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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, Volumes I-III + +Author: Mary E. Braddon + +Release Date: December 1, 2010 [EBook #34542] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY *** + + + + +Produced by Clare Graham, using scans from the Internet Archive + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY.</h1> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p>BY [M.E. Braddon] THE AUTHOR OF</p> + +<p>"LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET,"</p> + +<p>ETC. ETC. ETC.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p>Published by Tinsley Brothers of London in 1863 (third edition).</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>THIS STORY<br /> +Is Dedicated<br /> +TO<br /> +MY MOTHER</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<h3>VOLUME I<br /> +</h3> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER">CHAPTER I.</a> THE MAN WITH THE BANNER.<a></a></h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER1">CHAPTER II.</a> LITTLE MARY.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER2">CHAPTER III.</a> ABOUT THE LINCOLNSHIRE PROPERTY.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER3">CHAPTER IV.</a> GOING AWAY.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER4">CHAPTER V.</a> MARCHMONT TOWERS.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER42">CHAPTER VI.</a> THE YOUNG SOLDIER'S RETURN.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER5">CHAPTER VII.</a> OLIVIA.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER6">CHAPTER VIII.</a> "MY LIFE IS COLD, AND DARK, AND +DREARY."<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER7">CHAPTER IX.</a> "WHEN SHALL I CEASE TO BE ALL +ALONE?"<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER8">CHAPTER X.</a> MARY'S STEPMOTHER.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER9">CHAPTER XI.</a> THE DAY OF DESOLATION.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER10">CHAPTER XII.</a> PAUL.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER11">CHAPTER XIII.</a> OLIVIA'S DESPAIR.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER12">CHAPTER XIV.</a> DRIVEN AWAY.</h4> + +<p></p> + +<h3>VOLUME II.<br /> +</h3> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER13">CHAPTER I.</a> MARY'S LETTER.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER14">CHAPTER II.</a> A NEW PROTECTOR.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER15">CHAPTER III.</a> PAUL'S SISTER.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER16">CHAPTER IV.</a> A STOLEN HONEYMOON.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER17">CHAPTER V.</a> SOUNDING THE DEPTHS.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER18">CHAPTER VI.</a> RISEN FROM THE GRAVE.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER19">CHAPTER VII.</a> FACE TO FACE.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER20">CHAPTER VIII.</a> THE PAINTING–ROOM BY THE +RIVER.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER21">CHAPTER IX.</a> IN THE DARK.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER22">CHAPTER X.</a> THE PARAGRAPH IN THE NEWSPAPER.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER23">CHAPTER XI.</a> EDWARD ARUNDEL'S DESPAIR.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER24">CHAPTER XII.</a> EDWARD'S VISITORS.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER25">CHAPTER XIII.</a> ONE MORE SACRIFICE.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER26">CHAPTER XIV.</a> THE CHILD'S VOICE IN THE PAVILION BY +THE WATER.</h4> + +<p></p> + +<h3>VOLUME III<br /> +</h3> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER27">CHAPTER I.</a> CAPTAIN ARUNDEL'S REVENGE.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER28">CHAPTER II.</a> THE DESERTED CHAMBERS.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER29">CHAPTER III.</a> TAKING IT QUIETLY.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER30">CHAPTER IV.</a> MISS LAWFORD SPEAKS HER MIND.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER31">CHAPTER V.</a> THE RETURN OF THE WANDERER.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER32">CHAPTER VI.</a> A WIDOWER'S PROPOSAL.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER33">CHAPTER VII.</a> HOW THE TIDINGS WERE RECEIVED IN +LINCOLNSHIRE.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER34">CHAPTER VIII.</a> MR. WESTON REFUSES TO BE TRAMPLED +ON.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER35">CHAPTER IX.</a> "GOING TO BE MARRIED!"<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER36">CHAPTER X.</a> THE TURNING OF THE TIDE.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER37">CHAPTER XI.</a> BELINDA'S WEDDING DAY.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER38">CHAPTER XII.</a> MARY'S STORY.<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER39">CHAPTER XIII.</a> "ALL WITHIN IS DARK AS NIGHT."<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER40">CHAPTER XIV.</a> "THERE IS CONFUSION WORSE THAN +DEATH."<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#CHAPTER41">CHAPTER THE LAST.</a> "DEAR IS THE MEMORY OF OUR +WEDDED LIVES."<br /> +</h4> + +<h4><a href="#EPILOGUE.">THE EPILOGUE.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h2>JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY.</h2> + +<p></p> + +<h3>VOLUME I.</h3> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER" id="CHAPTER">CHAPTER I.<br /> +THE MAN WITH THE BANNER.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>valse à deux temps</em> or an +Italian scena.</p> + +<p>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 <em>Sporting Magazine</em>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"A <em>nursery</em> 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."</p> + +<p>He laughed bitterly as he repeated the obnoxious phrase; but his laugh +changed to a sigh.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel sighed.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How you do fidget, Edward!" whispered Martin Mostyn peevishly; "why don't +you look at the stage? It's capital fun."</p> + +<p>"Fun!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mr. Mostyn turned upon his cousin with some vexation.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Forgotten what––forgotten whom? My dear Edward, what +<em>do</em> you mean?"</p> + +<p>"John Marchmont, the poor fellow who used to teach us mathematics at +Vernon's; the fellow the governor sacked +because––––"</p> + +<p>"Well, what of him?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Martin Mostyn did not attempt to repress an involuntary sneer, which curled +his lips as his cousin spoke.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I dare say you've heard <em>him</em> say so, my dear boy," he murmured +superciliously.</p> + +<p>"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––––"</p> + +<p>"A <em>silver</em> watch–chain," simpered Mr. Mostyn, "just like a +carpenter's."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel had left his place, and was trying to undo the door of the +box.</p> + +<p>"To see if I can get at this poor fellow."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Barking Jeremiah!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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––"</p> + +<p>"Yaase," interrupted the door–keeper, sarcastically, "Zey bake von of +him pegause off dad."</p> + +<p>"And can I see him?"</p> + +<p>"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 zat zuber vith ze pad gough, ze +man zay gall Parking."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's Mortimore."</p> + +<p>"To you know if he's on in ze virsd zene?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He's one of the demons; but the scene's just over. Do you want +him?"</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>Mr. Arundel handed his card to the dirty boy.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"I was so sorry to see you here, Marchmont; I knew you in a moment, in spite +of the disguise."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Why do you do this, Marchmont?" the boy asked bluntly.</p> + +<p>"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––"</p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly, interrupted by a paroxysm of coughing.</p> + +<p>"If it wasn't for whom, old fellow?"</p> + +<p>"My poor little girl; my poor little motherless Mary."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont shook his head.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Arundel had pulled out a smart morocco pocket–book and a gold +pencil–case.</p> + +<p>"Twenty–seven, Oakley Street, Lambeth. But I'd rather you wouldn't +come, Arundel; your friends wouldn't like it."</p> + +<p>"My friends may go hang themselves. I shall do as I like, and I'll be with +you to breakfast, sharp ten."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I can't stop another moment. Go back to your friends, Arundel. Good night. +God bless you!"</p> + +<p>"Stay; one word. The Lincolnshire property––"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER1" id="CHAPTER1">CHAPTER II.<br /> +LITTLE MARY.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If he <em>could</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>A little hand knocked lightly at the door of his room while he was thinking +this, and a childish voice said,</p> + +<p>"May I come in, papa?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>too much</em>. 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 <em>might</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>more</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"A 'nice' breakfast you say, papa," she said, when her father had finished +speaking; "then we must have watercresses, <em>of course</em>."</p> + +<p>"And hot rolls, Polly dear. Arundel was always fond of hot rolls."</p> + +<p>"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 <em>such</em> a lot of butter, though."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"We could have haddocks every day at Marchmont Towers, couldn't we, papa?" +she said naïvely.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What a snob I am!" he thought; "always bragging of home."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER2" id="CHAPTER2">CHAPTER III.<br /> +ABOUT THE LINCOLNSHIRE PROPERTY.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>While Mary sat absorbed in such idle visions as these, Mr. Marchmont and his +old pupil walked towards Waterloo Bridge together.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; within nine miles."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The estate's a very large one," he said finally; "but the idea of +<em>my</em> ever getting it is, of course, too preposterous."</p> + +<p>"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 <em>he'll</em> die soon. The present possessor himself is +a middle–aged man; so I shouldn't think <em>he</em> 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––"</p> + +<p>"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––"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What!" demanded John Marchmont sadly, "in a darned pinafore and a +threadbare frock?"</p> + +<p>The boy's face flushed, almost indignantly, as his old master said this.</p> + +<p>"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––"</p> + +<p>He stopped, ashamed of his want of tact; for he knew John would divine the +meaning of that sudden pause.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Arthur! that's the son of the present possessor?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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<em>d</em> a pound,' +and all that sort of thing, you know. Do make me understand it, old fellow, if +you can."</p> + +<p>John Marchmont sighed.</p> + +<p>"It's a wearisome story, Arundel," he said. "I don't know why I should bore +you with it."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<em>should</em> 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 <em>one</em> +friend––generous and disinterested like you, +Arundel,––who, if the chance <em>did</em> come, would see her +righted."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I'll <em>write</em> 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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He employed a part of that afternoon in writing the letter which he had +promised to send to his boyish friend:––</p> + +<p>"MY DEAR ARUNDEL,</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"It is this man, Paul Marchmont the artist, whom I fear.</p> + +<p>"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. <em>Noblesse +oblige!</em> I am not afraid that Edward Dangerfield Arundel will betray any +trust, however foolish, that may have been confided to him.</p> + +<p>"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 +<em>you</em> 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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"JOHN MARCHMONT.</p> + +<p>"27, OAKLEY STREET, LAMBETH,</p> + +<p>"<em>December</em> 30<em>th</em>, 1838.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>"EXTRACT FROM THE WILL OF PHILIP MARCHMONT, SENIOR, OF MARCHMONT TOWERS.</p> + +<p>"'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' [<em>This, you will see, is my little Mary</em>] '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> + +<p>"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 <em>very</em> contingent +remainder."