--quite alone--weeping over her lost happiness.
+
+"This would never have happened," she thought, "if we hadn't come to
+Marchmont Towers. I wish papa had never had the fortune; we were so
+happy in Oakley Street,--so very happy. I wouldn't mind a bit being
+poor again, if I could be always with papa."
+
+Mr. Marchmont had not been able to make himself quite comfortable in
+his mind, after that unpleasant interview with his daughter in which he
+had broken to her the news of his approaching marriage. Argue with
+himself as he might upon the advisability of the step he was about to
+take, he could not argue away the fact that he had grieved the child he
+loved so intensely. He could not blot away from his memory the pitiful
+aspect of her terror-stricken face as she had turned it towards him
+when he uttered the name of Olivia Arundel.
+
+No; he had grieved and distressed her. The future might reconcile her
+to that grief, perhaps, as a bygone sorrow which she had been allowed
+to suffer for her own ultimate advantage. But the future was a long way
+off: and in the meantime there was Mary's altered face, calm and
+resigned, but bearing upon it a settled look of sorrow, very close at
+hand; and John Marchmont could not be otherwise than unhappy in the
+knowledge of his darling's grief.
+
+I do not believe that any man or woman is ever suffered to take a fatal
+step upon the roadway of life without receiving ample warning by the
+way. The stumbling-blocks are placed in the fatal path by a merciful
+hand; but we insist upon clambering over them, and surmounting them in
+our blind obstinacy, to reach that shadowy something beyond, which we
+have in our ignorance appointed to be our goal. A thousand ominous
+whispers in his own breast warned John Marchmont that the step he
+considered so wise was not a wise one: and yet, in spite of all these
+subtle warnings, in spite of the ever-present reproach of his
+daughter's altered face, this man, who was too weak to trust blindly in
+his God, went on persistently upon his way, trusting, with a thousand
+times more fatal blindness, in his own wisdom.
+
+He could not be content to confide his darling and her altered fortunes
+to the Providence which had watched over her in her poverty, and
+sheltered her from every harm. He could not trust his child to the
+mercy of God; but he cast her upon the love of Olivia Arundel.
+
+A new life began for Mary Marchmont after the quiet wedding at
+Swampington Church. The bride and bridegroom went upon a brief
+honeymoon excursion far away amongst snow-clad Scottish mountains and
+frozen streams, upon whose bloomless margins poor John shivered
+dismally. I fear that Mr. Marchmont, having been, by the hard pressure
+of poverty, compelled to lead a Cockney life for the better half of his
+existence, had but slight relish for the grand and sublime in nature. I
+do not think he looked at the ruined walls which had once sheltered
+Macbeth and his strong-minded partner with all the enthusiasm which
+might have been expected of him. He had but one idea about Macbeth, and
+he was rather glad to get out of the neighbourhood associated with the
+warlike Thane; for his memories of the past presented King Duncan's
+murderer as a very stern and uncompromising gentleman, who was utterly
+intolerant of banners held awry, or turned with the blank and ignoble
+side towards the audience, and who objected vehemently to a violent fit
+of coughing on the part of any one of his guests during the blank
+barmecide feast of pasteboard and Dutch metal with which he was wont to
+entertain them. No; John Marchmont had had quite enough of Macbeth, and
+rather wondered at the hot enthusiasm of other red-nosed tourists,
+apparently indifferent to the frosty weather.
+
+I fear that the master of Marchmont Towers would have preferred Oakley
+Street, Lambeth, to Princes Street, Edinburgh; for the nipping and
+eager airs of the Modern Athens nearly blew him across the gulf between
+the new town and the old. A visit to the Calton Hill produced an attack
+of that chronic cough which had so severely tormented the weak-kneed
+supernumerary in the draughty corridors of Drury Lane. Melrose and
+Abbotsford fatigued this poor feeble tourist; he tried to be interested
+in the stereotyped round of associations beloved by other travellers,
+but he had a weary craving for rest, which was stronger than any
+hero-worship; and he discovered, before long, that he had done a very
+foolish thing in coming to Scotland in December and January, without
+having consulted his physician as to the propriety of such a step.
+
+But above all personal inconvenience, above all personal suffering,
+there was one feeling ever present in his heart--a sick yearning for
+the little girl he had left behind him; a mournful longing to be back
+with his child. Already Mary's sad forebodings had been in some way
+realised; already his new wife had separated him, unintentionally of
+course, from his daughter. The aches and pains he endured in the bleak
+Scottish atmosphere reminded him only too forcibly of the warnings he
+had received from his physicians. He was seized with a panic, almost,
+when he remembered his own imprudence. What if he had needlessly
+curtailed the short span of his life? What if he were to die
+soon--before Olivia had learned to love her stepdaughter; before Mary
+had grown affectionately familiar with her new guardian? Again and
+again he appealed to his wife, imploring her to be tender to the orphan
+child, if he should be snatched away suddenly.
+
+"I know you will love her by-and-by, Olivia," he said; "as much as I
+do, perhaps; for you will discover how good she is, how patient and
+unselfish. But just at first, and before you know her very well, you
+will be kind to her, won't you, Olivia? She has been used to great
+indulgence; she has been spoiled, perhaps; but you'll remember all
+that, and be very kind to her?"
+
+"I will try and do my duty," Mrs. Marchmont answered. "I pray that I
+never may do less."
+
+There was no tender yearning in Olivia Marchmont's heart towards the
+motherless girl. She herself felt that such a sentiment was wanting,
+and comprehended that it should have been there. She would have loved
+her stepdaughter in those early days, if she could have done so; but
+_she could not_--she could not. All that was tender or womanly in her
+nature had been wasted upon her hopeless love for Edward Arundel. The
+utter wreck of that small freight of affection had left her nature
+warped and stunted, soured, disappointed, unwomanly.
+
+How was she to love this child, this hazel-haired, dove-eyed girl,
+before whom woman's life, with all its natural wealth of affection,
+stretched far away, a bright and fairy vista? How was _she_ to love
+her,--she, whose black future was unchequered by one ray of light; who
+stood, dissevered from the past, alone in the dismal, dreamless
+monotony of the present?
+
+"No" she thought; "beggars and princes can never love one another. When
+this girl and I are equals,--when she, like me, stands alone upon a
+barren rock, far out amid the waste of waters, with not one memory to
+hold her to the past, with not one hope to lure her onward to the
+future, with nothing but the black sky above and the black waters
+around,--_then_ we may grow fond of each other."
+
+But always more or less steadfast to the standard she had set up for
+herself, Olivia Marchmont intended to do her duty to her stepdaughter.
+She had not failed in other duties, though no glimmer of love had
+brightened them, no natural affection had made them pleasant. Why
+should she fail in this?
+
+If this belief in her own power should appear to be somewhat arrogant,
+let it be remembered that she had set herself hard tasks before now,
+and had performed them. Would the new furnace through which she was to
+pass be more terrible than the old fires? She had gone to God's altar
+with a man for whom she had no more love than she felt for the lowest
+or most insignificant of the miserable sinners in her father's flock.
+She had sworn to honour and obey him, meaning at least faithfully to
+perform that portion of her vow; and on the night before her loveless
+bridal she had grovelled, white, writhing, mad, and desperate, upon the
+ground, and had plucked out of her lacerated heart her hopeless love
+for another man.
+
+Yes; she had done this. Another woman might have spent that bridal eve
+in vain tears and lamentations, in feeble prayers, and such weak
+struggles as might have been evidenced by the destruction of a few
+letters, a tress of hair, some fragile foolish tokens of a wasted love.
+She would have burnt five out of six letters, perhaps, that helpless,
+ordinary sinner, and would have kept the sixth, to hoard away hidden
+among her matrimonial trousseau; she would have thrown away
+fifteen-sixteenths of that tress of hair, and would have kept the
+sixteenth portion,--one delicate curl of gold, slender as the thread by
+which her shattered hopes had hung,--to be wept over and kissed in the
+days that were to come. An ordinary woman would have played fast and
+loose with love and duty; and so would have been true to neither.
+
+But Olivia Arundel did none of these things. She battled with her
+weakness as St George battled with the fiery dragon. She plucked the
+rooted serpent from her heart, reckless as to how much of that
+desperate heart was to be wrenched away with its roots. A cowardly
+woman would have killed herself, perhaps, rather than endure this
+mortal agony. Olivia Arundel killed more than herself; she killed the
+passion that had become stronger than herself.
+
+"Alone she did it;" unaided by any human sympathy or compassion,
+unsupported by any human counsel, not upheld by her God; for the
+religion she had made for herself was a hard creed, and the many words
+of tender comfort which must have been familiar to her were
+unremembered in that long night of anguish.
+
+It was the Roman's stern endurance, rather than the meek faithfulness
+of the Christian, which upheld this unhappy girl under her torture. She
+did not do this thing because it pleased her to be obedient to her God.
+She did not do it because she believed in the mercy of Him who
+inflicted the suffering, and looked forward hopefully, even amid her
+passionate grief, to the day when she should better comprehend that
+which she now saw so darkly. No; she fought the terrible fight, and she
+came forth out of it a conqueror, by reason of her own indomitable
+power of suffering, by reason of her own extraordinary strength of
+will.
+
+But she did conquer. If her weapon was the classic sword and not the
+Christian cross, she was nevertheless a conqueror. When she stood
+before the altar and gave her hand to John Marchmont, Edward Arundel
+was dead to her. The fatal habit of looking at him as the one centre of
+her narrow life was cured. In all her Scottish wanderings, her thoughts
+never once went back to him; though a hundred chance words and
+associations tempted her, though a thousand memories assailed her,
+though some trick of his face in the faces of other people, though some
+tone of his voice in the voices of strangers, perpetually offered to
+entrap her. No; she was steadfast.
+
+Dutiful as a wife as she had been dutiful as a daughter, she bore with
+her husband when his feeble health made him a wearisome companion. She
+waited upon him when pain made him fretful, and her duties became
+little less arduous than those of a hospital nurse. When, at the
+bidding of the Scotch physician who had been called in at Edinburgh,
+John Marchmont turned homewards, travelling slowly and resting often on
+the way, his wife was more devoted to him than his experienced servant,
+more watchful than the best-trained sick-nurse. She recoiled from
+nothing, she neglected nothing; she gave him full measure of the honour
+and obedience which she had promised upon her wedding-day. And when she
+reached Marchmont Towers upon a dreary evening in January, she passed
+beneath the solemn portal of the western front, carrying in her heart
+the full determination to hold as steadfastly to the other half of her
+bargain, and to do her duty to her stepchild.
+
+Mary ran out of the western drawing-room to welcome her father and his
+wife. She had cast off her black dresses in honour of Mr. Marchmont's
+marriage, and she wore some soft, silken fabric, of a pale shimmering
+blue, which contrasted exquisitely with her soft, brown hair, and her
+fair, tender face. She uttered a cry of mingled alarm and sorrow when
+she saw her father, and perceived the change that had been made in his
+looks by the northern journey; but she checked herself at a warning
+glance from her stepmother, and bade that dear father welcome, clinging
+about him with an almost desperate fondness. She greeted Olivia gently
+and respectfully.
+
+"I will try to be very good, mamma," she said, as she took the passive
+hand of the lady who had come to rule at Marchmont Towers.
+
+"I believe you will, my dear," Olivia answered, kindly.
+
+She had been startled a little as Mary addressed her by that endearing
+corruption of the holy word mother. The child had been so long
+motherless, that she felt little of that acute anguish which some
+orphans suffer when they have to look up in a strange face and say
+"mamma." She had taught herself the lesson of resignation, and she was
+prepared to accept this stranger as her new mother, and to look up to
+her and obey her henceforward. No thought of her own future position,
+as sole owner of that great house and all appertaining to it, ever
+crossed Mary Marchmont's mind, womanly as that mind had become in the
+sharp experiences of poverty. If her father had told her that he had
+cut off the entail, and settled Marchmont Towers upon his new wife, I
+think she would have submitted meekly to his will, and would have seen
+no injustice in the act. She loved him blindly and confidingly. Indeed,
+she could only love after one fashion. The organ of veneration must
+have been abnormally developed in Mary Marchmont's head. To believe
+that any one she loved was otherwise than perfect, would have been, in
+her creed, an infidelity against love. Had any one told her that Edward
+Arundel was not eminently qualified for the post of General-in-Chief of
+the Army of the Indus; or that her father could by any possible chance
+be guilty of a fault or folly: she would have recoiled in horror from
+the treasonous slanderer.
+
+A dangerous quality, perhaps, this quality of guilelessness which
+thinketh no evil, which cannot be induced to see the evil under its
+very nose. But surely, of all the beautiful and pure things upon this
+earth, such blind confidence is the purest and most beautiful. I knew a
+lady, dead and gone,--alas for this world, which could ill afford to
+lose so good a Christian!--who carried this trustfulness of spirit,
+this utter incapacity to believe in wrong, through all the strife and
+turmoil of a troubled life, unsullied and unlessened, to her grave. She
+was cheated and imposed upon, robbed and lied to, by people who loved
+her, perhaps, while they wronged her,--for to know her was to love her.
+She was robbed systematically by a confidential servant for years, and
+for years refused to believe those who told her of his delinquencies.
+She _could_ not believe that people were wicked. To the day of her
+death she had faith in the scoundrels and scamps who had profited by
+her sweet compassion and untiring benevolence; and indignantly defended
+them against those who dared to say that they were anything more than
+"unfortunate." To go to her was to go to a never-failing fountain of
+love and tenderness. To know her goodness was to understand the
+goodness of God; for her love approached the Infinite, and might have
+taught a sceptic the possibility of Divinity. Three-score years and ten
+of worldly experience left her an accomplished lady, a delightful
+companion; but in guilelessness a child.
+
+So Mary Marchmont, trusting implicitly in those she loved, submitted to
+her father's will, and prepared to obey her stepmother. The new life at
+the Towers began very peacefully; a perfect harmony reigned in the
+quiet household. Olivia took the reins of management with so little
+parade, that the old housekeeper, who had long been paramount in the
+Lincolnshire mansion, found herself superseded before she knew where
+she was. It was Olivia's nature to govern. Her strength of will
+asserted itself almost unconsciously. She took possession of Mary
+Marchmont as she had taken possession of her school-children at
+Swampington, making her own laws for the government of their narrow
+intellects. She planned a routine of study that was actually terrible
+to the little girl, whose education had hitherto been conducted in a
+somewhat slip-slop manner by a weakly-indulgent father. She came
+between Mary and her one amusement,--the reading of novels. The
+half-bound romances were snatched ruthlessly from this young devourer
+of light literature, and sent back to the shabby circulating library at
+Swampington. Even the gloomy old oak book-cases in the library at the
+Towers, and the Abbotsford edition of the Waverley Novels, were
+forbidden to poor Mary; for, though Sir Walter Scott's morality is
+irreproachable, it will not do for a young lady to be weeping over Lucy
+Ashton or Amy Robsart when she should be consulting her terrestrial
+globe, and informing herself as to the latitude and longitude of the
+Fiji Islands.
+
+So a round of dry and dreary lessons began for poor Miss Marchmont, and
+her brain grew almost dazed under that continuous and pelting shower of
+hard facts which many worthy people consider the one sovereign method
+of education. I have said that her mind was far in advance of her
+years; Olivia perceived this, and set her tasks in advance of her mind:
+in order that the perfection attained by a sort of steeple-chase of
+instruction might not be lost to her. If Mary learned difficult lessons
+with surprising rapidity, Mrs. Marchmont plied her with even yet more
+difficult lessons, thus keeping the spur perpetually in the side of
+this heavily-weighted racer on the road to learning. But it must not be
+thought that Olivia wilfully tormented or oppressed her stepdaughter.
+It was not so. In all this, John Marchmont's second wife implicitly
+believed that she was doing her duty to the child committed to her
+care. She fully believed that this dreary routine of education was wise
+and right, and would be for Mary's ultimate advantage. If she caused
+Miss Marchmont to get up at abnormal hours on bleak wintry mornings,
+for the purpose of wrestling with a difficult variation by Hertz or
+Schubert, she herself rose also, and sat shivering by the piano,
+counting the time of the music which her stepdaughter played.
+
+Whatever pains and trouble she inflicted on Mary, she most
+unshrinkingly endured herself. She waded through the dismal slough of
+learning side by side with the younger sufferer: Roman emperors,
+medieval schisms, early British manufactures, Philippa of Hainault,
+Flemish woollen stuffs, Magna Charta, the sidereal heavens, Luther,
+Newton, Huss, Galileo, Calvin, Loyola, Sir Robert Walpole, Cardinal
+Wolsey, conchology, Arianism in the Early Church, trial by jury, Habeas
+Corpus, zoology, Mr. Pitt, the American war, Copernicus, Confucius,
+Mahomet, Harvey, Jenner, Lycurgus, and Catherine of Arragon; through a
+very diabolical dance of history, science, theology, philosophy, and
+instruction of all kinds, did this devoted priestess lead her hapless
+victim, struggling onward towards that distant altar at which Pallas
+Athene waited, pale and inscrutable, to receive a new disciple.
+
+But Olivia Marchmont did not mean to be unmerciful; she meant to be
+good to her stepdaughter. She did not love her; but, on the other hand,
+she did not dislike her. Her feelings were simply negative. Mary
+understood this, and the submissive obedience she rendered to her
+stepmother was untempered by affection. So for nearly two years these
+two people led a monotonous life, unbroken by any more important event
+than a dinner party at Marchmont Towers, or a brief visit to Harrowgate
+or Scarborough.
+
+This monotonous existence was not to go on for ever. The fatal day, so
+horribly feared by John Marchmont, was creeping closer and closer. The
+sorrow which had been shadowed in every childish dream, in every
+childish prayer, came at last; and Mary Marchmont was left an orphan.
+
+Poor John had never quite recovered the effects of his winter excursion
+to Scotland; neither his wife's devoted nursing, nor his physician's
+care, could avail for ever; and, late in the autumn of the second year
+of his marriage, he sank, slowly and peacefully enough as regards
+physical suffering, but not without bitter grief of mind.
+
+In vain Hubert Arundel talked to him; in vain did he himself pray for
+faith and comfort in this dark hour of trial. He _could_ not bear to
+leave his child alone in the world. In the foolishness of his love, he
+would have trusted in the strength of his own arm to shield her in the
+battle; yet he could not trust her hopefully to the arm of God. He
+prayed for her night and day during the last week of his illness; while
+she was praying passionately, almost madly, that he might be spared to
+her, or that she might die with him. Better for her, according to all
+mortal reasoning, if she had. Happier for her, a thousand times, if she
+could have died as she wished to die, clinging to her father's breast.
+
+The blow fell at last upon those two loving hearts. These were the
+awful shadows of death that shut his child's face from John Marchmont's
+fading sight. His feeble arms groped here and there for her in that dim
+and awful obscurity.
+
+Yes, this was death. The narrow tract of yellow sand had little by
+little grown narrower and narrower. The dark and cruel waters were
+closing in; the feeble boat went down into the darkness: and Mary stood
+alone, with her dead father's hand clasped in hers,--the last feeble
+link which bound her to the Past,--looking blankly forward to an
+unknown Future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE DAY OF DESOLATION.
+
+
+Yes; the terrible day had come. Mary Marchmont roamed hither and
+thither in the big gaunt rooms, up and down the long dreary corridors,
+white and ghostlike in her mute anguish, while the undertaker's men
+were busy in her father's chamber, and while John's widow sat in the
+study below, writing business letters, and making all necessary
+arrangements for the funeral.
+
+In those early days no one attempted to comfort the orphan. There was
+something more terrible than the loudest grief in the awful quiet of
+the girl's anguish. The wan eyes, looking wearily out of a white
+haggard face, that seemed drawn and contracted as if by some hideous
+physical torture, were tearless. Except the one long wail of despair
+which had burst from her lips in the awful moment of her father's death
+agony, no cry of sorrow, no utterance of pain, had given relief to Mary
+Marchmont's suffering.
+
+She suffered, and was still. She shrank away from all human
+companionship; she seemed specially to avoid the society of her
+stepmother. She locked the door of her room upon all who would have
+intruded on her, and flung herself upon the bed, to lie there in a dull
+stupor for hour after hour. But when the twilight was grey in the
+desolate corridors, the wretched girl wandered out into the gallery on
+which her father's room opened, and hovered near that solemn
+death-chamber; fearful to go in, fearful to encounter the watchers of
+the dead, lest they should torture her by their hackneyed expressions
+of sympathy, lest they should agonise her by their commonplace talk of
+the lost.
+
+Once during that brief interval, while the coffin still held terrible
+tenancy of the death-chamber, the girl wandered in the dead of the
+night, when all but the hired watchers were asleep, to the broad
+landing of the oaken staircase, and into a deep recess formed by an
+embayed window that opened over the great stone porch which sheltered
+the principal entrance to Marchmont Towers.
+
+The window had been left open; for even in the bleak autumn weather the
+atmosphere of the great house seemed hot and oppressive to its living
+inmates, whose spirits were weighed down by a vague sense of the Awful
+Presence in that Lincolnshire mansion. Mary had wandered to this open
+window, scarcely knowing whither she went, after remaining for a long
+time on her knees by the threshold of her father's room, with her head
+resting against the oaken panel of the door,--not praying; why should
+she pray now, unless her prayers could have restored the dead? She had
+come out upon the wide staircase, and past the ghostly pictured faces,
+that looked grimly down upon her from the oaken wainscot against which
+they hung; she had wandered here in the dim grey light--there was light
+somewhere in the sky, but only a shadowy and uncertain glimmer of
+fading starlight or coming dawn--and she stood now with her head
+resting against one of the angles of the massive stonework, looking out
+of the open window.
+
+The morning which was already glimmering dimly in the eastern sky
+behind Marchmont Towers was to witness poor John's funeral. For nearly
+six days Mary Marchmont had avoided all human companionship: for nearly
+six days she had shunned all human sympathy and comfort. During all
+that time she had never eaten, except when forced to do so by her
+stepmother; who had visited her from time to time, and had insisted
+upon sitting by her bedside while she took the food that had been
+brought to her. Heaven knows how often the girl had slept during those
+six dreary days; but her feverish slumbers had brought her very little
+rest or refreshment. They had brought her nothing but cruel dreams, in
+which her father was still alive; in which she felt his thin arms
+clasped round her neck, his faint and fitful breath warm upon her
+cheek.
+
+A great clock in the stables struck five while Mary Marchmont stood
+looking out of the Tudor window. The broad grey flat before the house
+stretched far away, melting into the shadowy horizon. The pale stars
+grew paler as Mary looked at them; the black-water pools began to
+glimmer faintly under the widening patch of light in the eastern sky.
+The girl's senses were bewildered by her suffering, and her head was
+light and dizzy.
+
+Her father's death had made so sudden and terrible a break in her
+existence, that she could scarcely believe the world had not come to an
+end, with all the joys and sorrows of its inhabitants. Would there be
+anything more after to-morrow? she thought; would the blank days and
+nights go monotonously on when the story that had given them a meaning
+and a purpose had come to its dismal end? Surely not; surely, after
+those gaunt iron gates, far away across the swampy waste that was
+called a park, had closed upon her father's funeral train, the world
+would come to an end, and there would be no more time or space. I think
+she really believed this in the semi-delirium into which she had fallen
+within the last hour. She believed that all would be over; and that she
+and her despair would melt away into the emptiness that was to engulf
+the universe after her father's funeral.
+
+Then suddenly the full reality of her grief flashed upon her with
+horrible force. She clasped her hands upon her forehead, and a low
+faint cry broke from her white lips.
+
+It was _not_ all over. Time and space would _not_ be annihilated. The
+weary, monotonous, workaday world would still go on upon its course.
+_Nothing_ would be changed. The great gaunt stone mansion would still
+stand, and the dull machinery of its interior would still go on: the
+same hours; the same customs; the same inflexible routine. John
+Marchmont would be carried out of the house that had owned him master,
+to lie in the dismal vault under Kemberling Church; and the world in
+which he had made so little stir would go on without him. The
+easy-chair in which he had been wont to sit would be wheeled away from
+its corner by the fireplace in the western drawing-room. The papers in
+his study would be sorted and put away, or taken possession of by
+strange hands. Cromwells and Napoleons die, and the earth reels for a
+moment, only to be "alive and bold" again in the next instant, to the
+astonishment of poets, and the calm satisfaction of philosophers; and
+ordinary people eat their breakfasts while the telegram lies beside
+them upon the table, and while the ink in which Mr. Reuter's message is
+recorded is still wet from the machine in Printing-house Square.
+
+Anguish and despair more terrible than any of the tortures she had felt
+yet took possession of Mary Marchmont's breast. For the first time she
+looked out at her own future. Until now she had thought only of her
+father's death. She had despaired because he was gone; but she had
+never contemplated the horror of her future life,--a life in which she
+was to exist without him. A sudden agony, that was near akin to
+madness, seized upon this girl, in whose sensitive nature affection had
+always had a morbid intensity. She shuddered with a wild dread at the
+prospect of that blank future; and as she looked out at the wide stone
+steps below the window from which she was leaning, for the first time
+in her young life the idea of self-destruction flashed across her mind.
+
+She uttered a cry, a shrill, almost unearthly cry, that was
+notwithstanding low and feeble, and clambered suddenly upon the broad
+stone sill of the Tudor casement. She wanted to fling herself down and
+dash her brains out upon the stone steps below; but in the utter
+prostration of her state she was too feeble to do this, and she fell
+backwards and dropped in a heap upon the polished oaken flooring of the
+recess, striking her forehead as she fell. She lay there unconscious
+until nearly seven o'clock, when one of the women-servants found her,
+and carried her off to her own room, where she suffered herself to be
+undressed and put to bed.
+
+Mary Marchmont did not speak until the good-hearted Lincolnshire
+housemaid had laid her in her bed, and was going away to tell Olivia of
+the state in which she had found the orphan girl.
+
+"Don't tell my stepmother anything about me, Susan," she said; "I think
+I was mad last night."
+
+This speech frightened the housemaid, and she went straight to the
+widow's room. Mrs. Marchmont, always an early riser, had been up and
+dressed for some time, and went at once to look at her stepdaughter.
+
+She found Mary very calm and reasonable. There was no trace of
+bewilderment or delirium now in her manner; and when the principal
+doctor of Swampington came a couple of hours afterwards to look at the
+young heiress, he declared that there was no cause for any alarm. The
+young lady was sensitive, morbidly sensitive, he said, and must be kept
+very quiet for a few days, and watched by some one whose presence would
+not annoy her. If there was any girl of her own age whom she had ever
+shown a predilection for, that girl would be the fittest companion for
+her just now. After a few days, it would be advisable that she should
+have change of air and change of scene. She must not be allowed to
+brood continuously on her father's death. The doctor repeated this last
+injunction more than once. It was most important that she should not
+give way too perpetually to her grief.
+
+So Mary Marchmont lay in her darkened room while her father's funeral
+train was moving slowly away from the western entrance. It happened
+that the orphan girl's apartments looked out into the quadrangle; so
+she heard none of the subdued sounds which attended the departure of
+that solemn procession. In her weakness she had grown submissive to the
+will of others. She thought this feebleness and exhaustion gave warning
+of approaching death. Her prayers would be granted, after all. This
+anguish and despair would be but of brief duration, and she would ere
+long be carried to the vault under Kemberling Church, to lie beside her
+father in the black stillness of that solemn place.
+
+Mrs. Marchmont strictly obeyed the doctor's injunctions. A girl of
+seventeen, the daughter of a small tenant farmer near the Towers, had
+been a special favourite with Mary, who was not apt to make friends
+amongst strangers. This girl, Hester Pollard, was sent for, and came
+willingly and gladly to watch her young patroness. She brought her
+needlework with her, and sat near the window busily employed, while
+Mary lay shrouded by the curtains of the bed. All active services
+necessary for the comfort of the invalid were performed by Olivia or
+her own special attendant--an old servant who had lived with the Rector
+ever since his daughter's birth, and had only left him to follow that
+daughter to Marchmont Towers after her marriage. So Hester Pollard had
+nothing to do but to keep very quiet, and patiently await the time when
+Mary might be disposed to talk to her. The farmer's daughter was a
+gentle, unobtrusive creature, very well fitted for the duty imposed
+upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+PAUL.
+
+
+Olivia Marchmont sat in her late husband's study while John's funeral
+train was moving slowly along under the misty October sky. A long
+stream of carriages followed the stately hearse, with its four black
+horses, and its voluminous draperies of rich velvet, and nodding plumes
+that were damp and heavy with the autumn atmosphere. The unassuming
+master of Marchmont Towers had won for himself a quiet popularity
+amongst the simple country gentry, and the best families in
+Lincolnshire had sent their chiefs to do honour to his burial, or at
+the least their empty carriages to represent them at that mournful
+ceremonial. Olivia sat in her dead husband's favourite chamber. Her
+head lay back upon the cushion of the roomy morocco-covered arm-chair
+in which he had so often sat. She had been working hard that morning,
+and indeed every morning since John Marchmont's death, sorting and
+arranging papers, with the aid of Richard Paulette, the Lincoln's Inn
+solicitor, and James Gormby, the land-steward. She knew that she had
+been left sole guardian of her stepdaughter, and executrix to her
+husband's will; and she had lost no time in making herself acquainted
+with the business details of the estate, and the full nature of the
+responsibilities intrusted to her.
+
+She was resting now. She had done all that could be done until after
+the reading of the will. She had attended to her stepdaughter. She had
+stood in one of the windows of the western drawing-room, watching the
+departure of the funeral _cortege_; and now she abandoned herself for a
+brief space to that idleness which was so unusual to her.
+
+A fire burned in the low grate at her feet, and a rough cur--half
+shepherd's dog, half Scotch deer-hound, who had been fond of John, but
+was not fond of Olivia--lay at the further extremity of the hearth-rug,
+watching her suspiciously.
+
+Mrs. Marchmont's personal appearance had not altered during the two
+years of her married life. Her face was thin and haggard; but it had
+been thin and haggard before her marriage. And yet no one could deny
+that the face was handsome, and the features beautifully chiselled. But
+the grey eyes were hard and cold, the line of the faultless eyebrows
+gave a stern expression to the countenance; the thin lips were rigid
+and compressed. The face wanted both light and colour. A sculptor
+copying it line by line would have produced a beautiful head. A painter
+must have lent his own glowing tints if he wished to represent Olivia
+Marchmont as a lovely woman.
+
+Her pale face looked paler, and her dead black hair blacker, against
+the blank whiteness of her widow's cap. Her mourning dress clung
+closely to her tall, slender figure. She was little more than
+twenty-five, but she looked a woman of thirty. It had been her
+misfortune to look older than she was from a very early period in her
+life.
+
+She had not loved her husband when she married him, nor had she ever
+felt for him that love which in most womanly natures grows out of
+custom and duty. It was not in her nature to love. Her passionate
+idolatry of her boyish cousin had been the one solitary affection that
+had ever held a place in her cold heart. All the fire of her nature had
+been concentrated in this one folly, this one passion, against which
+only heroic endurance had been able to prevail.
+
+Mrs. Marchmont felt no grief, therefore, at her husband's loss. She had
+felt the shock of his death, and the painful oppression of his dead
+presence in the house. She had faithfully nursed him through many
+illnesses; she had patiently tended him until the very last; she had
+done her duty. And now, for the first time, she had leisure to
+contemplate the past, and look forward to the future.
+
+So far this woman had fulfilled the task which she had taken upon
+herself; she had been true and loyal to the vow she had made before
+God's altar, in the church of Swampington. And now she was free. No,
+not quite free; for she had a heavy burden yet upon her hands; the
+solemn charge of her stepdaughter during the girl's minority. But as
+regarded marriage-vows and marriage-ties she was free.
+
+She was free to love Edward Arundel again.
+
+The thought came upon her with a rush and an impetus, wild and strong
+as the sudden uprising of a whirlwind, or the loosing of a
+mountain-torrent that had long been bound. She was a wife no longer. It
+was no longer a sin to think of the bright-haired soldier, fighting far
+away. She was free. When Edward returned to England by-and-by, he would
+find her free once more; a young widow,--young, handsome, and rich
+enough to be no bad prize for a younger son. He would come back and
+find her thus; and then--and then--!
+
+She flung one of her clenched hands up into the air, and struck it on
+her forehead in a sudden paroxysm of rage. What then? Would he love her
+any better then than he had loved her two years ago? No; he would treat
+her with the same cruel indifference, the same commonplace cousinly
+friendliness, with which he had mocked and tortured her before. Oh,
+shame! Oh, misery! Was there no pride in women, that there could be one
+among them fallen so low as her; ready to grovel at the feet of a
+fair-haired boy, and to cry aloud, "Love me, love me! or be pitiful,
+and strike me dead!"
+
+Better that John Marchmont should have lived for ever, better that
+Edward Arundel should die far away upon some Eastern battle-field,
+before some Affghan fortress, than that he should return to inflict
+upon her the same tortures she had writhed under two years before.
+
+"God grant that he may never come back!" she thought. "God grant that
+he may marry out yonder, and live and die there! God keep him from me
+for ever and far ever in this weary world!"
+
+And yet in the next moment, with the inconsistency which is the chief
+attribute of that madness we call love, her thoughts wandered away
+dreamily into visions of the future; and she pictured Edward Arundel
+back again at Swampington, at Marchmont Towers. Her soul burst its
+bonds and expanded, and drank in the sunlight of gladness: and she
+dared to think that it _might_ be so--there _might_ be happiness yet
+for her. He had been a boy when he went back to India--careless,
+indifferent. He would return a man,--graver, wiser, altogether changed:
+changed so much as to love her perhaps.
+
+She knew that, at least, no rival had shut her cousin's heart against
+her, when she and he had been together two years before. He had been
+indifferent to her; but he had been indifferent to others also. There
+was comfort in that recollection. She had questioned him very sharply
+as to his life in India and at Dangerfield, and she had discovered no
+trace of any tender memory of the past, no hint of a cherished dream of
+the future. His heart had been empty: a boyish, unawakened heart: a
+temple in which the niches were untenanted, the shrine unhallowed by
+the presence of a goddess.
+
+Olivia Marchmont thought of these things. For a few moments, if only
+for a few moments, she abandoned herself to such thoughts as these. She
+let herself go. She released the stern hold which it was her habit to
+keep upon her own mind; and in those bright moments of delicious
+abandonment the glorious sunshine streamed in upon her narrow life, and
+visions of a possible future expanded before her like a fairy panorama,
+stretching away into realms of vague light and splendour. It was
+_possible_; it was at least possible.
+
+But, again, in the next moment the magical panorama collapsed and
+shrivelled away, like a burning scroll; the fairy picture, whose
+gorgeous colouring she had looked upon with dazzled eyes, almost
+blinded by its overpowering glory, shrank into a handful of black
+ashes, and was gone. The woman's strong nature reasserted itself; the
+iron will rose up, ready to do battle with the foolish heart.
+
+"I _will_ not be fooled a second time," she cried. "Did I suffer so
+little when I blotted that image out of my heart? Did the destruction
+of my cruel Juggernaut cost me so small an agony that I must needs be
+ready to elevate the false god again, and crush out my heart once more
+under the brazen wheels of his chariot? _He will never love me!_"
+
+She writhed; this self-sustained and resolute woman writhed in her
+anguish as she uttered those five words, "He will never love me!" She
+knew that they were true; that of all the changes that Time could bring
+to pass, it would never bring such a change as that. There was not one
+element of sympathy between herself and the young soldier; they had not
+one thought in common. Nay, more; there was an absolute antagonism
+between them, which, in spite of her love, Olivia fully recognised.