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <em>is</em> 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</p> + +<p>"Your ever devoted Roman countryman and lover,</p> + +<p>"EDWARD</p> + +<p>"42, MONTAGUE SQUARE,</p> + +<p>"<em>December</em> 3l<em>st</em>, 1838.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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 <em>why</em> 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER3" id="CHAPTER3">CHAPTER IV.<br /> +GOING AWAY.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The boy coloured, and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"It's very kind of you to think of it, mother dear; but I don't think that +would quite answer," he said.</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because, you see, John Marchmont is a gentleman; and, you know, though he's +so dreadfully poor now, he <em>is</em> 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."</p> + +<p>So nothing more was to be said or done upon the subject.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <em>Auckland</em> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"We haven't so many friends, Polly," he said, "that we should be indifferent +to the loss of this one."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mr. Arundel was a country gentleman <em>pur et simple</em>; 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER4" id="CHAPTER4">CHAPTER V.<br /> +MARCHMONT TOWERS.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>menu</em>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>inside</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But he might have half my money, papa, or all of it," Mary added piteously. +"What could I do with money, if––––"</p> + +<p>She didn't finish the sentence; she never could complete any such sentence +as this; but her father knew what she meant.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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––––"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Marchmont––John––call––Messrs. Tindal +and Trollam––" gasped Mr. Mathewson. "Do you mean to tell me it's +<em>you</em>?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>employés</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER42" id="CHAPTER42">CHAPTER VI.<br /> +THE YOUNG SOLDIER'S RETURN.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I <em>would</em> 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, is it you, Mr. Arundel? Is it really you?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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––––"</p> + +<p>"That I should be killed, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; or wounded very, very badly. The battles in India have been dreadful, +have they not?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Arundel smiled at her earnestness.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Then you've not been wounded at all, Mr. Arundel?" she said, after a +pause.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I've been wounded; I got a bullet in my shoulder from an Affghan +musket, and I'm home on sick–leave."</p> + +<p>This time he saw the expression of her face, and interpreted her look of +alarm.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You will go out again!––––"</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel smiled at her mournful tone.</p> + +<p>"To be sure, Miss Mary. I have my captaincy to win, you know; I'm only a +lieutenant, as yet."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, papa; out of my pocket–money, if you like."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You got my letter, then?" John said; "the letter in which I told +you––––"</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel saw that faint crimson glow lighting up in her face.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Arundel."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, Mr. Arundel; I should like it very, very much."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel did not understand all this, but I think he had a dim +comprehension of the greater part of it.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary Marchmont shook her head.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"It's not a pretty house, is it, Miss Marchmont?" asked Edward, as he lifted +his companion out of the carriage.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She rose as Edward opened the door, and came to meet him.</p> + +<p>"At last!" she said; "I thought your rich friends engrossed all your +attention."</p> + +<p>She paused, seeing Mary.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>her</em> mercy! Heaven help delinquents of every kind whose +last lingering hope had been in her compassion!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How different she is from Edward!" thought Miss Marchmont. "I shall never +like her as I like him."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The lines about the rigid mouth grew harder, the cold light in the grey eyes +grew colder, as the young lady thought this.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER5" id="CHAPTER5">CHAPTER VII.<br /> +OLIVIA.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>could</em> not love +her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by an important mission, Edward?" she said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>Miss Arundel shrugged her shoulders, with an impatient sigh.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>insouciance</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>"Is my uncle in the house?" Mr. Arundel asked, as he strolled from the +stable into the garden with his cousin by his side.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Sitting in close cottages!" repeated Edward. "Ah, to be sure; visiting your +rheumatic old pensioners, I suppose. How good you are, Olivia!"</p> + +<p>"Good!"</p> + +<p>She echoed the word in the very bitterness of a scorn that could not be +repressed.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Only a few years! She started at the phrase, and bit her lip.</p> + +<p>"I was three–and–twenty last month," she said.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Olivia Arundel's face flushed a vivid crimson to the roots of her black +hair.</p> + +<p>"How dare you come here to insult me, Edward Arundel?" she cried +passionately.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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 +<em>do</em> insult me, Edward Arundel, when you talk as you have talked +to–night."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"I'm not your sister Letitia."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Olivia tossed the rumpled hair from her forehead with an impatient gesture +of her hand.</p> + +<p>"Why should this Mr. Marchmont think all this of me?" she said, +"when––" she stopped abruptly.</p> + +<p>"When––what, Livy?"</p> + +<p>"When other people don't think it."</p> + +<p>"How do you know what other people think? You haven't asked them, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"If you like, papa."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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'?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER6" id="CHAPTER6">CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +"MY LIFE IS COLD, AND DARK, AND DREARY."</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How do you like my cousin, Polly?" he asked at last.</p> + +<p>"Your cousin, Miss Arundel?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"She is very handsome."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary blushed again.</p> + +<p>"I don't know Miss Arundel well enough to like her––yet," she +answered timidly.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Jealous of her!"</p> + +<p>The bright colour faded out of Mary Marchmont's face, and left her ashy +pale.</p> + +<p>"Do <em>you</em> like her, then?" she asked.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Arundel was not such a coxcomb as to catch at the secret so naïvely +betrayed in that breathless question.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Your papa."</p> + +<p>Mary looked at the young soldier in utter bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Papa!" she echoed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Polly. How would you like a stepmamma? How would you like your papa to +marry again?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"My papa––marry again!" gasped Mary. "How dare you say such a +thing, Mr. Arundel?"</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr Arundel!" she said, piteously appealing to the young man, "papa +would never, never, never marry again,––would he?"</p> + +<p>"Not if it was to grieve you, Polly, I dare say," Edward answered +soothingly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"She, who is so good to all her father's parishioners, could not refuse to +be kind to my poor Mary?" he thought.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>could</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"You do not love me, Mr. Marchmont?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me," John stammered; "believe me, Miss Arundel, I respect, I esteem +you so much, that––"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Miss Arundel," exclaimed John Marchmont, "forgive me! You misunderstand me; +indeed you do. Had I thought that I could have offended you––"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She broke into a sigh as she finished speaking.</p> + +<p>"And you will not reject my appeal?"</p> + +<p>"I scarcely know what to do," answered Olivia, pressing her hand to her +forehead.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If I accept this responsibility, I will perform it faithfully," she said, +rather to herself than to Mr. Marchmont.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Will you be sorry when I am married, Edward Arundel?" she murmured; "will +you be sorry?"</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER7" id="CHAPTER7">CHAPTER IX.<br /> +"WHEN SHALL I CEASE TO BE ALL ALONE?"</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>He did urge her, pleading John Marchmont's cause a great deal more warmly +than the widower had himself pleaded.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid I have not done my duty to you, papa," she said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"My darling," cried Mr. Arundel, "you have been all that is good!"</p> + +<p>"No, no, papa; I have been cold, reserved, silent."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"You wish me to many Mr. Marchmont, then, papa?"</p> + +<p>"I do, indeed, my love. For your own sake, of course," the Rector added +deprecatingly.</p> + +<p>"You really wish it?"</p> + +<p>"Very, very much, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Then I will marry him, papa."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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––"</p> + +<p>His daughter turned upon him sharply as he rambled on.</p> + +<p>"Somebody who loves me!" she echoed. "What have you ever seen that should +make you think any one loved me?"</p> + +<p>The harshness of her tone jarred upon Mr. Arundel, and made him still more +nervous.</p> + +<p>"My love, I beg your pardon, I have seen nothing. I––"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Marchmont, my dear,––surely he loves and admires you?" +remonstrated the Rector.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marchmont wants a governess and <em>chaperone</em> for his daughter, +and thinks me a suitable person to fill such a post; that is all the +<em>love</em> 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?"</p> + +<p>She asked the question eagerly, almost breathlessly; as if her decision +depended upon her father's answer.</p> + +<p>"A sin, my dear! How can you ask such a question?"</p> + +<p>"Very well, then; if I commit no sin in accepting this offer, I will accept +it."</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry I stayed out so long, papa" she said; "I had no idea it was so +late."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Olivia dropped her knife and fork, and rose from her chair suddenly, with a +strange look, which was almost terror, in her face.</p> + +<p>"It is quite decided, then?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my love. But you are not sorry, are you?"</p> + +<p>"Sorry! No; I am glad."</p> + +<p>She sank back into her chair with a sigh of relief. She <em>was</em> glad. +The prospect of this strange marriage offered a relief from the horrible +oppression of her life.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER8" id="CHAPTER8">CHAPTER X.<br /> +MARY'S STEPMOTHER.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>John Marchmont shook his head sadly.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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 +<em>knew</em> 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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The tears were in her eyes as she pleaded to him. The sight of those tears +made him terribly nervous.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>She clung closely to her father, and looked up, pale and trembling, as she +answered him.