+Over the gulf that separated them no coincidence of thought or fancy,
+no sympathetic emotion, ever stretched its electric chain to draw them
+together in mysterious union. They stood aloof, divided by the width of
+an intellectual universe. The woman knew this, and hated herself for
+her folly, scorning alike her love and its object; but her love was not
+the less because of her scorn. It was a madness, an isolated madness,
+which stood alone in her soul, and fought for mastery over her better
+aspirations, her wiser thoughts. We are all familiar with strange
+stories of wise and great minds which have been ridden by some
+hobgoblin fancy, some one horrible monomania; a bleeding head upon a
+dish, a grinning skeleton playing hide-and-seek in the folds of the
+bed-curtains; some devilry or other before which the master-spirit
+shrank and dwindled until the body withered and the victim died.
+
+Had Olivia Marchmont lived a couple of centuries before, she would have
+gone straight to the nearest old crone, and would have boldly accused
+the wretched woman of being the author of her misery.
+
+"You harbour a black cat and other noisome vermin, and you prowl about
+muttering to yourself o' nights" she might have said. "You have been
+seen to gather herbs, and you make strange and uncanny signs with your
+palsied old fingers. The black cat is the devil, your colleague; and
+the rats under your tumble-down roof are his imps, your associates. It
+is _you_ who have instilled this horrible madness into my soul; for it
+_could_ not come of itself."
+
+And Olivia Marchmont, being resolute and strong-minded, would not have
+rested until her tormentor had paid the penalty of her foul work at a
+stake in the nearest market-place.
+
+And indeed some of our madnesses are so mad, some of our follies are so
+foolish, that we might almost be forgiven if we believed that there was
+a company of horrible crones meeting somewhere on an invisible Brocken,
+and making incantations for our destruction. Take up a newspaper and
+read its hideous revelations of crime and folly; and it will be
+scarcely strange if you involuntarily wonder whether witchcraft is a
+dark fable of the middle ages, or a dreadful truth of the nineteenth
+century. Must not some of these miserable creatures whose stories we
+read be _possessed_; possessed by eager, relentless demons, who lash
+and goad them onward, until no black abyss of vice, no hideous gulf of
+crime, is black or hideous enough to content them?
+
+Olivia Marchmont might have been a good and great woman. She had all
+the elements of greatness. She had genius, resolution, an indomitable
+courage, an iron will, perseverance, self-denial, temperance, chastity.
+But against all these qualities was set a fatal and foolish love for a
+boy's handsome face and frank and genial manner. If Edward Arundel had
+never crossed her path, her unfettered soul might have taken the
+highest and grandest flight; but, chained down, bound, trammelled by
+her love for him, she grovelled on the earth like some maimed and
+wounded eagle, who sees his fellows afar off, high in the purple
+empyrean, and loathes himself for his impotence.
+
+"What do I love him for?" she thought. "Is it because he has blue eyes
+and chestnut hair, with wandering gleams of golden light in it? Is it
+because he has gentlemanly manners, and is easy and pleasant, genial
+and light-hearted? Is it because he has a dashing walk, and the air of
+a man of fashion? It must be for some of these attributes, surely; for
+I know nothing more in him. Of all the things he has ever said, I can
+remember nothing--and I remember his smallest words, Heaven help
+me!--that any sensible person could think worth repeating. He is brave,
+I dare say, and generous; but what of that? He is neither braver nor
+more generous than other men of his rank and position."
+
+She sat lost in such a reverie as this while her dead husband was being
+carried to the roomy vault set apart for the owners of Marchmont Towers
+and their kindred; she was absorbed in some such thoughts as these,
+when one of the grave, grey-headed old servants brought her a card upon
+a heavy salver emblazoned with the Marchmont arms.
+
+Olivia took the card almost mechanically. There are some thoughts which
+carry us a long way from the ordinary occupations of every-day life,
+and it is not always easy to return to the dull jog-trot routine. The
+widow passed her left hand across her brow before she looked at the
+name inscribed upon the card in her right.
+
+"Mr. Paul Marchmont."
+
+She started as she read the name. Paul Marchmont! She remembered what
+her husband had told her of this man. It was not much; for John's
+feelings on the subject of his cousin had been of so vague a nature
+that he had shrunk from expounding them to his stern, practical wife.
+He had told her, therefore, that he did not very much care for Paul,
+and that he wished no intimacy ever to arise between the artist and
+Mary; but he had said nothing more than this.
+
+"The gentleman is waiting to see me, I suppose?" Mrs. Marchmont said.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. The gentleman came to Kemberling by the 11.5 train from
+London, and has driven over here in one of Harris's flys."
+
+"Tell him I will come to him immediately. Is he in the drawing-room?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+The man bowed and left the room. Olivia rose from her chair and
+lingered by the fireplace with her foot on the fender, her elbow
+resting on the carved oak chimneypiece.
+
+"Paul Marchmont! He has come to the funeral, I suppose. And he expects
+to find himself mentioned in the will, I dare say. I think, from what
+my husband told me, he will be disappointed in that. Paul Marchmont! If
+Mary were to die unmarried, this man or his sisters would inherit
+Marchmont Towers."
+
+There was a looking-glass over the mantelpiece; a narrow, oblong glass,
+in an old-fashioned carved ebony frame, which was inclined forward.
+Olivia looked musingly in this glass, and smoothed the heavy bands of
+dead-black hair under her cap.
+
+"There are people who would call me handsome," she thought, as she
+looked with a moody frown at her image in the glass; "and yet I have
+seen Edward Arundel's eyes wander away from my face, even while I have
+been talking to him, to watch the swallows skimming by in the sun, or
+the ivy-leaves flapping against the wall."
+
+She turned from the glass with a sigh, and went out into a dusky
+corridor. The shutters of all the principal rooms and the windows upon
+the grand staircase were still closed; the wide hall was dark and
+gloomy, and drops of rain spattered every now and then upon the logs
+that smouldered on the wide old-fashioned hearth. The misty October
+morning had heralded a wet day.
+
+Paul Marchmont was sitting in a low easy-chair before a blazing fire in
+the western drawing-room, the red light full upon his face. It was a
+handsome face, or perhaps, to speak more exactly, it was one of those
+faces that are generally called "interesting." The features were very
+delicate and refined, the pale greyish-blue eyes were shaded by long
+brown lashes, and the small and rather feminine mouth was overshadowed
+by a slender auburn moustache, under which the rosy tint of the lips
+was very visible. But it was Paul Marchmont's hair which gave a
+peculiarity to a personal appearance that might otherwise have been in
+no way out of the common. This hair, fine, silky, and luxuriant, was
+_white_, although its owner could not have been more than thirty-seven
+years of age.
+
+The uninvited guest rose as Olivia Marchmont entered the room.
+
+"I have the honour of speaking to my cousin's widow?" he said, with a
+courteous smile.
+
+"Yes, I am Mrs. Marchmont."
+
+Olivia seated herself near the fire. The wet day was cold and
+cheerless. Mrs. Marchmont shivered as she extended her long thin hand
+to the blaze.
+
+"And you are doubtless surprised to see me here, Mrs. Marchmont?" the
+artist said, leaning upon the back of his chair in the easy attitude of
+a man who means to make himself at home. "But believe me, that although
+I never took advantage of a very friendly letter written to me by poor
+John----"
+
+Paul Marchmont paused for a moment, keeping sharp watch upon the
+widow's face; but no sorrowful expression, no evidence of emotion, was
+visible in that inflexible countenance.
+
+"Although, I repeat, I never availed myself of a sort of general
+invitation to come and shoot his partridges, or borrow money of him, or
+take advantage of any of those other little privileges generally
+claimed by a man's poor relations, it is not to be supposed, my dear
+Mrs. Marchmont, that I was altogether forgetful of either Marchmont
+Towers or its owner, my cousin. I did not come here, because I am a
+hard-working man, and the idleness of a country house would have been
+ruin to me. But I heard sometimes of my cousin from neighbours of his."
+
+"Neighbours!" repeated Olivia, in a tone of surprise.
+
+"Yes; people near enough to be called neighbours in the country. My
+sister lives at Stanfield. She is married to a surgeon who practises in
+that delightful town. You know Stanfield, of course?"
+
+"No, I have never been there. It is five-and-twenty miles from here."
+
+"Indeed! too far for a drive, then. Yes, my sister lives at Stanfield.
+John never knew much of her in his adversity; and therefore may be
+forgiven if he forgot her in his prosperity. But she did not forget
+him. We poor relations have excellent memories. The Stanfield people
+have so little to talk about, that it is scarcely any wonder if they
+are inquisitive about the affairs of the grand country gentry round
+about them. I heard of John through my sister; I heard of his marriage
+through her,"--he bowed to Olivia as he said this,--"and I wrote
+immediately to congratulate him upon that happy event,"--he bowed again
+here;--"and it was through Lavinia Weston, my sister, that I heard of
+poor John's death; one day before the announcement appeared in the
+columns of the 'Times.' I am sorry to find that I am too late for the
+funeral. I could have wished to have paid my cousin the last tribute of
+esteem that one man can pay another."
+
+"You would wish to hear the reading of the will?" Olivia said,
+interrogatively.
+
+Paul Marchmont shrugged his shoulders, with a low, careless laugh; not
+an indecorous laugh,--nothing that this man did or said ever appeared
+ill-advised or out of place. The people who disliked him were compelled
+to acknowledge that they disliked him unreasonably, and very much on
+the Doctor-Fell principle; for it was impossible to take objection to
+either his manners or his actions.
+
+"That important legal document can have very little interest for me, my
+dear Mrs. Marchmont," he said gaily. "John can have had nothing to
+leave me. I am too well acquainted with the terms of my grandfather's
+will to have any mercenary hopes in coming to Marchmont Towers."
+
+He stopped, and looked at Olivia's impassible face.
+
+"What on earth could have induced this woman to marry my cousin?" he
+thought. "John could have had very little to leave his widow."
+
+He played with the ornaments at his watch-chain, looking reflectively
+at the fire for some moments.
+
+"Miss Marchmont,--my cousin, Mary Marchmont, I should say,--bears her
+loss pretty well, I hope?"
+
+Olivia shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"I am sorry to say that my stepdaughter displays very little Christian
+resignation," she said.
+
+And then a spirit within her arose and whispered, with a mocking voice,
+"What resignation do _you_ show beneath _your_ affliction,--you, who
+should be so good a Christian? How have _you_ learned to school your
+rebellious heart?"
+
+"My cousin is very young," Paul Marchmont said, presently.
+
+"She was fifteen last July."
+
+"Fifteen! Very young to be the owner of Marchmont Towers and an income
+of eleven thousand a year," returned the artist. He walked to one of
+the long windows, and drawing aside the edge of the blind, looked out
+upon the terrace and the wide flats before the mansion. The rain
+dripped and splashed upon the stone steps; the rain-drops hung upon the
+grim adornments of the carved balustrade, soaking into moss-grown
+escutcheons and half-obliterated coats-of-arms. The weird willows by
+the pools far away, and a group of poplars near the house, looked gaunt
+and black against the dismal grey sky.
+
+Paul Marchmont dropped the blind, and turned away from the gloomy
+landscape with a half-contemptuous gesture. "I don't know that I envy
+my cousin, after all," he said: "the place is as dreary as Tennyson's
+Moated Grange."
+
+There was the sound of wheels on the carriage-drive before the terrace,
+and presently a subdued murmur of hushed voices in the hall. Mr.
+Richard Paulette, and the two medical men who had attended John
+Marchmont, had returned to the Towers, for the reading of the will.
+Hubert Arundel had returned with them; but the other followers in the
+funeral train had departed to their several homes. The undertaker and
+his men had come back to the house by the side-entrance, and were
+making themselves very comfortable in the servants'-hall after the
+fulfilment of their mournful duties.
+
+The will was to be read in the dining-room; and Mr. Paulette and the
+clerk who had accompanied him to Marchmont Towers were already seated
+at one end of the long carved-oak table, busy with their papers and
+pens and ink, assuming an importance the occasion did not require.
+Olivia went out into the hall to speak to her father.
+
+"You will find Mr. Marchmont's solicitor in the dining-room," she said
+to Paul, who was looking at some of the old pictures on the
+drawing-room walls.
+
+A large fire was blazing in the wide grate at the end of the
+dining-room. The blinds had been drawn up. There was no longer need
+that the house should be wrapped in darkness. The Awful Presence had
+departed; and such light as there was in the gloomy October sky was
+free to enter the rooms, which the death of one quiet, unobtrusive
+creature had made for a time desolate.
+
+There was no sound in the room but the low voice of the two doctors
+talking of their late patient in undertones near the fireplace, and the
+occasional fluttering of the papers under the lawyer's hand. The clerk,
+who sat respectfully a little way behind his master, and upon the very
+edge of his ponderous morocco-covered chair, had been wont to give John
+Marchmont his orders, and to lecture him for being tardy with his work
+a few years before, in the Lincoln's Inn office. He was wondering now
+whether he should find himself remembered in the dead man's will, to
+the extent of a mourning ring or an old-fashioned silver snuff-box.
+
+Richard Paulette looked up as Olivia and her father entered the room,
+followed at a little distance by Paul Marchmont, who walked at a
+leisurely pace, looking at the carved doorways and the pictures against
+the wainscot, and appearing, as he had declared himself, very little
+concerned in the important business about to be transacted.
+
+"We shall want Miss Marchmont here, if you please," Mr. Paulette said,
+as he looked up from his papers.
+
+"Is it necessary that she should be present?" Olivia asked.
+
+"Very necessary."
+
+"But she is ill; she is in bed."
+
+"It is most important that she should be here when the will is read.
+Perhaps Mr. Bolton"--the lawyer looked towards one of the medical
+men--"will see. He will be able to tell us whether Miss Marchmont can
+safely come downstairs."
+
+Mr. Bolton, the Swampington surgeon who had attended Mary that morning,
+left the room with Olivia. The lawyer rose and warmed his hands at the
+blaze, talking to Hubert Arundel and the London physician as he did so.
+Paul Marchmont, who had not been introduced to any one, occupied
+himself entirely with the pictures for a little time; and then,
+strolling over to the fireplace, fell into conversation with the three
+gentlemen, contriving, adroitly enough, to let them know who he was.
+The lawyer looked at him with some interest,--a professional interest,
+no doubt; for Mr. Paulette had a copy of old Philip Marchmont's will in
+one of the japanned deed-boxes inscribed with poor John's name. He knew
+that this easy-going, pleasant-mannered, white-haired gentleman was the
+Paul Marchmont named in that document, and stood next in succession to
+Mary. Mary might die unmarried, and it was as well to be friendly and
+civil to a man who was at least a possible client.
+
+The four gentlemen stood upon the broad Turkey hearth-rug for some
+time, talking of the dead man, the wet weather, the cold autumn, the
+dearth of partridges, and other very safe topics of conversation.
+Olivia and the Swampington doctor were a long time absent; and Richard
+Paulette, who stood with his back to the fire, glanced every now and
+then towards the door.
+
+It opened at last, and Mary Marchmont came into the room, followed by
+her stepmother.
+
+Paul Marchmont turned at the sound of the opening of that ponderous
+oaken door, and for the first time saw his second cousin, the young
+mistress of Marchmont Towers. He started as he looked at her, though
+with a scarcely perceptible movement, and a change came over his face.
+The feminine pinky hue in his cheeks faded suddenly, and left them
+white. It had been a peculiarity of Paul Marchmont's, from his boyhood,
+always to turn pale with every acute emotion.
+
+What was the emotion which had now blanched his cheeks? Was he
+thinking, "Is _this_ fragile creature the mistress of Marchmont Towers?
+Is _this_ frail life all that stands between me and eleven thousand a
+year?"
+
+The light which shone out of that feeble earthly tabernacle did indeed
+seem a frail and fitful flame, likely to be extinguished by any rude
+breath from the coarse outer world. Mary Marchmont was deadly pale;
+black shadows encircled her wistful hazel eyes. Her new mourning-dress,
+with its heavy trimmings of lustreless crape, seemed to hang loose upon
+her slender figure; her soft brown hair, damp with the water with which
+her burning forehead had been bathed, fell in straight lank tresses
+about her shoulders. Her eyes were tearless, her mouth terribly
+compressed. The rigidity of her face betokened the struggle by which
+her sorrow was repressed. She sat in an easy-chair which Olivia
+indicated to her, and with her hands lying on the white handkerchief in
+her lap, and her swollen eyelids drooping over her eyes, waited for the
+reading of her father's will. It would be the last, the very last, she
+would ever hear of that dear father's words. She remembered this, and
+was ready to listen attentively; but she remembered nothing else. What
+was it to her that she was sole heiress of that great mansion, and of
+eleven thousand a year? She had never in her life thought of the
+Lincolnshire fortune with any reference to herself or her own
+pleasures; and she thought of it less than ever now.
+
+The will was dated February 4th, 1844, exactly two months after John's
+marriage. It had been made by the master of Marchmont Towers without
+the aid of a lawyer, and was only witnessed by John's housekeeper, and
+by Corson the old valet, a confidential servant who had attended upon
+Mr. Marchmont's predecessor.
+
+Richard Paulette began to read; and Mary, for the first time since she
+had taken her seat near the fire, lifted her eyes, and listened
+breathlessly, with faintly tremulous lips. Olivia sat near her
+stepdaughter; and Paul Marchmont stood in a careless attitude at one
+corner of the fireplace, with his shoulders resting against the massive
+oaken chimneypiece. The dead man's will ran thus:
+
+"I John Marchmont of Marchmont Towers declare this to be my last will
+and testament Being persuaded that my end is approaching I feel my dear
+little daughter Mary will be left unprotected by any natural guardian
+My young friend Edward Arundel I had hoped when in my poverty would
+have been a friend and adviser to her if not a protector but her tender
+years and his position in life must place this now out of the question
+and I may die before a fond hope which I have long cherished can be
+realised and which may now never be realised I now desire to make my
+will more particularly to provide as well as I am permitted for the
+guardianship and care of my dear little Mary during her minority Now I
+will and desire that my wife Olivia shall act as guardian adviser and
+mother to my dear little Mary and that she place herself under the
+charge and guardianship of my wife And as she will be an heiress of
+very considerable property I would wish her to be guided by the advice
+of my said wife in the management of her property and particularly in
+the choice of a husband As my dear little Mary will be amply provided
+for on my death I make no provision for her by this my will but I
+direct my executrix to present to her a diamond-ring which I wish her
+to wear in memory of her loving father so that she may always have me
+in her thoughts and particularly of these my wishes as to her future
+life until she shall be of age and capable of acting on her own
+judgment. I also request my executrix to present my young friend Edward
+Arundel also with a diamond-ring of the value of at least one hundred
+guineas as a slight tribute of the regard and esteem which I have ever
+entertained for him. . . . As to all the property as well real as
+personal over which I may at the time of my death have any control and
+capable of claiming or bequeathing I give devise and bequeath to my
+wife Olivia absolutely And I appoint my said wife sole executrix of
+this my will and guardian of my dear little Mary."
+
+There were a few very small legacies, including a mourning-ring to the
+expectant clerk; and this was all. Paul Marchmont had been quite right;
+nobody could be less interested than himself in this will.
+
+But he was apparently very much interested in John's widow and
+daughter. He tried to enter into conversation with Mary, but the girl's
+piteous manner seemed to implore him to leave her unmolested; and Mr.
+Bolton approached his patient almost immediately after the reading of
+the will, and in a manner took possession of her. Mary was very glad to
+leave the room once more, and to return to the dim chamber where Hester
+Pollard sat at needlework. Olivia left her stepdaughter to the care of
+this humble companion, and went back to the long dining-room, where the
+gentlemen still hung listlessly over the fire, not knowing very well
+what to do with themselves.
+
+Mrs. Marchmont could not do less than invite Paul to stay a few days at
+the Towers. She was virtually mistress of the house during Mary's
+minority, and on her devolved all the troubles, duties, and
+responsibilities attendant on such a position. Her father was going to
+stay with her till the end of the week; and he therefore would be able
+to entertain Mr. Marchmont. Paul unhesitatingly accepted the widow's
+hospitality. The old place was picturesque and interesting, he said;
+there were some genuine Holbeins in the hall and dining-room, and one
+good Lely in the drawing-room. He would give himself a couple of days'
+holiday, and go to Stanfield by an early train on Saturday.
+
+"I have not seen my sister for a long time," he said; "her life is dull
+enough and hard enough, Heaven knows, and she will be glad to see me
+upon my way back to London."
+
+Olivia bowed. She did not persuade Mr. Marchmont to extend his visit.
+The common courtesy she offered him was kept within the narrowest
+limits. She spent the best part of the time in the dead man's study
+during Paul's two-days' stay, and left the artist almost entirely to
+her father's companionship.
+
+But she was compelled to appear at dinner, and she took her accustomed
+place at the head of the table. Paul therefore had some opportunity of
+sounding the depths of the strangest nature he had ever tried to
+fathom. He talked to her very much, listening with unvarying attention
+to every word she uttered. He watched her--but with no obtrusive
+gaze--almost incessantly; and when he went away from Marchmont Towers,
+without having seen Mary since the reading of the will, it was of
+Olivia he thought; it was the recollection of Olivia which interested
+as much as it perplexed him.
+
+The few people waiting for the London train looked at the artist as he
+strolled up and down the quiet platform at Kemberling Station, with his
+head bent and his eyebrows slightly contracted. He had a certain easy,
+careless grace of dress and carriage, which harmonised well with his
+delicate face, his silken silvery hair, his carefully-trained auburn
+moustache, and rosy, womanish mouth. He was a romantic-looking man. He
+was the beau-ideal of the hero in a young lady's novel. He was a man
+whom schoolgirls would have called "a dear." But it had been better, I
+think, for any helpless wretch to be in the bull-dog hold of the
+sturdiest Bill Sykes ever loosed upon society by right of his
+ticket-of-leave, than in the power of Paul Marchmont, artist and
+teacher of drawing, of Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.
+
+He was thinking of Olivia as he walked slowly up and down the bare
+platform, only separated by a rough wooden paling from the flat open
+fields on the outskirts of Kemberling.
+
+"The little girl is as feeble as a pale February butterfly." he
+thought; "a puff of frosty wind might wither her away. But that woman,
+that woman--how handsome she is, with her accurate profile and iron
+mouth; but what a raging fire there is hidden somewhere in her breast,
+and devouring her beauty by day and night! If I wanted to paint the
+sleeping scene in _Macbeth_, I'd ask her to sit for the Thane's wicked
+wife. Perhaps she has some bloody secret as deadly as the murder of a
+grey-headed Duncan upon her conscience, and leaves her bedchamber in
+the stillness of the night to walk up and down those long oaken
+corridors at the Towers, and wring her hands and wail aloud in her
+sleep. Why did she marry John Marchmont? His life gave her little more
+than a fine house to live in; his death leaves her with nothing but ten
+or twelve thousand pounds in the Three per Cents. What is her
+mystery--what is her secret, I wonder? for she must surely have one."
+
+Such thoughts as these filled his mind as the train carried him away
+from the lonely little station, and away from the neighbourhood of
+Marchmont Towers, within whose stony walls Mary lay in her quiet
+chamber, weeping for her dead father, and wishing--God knows in what
+utter singleness of heart!--that she had been buried in the vault by
+his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+OLIVIA'S DESPAIR.
+
+
+The life which Mary and her stepmother led at Marchmont Towers after
+poor John's death was one of those tranquil and monotonous existences
+that leave very little to be recorded, except the slow progress of the
+weeks and months, the gradual changes of the seasons. Mary bore her
+sorrows quietly, as it was her nature to bear all things. The doctor's
+advice was taken, and Olivia removed her stepdaughter to Scarborough
+soon after the funeral. But the change of scene was slow to effect any
+change in the state of dull despairing sorrow into which the girl had
+fallen. The sea-breezes brought no colour into her pale cheeks. She
+obeyed her stepmother's behests unmurmuringly, and wandered wearily by
+the dreary seashore in the dismal November weather, in search of health
+and strength. But wherever she went, she carried with her the awful
+burden of her grief; and in every changing cadence of the low winter
+winds, in every varying murmur of the moaning waves, she seemed to hear
+her dead father's funeral dirge.
+
+I think that, young as Mary Marchmont was, this mournful period was the
+grand crisis of her life. The past, with its one great affection, had
+been swept away from her, and as yet there was no friendly figure to
+fill the dismal blank of the future. Had any kindly matron, any gentle
+Christian creature been ready to stretch out her arms to the desolate
+orphan, Mary's heart would have melted, and she would have crept to the
+shelter of that womanly embrace, to nestle there for ever. But there
+was no one. Olivia Marchmont obeyed the letter of her husband's solemn
+appeal, as she had obeyed the letter of those Gospel sentences that had
+been familiar to her from her childhood, but was utterly unable to
+comprehend its spirit. She accepted the charge intrusted to her. She
+was unflinching in the performance of her duty; but no one glimmer of
+the holy light of motherly love and tenderness, the semi-divine
+compassion of womanhood, ever illumined the dark chambers of her heart.
+Every night she questioned herself upon her knees as to her rigid
+performance of the level round of duty she had allotted to herself;
+every night--scrupulous and relentless as the hardest judge who ever
+pronounced sentence upon a criminal--she took note of her own
+shortcomings, and acknowledged her deficiencies.
+
+But, unhappily, this self-devotion of Olivia's pressed no less heavily
+upon Mary than on the widow herself. The more rigidly Mrs. Marchmont
+performed the duties which she understood to be laid upon her by her
+dead husband's last will and testament, the harder became the orphan's
+life. The weary treadmill of education worked on, when the young
+student was well-nigh fainting upon every step in that hopeless
+revolving ladder of knowledge. If Olivia, on communing with herself at
+night, found that the day just done had been too easy for both mistress
+and pupil, the morrow's allowance of Roman emperors and French grammar
+was made to do penance for yesterday's shortcomings.
+
+"This girl has been intrusted to my care, and one of my first duties is
+to give her a good education," Olivia Marchmont thought. "She is
+inclined to be idle; but I must fight against her inclination, whatever
+trouble the struggle entails upon myself. The harder the battle, the
+better for me if I am conqueror."
+
+It was only thus that Olivia Marchmont could hope to be a good woman.
+It was only by the rigid performance of hard duties, the patient
+practice of tedious rites, that she could hope to attain that eternal
+crown which simpler Christians seem to win so easily.
+
+Morning and night the widow and her stepdaughter read the Bible
+together; morning and night they knelt side by side to join in the same
+familiar prayers; yet all these readings and all these prayers failed
+to bring them any nearer together. No tender sentence of inspiration,
+not the words of Christ himself, ever struck the same chord in these
+two women's hearts, bringing both into sudden unison. They went to
+church three times upon every dreary Sunday,--dreary from the terrible
+uniformity which made one day a mechanical repetition of another,--and
+sat together in the same pew; and there were times when some solemn
+word, some sublime injunction, seemed to fall with a new meaning upon
+the orphan girl's heart; but if she looked at her stepmother's face,
+thinking to see some ray of that sudden light which had newly shone
+into her own mind reflected _there_, the blank gloom of Olivia's
+countenance seemed like a dead wall, across which no glimmer of
+radiance ever shone.
+
+They went back to Marchmont Towers in the early spring. People imagined
+that the young widow would cultivate the society of her husband's old
+friends, and that morning callers would be welcome at the Towers, and
+the stately dinner-parties would begin again, when Mrs. Marchmont's
+year of mourning was over. But it was not so; Olivia closed her doors
+upon almost all society, and devoted herself entirely to the education
+of her stepdaughter. The gossips of Swampington and Kemberling, the
+county gentry who had talked of her piety and patience, her unflinching
+devotion to the poor of her father's parish, talked now of her
+self-abnegation, the sacrifices she made for her stepdaughter's sake,
+the noble manner in which she justified John Marchmont's confidence in
+her goodness. Other women would have intrusted the heiress's education
+to some hired governess, people said; other women would have been upon
+the look-out for a second husband; other women would have grown weary
+of the dulness of that lonely Lincolnshire mansion, the monotonous
+society of a girl of sixteen. They were never tired of lauding Mrs.
+Marchmont as a model for all stepmothers in time to come.
+
+Did she sacrifice much, this woman, whose spirit was a raging fire, who
+had the ambition of a Semiramis, the courage of a Boadicea, the
+resolution of a Lady Macbeth? Did she sacrifice much in resigning such
+provincial gaieties as might have adorned her life,--a few
+dinner-parties, an occasional county ball, a flirtation with some
+ponderous landed gentleman or hunting squire?
+
+No; these things would very soon have grown odious to her--more odious
+than the monotony of her empty life, more wearisome even than the
+perpetual weariness of her own spirit. I said, that when she accepted a
+new life by becoming the wife of John Marchmont, she acted in the
+spirit of a prisoner, who is glad to exchange his old dungeon for a new
+one. But, alas! the novelty of the prison-house had very speedily worn
+off, and that which Olivia Arundel had been at Swampington Rectory,
+Olivia Marchmont was now in the gaunt country mansion,--a wretched
+woman, weary of herself and all the world, devoured by a slow-consuming
+and perpetual fire.
+
+This woman was, for two long melancholy years, Mary Marchmont's sole
+companion and instructress. I say sole companion advisedly; for the
+girl was not allowed to become intimate with the younger members of
+such few county families as still called occasionally at the Towers,
+lest she should become empty-headed and frivolous by their
+companionship. Alas, there was little fear of Mary becoming
+empty-headed! As she grew taller, and more slender, she seemed to get
+weaker and paler; and her heavy head drooped wearily under the load of
+knowledge which it had been made to carry, like some poor sickly flower
+oppressed by the weight of the dew-drops, which would have revivified a
+hardier blossom.
+
+Heaven knows to what end Mrs. Marchmont educated her stepdaughter! Poor
+Mary could have told the precise date of any event in universal
+history, ancient or modern; she could have named the exact latitude and
+longitude of the remotest island in the least navigable ocean, and
+might have given an accurate account of the manners and customs of its
+inhabitants, had she been called upon to do so. She was alarmingly
+learned upon the subject of tertiary and old red sandstone, and could
+have told you almost as much as Mr. Charles Kingsley himself about the
+history of a gravel-pit,--though I doubt if she could have conveyed her
+information in quite such a pleasant manner; she could have pointed out
+every star in the broad heavens above Lincolnshire, and could have told
+the history of its discovery; she knew the hardest names that science
+had given to the familiar field-flowers she met in her daily
+walks;--yet I cannot say that her conversation was any the more
+brilliant because of this, or that her spirits grew lighter under the
+influence of this general mental illumination.
+
+But Mrs. Marchmont did most earnestly believe that this laborious
+educationary process was one of the duties she owed her stepdaughter;
+and when, at seventeen years of age, Mary emerged from the struggle,
+laden with such intellectual spoils as I have described above, the
+widow felt a quiet satisfaction as she contemplated her work, and said
+to herself, "In this, at least, I have done my duty."
+
+Amongst all the dreary mass of instruction beneath which her health had
+very nearly succumbed, the girl had learned one thing that was a source
+of pleasure to herself; she had learned to become a very brilliant
+musician. She was not a musical genius, remember; for no such vivid
+flame as the fire of genius had ever burned in her gentle breast; but
+all the tenderness of her nature, all the poetry of a hyper-poetical
+mind, centred in this one accomplishment, and, condemned to perpetual
+silence in every other tongue, found a new and glorious language here.
+The girl had been forbidden to read Byron and Scott; but she was not
+forbidden to sit at her piano, when the day's toils were over, and the
+twilight was dusky in her quiet room, playing dreamy melodies by
+Beethoven and Mozart, and making her own poetry to Mendelssohn's
+wordless songs. I think her soul must have shrunk and withered away
+altogether had it not been for this one resource, this one refuge, in
+which her mind regained its elasticity, springing up, like a trampled
+flower, into new life and beauty.
+
+Olivia was well pleased to see the girl sit hour after hour at her
+piano. She had learned to play well and brilliantly herself, mastering
+all difficulties with the proud determination which was a part of her
+strong nature; but she had no special love for music. All things that
+compose the poetry and beauty of life had been denied to this woman, in
+common with the tenderness which makes the chief loveliness of
+womankind. She sat by the piano and listened while Mary's slight hands
+wandered over the keys, carrying the player's soul away into trackless
+regions of dream-land and beauty; but she heard nothing in the music
+except so many chords, so many tones and semitones, played in such or
+such a time.
+
+It would have been scarcely natural for Mary Marchmont, reserved and
+self-contained though she had been ever since her father's death, to
+have had no yearning for more genial companionship than that of her
+stepmother. The girl who had kept watch in her room, by the doctor's
+suggestion, was the one friend and confidante whom the young mistress
+of Marchmont Towers fain would have chosen. But here Olivia interposed,
+sternly forbidding any intimacy between the two girls. Hester Pollard
+was the daughter of a small tenant-farmer, and no fit associate for
+Mrs. Marchmont's stepdaughter. Olivia thought that this taste for
+obscure company was the fruit of Mary's early training--the taint left
+by those bitter, debasing days of poverty, in which John Marchmont and
+his daughter had lived in some wretched Lambeth lodging.
+
+"But Hester Pollard is fond of me, mamma," the girl pleaded; "and I
+feel so happy at the old farm house! They are all so kind to me when I
+go there,--Hester's father and mother, and little brothers and sisters,
+you know; and the poultry-yard, and the pigs and horses, and the green
+pond, with the geese cackling round it, remind me of my aunt's, in
+Berkshire. I went there once with poor papa for a day or two; it was
+_such_ a change after Oakley Street."
+
+But Mrs. Marchmont was inflexible upon this point. She would allow her
+stepdaughter to pay a ceremonial visit now and then to Farmer
+Pollard's, and to be entertained with cowslip-wine and pound-cake in
+the low, old-fashioned parlour, where all the polished mahogany chairs
+were so shining and slippery that it was a marvel how anybody ever
+contrived to sit down upon them. Olivia allowed such solemn visits as
+these now and then, and she permitted Mary to renew the farmer's lease
+upon sufficiently advantageous terms, and to make occasional presents
+to her favourite, Hester. But all stolen visits to the farmyard, all
+evening rambles with the farmer's daughter in the apple orchard at the
+back of the low white farmhouse, were sternly interdicted; and though
+Mary and Hester were friends still, they were fain to be content with a
+chance meeting once in the course of a dreary interval of months, and a
+silent pressure of the hand.
+
+"You mustn't think that I am proud of my money, Hester," Mary said to
+her friend, "or that I forget you now that we see each other so seldom.
+Papa used to let me come to the farm whenever I liked; but papa had
+seen a great deal of poverty. Mamma keeps me almost always at home at
+my studies; but she is very good to me, and of course I am bound to
+obey her; papa wished me to obey her."
+
+The orphan girl never for a moment forgot the terms of her father's
+will. _He_ had wished her to obey; what should she do, then, but be
+obedient? Her submission to Olivia's lightest wish was only a part of
+the homage which she paid to that beloved father's memory.