</p> + +<p>"When you die, papa, I shall die too. I could never, never live without +you."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mary burst into a low wail, more pitiful than any ordinary weeping.</p> + +<p>"O papa, papa," she cried, "you never will, you never will!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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––"</p> + +<p>Mary interrupted him by a sudden exclamation, that was almost like a cry of +pain.</p> + +<p>"Not Miss Arundel!" she said. "O papa, it is not Miss Arundel you're going +to marry!"</p> + +<p>Her father bent his head in assent.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Love her!" exclaimed Mr. Marchmont naïvely; "no, Polly dear; you know I +never loved any one but you."</p> + +<p>"Why do you marry her then?"</p> + +<p>"For your sake, Polly; for your sake."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Mary! Mary!"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"I will try and do my duty," Mrs. Marchmont answered. "I pray that I never +may do less."</p> + +<p>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 <em>she could +not</em>––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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>she</em> 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?</p> + +<p>"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,––<em>then</em> +we may grow fond of each other."</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>"I believe you will, my dear," Olivia answered, kindly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>could</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In vain Hubert Arundel talked to him; in vain did he himself pray for faith +and comfort in this dark hour of trial. He <em>could</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER9" id="CHAPTER9">CHAPTER XI.<br /> +THE DAY OF DESOLATION.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was <em>not</em> all over. Time and space would <em>not</em> be +annihilated. The weary, monotonous, workaday world would still go on upon its +course. <em>Nothing</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Don't tell my stepmother anything about me, Susan," she said; "I think I +was mad last night."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER10" id="CHAPTER10">CHAPTER XII.<br /> +PAUL.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>cortège</em>; and now she abandoned herself for a brief space to +that idleness which was so unusual to her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She was free to love Edward Arundel again.</p> + +<p>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––!</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 for +ever in this weary world!"</p> + +<p>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 +<em>might</em> be so––there <em>might</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>possible</em>; it was at least possible.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I <em>will</em> 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? <em>He will never love me!</em>"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <em>you</em> who +have instilled this horrible madness into my soul; for it <em>could</em> not +come of itself."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>possessed</em>; 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Paul Marchmont."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"The gentleman is waiting to see me, I suppose?" Mrs. Marchmont said.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Tell him I will come to him immediately. Is he in the +drawing–room?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>white</em>, although its owner could not have been more +than thirty–seven years of age.</p> + +<p>The uninvited guest rose as Olivia Marchmont entered the room.</p> + +<p>"I have the honour of speaking to my cousin's widow?" he said, with a +courteous smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am Mrs. Marchmont."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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––––"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Neighbours!" repeated Olivia, in a tone of surprise.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"No, I have never been there. It is five–and–twenty miles from +here."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"You would wish to hear the reading of the will?" Olivia said, +interrogatively.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>He stopped, and looked at Olivia's impassible face.</p> + +<p>"What on earth could have induced this woman to marry my cousin?" he +thought. "John could have had very little to leave his widow."</p> + +<p>He played with the ornaments at his watch–chain, looking reflectively +at the fire for some moments.</p> + +<p>"Miss Marchmont,––my cousin, Mary Marchmont, I should +say,––bears her loss pretty well, I hope?"</p> + +<p>Olivia shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to say that my stepdaughter displays very little Christian +resignation," she said.</p> + +<p>And then a spirit within her arose and whispered, with a mocking voice, +"What resignation do <em>you</em> show beneath <em>your</em> +affliction,––you, who should be so good a Christian? How have +<em>you</em> learned to school your rebellious heart?"</p> + +<p>"My cousin is very young," Paul Marchmont said, presently.</p> + +<p>"She was fifteen last July."</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"We shall want Miss Marchmont here, if you please," Mr. Paulette said, as he +looked up from his papers.</p> + +<p>"Is it necessary that she should be present?" Olivia asked.</p> + +<p>"Very necessary."</p> + +<p>"But she is ill; she is in bed."</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It opened at last, and Mary Marchmont came into the room, followed by her +stepmother.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>What was the emotion which had now blanched his cheeks? Was he thinking, "Is +<em>this</em> fragile creature the mistress of Marchmont Towers? Is +<em>this</em> frail life all that stands between me and eleven thousand a +year?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 <em>Macbeth</em>, 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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER11" id="CHAPTER11">CHAPTER XIII.<br /> +OLIVIA'S DESPAIR.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>there</em>, the blank +gloom of Olivia's countenance seemed like a dead wall, across which no glimmer +of radiance ever shone.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 +<em>such</em> a change after Oakley Street."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>The orphan girl never for a moment forgot the terms of her father's will. +<em>He</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Better for me if he had died," she thought; "better for me if I were to +hear of his death to–morrow!"</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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!"</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"I did not know you were in England," she said.</p> + +<p>"Scarcely any one knows it yet," the young man answered; "and I have not +even been home. I came to Marchmont Towers at once."</p> + +<p>He turned from his cousin to Mary, who was standing a little behind her +stepmother.</p> + +<p>"Dear Polly," he said, taking both her hands in his, "I was so sorry for +you, when I heard––––"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Olivia started as the young man said this. It was Mary Marchmont whom he had +come to see, then––not herself. Was <em>she</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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? <em>Could</em> 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?</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>le +genre</em> 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 <em>nonchalance</em> 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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>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 <em>arrière–pensée</em>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>too</em> 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 <em>surveillance</em>.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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 <em>love</em>? 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Arundel has come home?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am, he came in half an hour ago; but he went out again almost +directly with Miss Marchmont."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! I thought Miss Marchmont was in her room?"</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am; she came down to the drawing–room about an hour after you +left. Her head was better, ma'am, she said."</p> + +<p>"And she went out with Mr. Arundel? Do you know which way they went?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am; I heard Mr. Arundel say he wanted to look at the old +boat–house by the river."</p> + +<p>"And they have gone there?"</p> + +<p>"I think so, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Very good; I will go down to them. Miss Marchmont must not stop out in the +night–air. The dew is falling already."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Sorry you came back?" cried Mary, in a tone of alarm. "Oh, why do you say +that, Mr. Arundel?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"But what then?" Mary asked wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"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––––"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"If I were not rich!" murmured Mary; "what if I were not rich?"</p> + +<p>"I should tell you how dearly I love you, Polly, and ask you to be my wife +by–and–by."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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––"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER12" id="CHAPTER12">CHAPTER XIV.<br /> +DRIVEN AWAY.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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!"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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 been 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.</p> + +<p>Nothing but despair? Yes; perhaps something +further,––revenge.</p> + +<p>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 +<em>could</em> 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 <em>knew</em> that Edward +Arundel loved her stepdaughter.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<em>him</em> as the future shelterer of this tender blossom.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Did papa say that, Edward?" she whispered; "did he really say that?"</p> + +<p>"Did he really say what, darling?"</p> + +<p>"That he left me to you as a legacy?"</p> + +<p>"He did indeed, Polly," answered the young man. "I'll bring you the letter +to–morrow."</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>"Papa's cousin––Mr Marchmont the artist?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"He came to the reading of papa's will."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! and did you see much of him?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"And he has never been here since?"</p> + +<p>"Never."</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont shrugged her shoulders with a short contemptuous laugh.</p> + +<p>"I am well enough," she said. "Who cares whether I am well or ill?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Olivia watched the young man as he bent over Mary Marchmont.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"How often do you mean to dance with Captain Arundel, Miss Marchmont?" she +said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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 care about are gone; and we'll go +out and walk in the moonlight as true lovers ought."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing that could ever happen to you that would make me love you +less <em>now</em>," 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 <em>only</em> 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.</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont came into the embrasure of the open window, and took her +place there to watch them.</p> + +<p>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 <em>she</em> could have loved––the only creature who had +ever had the power to awake the instinct of womanhood in her soul.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"<em>What</em> 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?"</p> + +<p>"Mamma, mamma! what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>"Because <em>we</em> 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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He stopped presently, seeing his cousin at the window.</p> + +<p>"What, Livy!" he cried, "not gone to bed yet?"</p> + +<p>"No; I am going directly."</p> + +<p>"Mary has gone, I hope?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; she has gone. Good–night."</p> + +<p>"Good <em>morning</em>, 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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," she said abruptly; "I'm tired to death."</p> + +<p>She moved away, and left him.