+
+It was thus she grew to early womanhood; a child in gentle obedience
+and docility; a woman by reason of that grave and thoughtful character
+which had been peculiar to her from her very infancy. It was in a life
+such as this, narrow, monotonous, joyless, that her seventeenth
+birthday came and went, scarcely noticed, scarcely remembered, in the
+dull uniformity of the days which left no track behind them; and Mary
+Marchmont was a woman,--a woman with all the tragedy of life before
+her; infantine in her innocence and inexperience of the world outside
+Marchmont Towers.
+
+The passage of time had been so long unmarked by any break in its
+tranquil course, the dull routine of life had been so long undisturbed
+by change, that I believe the two women thought their lives would go on
+for ever and ever. Mary, at least, had never looked beyond the dull
+horizon of the present. Her habit of castle-building had died out with
+her father's death. What need had she to build castles, now that he
+could no longer inhabit them? Edward Arundel, the bright boy she
+remembered in Oakley Street, the dashing young officer who had come to
+Marchmont Towers, had dropped back into the chaos of the past. Her
+father had been the keystone in the arch of Mary's existence: he was
+gone, and a mass of chaotic ruins alone remained of the familiar
+visions which had once beguiled her. The world had ended with John
+Marchmont's death, and his daughter's life since that great sorrow had
+been at best only a passive endurance of existence. They had heard very
+little of the young soldier at Marchmont Towers. Now and then a letter
+from some member of the family at Dangerfield had come to the Rector of
+Swampington. The warfare was still raging far away in the East, cruel
+and desperate battles were being fought, and brave Englishmen were
+winning loot and laurels, or perishing under the scimitars of Sikhs and
+Affghans, as the case might be. Squire Arundel's youngest son was not
+doing less than his duty, the letters said. He had gained his
+captaincy, and was well spoken of by great soldiers, whose very names
+were like the sound of the war-trumpet to English ears.
+
+Olivia heard all this. She sat by her father, sometimes looking over
+his shoulder at the crumpled letter, as he read aloud to her of her
+cousin's exploits. The familiar name seemed to be all ablaze with lurid
+light as the widow's greedy eyes devoured it. How commonplace the
+letters were! What frivolous nonsense Letitia Arundel intermingled with
+the news of her brother!--"You'll be glad to hear that my grey pony has
+got the better of his lameness. Papa gave a hunting-breakfast on
+Tuesday week. Lord Mountlitchcombe was present; but the hunting-men are
+very much aggravated about the frost, and I fear we shall have no
+crocuses. Edward has got his captaincy, papa told me to tell you. Sir
+Charles Napier and Major Outram have spoken very highly of him; but
+he--Edward, I mean--got a sabre-cut on his left arm, besides a wound on
+his forehead, and was laid up for nearly a month. I daresay you
+remember old Colonel Tollesly, at Halburton Lodge? He died last
+November; and has left all his money to----" and the young lady ran on
+thus, with such gossip as she thought might be pleasing to her uncle;
+and there were no more tidings of the young soldier, whose life-blood
+had so nearly been spilt for his country's glory.
+
+Olivia thought of him as she rode back to Marchmont Towers. She thought
+of the sabre-cut upon his arm, and pictured him wounded and bleeding,
+lying beneath the canvass-shelter of a tent, comfortless, lonely,
+forsaken.
+
+"Better for me if he had died," she thought; "better for me if I were
+to hear of his death to-morrow!"
+
+And with the idea the picture of such a calamity arose before her so
+vividly and hideously distinct, that she thought for one brief moment
+of agony, "This is not a fancy, it is a presentiment; it is second
+sight; the thing will occur."
+
+She imagined herself going to see her father as she had gone that
+morning. All would be the same: the low grey garden-wall of the
+Rectory; the ceaseless surging of the sea; the prim servant-maid; the
+familiar study, with its litter of books and papers; the smell of stale
+cigar-smoke; the chintz curtains flapping in the open window; the dry
+leaves fluttering in the garden without. There would be nothing changed
+except her father's face, which would be a little graver than usual.
+And then, after a little hesitation--after a brief preamble about the
+uncertainty of life, the necessity for looking always beyond this
+world, the horrors of war,--the dreadful words would be upon his lips,
+when she would read all the hideous truth in his face, and fall prone
+to the ground, before he could say, "Edward Arundel is dead!"
+
+Yes; she felt all the anguish. It would be this--this sudden paralysis
+of black despair. She tested the strength of her endurance by this
+imaginary torture,--scarcely imaginary, surely, when it seemed so
+real,--and asked herself a strange question: "Am I strong enough to
+bear this, or would it be less terrible to go on, suffering for
+ever--for ever abased and humiliated by the degradation of my love for
+a man who does not care for me?"
+
+So long as John Marchmont had lived, this woman would have been true to
+the terrible victory she had won upon the eve of her bridal. She would
+have been true to herself and to her marriage-vow; but her husband's
+death, in setting her free, had cast her back upon the madness of her
+youth. It was no longer a sin to think of Edward Arundel. Having once
+suffered this idea to arise in her mind, her idol grew too strong for
+her, and she thought of him by night and day.
+
+Yes; she thought of him for ever and ever. The narrow life to which she
+doomed herself, the self-immolation which she called duty, left her a
+prey to this one thought. Her work was not enough for her. Her powerful
+mind wasted and shrivelled for want of worthy employment. It was like
+one vast roll of parchment whereon half the wisdom of the world might
+have been inscribed, but on which was only written over and over again,
+in maddening repetition, the name of Edward Arundel. If Olivia
+Marchmont could have gone to America, and entered herself amongst the
+feminine professors of law or medicine,--if she could have turned
+field-preacher, like simple Dinah Morris, or set up a printing-press in
+Bloomsbury, or even written a novel,--I think she might have been
+saved. The superabundant energy of her mind would have found a new
+object. As it was, she did none of these things. She had only dreamt
+one dream, and by force of perpetual repetition the dream had become a
+madness.
+
+But the monotonous life was not to go on for ever. The dull, grey,
+leaden sky was to be illumined by sudden bursts of sunshine, and swept
+by black thunder-clouds, whose stormy violence was to shake the very
+universe for these two solitary women.
+
+John Marchmont had been dead nearly three years. Mary's humble friend,
+the farmer's daughter, had married a young tradesman in the village of
+Kemberling, a mile and a half from the Towers. Mary was a woman now,
+and had seen the last of the Roman emperors and all the dry-as-dust
+studies of her early girlhood. She had nothing to do but accompany her
+stepmother hither and thither amongst the poor cottagers about
+Kemberling and two or three other small parishes within a drive of the
+Towers, "doing good," after Olivia's fashion, by line and rule. At home
+the young lady did what she pleased, sitting for hours together at her
+piano, or wading through gigantic achievements in the way of
+embroidery-work. She was even allowed to read novels now, but only such
+novels as were especially recommended to Olivia, who was one of the
+patronesses of a book-club at Swampington: novels in which young ladies
+fell in love with curates, and didn't marry them: novels in which
+everybody suffered all manner of misery, and rather liked it: novels in
+which, if the heroine did marry the man she loved--and this happy
+conclusion was the exception, and not the rule--the smallpox swept away
+her beauty, or a fatal accident deprived him of his legs, or eyes, or
+arms before the wedding-day.
+
+The two women went to Kemberling Church together three times every
+Sunday. It was rather monotonous--the same church, the same rector and
+curate, the same clerk, the same congregation, the same old organ-tunes
+and droning voices of Lincolnshire charity-children, the same sermons
+very often. But Mary had grown accustomed to monotony. She had ceased
+to hope or care for anything since her father's death, and was very
+well contented to be let alone, and allowed to dawdle through a dreary
+life which was utterly without aim or purpose. She sat opposite her
+stepmother on one particular afternoon in the state-pew at Kemberling,
+which was lined with faded red baize, and raised a little above the
+pews of meaner worshippers; she was sitting with her listless hands
+lying in her lap, looking thoughtfully at her stepmother's stony face,
+and listening to the dull droning of the rector's voice above her head.
+It was a sunny afternoon in early June, and the church was bright with
+a warm yellow radiance; one of the old diamond-paned windows was open,
+and the tinkling of a sheep-bell far away in the distance, and the hum
+of bees in the churchyard, sounded pleasantly in the quiet of the hot
+atmosphere.
+
+The young mistress of Marchmont Towers felt the drowsy influence of
+that tranquil summer weather creeping stealthily upon her. The heavy
+eyelids drooped over her soft brown eyes, those wistful eyes which had
+so long looked wearily out upon a world in which there seemed so little
+joy. The rector's sermon was a very long one this warm afternoon, and
+there was a low sound of snoring somewhere in one of the shadowy and
+sheltered pews beneath the galleries. Mary tried very hard to keep
+herself awake. Mrs. Marchmont had frowned darkly at her once or twice
+already, for to fall asleep in church was a dire iniquity in Olivia's
+rigid creed; but the drowsiness was not easily to be conquered, and the
+girl was sinking into a peaceful slumber in spite of her stepmother's
+menacing frowns, when the sound of a sharp footfall on one of the
+gravel pathways in the churchyard aroused her attention.
+
+Heaven knows why she should have been awoke out of her sleep by the
+sound of that step. It was different, perhaps, to the footsteps of the
+Kemberling congregation. The brisk, sharp sound of the tread striking
+lightly but firmly on the gravel was not compatible with the shuffling
+gait of the tradespeople and farmers' men who formed the greater part
+of the worshippers at that quiet Lincolnshire church. Again, it would
+have been a monstrous sin in that tranquil place for any one member of
+the congregation to disturb the devotions of the rest by entering at
+such a time as this. It was a stranger, then, evidently. What did it
+matter? Miss Marchmont scarcely cared to lift her eyelids to see who or
+what the stranger was; but the intruder let in such a flood of June
+sunshine when he pushed open the ponderous oaken door under the
+church-porch, that she was dazzled by that sudden burst of light, and
+involuntarily opened her eyes.
+
+The stranger let the door swing softly to behind him, and stood beneath
+the shadow of the porch, not caring to advance any further, or to
+disturb the congregation by his presence.
+
+Mary could not see him very plainly at first. She could only dimly
+define the outline of his tall figure, the waving masses of chestnut
+hair tinged with gleams of gold; but little by little his face seemed
+to grow out of the shadow, until she saw it all,--the handsome
+patrician features, the luminous blue eyes, the amber moustache,--the
+face which, in Oakley Street eight years ago, she had elected as her
+type of all manly perfection, her ideal of heroic grace.
+
+Yes; it was Edward Arundel. Her eyes lighted up with an unwonted
+rapture as she looked at him; her lips parted; and her breath came in
+faint gasps. All the monotonous years, the terrible agonies of sorrow,
+dropped away into the past; and Mary Marchmont was conscious of nothing
+except the unutterable happiness of the present.
+
+The one friend of her childhood had come back. The one link, the almost
+forgotten link, that bound her to every day-dream of those foolish
+early days, was united once more by the presence of the young soldier.
+All that happy time, nearly five years ago,--that happy time in which
+the tennis-court had been built, and the boat-house by the river
+restored,--those sunny autumn days before her father's second
+marriage,--returned to her. There was pleasure and joy in the world,
+after all; and then the memory of her father came back to her mind, and
+her eyes filled with tears. How sorry Edward would be to see his old
+friend's empty place in the western drawing-room; how sorry for her,
+and for her loss! Olivia Marchmont saw the change in her stepdaughter's
+face, and looked at her with stern amazement. But, after the first
+shock of that delicious surprise, Mary's training asserted itself. She
+folded her hands,--they trembled a little, but Olivia did not see
+that,--and waited patiently, with her eyes cast down and a faint flush
+lighting up her pale cheeks, until the sermon was finished, and the
+congregation began to disperse. She was not impatient. She felt as if
+she could have waited thus peacefully and contentedly for ever, knowing
+that the only friend she had on earth was near her.
+
+Olivia was slow to leave her pew; but at last she opened the door and
+went out into the quiet aisle, followed by Mary, out under the shadowy
+porch and into the gravel-walk in the churchyard, where Edward Arundel
+was waiting for the two ladies.
+
+John Marchmont's widow uttered no cry of surprise when she saw her
+cousin standing a little way apart from the slowly-dispersing
+Kemberling congregation. Her dark face faded a little, and her heart
+seemed to stop its pulsation suddenly, as if she had been turned into
+stone; but this was only for a moment. She held out her hand to Mr.
+Arundel in the next instant, and bade him welcome to Lincolnshire.
+
+"I did not know you were in England," she said.
+
+"Scarcely any one knows it yet," the young man answered; "and I have
+not even been home. I came to Marchmont Towers at once."
+
+He turned from his cousin to Mary, who was standing a little behind her
+stepmother.
+
+"Dear Polly," he said, taking both her hands in his, "I was so sorry
+for you, when I heard----"
+
+He stopped, for he saw the tears welling up to her eyes. It was not his
+allusion to her father's death that had distressed her. He had called
+her Polly, the old familiar name, which she had never heard since that
+dead father's lips had last spoken it.
+
+The carriage was waiting at the gate of the churchyard, and Edward
+Arundel went back to Marchmont Towers with the two ladies. He had
+reached the house a quarter of an hour after they had left it for
+afternoon church, and had walked over to Kemberling.
+
+"I was so anxious to see you, Polly," he said, "after all this long
+time, that I had no patience to wait until you and Livy came back from
+church."
+
+Olivia started as the young man said this. It was Mary Marchmont whom
+he had come to see, then--not herself. Was _she_ never to be anything?
+Was she to be for ever insulted by this humiliating indifference? A
+dark flush came over her face, as she drew her head up with the air of
+an offended empress, and looked angrily at her cousin. Alas! he did not
+even see that indignant glance. He was bending over Mary, telling her,
+in a low tender voice, of the grief he had felt at learning the news of
+her father's death.
+
+Olivia Marchmont looked with an eager, scrutinising gaze at her
+stepdaughter. Could it be possible that Edward Arundel might ever come
+to love this girl? _Could_ such a thing be possible? A hideous depth of
+horror and confusion seemed to open before her with the thought. In all
+the past, amongst all things she had imagined, amongst all the
+calamities she had pictured to herself, she had never thought of
+anything like this. Would such a thing ever come to pass? Would she
+ever grow to hate this girl--this girl, who had been intrusted to her
+by her dead husband--with the most terrible hatred that one woman can
+feel towards another?
+
+In the next moment she was angry with herself for the abject folly of
+this new terror. She had never yet learned to think of Mary as a woman.
+She had never thought of her otherwise than as the pale childlike girl
+who had come to her meekly, day after day, to recite difficult lessons,
+standing in a submissive attitude before her, and rendering obedience
+to her in all things. Was it likely, was it possible, that this
+pale-faced girl would enter into the lists against her in the great
+battle of her life? Was it likely that she was to find her adversary
+and her conqueror here, in the meek child who had been committed to her
+charge?
+
+She watched her stepdaughter's face with a jealous, hungry gaze. Was it
+beautiful? No! The features were delicate; the brown eyes soft and
+dovelike, almost lovely, now that they were irradiated by a new light,
+as they looked shyly up at Edward Arundel. But the girl's face was wan
+and colourless. It lacked the splendour of beauty. It was only after
+you had looked at Mary for a very long time that you began to think her
+rather pretty.
+
+The five years during which Edward Arundel had been away had made
+little alteration in him. He was rather taller, perhaps; his amber
+moustache thicker; his manner more dashing than of old. The mark of a
+sabre-cut under the clustering chestnut curls upon the temple gave him
+a certain soldierly dignity. He seemed a man of the world now, and Mary
+Marchmont was rather afraid of him. He was so different to the
+Lincolnshire squires, the bashful younger sons who were to be educated
+for the Church: he was so dashing, so elegant, so splendid! From the
+waving grace of his hair to the tip of the polished boot peeping out of
+his well-cut trouser (there were no pegtops in 1847, and it was _le
+genre_ to show very little of the boot), he was a creature to be
+wondered at, to be almost reverenced, Mary thought. She could not help
+admiring the cut of his coat, the easy _nonchalance_ of his manner, the
+waxed ends of his curved moustache, the dangling toys of gold and
+enamel that jingled at his watch-chain, the waves of perfume that
+floated away from his cambric handkerchief. She was childish enough to
+worship all these external attributes in her hero.
+
+"Shall I invite him to Marchmont Towers?" Olivia thought; and while she
+was deliberating upon this question, Mary Marchmont cried out, "You
+will stop at the Towers, won't you, Mr. Arundel, as you did when poor
+papa was alive?"
+
+"Most decidedly, Miss Marchmont," the young man answered. "I mean to
+throw myself upon your hospitality as confidingly as I did a long time
+ago in Oakley Street, when you gave me hot rolls for my breakfast."
+
+Mary laughed aloud--perhaps for the first time since her father's
+death. Olivia bit her lip. She was of so little account, then, she
+thought, that they did not care to consult her. A gloomy shadow spread
+itself over her face. Already, already she began to hate this
+pale-faced, childish orphan girl, who seemed to be transformed into a
+new being under the spell of Edward Arundel's presence.
+
+But she made no attempt to prevent his stopping at the Towers, though a
+word from her would have effectually hindered his coming. A dull torpor
+of despair took possession of her; a black apprehension paralysed her
+mind. She felt that a pit of horror was opening before her ignorant
+feet. All that she had suffered was as nothing to what she was about to
+suffer. Let it be, then! What could she do to keep this torture away
+from her? Let it come, since it seemed that it must come in some shape
+or other.
+
+She thought all this, while she sat back in a corner of the carriage
+watching the two faces opposite to her, as Edward and Mary, seated with
+their backs to the horses, talked together in low confidential tones,
+which scarcely reached her ear. She thought all this during the short
+drive between Kemberling and Marchmont Towers; and when the carriage
+drew up before the low Tudor portico, the dark shadow had settled on
+her face. Her mind was made up. Let Edward Arundel come; let the worst
+come. She had struggled; she had tried to do her duty; she had striven
+to be good. But her destiny was stronger than herself, and had brought
+this young soldier over land and sea, safe out of every danger, rescued
+from every peril, to be her destruction. I think that in this crisis of
+her life the last faint ray of Christian light faded out of this lost
+woman's soul, leaving utter darkness and desolation. The old landmarks,
+dimly descried in the weary desert, sank for ever down into the
+quicksands, and she was left alone,--alone with her despair. Her
+jealous soul prophesied the evil which she dreaded. This man, whose
+indifference to her was almost an insult, would fall in love with Mary
+Marchmont,--with Mary Marchmont, whose eyes lit up into new beauty
+under the glances of his, whose pale face blushed into faint bloom as
+he talked to her. The girl's undisguised admiration would flatter the
+young man's vanity, and he would fall in love with her out of very
+frivolity and weakness of purpose.
+
+"He is weak and vain, and foolish and frivolous, I daresay," Olivia
+thought; "and if I were to fling myself upon my knees at his feet, and
+tell him that I loved him, he would be flattered and grateful, and
+would be ready to return my affection. If I could tell him what this
+girl tells him in every look and word, he would be as pleased with me
+as he is with her."
+
+Her lip curled with unutterable scorn as she thought this. She was so
+despicable to herself by the deep humiliation of her wasted love, that
+the object of that foolish passion seemed despicable also. She was for
+ever weighing Edward Arundel against all the tortures she had endured
+for his sake, and for ever finding him wanting. He must have been a
+demigod if his perfections could have outweighed so much misery; and
+for this reason she was unjust to her cousin, and could not accept him
+for that which he really was,--a generous-hearted, candid, honourable
+young man (not a great man or a wonderful man),--a brave and
+honest-minded soldier, very well worthy of a good woman's love.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Mr. Arundel stayed at the Towers, occupying the room which had been his
+in John Marchmont's lifetime; and a new existence began for Mary. The
+young man was delighted with his old friend's daughter. Among all the
+Calcutta belles whom he had danced with at Government-House balls and
+flirted with upon the Indian racecourse, he could remember no one as
+fascinating as this girl, who seemed as childlike now, in her early
+womanhood, as she had been womanly while she was a child. Her naive
+tenderness for himself bewitched and enraptured him. Who could have
+avoided being charmed by that pure and innocent affection, which was as
+freely given by the girl of eighteen as it had been by the child, and
+was unchanged in character by the lapse of years? The young officer had
+been so much admired and caressed in Calcutta, that perhaps, by reason
+of his successes, he had returned to England heart-whole; and he
+abandoned himself, without any _arriere-pensee_, to the quiet happiness
+which he felt in Mary Marchmont's society. I do not say that he was
+intoxicated by her beauty, which was by no means of the intoxicating
+order, or that he was madly in love with her. The gentle fascination of
+her society crept upon him before he was aware of its influence. He had
+never taken the trouble to examine his own feelings; they were
+disengaged,--as free as butterflies to settle upon which flower might
+seem the fairest; and he had therefore no need to put himself under a
+course of rigorous self-examination. As yet he believed that the
+pleasure he now felt in Mary's society was the same order of enjoyment
+he had experienced five years before, when he had taught her chess, and
+promised her long rambles by the seashore.
+
+They had no long rambles now in solitary lanes and under flowering
+hedgerows beside the waving green corn. Olivia watched them with
+untiring eyes. The tortures to which a jealous woman may condemn
+herself are not much greater than those she can inflict upon others.
+Mrs. Marchmont took good care that her ward and her cousin were not
+_too_ happy. Wherever they went, she went also; whenever they spoke,
+she listened; whatever arrangement was most likely to please them was
+opposed by her. Edward was not coxcomb enough to have any suspicion of
+the reason of this conduct on his cousin's part. He only smiled and
+shrugged his shoulders; and attributed her watchfulness to an
+overstrained sense of her responsibility, and the necessity of
+_surveillance_.
+
+"Does she think me such a villain and a traitor," he thought, "that she
+fears to leave me alone with my dead friend's orphan daughter, lest I
+should whisper corruption into her innocent ear? How little these good
+women know of us, after all! What vulgar suspicions and narrow-minded
+fears influence them against us! Are they honourable and honest towards
+one another, I wonder, that they can entertain such pitiful doubts of
+our honour and honesty?"
+
+So, hour after hour, and day after day, Olivia Marchmont kept watch and
+ward over Edward and Mary. It seems strange that love could blossom in
+such an atmosphere; it seems strange that the cruel gaze of those hard
+grey eyes did not chill the two innocent hearts, and prevent their free
+expansion. But it was not so; the egotism of love was all-omnipotent.
+Neither Edward nor Mary was conscious of the evil light in the glance
+that so often rested upon them. The universe narrowed itself to the one
+spot of earth upon which these two stood side by side.
+
+Edward Arundel had been more than a month at Marchmont Towers when
+Olivia went, upon a hot July evening, to Swampington, on a brief visit
+to the Rector,--a visit of duty. She would doubtless have taken Mary
+Marchmont with her; but the girl had been suffering from a violent
+headache throughout the burning summer day, and had kept her room.
+Edward Arundel had gone out early in the morning upon a fishing
+excursion to a famous trout-stream seven or eight miles from the
+Towers, and was not likely to return until after nightfall. There was
+no chance, therefore, of a meeting between Mary and the young officer,
+Olivia thought--no chance of any confidential talk which she would not
+be by to hear.
+
+Did Edward Arundel love the pale-faced girl, who revealed her devotion
+to him with such childlike unconsciousness? Olivia Marchmont had not
+been able to answer that question. She had sounded the young man
+several times upon his feelings towards her stepdaughter; but he had
+met her hints and insinuations with perfect frankness, declaring that
+Mary seemed as much a child to him now as she had appeared nearly nine
+years before in Oakley Street, and that the pleasure he took in her
+society was only such as he might have felt in that of any innocent and
+confiding child.
+
+"Her simplicity is so bewitching, you know, Livy," he said; "she looks
+up in my face, and trusts me with all her little secrets, and tells me
+her dreams about her dead father, and all her foolish, innocent
+fancies, as confidingly as if I were some playfellow of her own age and
+sex. She's so refreshing after the artificial belles of a Calcutta
+ballroom, with their stereotyped fascinations and their complete manual
+of flirtation, the same for ever and ever. She is such a pretty little
+spontaneous darling, with her soft, shy, brown eyes, and her low voice,
+which always sounds to me like the cooing of the doves in the
+poultry-yard."
+
+I think that Olivia, in the depth of her gloomy despair, took some
+comfort from such speeches as these. Was this frank expression of
+regard for Mary Marchmont a token of _love_? No; not as the widow
+understood the stormy madness. Love to her had been a dark and terrible
+passion, a thing to be concealed, as monomaniacs have sometimes
+contrived to keep the secret of their mania, until it burst forth at
+last, fatal and irrepressible, in some direful work of wreck and ruin.
+
+So Olivia Marchmont took an early dinner alone, and drove away from the
+Towers at four o'clock on a blazing summer afternoon, more at peace
+perhaps than she had been since Edward Arundel's coming. She paid her
+dutiful visit to her father, sat with him for some time, talked to the
+two old servants who waited upon him, walked two or three times up and
+down the neglected garden, and then drove back to the Towers.
+
+The first object upon which her eyes fell as she entered the hall was
+Edward Arundel's fishing-tackle lying in disorder upon an oaken bench
+near the broad arched door that opened out into the quadrangle. An
+angry flush mounted to her face as she turned upon the servant near
+her.
+
+"Mr. Arundel has come home?" she said.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, he came in half an hour ago; but he went out again almost
+directly with Miss Marchmont."
+
+"Indeed! I thought Miss Marchmont was in her room?"
+
+"No, ma'am; she came down to the drawing-room about an hour after you
+left. Her head was better, ma'am, she said."
+
+"And she went out with Mr. Arundel? Do you know which way they went?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; I heard Mr. Arundel say he wanted to look at the old
+boat-house by the river."
+
+"And they have gone there?"
+
+"I think so, ma'am."
+
+"Very good; I will go down to them. Miss Marchmont must not stop out in
+the night-air. The dew is falling already."
+
+The door leading into the quadrangle was open; and Olivia swept across
+the broad threshold, haughty and self-possessed, very stately-looking
+in her long black garments. She still wore mourning for her dead
+husband. What inducement had she ever had to cast off that sombre
+attire; what need had she to trick herself out in gay colours? What
+loving eyes would be charmed by her splendour? She went out of the
+door, across the quadrangle, under a stone archway, and into the low
+stunted wood, which was gloomy even in the summer-time. The setting sun
+was shining upon the western front of the Towers; but here all seemed
+cold and desolate. The damp mists were rising from the sodden ground
+beneath the tree; the frogs were croaking down by the river-side. With
+her small white teeth set, and her breath coming in fitful gasps,
+Olivia Marchmont hurried to the water's edge, winding in and out
+between the trees, tearing her black dress amongst the brambles,
+scorning all beaten paths, heedless where she trod, so long as she made
+her way speedily to the spot she wanted to reach.
+
+At last the black sluggish river and the old boat-house came in sight,
+between a long vista of ugly distorted trunks and gnarled branches of
+pollard oak and willow. The building was dreary and
+dilapidated-looking, for the improvements commenced by Edward Arundel
+five years ago had never been fully carried out; but it was
+sufficiently substantial, and bore no traces of positive decay. Down by
+the water's edge there was a great cavernous recess for the shelter of
+the boats, and above this there was a pavilion, built of brick and
+stone, containing two decent-sized chambers, with latticed windows
+overlooking the river. A flight of stone steps with an iron balustrade
+led up to the door of this pavilion, which was supported upon the solid
+side-walls of the boat-house below.
+
+In the stillness of the summer twilight Olivia heard the voices of
+those whom she came to seek. They were standing down by the edge of the
+water, upon a narrow pathway that ran along by the sedgy brink of the
+river, and only a few paces from the pavilion. The door of the
+boat-house was open; a long-disused wherry lay rotting upon the damp
+and mossy flags. Olivia crept into the shadowy recess. The door that
+faced the river had fallen from its rusty hinges, and the slimy
+woodwork lay in ruins upon the shore. Sheltered by the stone archway
+that had once been closed by this door, Olivia listened to the voices
+beside the still water.
+
+Mary Marchmont was standing close to the river's edge; Edward stood
+beside her, leaning against the trunk of a willow that hung over the
+water.
+
+"My childish darling," the young man murmured, as if in reply to
+something his companion had said, "and so you think, because you are
+simple-minded and innocent, I am not to love you. It is your innocence
+I love, Polly dear,--let me call you Polly, as I used five years
+ago,--and I wouldn't have you otherwise for all the world. Do you know
+that sometimes I am almost sorry I ever came back to Marchmont Towers?"
+
+"Sorry you came back?" cried Mary, in a tone of alarm. "Oh, why do you
+say that, Mr. Arundel?"
+
+"Because you are heiress to eleven thousand a year, Mary, and the
+Moated Grange behind us; and this dreary wood, and the river,--the
+river is yours, I daresay, Miss Marchmont;--and I wish you joy of the
+possession of so much sluggish water and so many square miles of swamp
+and fen."
+
+"But what then?" Mary asked wonderingly.
+
+"What then? Do you know, Polly darling, that if I ask you to marry me
+people will call me a fortune-hunter, and declare that I came to
+Marchmont Towers bent upon stealing its heiress's innocent heart,
+before she had learned the value of the estate that must go along with
+it? God knows they'd wrong me, Polly, as cruelly as ever an honest man
+was wronged; for, so long as I have money to pay my tailor and
+tobacconist,--and I've more than enough for both of them,--I want
+nothing further of the world's wealth. What should I do with all this
+swamp and fen, Miss Marchmont--with all that horrible complication of
+expired leases to be renewed, and income-taxes to be appealed against,
+that rich people have to endure? If you were not rich, Polly, I----"
+
+He stopped and laughed, striking the toe of his boot amongst the weeds,
+and knocking the pebbles into the water. The woman crouching in the
+shadow of the archway listened with whitened cheeks and glaring eyes;
+listened as she might have listened to the sentence of her death,
+drinking in every syllable, in her ravenous desire to lose no breath
+that told her of her anguish.
+
+"If I were not rich!" murmured Mary; "what if I were not rich?"
+
+"I should tell you how dearly I love you, Polly, and ask you to be my
+wife by-and-by."
+
+The girl looked up at him for a few moments in silence, shyly at first,
+and then more boldly, with a beautiful light kindling in her eyes.
+
+"I love you dearly too, Mr. Arundel," she said at last; "and I would
+rather you had my money than any one else in the world; and there was
+something in papa's will that made me think--"
+
+"There was something that made you think he would wish this, Polly,"
+cried the young man, clasping the trembling little figure to his
+breast. "Mr. Paulette sent me a copy of the will, Polly, when he sent
+my diamond-ring; and I think there were some words in it that hinted at
+such a wish. Your father said he left me this legacy, darling,--I have
+his letter still,--the legacy of a helpless girl. God knows I will try
+to be worthy of such a trust, Mary dearest; God knows I will be
+faithful to my promise, made nine years ago."
+
+The woman listening in the dark archway sank down upon the damp flags
+at her feet, amongst the slimy rotten wood and rusty iron nails and
+broken bolts and hinges. She sat there for a long time, not
+unconscious, but quite motionless, her white face leaning against the
+moss-grown arch, staring blankly out of the black shadows. She sat
+there and listened, while the lovers talked in low tender murmurs of
+the sorrowful past and of the unknown future; that beautiful untrodden
+region, in which they were to go hand in hand through all the long
+years of quiet happiness between the present moment and the grave. She
+sat and listened till the moonlight faintly shimmered upon the water,
+and the footsteps of the lovers died away upon the narrow pathway by
+which they went back to the house.
+
+Olivia Marchmont did not move until an hour after they had gone. Then
+she raised herself with an effort, and walked with stiffened limbs
+slowly and painfully to the house, and to her own room, where she
+locked her door, and flung herself upon the ground in the darkness.
+
+Mary came to her to ask why she did not come to the drawing-room, and
+Mrs. Marchmont answered, with a hoarse voice, that she was ill, and
+wished to be alone. Neither Mary, nor the old woman-servant who had
+been Olivia's nurse long ago, and who had some little influence over
+her, could get any other answer than this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+DRIVEN AWAY.
+
+
+Mary Marchmont and Edward Arundel were happy. They were happy; and how
+should they guess the tortures of that desperate woman, whose benighted
+soul was plunged in a black gulf of horror by reason of their innocent
+love? How should these two--very children in their ignorance of all
+stormy passions, all direful emotions--know that in the darkened
+chamber where Olivia Marchmont lay, suffering under some vague illness,
+for which the Swampington doctor was fain to prescribe quinine, in
+utter unconsciousness as to the real nature of the disease which he was
+called upon to cure,--how should they know that in that gloomy chamber
+a wicked heart was abandoning itself to all the devils that had so long
+held patient watch for this day?
+
+Yes; the struggle was over. Olivia Marchmont flung aside the cross she
+had borne in dull, mechanical obedience, rather than in Christian love
+and truth. Better to have been sorrowful Magdalene, forgiven for her
+love and tears, than this cold, haughty, stainless woman, who had never
+been able to learn the sublime lessons which so many sinners have taken
+meekly to heart. The religion which was wanting in the vital principle
+of Christianity, the faith which showed itself only in dogged
+obedience, failed this woman in the hour of her agony. Her pride arose;
+the defiant spirit of the fallen angel asserted its gloomy grandeur.
+
+"What have I done that I should suffer like this?" she thought. "What
+am I that an empty-headed soldier should despise me, and that I should
+go mad because of his indifference? Is this the recompense for my long
+years of obedience? Is this the reward Heaven bestows upon me for my
+life of duty!"
+
+She remembered the histories of other women,--women who had gone their
+own way and had been happy; and a darker question arose in her mind;
+almost the question which Job asked in his agony.
+
+"Is there neither truth nor justice in the dealings of God?" she
+thought. "Is it useless to be obedient and submissive, patient and
+untiring? Has all my life been a great mistake, which is to end in
+confusion and despair?"
+
+And then she pictured to herself the life that might have been hers if
+Edward Arundel had loved her. How good she would have been! The
+hardness of her iron nature would have teen melted and subdued. By
+force of her love and tenderness for him, she would have learned to be
+loving and tender to others. Her wealth of affection for him would have
+overflowed in gentleness and consideration for every creature in the
+universe. The lurking bitterness which had lain hidden in her heart
+ever since she had first loved Edward Arundel, and first discovered his
+indifference to her; and the poisonous envy of happier women, who had
+loved and were beloved,--would have been blotted away. Her whole nature
+would have undergone a wondrous transfiguration, purified and exalted
+by the strength of her affection. All this might have come to pass if
+he had loved her,--if he had only loved her. But a pale-faced child had
+come between her and this redemption; and there was nothing left for
+her but despair.
+
+Nothing but despair? Yes; perhaps something further,--revenge.
+
+But this last idea took no tangible shape. She only knew that, in the
+black darkness of the gulf into which her soul had gone down, there
+was, far away somewhere, one ray of lurid light. She only knew this as
+yet, and that she hated Mary Marchmont with a mad and wicked hatred. If
+she could have thought meanly of Edward Arundel,--if she could have
+believed him to be actuated by mercenary motives in his choice of the
+orphan girl,--she might have taken some comfort from the thought of his
+unworthiness, and of Mary's probable sorrow in the days to come. But
+she _could_ not think this. Little as the young soldier had said in the
+summer twilight beside the river, there had been that in his tones and
+looks which had convinced the wretched watcher of his truth. Mary might
+have been deceived by the shallowest pretender; but Olivia's eyes
+devoured every glance; Olivia's greedy ears drank in every tone; and
+she _knew_ that Edward Arundel loved her stepdaughter.