</p> + +<p>Five minutes afterwards, he went up the great oak–staircase after her, +whistling a serenade from <em>Fra Diavolo</em> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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?"</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>"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."</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h3>VOLUME II.</h3> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER13" id="CHAPTER13">CHAPTER I.<br /> +MARY'S LETTER.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>It was past twelve o'clock when Edward Arundel strolled into the +dining–room. The windows were open, and the scent of the mignionette upon +the terrace was blown in upon the warm summer breeze.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont was sitting at one end of the long table, reading a +newspaper. She looked up as Edward entered the room. She was pale, but not much +paler than usual. The feverish light had faded out of her eyes, and they looked +dim and heavy.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Livy," the young man said. "Mary is not up yet, I +suppose?"</p> + +<p>"I believe not."</p> + +<p>"Poor little girl! A long rest will do her good after her first ball. How +pretty and fairy–like she looked in her white gauze dress, and with that +circlet of pearls round her hair! Your taste, I suppose, Olivia? She looked +like a snow–drop among all the other gaudy flowers,––the +roses and tiger–lilies, and peonies and dahlias. That eldest Miss Hickman +is handsome, but she's so terribly conscious of her attractions. That little +girl from Swampington with the black ringlets is rather pretty; and Laura +Filmer is a jolly, dashing girl; she looks you full in the face, and talks to +you about hunting with as much gusto as an old whipper–in. I don't think +much of Major Hawley's three tall sandy–haired daughters; but Fred +Hawley's a capital fellow: it's a pity he's a civilian. In short, my dear +Olivia, take it altogether, I think your ball was a success, and I hope you'll +give us another in the hunting–season."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont did not condescend to reply to her cousin's meaningless +rattle. She sighed wearily, and began to fill the tea–pot from the +old–fashioned silver urn. Edward loitered in one of the windows, +whistling to a peacock that was stalking solemnly backwards and forwards upon +the stone balustrade.</p> + +<p>"I should like to drive you and Mary down to the seashore, Livy, after +breakfast. Will you go?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I am a great deal too tired to think of going out to–day," she said +ungraciously.</p> + +<p>"And I never felt fresher in my life," the young man responded, laughing; +"last night's festivities seem to have revivified me. I wish Mary would come +down," he added, with a yawn; "I could give her another lesson in billiards, at +any rate. Poor little girl, I am afraid she'll never make a cannon."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel sat down to his breakfast, and drank the cup of tea poured +out for him by Olivia. Had she been a sinful woman of another type, she would +have put arsenic into the cup perhaps, and so have made an end of the young +officer and of her own folly. As it was, she only sat by, with her own untasted +breakfast before her, and watched him while he ate a plateful of raised pie, +and drank his cup of tea, with the healthy appetite which generally accompanies +youth and a good conscience. He sprang up from the table directly he had +finished his meal, and cried out impatiently, "What can make Mary so lazy this +morning? she is usually such an early riser."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont rose as her cousin said this, and a vague feeling of +uneasiness took possession of her mind. She remembered the white face which had +blanched beneath the angry glare of her eyes, the blank look of despair that +had come over Mary's countenance a few hours before.</p> + +<p>"I will go and call her myself," she said. "N––no; I'll send +Barbara." She did not wait to ring the bell, but went into the hall, and called +sharply, "Barbara! Barbara!"</p> + +<p>A woman came out of a passage leading to the housekeeper's room, in answer +to Mrs. Marchmont's call; a woman of about fifty years of age, dressed in gray +stuff, and with a grave inscrutable face, a wooden countenance that gave no +token of its owner's character. Barbara Simmons might have been the best or the +worst of women, a Mrs. Fry or a Mrs. Brownrigg, for any evidence her face +afforded against either hypothesis.</p> + +<p>"I want you to go up–stairs, Barbara, and call Miss Marchmont," Olivia +said. "Captain Arundel and I have finished breakfast."</p> + +<p>The woman obeyed, and Mrs. Marchmont returned to the dining–room, +where Edward was trying to amuse himself with the "Times" of the previous +day.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes afterwards Barbara Simmons came into the room carrying a letter +on a silver waiter. Had the document been a death–warrant, or a +telegraphic announcement of the landing of the French at Dover, the +well–trained servant would have placed it upon a salver before presenting +it to her mistress.</p> + +<p>"Miss Marchmont is not in her room, ma'am," she said; "the bed has not been +slept on; and I found this letter, addressed to Captain Arundel, upon the +table."</p> + +<p>Olivia's face grew livid; a horrible dread rushed into her mind. Edward +snatched the letter which the servant held towards him.</p> + +<p>"Mary not in her room! What, in Heaven's name, can it mean?" he cried.</p> + +<p>He tore open the letter. The writing was not easily decipherable for the +tears which the orphan girl had shed over it.</p> + +<p>"MY OWN DEAR EDWARD,––I have loved you so dearly and so +foolishly, and you have been so kind to me, that I have quite forgotten how +unworthy I am of your affection. But I am forgetful no longer. Something has +happened which has opened my eyes to my own folly,––I know now that +you did not love me; that I had no claim to your love; no charms or attractions +such as so many other women possess, and for which you might have loved me. I +know this now, dear Edward, and that all my happiness has been a foolish dream; +but do not think that I blame any one but myself for what has happened. Take my +fortune: long ago, when I was a little girl, I asked my father to let me share +it with you. I ask you now to take it all, dear friend; and I go away for ever +from a house in which I have learnt how little happiness riches can give. Do +not be unhappy about me. I shall pray for you always,––always +remembering your goodness to my dead father; always looking back to the day +upon which you came to see us in our poor lodging. I am very ignorant of all +worldly business, but I hope the law will let me give you Marchmont Towers, and +all my fortune, whatever it may be. Let Mr. Paulette see this latter part of my +letter, and let him fully understand that I abandon all my rights to you from +this day. Good–bye, dear friend; think of me sometimes, but never think +of me sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>"MARY MARCHMONT."</p> + +<p>This was all. This was the letter which the heart–broken girl had +written to her lover. It was in no manner different from the letter she might +have written to him nine years before in Oakley Street. It was as childish in +its ignorance and inexperience; as womanly in its tender +self–abnegation.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel stared at the simple lines like a man in a dream, doubtful of +his own identity, doubtful of the reality of the world about him, in his +hopeless wonderment. He read the letter line by line again and again, first in +dull stupefaction, and muttering the words mechanically as he read them, then +with the full light of their meaning dawning gradually upon him.</p> + +<p>Her fortune! He had never loved her! She had discovered her own folly! What +did it all mean? What was the clue to the mystery of this letter, which had +stunned and bewildered him, until the very power of reflection seemed lost? The +dawning of that day had seen their parting, and the innocent face had been +lifted to his, beaming with love and trust. And now––? The letter +dropped from his hand, and fluttered slowly to the ground. Olivia Marchmont +stooped to pick it up. Her movement aroused the young man from his stupor, and +in that moment he caught the sight of his cousin's livid face.</p> + +<p>He started as if a thunderbolt had burst at his feet. An idea, sudden as +some inspired revelation, rushed into his mind.</p> + +<p>"Read that letter, Olivia Marchmont!" he said.</p> + +<p>The woman obeyed. Slowly and deliberately she read the childish epistle +which Mary had written to her lover. In every line, in every word, the widow +saw the effect of her own deadly work; she saw how deeply the poison, dropped +from her own envenomed tongue, had sunk into the innocent heart of the girl.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel watched her with flaming eyes. His tall soldierly frame +trembled in the intensity of his passion. He followed his cousin's eyes along +the lines in Mary Marchmont's letter, waiting till she should come to the end. +Then the tumultuous storm of indignation burst forth, until Olivia cowered +beneath the lightning of her cousin's glance.</p> + +<p>Was this the man she had called frivolous? Was this the boyish +red–coated dandy she had despised? Was this the curled and perfumed +representative of swelldom, whose talk never soared to higher flights than the +description of a day's snipe–shooting, or a run with the Burleigh +fox–hounds? The wicked woman's eyelids drooped over her averted eyes; she +turned away, shrinking from this fearless accuser.</p> + +<p>"This mischief is some of <em>your</em> work, Olivia Marchmont!" Edward +Arundel cried. "It is you who have slandered and traduced me to my dead +friend's daughter! Who else would dare accuse a Dangerfield Arundel of +baseness? who else would be vile enough to call my father's son a liar and a +traitor? It is you who have whispered shameful insinuations into this poor +child's innocent ear! I scarcely need the confirmation of your ghastly face to +tell me this. It is you who have driven Mary Marchmont from the home in which +you should have sheltered and protected her! You envied her, I +suppose,––envied her the thousands which might have ministered to +your wicked pride and ambition;––the pride which has always held +you aloof from those who might have loved you; the ambition that has made you a +soured and discontented woman, whose gloomy face repels all natural affection. +You envied the gentle girl whom your dead husband committed to your care, and +who should have been most sacred to you. You envied her, and seized the first +occasion upon which you might stab her to the very core of her tender heart. +What other motive could you have had for doing this deadly wrong? None, so help +me Heaven!"</p> + +<p>No other motive! Olivia Marchmont dropped down in a heap on the ground near +her cousin's feet; not kneeling, but grovelling upon the carpeted floor, +writhing convulsively, with her hands twisted one in the other, and her head +falling forward on her breast. She uttered no syllable of +self–justification or denial. The pitiless words rained down upon her +provoked no reply. But in the depths of her heart sounded the echo of Edward +Arundel's words: "The pride which has always held you aloof from those who +might have loved you; . . . a discontented woman, whose gloomy face repels all +natural affection."</p> + +<p>"O God!" she thought, "he might have loved me, then! He <em>might</em> have +loved me, if I could have locked my anguish in my own heart, and smiled at him +and flattered him."</p> + +<p>And then an icy indifference took possession of her. What did it matter that +Edward Arundel repudiated and hated her? He had never loved her. His careless +friendliness had made as wide a gulf between them as his bitterest hate could +ever make. Perhaps, indeed, his new–born hate would be nearer to love +than his indifference had been, for at least he would think of her now, if he +thought ever so bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Listen to me, Olivia Marchmont," the young man said, while the woman still +crouched upon the ground near his feet, self–confessed in the abandonment +of her despair. "Wherever this girl may have gone, driven hence by your +wickedness, I will follow her. My answer to the lie you have insinuated against +me shall be my immediate marriage with my old friend's orphan child. +<em>He</em> knew me well enough to know how far I was above the baseness of a +fortune–hunter, and he wished that I should be his daughter's husband. I +should be a coward and a fool were I to be for one moment influenced by such a +slander as that which you have whispered in Mary Marchmont's ear. It is not the +individual only whom you traduce. You slander the cloth I wear, the family to +which I belong; and my best justification will be the contempt in which I hold +your infamous insinuations. When you hear that I have squandered Mary +Marchmont's fortune, or cheated the children I pray God she may live to bear +me, it will be time enough for you to tell the world that your kinsman Edward +Dangerfield Arundel is a swindler and a traitor."</p> + +<p>He strode out into the hall, leaving his cousin on the ground; and she heard +his voice outside the dining–room door making inquiries of the +servants.