+
+She knew this, and she hated Mary Marchmont. What had she done, this
+girl, who had never known what it was to fight a battle with her own
+rebellious heart? what had she done, that all this wealth of love and
+happiness should drop into her lap unsought,--comparatively unvalued,
+perhaps?
+
+John Marchmont's widow lay in her darkened chamber thinking over these
+things; no longer fighting the battle with her own heart, but utterly
+abandoning herself to her desperation,--reckless, hardened, impenitent.
+
+Edward Arundel could not very well remain at the Towers while the
+reputed illness of his hostess kept her to her room. He went over to
+Swampington, therefore, upon a dutiful visit to his uncle; but rode to
+the Towers every day to inquire very particularly after his cousin's
+progress, and to dawdle on the sunny western terrace with Mary
+Marchmont.
+
+Their innocent happiness needs little description. Edward Arundel
+retained a good deal of that boyish chivalry which had made him so
+eager to become the little girl's champion in the days gone by. Contact
+with the world had not much sullied the freshness of the young man's
+spirit. He loved his innocent, childish companion with the purest and
+truest devotion; and he was proud of the recollection that in the day
+of his poverty John Marchmont had chosen _him_ as the future shelterer
+of this tender blossom.
+
+"You must never grow any older or more womanly, Polly," he said
+sometimes to the young mistress of Marchmont Towers. "Remember that I
+always love you best when I think of you as the little girl in the
+shabby pinafore, who poured out my tea for me one bleak December
+morning in Oakley Street."
+
+They talked a great deal of John Marchmont. It was such a happiness to
+Mary to be able to talk unreservedly of her father to some one who had
+loved and comprehended him.
+
+"My stepmamma was very good to poor papa, you know, Edward," she said,
+"and of course he was very grateful to her; but I don't think he ever
+loved her quite as he loved you. You were the friend of his poverty,
+Edward; he never forgot that."
+
+Once, as they strolled side by side together upon the terrace in the
+warm summer noontide, Mary Marchmont put her little hand through her
+lover's arm, and looked up shyly in his face.
+
+"Did papa say that, Edward?" she whispered; "did he really say that?"
+
+"Did he really say what, darling?"
+
+"That he left me to you as a legacy?"
+
+"He did indeed, Polly," answered the young man. "I'll bring you the
+letter to-morrow."
+
+And the next day he showed Mary Marchmont the yellow sheet of
+letter-paper and the faded writing, which had once been black and wet
+under her dead father's hand. Mary looked through her tears at the old
+familiar Oakley-street address, and the date of the very day upon which
+Edward Arundel had breakfasted in the shabby lodging. Yes--there were
+the words: "The legacy of a child's helplessness is the only bequest I
+can leave to the only friend I have."
+
+"And you shall never know what it is to be helpless while I am near
+you, Polly darling," the soldier said, as he refolded his dead friend's
+epistle. "You may defy your enemies henceforward, Mary--if you have any
+enemies. O, by-the-bye, you have never heard any thing of that Paul
+Marchmont, I suppose?"
+
+"Papa's cousin--Mr Marchmont the artist?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"He came to the reading of papa's will."
+
+"Indeed! and did you see much of him?"
+
+"Oh, no, very little. I was ill, you know," the girl added, the tears
+rising to her eyes at the recollection of that bitter time,--"I was
+ill, and I didn't notice any thing. I know that Mr. Marchmont talked to
+me a little; but I can't remember what he said."
+
+"And he has never been here since?"
+
+"Never."
+
+Edward Arundel shrugged his shoulders. This Paul Marchmont could not be
+such a designing villain, after all, or surely he would have tried to
+push his acquaintance with his rich cousin!
+
+"I dare say John's suspicion of him was only one of the poor fellow's
+morbid fancies," he thought. "He was always full of morbid fancies."
+
+Mrs. Marchmont's rooms were in the western front of the house; and
+through her open windows she heard the fresh young voices of the lovers
+as they strolled up and down the terrace. The cavalry officer was
+content to carry a watering-pot full of water, for the refreshment of
+his young mistress's geraniums in the stone vases on the balustrade,
+and to do other under-gardener's work for her pleasure. He talked to
+her of the Indian campaign; and she asked a hundred questions about
+midnight marches and solitary encampments, fainting camels, lurking
+tigers in the darkness of the jungle, intercepted supplies of
+provisions, stolen ammunition, and all the other details of the war.
+
+Olivia arose at last, before the Swampington surgeon's saline draughts
+and quinine mixtures had subdued the fiery light in her eyes, or cooled
+the raging fever that devoured her. She arose because she could no
+longer lie still in her desolation knowing that, for two hours in each
+long summer's day, Edward Arundel and Mary Marchmont could be happy
+together in spite of her. She came down stairs, therefore, and renewed
+her watch--chaining her stepdaughter to her side, and interposing
+herself for ever between the lovers.
+
+The widow arose from her sick-bed an altered woman, as it appeared to
+all who knew her. A mad excitement seemed to have taken sudden
+possession of her. She flung off her mourning garments, and ordered
+silks and laces, velvets and satins, from a London milliner; she
+complained of the absence of society, the monotonous dulness of her
+Lincolnshire life; and, to the surprise of every one, sent out cards of
+invitation for a ball at the Towers in honour of Edward Arundel's
+return to England. She seemed to be seized with a desire to do
+something, she scarcely cared what, to disturb the even current of her
+days.
+
+During the brief interval between Mrs. Marchmont's leaving her room and
+the evening appointed for the ball, Edward Arundel found no very
+convenient opportunity of informing his cousin of the engagement
+entered into between himself and Mary. He had no wish to hurry this
+disclosure; for there was something in the orphan girl's childishness
+and innocence that kept all definite ideas of an early marriage very
+far away from her lover's mind. He wanted to go back to India, and win
+more laurels, to lay at the feet of the mistress of Marchmont Towers.
+He wanted to make a name for himself, which should cause the world to
+forget that he was a younger son,--a name that the vilest tongue would
+never dare to blacken with the epithet of fortune-hunter.
+
+The young man was silent therefore, waiting for a fitting opportunity
+in which to speak to Mary's stepmother. Perhaps he rather dreaded the
+idea of discussing his attachment with Olivia; for she had looked at
+him with cold angry eyes, and a brow as black as thunder, upon those
+occasions on which she had sounded him as to his feelings for Mary.
+
+"She wants poor Polly to marry some grandee, I dare say," he thought,
+"and will do all she can to oppose my suit. But her trust will cease
+with Mary's majority; and I don't want my confiding little darling to
+marry me until she is old enough to choose for herself, and to choose
+wisely. She will be one-and-twenty in three years; and what are three
+years? I would wait as long as Jacob for my pet, and serve my fourteen
+years' apprenticeship under Sir Charles Napier, and be true to her all
+the time."
+
+Olivia Marchmont hated her stepdaughter. Mary was not slow to perceive
+the change in the widow's manner towards her. It had always been cold,
+and sometimes severe; but it was now almost abhorrent. The girl shrank
+appalled from the sinister light in her stepmother's gray eyes, as they
+followed her unceasingly, dogging her footsteps with a hungry and evil
+gaze. The gentle girl wondered what she had done to offend her
+guardian, and then, being unable to think of any possible delinquency
+by which she might have incurred Mrs. Marchmont's displeasure, was fain
+to attribute the change in Olivia's manner to the irritation consequent
+upon her illness, and was thus more gentle and more submissive than of
+old; enduring cruel looks, returning no answer to bitter speeches, but
+striving to conciliate the supposed invalid by her sweetness and
+obedience.
+
+But the girl's amiability only irritated the despairing woman. Her
+jealousy fed upon every charm of the rival who had supplanted her. That
+fatal passion fed upon Edward Arundel's every look and tone, upon the
+quiet smile which rested on Mary's face as the girl sat over her
+embroidery, in meek silence, thinking of her lover. The self-tortures
+which Olivia Marchmont inflicted upon herself were so horrible to bear,
+that she turned, with a mad desire for relief, upon those she had the
+power to torture. Day by day, and hour by hour, she contrived to
+distress the gentle girl, who had so long obeyed her, now by a word,
+now by a look, but always with that subtle power of aggravation which
+some women possess in such an eminent degree--until Mary Marchmont's
+life became a burden to her, or would have so become, but for that
+inexpressible happiness, of which her tormentor could not deprive
+her,--the joy she felt in her knowledge of Edward Arundel's love.
+
+She was very careful to keep the secret of her stepmother's altered
+manner from the young soldier. Olivia was his cousin, and he had said
+long ago that she was to love her. Heaven knows she had tried to do so,
+and had failed most miserably; but her belief in Olivia's goodness was
+still unshaken. If Mrs. Marchmont was now irritable, capricious, and
+even cruel, there was doubtless some good reason for the alteration in
+her conduct; and it was Mary's duty to be patient. The orphan girl had
+learned to suffer quietly when the great affliction of her father's
+death had fallen upon her; and she suffered so quietly now, that even
+her lover failed to perceive any symptoms of her distress. How could
+she grieve him by telling him of her sorrows, when his very presence
+brought such unutterable joy to her?
+
+So, on the morning of the ball at Marchmont Towers,--the first
+entertainment of the kind that had been given in that grim Lincolnshire
+mansion since young Arthur Marchmont's untimely death,--Mary sat in her
+room, with her old friend Farmer Pollard's daughter, who was now Mrs.
+Jobson, the wife of the most prosperous carpenter in Kemberling. Hester
+had come up to the Towers to pay a dutiful visit to her young
+patroness; and upon this particular occasion Olivia had not cared to
+prevent Mary and her humble friend spending half an hour together. Mrs.
+Marchmont roamed from room to room upon this day, with a perpetual
+restlessness. Edward Arundel was to dine at the Towers, and was to
+sleep there after the ball. He was to drive his uncle over from
+Swampington, as the Rector had promised to show himself for an hour or
+two at his daughter's entertainment. Mary had met her stepmother
+several times that morning, in the corridors and on the staircase; but
+the widow had passed her in silence, with a dark face, and a shivering,
+almost abhorrent gesture.
+
+The bright July day dragged itself out at last, with hideous slowness
+for the desperate woman, who could not find peace or rest in all those
+splendid rooms, on all that grassy flat, dry and burning under the
+blazing summer sun. She had wandered out upon the waste of barren turf,
+with her head bared to the hot sky, and had loitered here and there by
+the still pools, looking gloomily at the black tideless water, and
+wondering what the agony of drowning was like. Not that she had any
+thought of killing herself. No: the idea of death was horrible to her;
+for after her death Edward and Mary would be happy. Could she ever find
+rest in the grave, knowing this? Could there be any possible extinction
+that would blot out her jealous fury? Surely the fire of her hate--it
+was no longer love, but hate, that raged in her heart--would defy
+annihilation, eternal by reason of its intensity. When the dinner-hour
+came, and Edward and his uncle arrived at the Towers, Olivia
+Marchmont's pale face was lit up with eyes that flamed like fire; but
+she took her accustomed place very quietly, with her father opposite to
+her, and Mary and Edward upon either side.
+
+"I'm sure you're ill, Livy," the young man said; "you're as pale as
+death, and your hand is dry and burning. I'm afraid you've not been
+obedient to the Swampington doctor."
+
+Mrs. Marchmont shrugged her shoulders with a short contemptuous laugh.
+
+"I am well enough," she said. "Who cares whether I am well or ill?"
+
+Her father looked up at her in mute surprise. The bitterness of her
+tone startled and alarmed him; but Mary never lifted her eyes. It was
+in such a tone as this that her stepmother had spoken constantly of
+late.
+
+But two or three hours afterwards, when the flats before the house were
+silvered by the moonlight, and the long ranges of windows glittered
+with the lamps within, Mrs. Marchmont emerged from her dressing-room
+another creature, as it seemed.
+
+Edward and his uncle were walking up and down the great oaken
+banqueting-hall, which had been decorated and fitted up as a ballroom
+for the occasion, when Olivia crossed the wide threshold of the
+chamber. The young officer looked up with an involuntary expression of
+surprise. In all his acquaintance with his cousin, he had never seen
+her thus. The gloomy black-robed woman was transformed into a
+Semiramis. She wore a voluminous dress of a deep claret-coloured
+velvet, that glowed with the warm hues of rich wine in the lamplight.
+Her massive hair was coiled in a knot at the back of her head, and
+diamonds glittered amidst the thick bands that framed her broad white
+brow. Her stern classical beauty was lit up by the unwonted splendour
+of her dress, and asserted itself as obviously as if she had said, "Am
+I a woman to be despised for the love of a pale-faced child?"
+
+Mary Marchmont came into the room a few minutes after her stepmother.
+Her lover ran to welcome her, and looked fondly at her simple dress of
+shadowy white crape, and the pearl circlet that crowned her soft brown
+hair. The pearls she wore upon this night had been given to her by her
+father on her fourteenth birthday.
+
+Olivia watched the young man as he bent over Mary Marchmont.
+
+He wore his uniform to-night for the special gratification of his young
+mistress, and he was looking down with a tender smile at her childish
+admiration of the bullion ornaments upon his coat, and the decoration
+he had won in India.
+
+The widow looked from the two lovers to an antique glass upon an ebony
+bureau in a niche opposite to her, which reflected her own face,--her
+own face, more beautiful than she had ever seen it before, with a
+feverish glow of vivid crimson lighting up her hollow cheeks.
+
+"I might have been beautiful if he had loved me," she thought; and then
+she turned to her father, and began to talk to him of his parishioners,
+the old pensioners upon her bounty, whose little histories were so
+hatefully familiar to her. Once more she made a feeble effort to tread
+the old hackneyed pathway, which she had toiled upon with such weary
+feet; but she could not,--she could not. After a few minutes she turned
+abruptly from the Rector, and seated herself in a recess of the window,
+from which she could see Edward and Mary.
+
+But Mrs. Marchmont's duties as hostess soon demanded her attention. The
+county families began to arrive; the sound of carriage-wheels seemed
+perpetual upon the crisp gravel-drive before the western front; the
+names of half the great people in Lincolnshire were shouted by the old
+servants in the hall. The band in the music-gallery struck up a
+quadrille, and Edward Arundel led the youthful mistress of the mansion
+to her place in the dance.
+
+To Olivia that long night seemed all glare and noise and confusion. She
+did the honours of the ballroom, she received her guests, she meted out
+due attention to all; for she had been accustomed from her earliest
+girlhood to the stereotyped round of country society. She neglected no
+duty; but she did all mechanically, scarcely knowing what she said or
+did in the feverish tumult of her soul.
+
+Yet, amidst all the bewilderment of her senses, in all the confusion of
+her thoughts, two figures were always before her. Wherever Edward
+Arundel and Mary Marchmont went, her eyes followed them--her fevered
+imagination pursued them. Once, and once only, in the course of that
+long night she spoke to her stepdaughter.
+
+"How often do you mean to dance with Captain Arundel, Miss Marchmont?"
+she said.
+
+But before Mary could answer, her stepmother had moved away upon the
+arm of a portly country squire, and the girl was left in sorrowful
+wonderment as to the reason of Mrs. Marchmont's angry tone.
+
+Edward and Mary were standing in one of the deep embayed windows of the
+banqueting-hall, when the dancers began to disperse, long after supper.
+The girl had been very happy that evening, in spite of her stepmother's
+bitter words and disdainful glances. For almost the first time in her
+life, the young mistress of Marchmont Towers had felt the contagious
+influence of other people's happiness. The brilliantly-lighted
+ballroom, the fluttering dresses of the dancers, the joyous music, the
+low sound of suppressed laughter, the bright faces which smiled at each
+other upon every side, were as new as any thing in fairyland to this
+girl, whose narrow life had been overshadowed by the gloomy figure of
+her stepmother, for ever interposed between her and the outer world.
+The young spirit arose and shook off its fetters, fresh and radiant as
+the butterfly that escapes from its chrysalis. The new light of
+happiness illumined the orphan's delicate face, until Edward Arundel
+began to wonder at her loveliness, as he had wondered once before that
+night at the fiery splendour of his cousin Olivia.
+
+"I had no idea that Olivia was so handsome, or you so pretty, my
+darling," he said, as he stood with Mary in the embrasure of the
+window. "You look like Titania, the queen of the fairies, Polly, with
+your cloudy draperies and crown of pearls."
+
+The window was open, and Captain Arundel looked wistfully at the broad
+flagged quadrangle beautified by the light of the full summer moon. He
+glanced back into the room; it was nearly empty now; and Mrs. Marchmont
+was standing near the principal doorway, bidding the last of her guests
+goodnight.
+
+"Come into the quadrangle, Polly," he said, "and take a turn with me
+under the colonnade. It was a cloister once, I dare say, in the good
+old days before Harry the Eighth was king; and cowled monks have paced
+up and down under its shadow, muttering mechanical aves and
+paternosters, as the beads of their rosaries dropped slowly through
+their shrivelled old fingers. Come out into the quadrangle, Polly; all
+the people we know or case about are gone; and we'll go out and walk in
+the moonlight as true lovers ought."
+
+The soldier led his young companion across the threshold of the window,
+and out into a cloister-like colonnade that ran along one side of the
+house. The shadows of the Gothic pillars were black upon the moonlit
+flags of the quadrangle, which was as light now as in the day; but a
+pleasant obscurity reigned in the sheltered colonnade.
+
+"I think this little bit of pre-Lutheran masonry is the best of all
+your possessions, Polly," the young man said, laughing. "By-and-by,
+when I come home from India a general,--as I mean to do, Miss
+Marchmont, before I ask you to become Mrs. Arundel,--I shall stroll up
+and down here in the still summer evenings, smoking my cheroots. You
+will let me smoke out of doors, won't you, Polly? But suppose I should
+leave some of my limbs on the banks of the Sutlej, and come limping
+home to you with a wooden leg, would you have me then, Mary; or would
+you dismiss me with ignominy from your sweet presence, and shut the
+doors of your stony mansion upon myself and my calamities? I'm afraid,
+from your admiration of my gold epaulettes and silk sash, that glory in
+the abstract would have very little attraction for you."
+
+Mary Marchmont looked up at her lover with widely-opened and wondering
+eyes, and the clasp of her hand tightened a little upon his arm.
+
+"There is nothing that could ever happen to you that would make me love
+you less _now_," she said naively. "I dare say at first I liked you a
+little because you were handsome, and different to every one else I had
+ever seen. You were so very handsome, you know," she added
+apologetically; "but it was not because of that _only_ that I loved
+you. I loved you because papa told me you were good and generous, and
+his true friend when he was in cruel need of a friend. Yes; you were
+his friend at school, when your cousin, Martin Mostyn, and the other
+pupils sneered at him and ridiculed him. How can I ever forget that,
+Edward? How can I ever love you enough to repay you for that?" In the
+enthusiasm of her innocent devotion, she lifted her pure young brow,
+and the soldier bent down and kissed that white throne of all virginal
+thoughts, as the lovers stood side by side; half in the moonlight, half
+in the shadow.
+
+Olivia Marchmont came into the embrasure of the open window, and took
+her place there to watch them.
+
+She came again to the torture. From the remotest end of the long
+banqueting-room she had seen the two figures glide out into the
+moonlight. She had seen them, and had gone on with her courteous
+speeches, and had repeated her formula of hospitality, with the fire in
+her heart devouring and consuming her. She came again, to watch and to
+listen, and to endure her self-imposed agonies--as mad and foolish in
+her fatal passion as some besotted wretch who should come willingly to
+the wheel upon which his limbs had been well-nigh broken, and
+supplicate for a renewal of the torture. She stood rigid and motionless
+in the shadow of the arched window, hiding herself, as she had hidden
+in the dark cavernous recess by the river; she stood and listened to
+all the childish babble of the lovers as they loitered up and down the
+vaulted cloister. How she despised them, in the haughty superiority of
+an intellect which might have planned a revolution, or saved a sinking
+state! What bitter scorn curled her lip, as their foolish talk fell
+upon her ear! They talked like Florizel and Perdita, like Romeo and
+Juliet, like Paul and Virginia; and they talked a great deal of
+nonsense, no doubt--soft harmonious foolishness, with little more
+meaning in it than there is in the cooing of doves, but tender and
+musical, and more than beautiful, to each other's ears. A tigress,
+famished and desolate, and but lately robbed of her whelps, would not
+be likely to listen very patiently to the communing of a pair of
+prosperous ringdoves. Olivia Marchmont listened with her brain on fire,
+and the spirit of a murderess raging in her breast. What was she that
+she should be patient? All the world was lost to her. She was thirty
+years of age, and she had never yet won the love of any human being.
+She was thirty years of age, and all the sublime world of affection was
+a dismal blank for her. From the outer darkness in which she stood, she
+looked with wild and ignorant yearning into that bright region which
+her accursed foot had never trodden, and saw Mary Marchmont wandering
+hand-in-hand with the only man _she_ could have loved--the only
+creature who had ever had the power to awake the instinct of womanhood
+in her soul.
+
+She stood and waited until the clock in the quadrangle struck the first
+quarter after three: the moon was fading out, and the colder light of
+early morning glimmered in the eastern sky.
+
+"I mustn't keep you out here any longer, Polly," Captain Arundel said,
+pausing near the window. "It's getting cold, my dear, and it's high
+time the mistress of Marchmont should retire to her stony bower.
+Good-night, and God bless you, my darling! I'll stop in the quadrangle
+and smoke a cheroot before I go to my room. Your stepmamma will be
+wondering what has become of you, Mary, and we shall have a lecture
+upon the proprieties to-morrow; so, once more, good-night."
+
+He kissed the fair young brow under the coronal of pearls, stopped to
+watch Mary while she crossed the threshold of the open window, and then
+strolled away into the flagged court, with his cigar-case in his hand.
+
+Olivia Marchmont stood a few paces from the window when her
+stepdaughter entered the room, and Mary paused involuntarily, terrified
+by the cruel aspect of the face that frowned upon her: terrified by
+something that she had never seen before,--the horrible darkness that
+overshadows the souls of the lost.
+
+"Mamma!" the girl cried, clasping her hands in sudden affright--"mamma!
+why do you look at me like that? Why have you been so changed to me
+lately? I cannot tell you how unhappy I have been. Mamma, mamma! what
+have I done to offend you?"
+
+Olivia Marchmont grasped the trembling hands uplifted entreatingly to
+her, and held them in her own,--held them as if in a vice. She stood
+thus, with her stepdaughter pinioned in her grasp, and her eyes fixed
+upon the girl's face. Two streams of lurid light seemed to emanate from
+those dilated gray eyes; two spots of crimson blazed in the widow's
+hollow cheeks.
+
+"_What_ have you done?" she cried. "Do you think I have toiled for
+nothing to do the duty which I promised my dead husband to perform for
+your sake? Has all my care of you been so little, that I am to stand by
+now and be silent, when I see what you are? Do you think that I am
+blind, or deaf, or besotted; that you defy me and outrage me, day by
+day, and hour by hour, by your conduct?"
+
+"Mamma, mamma! what do you mean?"
+
+"Heaven knows how rigidly you have been educated; how carefully you
+have been secluded from all society, and sheltered from every
+influence, lest harm or danger should come to you. I have done my duty,
+and I wash my hands of you. The debasing taint of your mother's low
+breeding reveals itself in your every action. You run after my cousin
+Edward Arundel, and advertise your admiration of him, to himself, and
+every creature who knows you. You fling yourself into his arms, and
+offer him yourself and your fortune: and in your low cunning you try to
+keep the secret from me, your protectress and guardian, appointed by
+the dead father whom you pretend to have loved so dearly."
+
+Olivia Marchmont still held her stepdaughter's wrists in her iron
+grasp. The girl stared wildly at her with her trembling lips apart. She
+began to think that the widow had gone mad.
+
+"I blush for you--I am ashamed of you!" cried Olivia. It seemed as if
+the torrent of her words burst forth almost in spite of herself. "There
+is not a village girl in Kemberling, there is not a scullerymaid in
+this house, who would have behaved as you have done. I have watched
+you, Mary Marchmont, remember, and I know all. I know your wanderings
+down by the river-side. I heard you--yes, by the Heaven above me!--I
+heard you offer yourself to my cousin."
+
+Mary drew herself up with an indignant gesture, and over the whiteness
+of her face there swept a sudden glow of vivid crimson that faded as
+quickly as it came. Her submissive nature revolted against her
+stepmother's horrible tyranny. The dignity of innocence arose and
+asserted itself against Olivia's shameful upbraiding.
+
+"If I offered myself to Edward Arundel, mamma," she said, "it was
+because we love each other very truly, and because I think and believe
+papa wished me to marry his old friend."
+
+"Because _we_ love each other very truly!" Olivia echoed in a tone of
+unmitigated scorn. "You can answer for Captain Arundel's heart, I
+suppose, then, as well as for your own? You must have a tolerably good
+opinion of yourself, Miss Marchmont, to be able to venture so much.
+Bah!" she cried suddenly, with a disdainful gesture of her head; "do
+you think your pitiful face has won Edward Arundel? Do you think he has
+not had women fifty times your superior, in every quality of mind and
+body, at his feet out yonder in India? Are you idiotic and besotted
+enough to believe that it is anything but your fortune this man cares
+for? Do you know the vile things people will do, the lies they will
+tell, the base comedies of guilt and falsehood they will act, for the
+love of eleven thousand a year? And you think that he loves you! Child,
+dupe, fool! are you weak enough to be deluded by a fortune-hunter's
+pretty pastoral flatteries? Are you weak enough to be duped by a man of
+the world, worn out and jaded, no doubt, as to the world's
+pleasures--in debt perhaps, and in pressing need of money, who comes
+here to try and redeem his fortunes by a marriage with a semi-imbecile
+heiress?"
+
+Olivia Marchmont released her hold of the shrinking girl, who seemed to
+have become transfixed to the spot upon which she stood, a pale statue
+of horror and despair.
+
+The iron will of the strong and resolute woman rode roughshod over the
+simple confidence of the ignorant girl. Until this moment, Mary
+Marchmont had believed in Edward Arundel as implicitly as she had
+trusted in her dead father. But now, for the first time, a dreadful
+region of doubt opened before her; the foundations of her world reeled
+beneath her feet. Edward Arundel a fortune-hunter! This woman, whom she
+had obeyed for five weary years, and who had acquired that ascendancy
+over her which a determined and vigorous nature must always exercise
+over a morbidly sensitive disposition, told her that she had been
+deluded. This woman laughed aloud in bitter scorn of her credulity.
+This woman, who could have no possible motive for torturing her, and
+who was known to be scrupulously conscientious in all her dealings,
+told her, as plainly as the most cruel words could tell a cruel truth,
+that her own charms could not have won Edward Arundel's affection.
+
+All the beautiful day-dreams of her life melted away from her. She had
+never questioned herself as to her worthiness of her lover's devotion.
+She had accepted it as she accepted the sunshine and the starlight--as
+something beautiful and incomprehensible, that came to her by the
+beneficence of God, and not through any merits of her own. But as the
+fabric of her happiness dwindled away, the fatal spell exercised over
+the girl's weak nature by Olivia's violent words evoked a hundred
+doubts. How should he love her? why should he love her in preference to
+every other woman in the world? Set any woman to ask herself this
+question, and you fill her mind with a thousand suspicions, a thousand
+jealous doubts of her lover, though he were the truest and noblest in
+the universe.
+
+Olivia Marchmont stood a few paces from her stepdaughter, watching her
+while the black shadow of doubt blotted every joy from her heart, and
+utter despair crept slowly into her innocent breast. The widow expected
+that the girl's self-esteem would assert itself--that she would
+contradict and defy the traducer of her lover's truth; but it was not
+so. When Mary spoke again, her voice was low and subdued, her manner as
+submissive as it had been two or three years before, when she had stood
+before her stepmother, waiting to repeat some difficult lesson.
+
+"I dare say you are right, mamma," she said in a low dreamy tone,
+looking not at her stepmother, but straight before her into vacancy, as
+if her tearless eyes ware transfixed by the vision of all her shattered
+hopes, filling with wreck and ruin the desolate foreground of a blank
+future. "I dare say you are right, mamma; it was very foolish of me to
+think that Edward--that Captain Arundel could care for me, for--for--my
+own sake; but if--if he wants my fortune, I should wish him to have it.
+The money will never be any good to me, you know, mamma; and he was so
+kind to papa in his poverty--so kind! I will never, never believe
+anything against him;--but I couldn't expect him to love me. I
+shouldn't have offered to be his wife; I ought only to have offered him
+my fortune."
+
+She heard her lover's footstep in the quadrangle without, in the
+stillness of the summer morning, and shivered at the sound. It was less
+than a quarter of an hour since she had been walking with him up and
+down that cloistered way, in which his footsteps were echoing with a
+hollow sound; and now----. Even in the confusion of her anguish, Mary
+Marchmont could not help wondering, as she thought in how short a time
+the happiness of a future might be swept away into chaos.
+
+"Good-night, mamma," she said presently, with an accent of weariness.
+She did not look at her stepmother (who had turned away from her now,
+and had walked towards the open window), but stole quietly from the
+room, crossed the hall, and went up the broad staircase to her own
+lonely chamber. Heiress though she was, she had no special attendant of
+her own: she had the privilege of summoning Olivia's maid whenever she
+had need of assistance; but she retained the simple habits of her early
+life, and very rarely troubled Mrs. Marchmont's grim and elderly
+Abigail.
+
+Olivia stood looking out into the stony quadrangle. It was broad
+daylight now; the cocks were crowing in the distance, and a skylark
+singing somewhere in the blue heaven, high up above Marchmont Towers.
+The faded garlands in the banqueting-room looked wan in the morning
+sunshine; the lamps were burning still, for the servants waited until
+Mrs. Marchmont should have retired, before they entered the room.
+Edward Arundel was walking up and down the cloister, smoking his second
+cigar.
+
+He stopped presently, seeing his cousin at the window.
+
+"What, Livy!" he cried, "not gone to bed yet?"
+
+"No; I am going directly."
+
+"Mary has gone, I hope?"
+
+"Yes; she has gone. Good-night."
+
+"Good _morning_, my dear Mrs. Marchmont," the young man answered,
+laughing. "If the partridges were in, I should be going out shooting,
+this lovely morning, instead of crawling ignominiously to bed, like a
+worn-out reveller who has drunk too much sparkling hock. I like the
+still best, by-the-bye,--the Johannisberger, that poor John's
+predecessor imported from the Rhine. But I suppose there is no help for
+it, and I must go to bed in the face of all that eastern glory. I
+should be mounting for a gallop on the race-course, if I were in
+Calcutta. But I'll go to bed, Mrs Marchmont, and humbly await your
+breakfast-hour. They're stacking the new hay in the meadows beyond the
+park. Don't you smell it?"
+
+Olivia shrugged her shoulders with an impatient frown. Good heavens!
+how frivolous and senseless this man's talk seemed to her! She was
+plunging her soul into an abyss of sin and ruin for his sake; and she
+hated him, and rebelled against him, because he was so little worthy of
+the sacrifice.
+
+"Good morning," she said abruptly; "I'm tired to death."
+
+She moved away, and left him.
+
+Five minutes afterwards, he went up the great oak-staircase after her,
+whistling a serenade from _Fra Diavolo_ as he went. He was one of those
+people to whom life seems all holiday. Younger son though he was, he
+had never known any of the pitfalls of debt and difficulty into which
+the junior members of rich families are so apt to plunge headlong in
+early youth, and from which they emerge enfeebled and crippled, to
+endure an after-life embittered by all the shabby miseries which wait
+upon aristocratic pauperism. Brave, honourable, and simple-minded,
+Edward Arundel had fought the battle of life like a good soldier, and
+had carried a stainless shield when the fight was thickest, and victory
+hard to win. His sunshiny nature won him friends, and his better
+qualities kept them. Young men trusted and respected him; and old men,
+gray in the service of their country, spoke well of him. His handsome
+face was a pleasant decoration at any festival; his kindly voice and
+hearty laugh at a dinner-table were as good as music in the gallery at
+the end of the banqueting-chamber.
+
+He had that freshness of spirit which is the peculiar gift of some
+natures; and he had as yet never known sorrow, except, indeed, such
+tender and compassionate sympathy as he had often felt for the
+calamities of others.
+
+Olivia Marchmont heard her cousin's cheery tenor voice as he passed her
+chamber. "How happy he is!" she thought. "His very happiness is one
+insult the more to me."
+
+The widow paced up and down her room in the morning sunshine, thinking
+of the things she had said in the banqueting-hall below, and of her
+stepdaughter's white despairing face. What had she done? What was the
+extent of the sin she had committed? Olivia Marchmont asked herself
+these two questions. The old habit of self-examination was not quite
+abandoned yet. She sinned, and then set herself to work to try and
+justify her sin.
+
+"How should he love her?" she thought. "What is there in her pale
+unmeaning face that should win the love of a man who despises me?"
+
+She stopped before a cheval-glass, and surveyed herself from head to
+foot, frowning angrily at her handsome image, hating herself for her
+despised beauty. Her white shoulders looked like stainless marble
+against the rich ruby darkness of her velvet dress. She had snatched
+the diamond ornaments from her head, and her long black hair fell about
+her bosom in thick waveless tresses.
+
+"I am handsomer than she is, and cleverer; and I love him better, ten
+thousand times, than she loves him," Olivia Marchmont thought, as she
+turned contemptuously from the glass. "Is it likely, then, that he
+cares for anything but her fortune? Any other woman in the world would
+have argued as I argued to-night. Any woman would have believed that
+she did her duty in warning this besotted girl against her folly. What
+do I know of Edward Arundel that should lead me to think him better or
+nobler than other men? and how many men sell themselves for the love of
+a woman's wealth! Perhaps good may come of my mad folly, after all; and
+I may have saved this girl from a life of misery by the words I have
+spoken to-night."
+
+The devils--for ever lying in wait for this woman, whose gloomy pride
+rendered her in some manner akin to themselves--may have laughed at her
+as she argued thus with herself.
+
+She lay down at last to sleep, worn out by the excitement of the long
+night, and to dream horrible dreams. The servants, with the exception
+of one who rose betimes to open the great house, slept long after the
+unwonted festival. Edward Arundel slumbered as heavily as any member of
+that wearied household; and thus it was that there was no one in the
+way to see a shrinking, trembling figure creep down the
+sunlit-staircase, and steal across the threshold of the wide hall door.
+
+There was no one to see Mary Marchmont's silent flight from the gaunt
+Lincolnshire mansion in which she had known so little real happiness.
+There was no one to comfort the sorrow-stricken girl in her despair and
+desolation of spirit. She crept away, like some escaped prisoner, in
+the early morning, from the house which the law called her own.
+
+And the hand of the woman whom John Marchmont had chosen to be his
+daughter's friend and counsellor was the hand which drove that daughter
+from the shelter of her home. The voice of her whom the weak father had
+trusted in, fearful to confide his child into the hand of God, but
+blindly confident in his own judgment--was the voice which had uttered
+the lying words, whose every syllable had been as a separate dagger
+thrust in the orphan girl's lacerated heart. It was her father,--her
+father, who had placed this woman over her, and had entailed upon her
+the awful agony that drove her out into an unknown world, careless
+whither she went in her despair.
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of John Marchmont's Legacy, Volume I (of
+3), by Mary E. Braddon
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