</p> + +<p>They could tell him nothing of Mary's flight. Her bed had not been slept in; +nobody had seen her leave the house; it was most likely, therefore, that she +had stolen away very early, before the servants were astir.</p> + +<p>Where had she gone? Edward Arundel's heart beat wildly as he asked himself +that question. He remembered how often he had heard of women, as young and +innocent as Mary Marchmont, who had rushed to destroy themselves in a tumult of +agony and despair. How easily this poor child, who believed that her dream of +happiness was for ever broken, might have crept down through the gloomy wood to +the edge of the sluggish river, to drop into the weedy stream, and hide her +sorrow under the quiet water. He could fancy her, a new Ophelia, pale and pure +as the Danish prince's slighted love, floating past the weird branches of the +willows, borne up for a while by the current, to sink in silence amongst the +shadows farther down the stream.</p> + +<p>He thought of these things in one moment, and in the next dismissed the +thought. Mary's letter breathed the spirit of gentle resignation rather than of +wild despair. "I shall always pray for you; I shall always remember you," she +had written. Her lover remembered how much sorrow the orphan girl had endured +in her brief life. He looked back to her childish days of poverty and +self–denial; her early loss of her mother; her grief at her father's +second marriage; the shock of that beloved father's death. Her sorrows had +followed each other in gloomy succession, with only narrow intervals of peace +between them. She was accustomed, therefore, to grief. It is the soul untutored +by affliction, the rebellious heart that has never known calamity, which +becomes mad and desperate, and breaks under the first blow. Mary Marchmont had +learned the habit of endurance in the hard school of sorrow.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel walked out upon the terrace, and re–read the missing +girl's letter. He was calmer now, and able to face the situation with all its +difficulties and perplexities. He was losing time perhaps in stopping to +deliberate; but it was no use to rush off in reckless haste, undetermined in +which direction he should seek for the lost mistress of Marchmont Towers. One +of the grooms was busy in the stables saddling Captain Arundel's horse, and in +the mean time the young man went out alone upon the sunny terrace to deliberate +upon Mary's letter.</p> + +<p>Complete resignation was expressed in every line of that childish epistle. +The heiress spoke most decisively as to her abandonment of her fortune and her +home. It was clear, then, that she meant to leave Lincolnshire; for she would +know that immediate steps would be taken to discover her hiding–place, +and bring her back to Marchmont Towers.</p> + +<p>Where was she likely to go in her inexperience of the outer world? where but +to those humble relations of her dead mother's, of whom her father had spoken +in his letter to Edward Arundel, and with whom the young man knew she had kept +up an occasional correspondence, sending them many little gifts out of her +pocket–money. These people were small tenant–farmers, at a place +called Marlingford, in Berkshire. Edward knew their name and the name of the +farm.</p> + +<p>"I'll make inquiries at the Kemberling station to begin with," he thought. +"There's a through train from the north that stops at Kemberling at a little +before six. My poor darling may have easily caught that, if she left the house +at five."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel went back into the hall, and summoned Barbara Simmons. The +woman replied with rather a sulky air to his numerous questions; but she told +him that Miss Marchmont had left her ball–dress upon the bed, and had put +on a gray cashmere dress trimmed with black ribbon, which she had worn as +half–mourning for her father; a black straw bonnet, with a crape veil, +and a silk mantle trimmed with crape. She had taken with her a small +carpet–bag, some linen,––for the linen–drawer of her +wardrobe was open, and the things scattered confusedly about,––and +the little morocco case in which she kept her pearl ornaments, and the diamond +ring left her by her father.</p> + +<p>"Had she any money?" Edward asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; she was never without money. She spent a good deal amongst the +poor people she visited with my mistress; but I dare say she may have had +between ten and twenty pounds in her purse."</p> + +<p>"She will go to Berkshire," Edward Arundel thought: "the idea of going to +her humble friends would be the first to present itself to her mind. She will +go to her dead mother's sister, and give her all her jewels, and ask for +shelter in the quiet farmhouse. She will act like one of the heroines in the +old–fashioned novels she used to read in Oakley Street, the +simple–minded damsels of those innocent story–books, who think +nothing of resigning a castle and a coronet, and going out into the world to +work for their daily bread in a white satin gown, and with a string of pearls +to bind their dishevelled locks."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel's horse was brought round to the terrace–steps, as he +stood with Mary's letter in his hand, waiting to hurry away to the rescue of +his sorrowful love.</p> + +<p>"Tell Mrs. Marchmont that I shall not return to the Towers till I bring her +stepdaughter with me," he said to the groom; and then, without stopping to +utter another word, he shook the rein on his horse's neck, and galloped away +along the gravelled drive leading to the great iron gates of Marchmont +Towers.</p> + +<p>Olivia heard his message, which had been spoken in a clear loud voice, like +some knightly defiance, sounding trumpet–like at a castle–gate. She +stood in one of the windows of the dining–room, hidden by the faded +velvet curtain, and watched her cousin ride away, brave and handsome as any +knight–errant of the chivalrous past, and as true as Bayard himself.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER14" id="CHAPTER14">CHAPTER II.<br /> +A NEW PROTECTOR.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Captain Arundel's inquiries at the Kemberling station resulted in an +immediate success. A young lady––a young woman, the railway +official called her––dressed in black, wearing a crape veil over +her face, and carrying a small carpet–bag in her hand, had taken a +second–class ticket for London, by the 5.50., a parliamentary train, +which stopped at almost every station on the line, and reached Euston Square at +half–past twelve.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>Edward looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to two o'clock. The express +did not stop at Kemberling; but he would be able to catch it at Swampington at +a quarter past three. Even then, however, he could scarcely hope to get to +Berkshire that night.</p> + +<p>"My darling girl will not discover how foolish her doubts have been until +to–morrow," he thought. "Silly child! has my love so little the aspect of +truth that she <em>can</em> doubt me?"</p> + +<p>He sprang on his horse again, flung a shilling to the railway porter who had +held the bridle, and rode away along the Swampington road. The clocks in the +gray old Norman turrets were striking three as the young man crossed the +bridge, and paid his toll at the little toll–house by the stone +archway.</p> + +<p>The streets were as lonely as usual in the hot July afternoon; and the long +line of sea beyond the dreary marshes was blue in the sunshine. Captain Arundel +passed the two churches, and the low–roofed rectory, and rode away to the +outskirts of the town, where the station glared in all the brilliancy of new +red bricks, and dazzling stuccoed chimneys, athwart a desert of waste +ground.</p> + +<p>The express–train came tearing up to the quiet platform two minutes +after Edward had taken his ticket; and in another minute the clanging bell +pealed out its discordant signal, and the young man was borne, with a shriek +and a whistle, away upon the first stage of his search for Mary Marchmont.</p> + +<p>It was nearly seven o'clock when he reached Euston Square; and he only got +to the Paddington station in time to hear that the last train for Marlingford +had just started. There was no possibility of his reaching the little Berkshire +village that night. No mail–train stopped within a reasonable distance of +the obscure station. There was no help for it, therefore, Captain Arundel had +nothing to do but to wait for the next morning.</p> + +<p>He walked slowly away from the station, very much disheartened by this +discovery.</p> + +<p>"I'd better sleep at some hotel up this way," he thought, as he strolled +listlessly in the direction of Oxford Street, "so as to be on the spot to catch +the first train to–morrow morning. What am I to do with myself all this +night, racked with uncertainty about Mary?"</p> + +<p>He remembered that one of his brother officers was staying at the hotel in +Covent Garden where Edward himself stopped, when business detained him in +London for a day or two.</p> + +<p>"Shall I go and see Lucas?" Captain Arundel thought. "He's a good fellow, +and won't bore me with a lot of questions, if he sees I've something on my +mind. There may be some letters for me at E––––'s. Poor +little Polly!"</p> + +<p>He could never think of her without something of that pitiful tenderness +which he might have felt for a young and helpless child, whom it was his duty +and privilege to protect and succour. It may be that there was little of the +lover's fiery enthusiasm mingled with the purer and more tender feelings with +which Edward Arundel regarded his dead friend's orphan daughter; but in place +of this there was a chivalrous devotion, such as woman rarely wins in these +degenerate modern days.</p> + +<p>The young soldier walked through the lamp–lit western streets thinking +of the missing girl; now assuring himself that his instinct had not deceived +him, and that Mary must have gone straight to the Berkshire farmer's house, and +in the next moment seized with a sudden terror that it might be otherwise: the +helpless girl might have gone out into a world of which she was as ignorant as +a child, determined to hide herself from all who had ever known her. If it +should be thus: if, on going down to Marlingford, he obtained no tidings of his +friend's daughter, what was he to do? Where was he to look for her next?</p> + +<p>He would put advertisements in the papers, calling upon his betrothed to +trust him and return to him. Perhaps Mary Marchmont was, of all people in this +world, the least likely to look into a newspaper; but at least it would be +doing something to do this, and Edward Arundel determined upon going straight +off to Printing–House Square, to draw up an appeal to the missing +girl.</p> + +<p>It was past ten o'clock when Captain Arundel came to this determination, and +he had reached the neighbourhood of Covent Garden and of the theatres. The +staring play–bills adorned almost every threshold, and fluttered against +every door–post; and the young soldier, going into a tobacconist's to +fill his cigar–case, stared abstractedly at a gaudy +blue–and–red announcement of the last dramatic attraction to be +seen at Drury Lane. It was scarcely strange that the Captain's thoughts +wandered back to his boyhood, that shadowy time, far away behind his later days +of Indian warfare and glory, and that he remembered the December night upon +which he had sat with his cousin in a box at the great patent theatre, watching +the consumptive supernumerary struggling under the weight of his banner. From +the box at Drury Lane to the next morning's breakfast in Oakley Street, was but +a natural transition of thought; but with that recollection of the humble +Lambeth lodging, with the picture of a little girl in a pinafore sitting +demurely at her father's table, and meekly waiting on his guest, an idea +flashed across Edward Arundel's mind, and brought the hot blood into his +face.</p> + +<p>What if Mary had gone to Oakley Street? Was not this even more likely than +that she should seek refuge with her kinsfolk in Berkshire? She had lived in +the Lambeth lodging for years, and had only left that plebeian shelter for the +grandeur of Marchmont Towers. What more natural than that she should go back to +the familiar habitation, dear to her by reason of a thousand associations with +her dead father? What more likely than that she should turn instinctively, in +the hour of her desolation, to the humble friends whom she had known in her +childhood?</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel was almost too impatient to wait while the smart young damsel +behind the tobacconist's counter handed him change for the half–sovereign +which he had just tendered her. He darted out into the street, and shouted +violently to the driver of a passing hansom,––there are always +loitering hansoms in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden,––who was, +after the manner of his kind, looking on any side rather than that upon which +Providence had sent him a fare.</p> + +<p>"Oakley Street, Lambeth," the young man cried. "Double fare if you get there +in ten minutes."</p> + +<p>The tall raw–boned horse rattled off at that peculiar pace common to +his species, making as much noise upon the pavement as if he had been winning a +metropolitan Derby, and at about twenty minutes past nine drew up, smoking and +panting, before the dimly lighted windows of the Ladies' Wardrobe, where a +couple of flaring tallow–candles illuminated the splendour of a +foreground of dirty artificial flowers, frayed satin shoes, and tarnished gilt +combs; a middle distance of blue gauzy tissue, embroidered with beetles' wings; +and a background of greasy black silk. Edward Arundel flung back the doors of +the hansom with a bang, and leaped out upon the pavement. The proprietress of +the Ladies' Wardrobe was lolling against the door–post, refreshing +herself with the soft evening breezes from the roads of Westminster and +Waterloo, and talking to her neighbour.</p> + +<p>"Bless her pore dear innercent 'art!" the woman was saying; "she's cried +herself to sleep at last. But you never hear any think so pitiful as she talked +to me at fust, sweet love!––and the very picture of my own poor +Eliza Jane, as she looked. You might have said it was Eliza Jane come back to +life, only paler and more sickly like, and not that beautiful fresh colour, and +ringlets curled all round in a crop, as Eliza Ja––"</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel burst in upon the good woman's talk, which rambled on in an +unintermitting stream, unbroken by much punctuation.</p> + +<p>"Miss Marchmont is here," he said; "I know she is. Thank God, thank God! Let +me see her please, directly. I am Captain Arundel, her father's friend, and her +affianced husband. You remember me, perhaps? I came here nine years ago to +breakfast, one December morning. I can recollect you perfectly, and I know that +you were always good to my poor friend's daughter. To think that I should find +her here! You shall be well rewarded for your kindness to her. But take me to +her; pray take me to her at once!"</p> + +<p>The proprietress of the wardrobe snatched up one of the candles that +guttered in a brass flat–candlestick upon the counter, and led the way up +the narrow staircase. She was a good lazy creature, and she was so completely +borne down by Edward's excitement, that she could only mutter disjointed +sentences, to the effect that the gentleman had brought her heart into her +mouth, and that her legs felt all of a jelly; and that her poor knees was +a'most giving way under her, and other incoherent statements concerning the +physical effect of the mental shocks she had that day received.</p> + +<p>She opened the door of that shabby sitting–room upon the +first–floor, in which the crippled eagle brooded over the convex mirror, +and stood aside upon the threshold while Captain Arundel entered the room. A +tallow candle was burning dimly upon the table, and a girlish form lay upon the +narrow horsehair sofa, shrouded by a woollen shawl.</p> + +<p>"She went to sleep about half–an–hour ago, sir," the woman said, +in a whisper; "and she cried herself to sleep, pore lamb, I think. I made her +some tea, and got her a few creases and a French roll, with a bit of best +fresh; but she wouldn't touch nothin', or only a few spoonfuls of the tea, just +to please me. What is it that's drove her away from her 'ome, sir, and such a +good 'ome too? She showed me a diamont ring as her pore par gave her in his +will. He left me twenty pound, pore gentleman,––which he always +acted like a gentleman bred and born; and Mr. Pollit, the lawyer, sent his +clerk along with it and his compliments,––though I'm sure I never +looked for nothink, having always had my rent faithful to the very minute: and +Miss Mary used to bring it down to me so pretty, and––"</p> + +<p>But the whispering had grown louder by this time, and Mary Marchmont awoke +from her feverish sleep, and lifted her weary head from the hard horsehair +pillow and looked about her, half forgetful of where she was, and of what had +happened within the last eighteen hours of her life. Her eyes wandered here and +there, doubtful as to the reality of what they looked upon, until the girl saw +her lover's figure, tall and splendid in the humble apartment, a tender +half–reproachful smile upon his face, and his handsome blue eyes beaming +with love and truth. She saw him, and a faint shriek broke from her tremulous +lips, as she rose and fell upon his breast.</p> + +<p>"You love me, then, Edward," she cried; "you do love me!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my darling, as truly and tenderly as ever woman was loved upon this +earth."</p> + +<p>And then the soldier sat down upon the hard bristly sofa, and with Mary's +head still resting upon his breast, and his strong hand straying amongst her +disordered hair, he reproached her for her foolishness, and comforted and +soothed her; while the proprietress of the apartment stood, with the brass +candlestick in her hand, watching the young lovers and weeping over their +sorrows, as if she had been witnessing a scene in a play. Their innocent +affection was unrestrained by the good woman's presence; and when Mary had +smiled upon her lover, and assured him that she would never, never, never doubt +him again, Captain Arundel was fain to kiss the soft–hearted landlady in +his enthusiasm, and to promise her the handsomest silk dress that had ever been +seen in Oakley Street, amongst all the faded splendours of silk and satin that +ladies'–maids brought for her consideration.</p> + +<p>"And now my darling, my foolish run–away Polly, what is to be done +with you?" asked the young soldier. "Will you go back to the Towers +to–morrow morning?"</p> + +<p>Mary Marchmont clasped her hands before her face, and began to tremble +violently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no, no!" she cried; "don't ask me to do that, don't ask me to go +back, Edward. I can never go back to that house again, while––"</p> + +<p>She stopped suddenly, looking piteously at her lover.</p> + +<p>"While my cousin Olivia Marchmont lives there," Captain Arundel said with an +angry frown. "God knows it's a bitter thing for me to think that your troubles +should come from any of my kith and kin, Polly. She has used you very badly, +then, this woman? She has been very unkind to you?"</p> + +<p>"No, no! never before last night. It seems so long ago; but it was only last +night, was it? Until then she was always kind to me. I didn't love her, you +know, though I tried to do so for papa's sake, and out of gratitude to her for +taking such trouble with my education; but one can be grateful to people +without loving them, and I never grew to love her. But last +night––last night––she said such cruel things to +me––such cruel things. O Edward, Edward!" the girl cried suddenly, +clasping her hands and looking imploringly at Captain Arundel, "were the cruel +things she said true? Did I do wrong when I offered to be your wife?"</p> + +<p>How could the young man answer this question except by clasping his +betrothed to his heart? So there was another little love–scene, over +which Mrs. Pimpernel,––the proprietress's name was +Pimpernel––wept fresh tears, murmuring that the Capting was the +sweetest young man, sweeter than Mr. Macready in Claude Melnock; and that the +scene altogether reminded her of that "cutting" episode where the proud mother +went on against the pore young man, and Miss Faucit came out so beautiful. They +are a playgoing population in Oakley Street, and compassionate and sentimental +like all true playgoers.</p> + +<p>"What shall I do with you, Miss Marchmont?" Edward Arundel asked gaily, when +the little love–scene was concluded. "My mother and sister are away, at a +German watering–place, trying some unpronounceable Spa for the benefit of +poor Letty's health. Reginald is with them, and my father's alone at +Dangerfield. So I can't take you down there, as I might have done if my mother +had been at home; I don't much care for the Mostyns, or you might have stopped +in Montague Square. There are no friendly friars nowadays who will marry Romeo +and Juliet at half–an–hour's notice. You must live a fortnight +somewhere, Polly: where shall it be?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, let me stay here, please," Miss Marchmont pleaded; "I was always so +happy here!"</p> + +<p>"Lord love her precious heart!" exclaimed Mrs. Pimpernel, lifting up her +hands in a rapture of admiration. "To think as she shouldn't have a bit of +pride, after all the money as her pore par come into! To think as she should +wish to stay in her old lodgins, where everythink shall be done to make her +comfortable; and the air back and front is very 'ealthy, though you might not +believe it, and the Blind School and Bedlam hard by, and Kennington Common only +a pleasant walk, and beautiful and open this warm summer weather."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I should like to stop here, please," Mary murmured. Even in the midst +of her agitation, overwhelmed as she was by the emotions of the present, her +thoughts went back to the past, and she remembered how delightful it would be +to go and see the accommodating butcher, and the greengrocer's daughter, the +kind butterman who had called her "little lady," and the disreputable gray +parrot. How delightful it would be to see these humble friends, now that she +was grown up, and had money wherewith to make them presents in token of her +gratitude!</p> + +<p>"Very well, then, Polly," Captain Arundel said, "you'll stay here. And +Mrs.––––"</p> + +<p>"Pimpernel," the landlady suggested.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Pimpernel will take as good care of you as if you were Queen of +England, and the welfare of the nation depended upon your safety. And I'll stop +at my hotel in Covent Garden; and I'll see Richard Paulette,––he's +my lawyer as well as yours, you know, Polly,––and tell him +something of what has happened, and make arrangements for our immediate +marriage."</p> + +<p>"Our marriage!"</p> + +<p>Mary Marchmont echoed her lover's last words, and looked up at him almost +with a bewildered air. She had never thought of an early marriage with Edward +Arundel as the result of her flight from Lincolnshire. She had a vague notion +that she would live in Oakley Street for years, and that in some remote time +the soldier would come to claim her.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Polly darling, Olivia Marchmont's conduct has made me decide upon a +very bold step. It is evident to me that my cousin hates you; for what reason, +Heaven only knows, since you can have done nothing to provoke her hate. When +your father was a poor man, it was to me he would have confided you. He changed +his mind afterwards, very naturally, and chose another guardian for his orphan +child. If my cousin had fulfilled this trust, Mary, I would have deferred to +her authority, and would have held myself aloof until your minority was passed, +rather than ask you to marry me without your stepmother's consent. But Olivia +Marchmont has forfeited her right to be consulted in this matter. She has +tortured you and traduced me by her poisonous slander. If you believe in me, +Mary, you will consent to be my wife. My justification lies in the future. You +will not find that I shall sponge upon your fortune, my dear, or lead an idle +life because my wife is a rich woman."</p> + +<p>Mary Marchmont looked up with shy tenderness at her lover.</p> + +<p>"I would rather the fortune were yours than mine, Edward," she said. "I will +do whatever you wish; I will be guided by you in every thing."</p> + +<p>It was thus that John Marchmont's daughter consented to become the wife of +the man she loved, the man whose image she had associated since her childhood +with all that was good and beautiful in mankind. She knew none of those pretty +stereotyped phrases, by means of which well–bred young ladies can go +through a graceful fencing–match of hesitation and equivocation, to the +anguish of a doubtful and adoring suitor. She had no notion of that delusive +negative, that bewitching feminine "no," which is proverbially understood to +mean "yes." Weary courses of Roman Emperors, South–Sea Islands, Sidereal +Heavens, Tertiary and Old Red Sandstone, had very ill–prepared this poor +little girl for the stern realities of life.</p> + +<p>"I will be guided by you, dear Edward," she said; "my father wished me to be +your wife; and if I did not love you, it would please me to obey him."</p> + +<p>It was eleven o'clock when Captain Arundel left Oakley Street. The hansom +had been waiting all the time, and the driver, seeing that his fare was young, +handsome, dashing, and what he called "milingtary–like," demanded an +enormous sum when he landed the soldier before the portico of the hotel in +Covent Garden.</p> + +<p>Edward took a hasty breakfast the next morning, and then hurried off to +Lincoln's–Inn Fields. But here a disappointment awaited him. Richard +Paulette had started for Scotland upon a piscatorial excursion. The elder +Paulette was an octogenarian, who lived in the south of France, and kept his +name in the business as a fiction, by means of which elderly and obstinate +country clients were deluded into the belief that the solicitor who conducted +their affairs was the same legal practitioner who had done business for their +fathers and grandfathers before them. Mathewson, a grim man, was away amongst +the Yorkshire wolds, superintending the foreclosure of certain mortgages upon a +bankrupt baronet's estate. A confidential clerk, who received clients, and kept +matters straight during the absence of his employers, was very anxious to be of +use to Captain Arundel: but it was not likely that Edward could sit down and +pour his secrets into the bosom of a clerk, however trustworthy a personage +that employé might be.</p> + +<p>The young man's desire had been that his marriage with Mary Marchmont should +take place at least with the knowledge and approbation of her dead father's +lawyer: but he was impatient to assume the only title by which he might have a +right to be the orphan girl's champion and protector; and he had therefore no +inclination to wait until the long vacation was over, and Messrs. Paulette and +Mathewson returned from their northern wanderings. Again, Mary Marchmont +suffered from a continual dread that her stepmother would discover the secret +of her humble retreat, and would follow her and reassume authority over her.</p> + +<p>"Let me be your wife before I see her again, Edward," the girl pleaded +innocently, when this terror was uppermost in her mind. "She could not say +cruel things to me if I were your wife. I know it is wicked to be so frightened +of her; because she was always good to me until that night: but I cannot tell +you how I tremble at the thought of being alone with her at Marchmont Towers. I +dream sometimes that I am with her in the gloomy old house, and that we two are +alone there, even the servants all gone, and you far away in India, +Edward,––at the other end of the world."</p> + +<p>It was as much as her lover could do to soothe and reassure the trembling +girl when these thoughts took possession of her. Had he been less sanguine and +impetuous, less careless in the buoyancy of his spirits, Captain Arundel might +have seen that Mary's nerves had been terribly shaken by the scene between her +and Olivia, and all the anguish which had given rise to her flight from +Marchmont Towers. The girl trembled at every sound. The shutting of a door, the +noise of a cab stopping in the street below, the falling of a book from the +table to the floor, startled her almost as much as if a +gunpowder–magazine had exploded in the neighbourhood. The tears rose to +her eyes at the slightest emotion. Her mind was tortured by vague fears, which +she tried in vain to explain to her lover. Her sleep was broken by dismal +dreams, foreboding visions of shadowy evil.</p> + +<p>For a little more than a fortnight Edward Arundel visited his betrothed +daily in the shabby first–floor in Oakley Street, and sat by her side +while she worked at some fragile scrap of embroidery, and talked gaily to her +of the happy future; to the intense admiration of Mrs. Pimpernel, who had no +greater delight than to assist in the pretty little sentimental drama that was +being enacted on her first–floor.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that, on a cloudy and autumnal August morning, Edward Arundel +and Mary Marchmont were married in a great empty–looking church in the +parish of Lambeth, by an indifferent curate, who shuffled through the service +at railroad speed, and with far less reverence for the solemn rite than he +would have displayed had he known that the pale–faced girl kneeling +before the altar–rails was undisputed mistress of eleven thousand +a–year. Mrs. Pimpernel, the pew–opener, and the registrar who was +in waiting in the vestry, and was beguiled thence to give away the bride, were +the only witnesses to this strange wedding. It seemed a dreary ceremonial to +Mrs. Pimpernel, who had been married at the same church +five–and–twenty years before, in a cinnamon satin spencer, and a +coal–scuttle bonnet, and with a young person in the dressmaking line in +attendance upon her as bridesmaid.</p> + +<p>It <em>was</em> rather a dreary wedding, no doubt. The drizzling rain +dripped ceaselessly in the street without, and there was a smell of damp +plaster in the great empty church. The melancholy street–cries sounded +dismally from the outer world, while the curate was hurrying through those +portentous words which were to unite Edward Arundel and Mary Marchmont until +the final day of earthly separation. The girl clung shivering to her lover, her +husband now, as they went into the vestry to sign their names in the +marriage–register. Throughout the service she had expected to hear a +footstep in the aisle behind her, and Olivia Marchmont's cruel voice crying out +to forbid the marriage.</p> + +<p>"I am your wife now, Edward, am I not?" she said, when she had signed her +name in the register.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my darling, for ever and for ever."</p> + +<p>"And nothing can part us now?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing but death, my dear."</p> + +<p>In the exuberance of his spirits, Edward Arundel spoke of the King of +Terrors as if he had been a mere nobody, whose power to change or mar the +fortunes of mankind was so trifling as to be scarcely worth mentioning.</p> + +<p>The vehicle in waiting to carry the mistress of Marchmont Towers upon the +first stage of her bridal tour was nothing better than a hack cab. The driver's +garments exhaled stale tobacco–smoke in the moist atmosphere, and in lieu +of the flowers which are wont to bestrew the bridal path of an heiress, Miss +Marchmont trod upon damp and mouldy straw. But she was +happy,––happy, with a fearful apprehension that her happiness could +not be real,––a vague terror of Olivia's power to torture and +oppress her, which even the presence of her lover–husband could not +altogether drive away. She kissed Mrs. Pimpernel, who stood upon the edge of +the pavement, crying bitterly, with the slippery white lining of a new silk +dress, which Edward Arundel had given her for the wedding, gathered tightly +round her.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, my dear!" cried the honest dealer in frayed satins and +tumbled gauzes; "I couldn't take this more to heart if you was my own Eliza +Jane going away with the young man as she was to have married, and as is now a +widower with five children, two in arms, and the youngest brought up by hand. +God bless your pretty face, my dear; and oh, pray take care of her, Captain +Arundel, for she's a tender flower, sir, and truly needs your care. And it's +but a trifle, my own sweet young missy, for the acceptance of such as you, but +it's given from a full heart, and given humbly."</p> + +<p>The latter part of Mrs. Pimpernel's speech bore relation to a hard newspaper +parcel, which she dropped into Mary's lap. Mrs. Arundel opened the parcel +presently, when she had kissed her humble friend for the last time, and the cab +was driving towards Nine Elms, and found that Mrs. Pimpernel's +wedding–gift was a Scotch shepherdess in china, with a great deal of +gilding about her tartan garments, very red legs, a hat and feathers, and a +curly sheep. Edward put this article of <em>virtù</em> very carefully away in +his carpet–bag; for his bride would not have the present treated with any +show of disrespect.</p> + +<p>"How good of her to give it me!" Mary said; "it used to stand upon the +back–parlour chimney–piece when I was a little girl; and I was so +fond of it. Of course I am not fond of Scotch shepherdesses now, you know, +dear; but how should Mrs. Pimpernel know that? She thought it would please me +to have this one."</p> + +<p>"And you'll put it in the western drawing–room at the Towers, won't +you, Polly?" Captain Arundel asked, laughing.</p> + +<p>"I won't put it anywhere to be made fun of, sir," the young bride answered, +with some touch of wifely dignity; "but I'll take care of it, and never have it +broken or destroyed; and Mrs. Pimpernel shall see it, when she comes to the +Towers,––if I ever go back there," she added, with a sudden change +of manner.</p> + +<p>"<em>If</em> you ever go back there!" cried Edward. "Why, Polly, my dear, +Marchmont Towers is your own house. My cousin Olivia is only there upon +sufferance, and her own good sense will tell her she has no right to stay +there, when she ceases to be your friend and protectress. She is a proud woman, +and her pride will surely never suffer her to remain where she must feel she +can be no longer welcome."</p> + +<p>The young wife's face turned white with terror at her husband's words.</p> + +<p>"But I could never ask her to go, Edward," she said. "I wouldn't turn her +out for the world. She may stay there for ever if she likes. I never have cared +for the place since papa's death; and I couldn't go back while she is there, +I'm so frightened of her, Edward, I'm so frightened of her."</p> + +<p>The vague apprehension burst forth in this childish cry. Edward Arundel +clasped his wife to his breast, and bent over her, kissing her pale forehead, +and murmuring soothing words, as he might have done to a child.</p> + +<p>"My dear, my dear," he said, "my darling Mary, this will never do; my own +love, this is so very foolish."</p> + +<p>"I know, I know, Edward; but I can't help it, I can't indeed; I was +frightened of her long ago; frightened of her even the first day I saw her, the +day you took me to the Rectory. I was frightened of her when papa first told me +he meant to marry her; and I am frightened of her now; even now that I am your +wife, Edward, I'm frightened of her still."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel kissed away the tears that trembled on his wife's eyelids; +but she had scarcely grown quite composed even when the cab stopped at the Nine +Elms railway station. It was only when she was seated in the carriage with her +husband, and the rain cleared away as they advanced farther into the heart of +the pretty pastoral country, that the bride's sense of happiness and safety in +her husband's protection, returned to her. But by that time she was able to +smile in his face, and to look forward with delight to a brief sojourn in that +pretty Hampshire village, which Edward had chosen for the scene of his +honeymoon.</p> + +<p>"Only a few days of quiet happiness, Polly," he said; "a few days of utter +forgetfulness of all the world except you; and then I must be a man of business +again, and write to your stepmother and my father and mother, and Messrs. +Paulette and Mathewson, and all the people who ought to know of our +marriage."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER15" id="CHAPTER15">CHAPTER III.<br /> +PAUL'S SISTER.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont shut herself once more in her desolate chamber, making no +effort to find the runaway mistress of the Towers; indifferent as to what the +slanderous tongues of her neighbours might say of her; hardened, callous, +desperate.</p> + +<p>To her father, and to any one else who questioned her about Mary's +absence,––for the story of the girl's flight was soon whispered +abroad, the servants at the Towers having received no injunctions to keep the +matter secret,––Mrs. Marchmont replied with such an air of cold and +determined reserve as kept the questioners at bay ever afterwards.</p> + +<p>So the Kemberling people, and the Swampington people, and all the country +gentry within reach of Marchmont Towers, had a mystery and a scandal provided +for them, which afforded ample scope for repeated discussion, and considerably +relieved the dull monotony of their lives. But there were some questioners whom +Mrs. Marchmont found it rather difficult to keep at a distance; there were some +intruders who dared to force themselves upon the gloomy woman's solitude, and +who <em>would</em> not understand that their presence was abhorrent to her.</p> + +<p>These people were a surgeon and his wife, who had newly settled at +Kemberling; the best practice in the village falling into the market by reason +of the death of a steady–going, gray–headed old practitioner, who +for many years had shared with one opponent the responsibility of watching over +the health of the Lincolnshire village.</p> + +<p>It was about three weeks after Mary Marchmont's flight when these unwelcome +guests first came to the Towers.</p> + +<p>Olivia sat alone in her dead husband's study,––the same room in +which she had sat upon the morning of John Marchmont's funeral,––a +dark and gloomy chamber, wainscoted with blackened oak, and lighted only by a +massive stone–framed Tudor window looking out into the quadrangle, and +overshadowed by that cloistered colonnade beneath whose shelter Edward and Mary +had walked upon the morning of the girl's flight. This wainscoted study was an +apartment which most women, having all the rooms in Marchmont Towers at their +disposal, would have been likely to avoid; but the gloom of the chamber +harmonised with that horrible gloom which had taken possession of Olivia's +soul, and the widow turned from the sunny western front, as she turned from all +the sunlight and gladness in the universe, to come here, where the summer +radiance rarely crept through the diamond–panes of the window, where the +shadow of the cloister shut out the glory of the blue sky.</p> + +<p>She was sitting in this room,––sitting near the open window, in +a high–backed chair of carved and polished oak, with her head resting +against the angle of the embayed window, and her handsome profile thrown into +sharp relief by the dark green–cloth curtain, which hung in straight +folds from the low ceiling to the ground, and made a sombre background to the +widow's figure. Mrs. Marchmont had put away all the miserable gew–gaws +and vanities which she had ordered from London in a sudden excess of folly or +caprice, and had reassumed her mourning–robes of lustreless black. She +had a book in her hand,––some new and popular fiction, which all +Lincolnshire was eager to read; but although her eyes were fixed upon the pages +before her, and her hand mechanically turned over leaf after leaf at regular +intervals of time, the fashionable romance was only a weary repetition of +phrases, a dull current of words, always intermingled with the images of Edward +Arundel and Mary Marchmont, which arose out of every page to mock the hopeless +reader.</p> + +<p>Olivia flung the book away from her at last, with a smothered cry of +rage.</p> + +<p>"Is there no cure for this disease?" she muttered. "Is there no relief +except madness or death?"</p> + +<p>But in the infidelity which had arisen out of her despair this woman had +grown to doubt if either death or madness could bring her oblivion of her +anguish. She doubted the quiet of the grave; and half–believed that the +torture of jealous rage and slighted love might mingle even with that silent +rest, haunting her in her coffin, shutting her out of heaven, and following her +into a darker world, there to be her torment everlastingly. There were times +when she thought madness must mean forgetfulness; but there were other moments +when she shuddered, horror–stricken, at the thought that, in the +wandering brain of a mad woman, the image of that grief which had caused the +shipwreck of her senses might still hold its place, distorted and +exaggerated,––a gigantic unreality, ten thousand times more +terrible than the truth. Remembering the dreams which disturbed her broken +sleep,––those dreams which, in their feverish horror, were little +better than intervals of delirium,––it is scarcely strange if +Olivia Marchmont thought thus.</p> + +<p>She had not succumbed without many struggles to her sin and despair. Again +and again she had abandoned herself to the devils at watch to destroy her, and +again and again she had tried to extricate her soul from their dreadful power; +but her most passionate endeavours were in vain. Perhaps it was that she did +not strive aright; it was for this reason, surely, that she failed so utterly +to arise superior to her despair; for otherwise that terrible belief attributed +to the Calvinists, that some souls are foredoomed to damnation, would be +exemplified by this woman's experience. She could not forget. She could not put +away the vengeful hatred that raged like an all–devouring fire in her +breast, and she cried in her agony, "There is no cure for this disease!"</p> + +<p>I think her mistake was in this, that she did not go to the right Physician. +She practised quackery with her soul, as some people do with their bodies; +trying their own remedies, rather than the simple prescriptions of the Divine +Healer of all woes. Self–reliant, and scornful of the weakness against +which her pride revolted, she trusted to her intellect and her will to lift her +out of the moral slough into which her soul had gone down. She said:</p> + +<p>"I am not a woman to go mad for the love of a boyish face; I am not a woman +to die for a foolish fancy, which the veriest schoolgirl might be ashamed to +confess to her companion. I am not a woman to do this, and I <em>will</em> cure +myself of my folly."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont made an effort to take up her old life, with its dull round +of ceaseless duty, its perpetual self–denial. If she had been a Roman +Catholic, she would have gone to the nearest convent, and prayed to be +permitted to take such vows as might soonest set a barrier between herself and +the world; she would have spent the long weary days in perpetual and secret +prayer; she would have worn deeper indentations upon the stones already +hollowed by faithful knees. As it was, she made a routine of penance for +herself, after her own fashion: going long distances on foot to visit her poor, +when she might have ridden in her carriage; courting exposure to rain and foul +weather; wearing herself out with unnecessary fatigue, and returning footsore +to her desolate home, to fall fainting into the strong arms of her grim +attendant, Barbara.</p> + +<p>But this self–appointed penance could not shut Edward Arundel and Mary +Marchmont from the widow's mind. Walking through a fiery furnace their images +would have haunted her still, vivid and palpable even in the agony of death. +The fatigue of the long weary walks made Mrs. Marchmont wan and pale; the +exposure to storm and rain brought on a tiresome, hacking cough, which worried +her by day and disturbed her fitful slumbers by night. No good whatever seemed +to come of her endeavours; and the devils who rejoiced at her weakness and her +failure claimed her as their own. They claimed her as their own; and they were +not without terrestrial agents, working patiently in their service, and ready +to help in securing their bargain.</p> + +<p>The great clock in the quadrangle had struck the half–hour after +three; the atmosphere of the August afternoon was sultry and oppressive. Mrs. +Marchmont had closed her eyes after flinging aside her book, and had fallen +into a doze: her nights were broken and wakeful, and the hot stillness of the +day had made her drowsy.</p> + +<p>She was aroused from this half–slumber by Barbara Simmons, who came +into the room carrying two cards upon a salver,––the same +old–fashioned and emblazoned salver upon which Paul Marchmont's card had +been brought to the widow nearly three years before. The Abigail stood halfway +between the door and the window by which the widow sat, looking at her +mistress's face with a glance of sharp scrutiny.</p> + +<p>"She's changed since he came back, and changed again since he went away," +the woman thought; "just as she always changed at the Rectory at his coming and +going. Why didn't he take to her, I wonder? He might have known her fancy for +him, if he'd had eyes to watch her face, or ears to listen to her voice. She's +handsomer than the other one, and cleverer in book–learning; but she +keeps 'em off––she seems allers to keep 'em off."</p> + +<p>I think Olivia Marchmont would have torn the very heart out of this +waiting–woman's breast, had she known the thoughts that held a place in +it: had she known that the servant who attended upon her, and took wages from +her, dared to pluck out her secret, and to speculate upon her suffering.</p> + +<p>The widow awoke suddenly, and looked up with an impatient frown. She had not +been awakened by the opening of the door, but by that unpleasant sensation +which almost always reveals the presence of a stranger to a sleeper of nervous +temperament.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Barbara?" she asked; and then, as her eyes rested on the cards, +she added, angrily, "Haven't I told you that I would not see any callers +to–day? I am worn out with my cough, and feel too ill to see any one."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Miss Livy," the woman answered;––she called her mistress +by this name still, now and then, so familiar had it grown to her during the +childhood and youth of the Rector's daughter;––"I didn't forget +that, Miss Livy: I told Richardson you was not to be disturbed. But the lady +and gentleman said, if you saw what was wrote upon the back of one of the +cards, you'd be sure to make an exception in their favour. I think that was +what the lady said. She's a middle–aged lady, very talkative and +pleasant–mannered," added the grim Barbara, in nowise relaxing the stolid +gravity of her own manner as she spoke.</p> + +<p>Olivia snatched the cards from the salver.</p> + +<p>"Why do people worry me so?" she cried, impatiently. "Am I not to be allowed +even five minutes' sleep without being broken in upon by some intruder or +other?"</p> + +<p>Barbara Simmons looked at her mistress's face. Anxiety and sadness dimly +showed themselves in the stolid countenance of the lady's–maid. A close +observer, penetrating below that aspect of wooden solemnity which was Barbara's +normal expression, might have discovered a secret: the quiet +waiting–woman loved her mistress with a jealous and watchful affection, +that took heed of every change in its object.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont examined the two cards, which bore the names of Mr. and Mrs. +Weston, Kemberling. On the back of the lady's card these words were written in +pencil:</p> + +<p>"Will Mrs. Marchmont be so good as to see Lavinia Weston, Paul Marchmont's +younger sister, and a connection of Mrs. M.'s?"</p> + +<p>Olivia shrugged her shoulders, as she threw down the card.</p> + +<p>"Paul Marchmont! Lavinia Weston!" she muttered; "yes, I remember he said +something about a sister married to a surgeon at Stanfield. Let these people +come to me, Barbara."</p> + +<p>The waiting–woman looked doubtfully at her mistress.</p> + +<p>"You'll maybe smooth your hair, and freshen yourself up a bit, before ye see +the folks, Miss Livy," she said, in a tone of mingled suggestion and entreaty. +"Ye've had a deal of worry lately, and it's made ye look a little fagged and +haggard–like. I'd not like the Kemberling folks to say as you was +ill."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont turned fiercely upon the Abigail.</p> + +<p>"Let me alone!" she cried. "What is it to you, or to any one, how I look? +What good have my looks done me, that I should worry myself about them?" she +added, under her breath. "Show these people in here, if they want to see +me."</p> + +<p>"They've been shown into the western drawing–room, +ma'am;––Richardson took 'em in there."</p> + +<p>Barbara Simmons fought hard for the preservation of appearances. She wanted +the Rector's daughter to receive these strange people, who had dared to intrude +upon her, in a manner befitting the dignity of John Marchmont's widow. She +glanced furtively at the disorder of the gloomy chamber. Books and papers were +scattered here and there; the hearth and low fender were littered with heaps of +torn letters,––for Olivia Marchmont had no tenderness for the +memorials of the past, and indeed took a fierce delight in sweeping away the +unsanctified records of her joyless, loveless life. The high–backed oaken +chairs had been pushed out of their places; the green–cloth cover had +been drawn half off the massive table, and hung in trailing folds upon the +ground. A book flung here; a shawl there; a handkerchief in another place; an +open secretaire, with scattered documents and uncovered +inkstand,––littered the room, and bore mute witness of the +restlessness of its occupant. It needed no very subtle psychologist to read +aright those separate tokens of a disordered mind; of a weary spirit which had +sought distraction in a dozen occupations, and had found relief in none. It was +some vague sense of this that caused Barbara Simmons's anxiety. She wished to +keep strangers out of this room, in which her mistress, wan, haggard, and +weary–looking, revealed her secret by so many signs and tokens. But +before Olivia could make any answer to her servant's suggestion, the door, +which Barbara had left ajar, was pushed open by a very gentle hand, and a sweet +voice said, in cheery chirping accents,</p> + +<p>"I am sure I may come in; may I not, Mrs. Marchmont? The impression my +brother Paul's description gave me of you is such a very pleasant one, that I +venture to intrude uninvited, almost forbidden, perhaps."</p> + +<p>The voice and manner of the speaker were so airy and self–possessed, +there was such a world of cheerfulness and amiability in every tone, that, as +Olivia Marchmont rose from her chair, she put her hand to her head, dazed and +confounded, as if by the too boisterous carolling of some caged bird. What did +they mean, these accents of gladness, these clear and untroubled tones, which +sounded shrill, and almost discordant, in the despairing woman's ears? She +stood, pale and worn, the very picture of all gloom and misery, staring +hopelessly at her visitor; too much abandoned to her grief to remember, in that +first moment, the stern demands of pride. She stood still; revealing, by her +look, her attitude, her silence, her abstraction, a whole history to the +watchful eyes that were looking at her.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston lingered on the threshold of the chamber in a pretty +half–fluttering manner; which was charmingly expressive of a struggle +between a modest poor–relation–like diffidence and an earnest +desire to rush into Olivia's arms. The surgeon's wife was a +delicate–looking little woman, with features that seemed a miniature and +feminine reproduction of her brother Paul's, and with very light +hair,––hair so light and pale that, had it turned as white as the +artist's in a single night, very few people would have been likely to take heed +of the change. Lavinia Weston was eminently what is generally called a +<em>lady–like</em> woman. She always conducted herself in that especial +and particular manner which was exactly fitted to the occasion. She adjusted +her behaviour by the nicest shades of colour and hair–breadth scale of +measurement. She had, as it were, made for herself a homoeopathic system of +good manners, and could mete out politeness and courtesy in the veriest +globules, never administering either too much or too little. To her husband she +was a treasure beyond all price; and if the Lincolnshire surgeon, who was a +fat, solemn–faced man, with a character as level and monotonous as the +flats and fens of his native county, was henpecked, the feminine autocrat held +the reins of government so lightly, that her obedient subject was scarcely +aware how very irresponsible his wife's authority had become.</p> + +<p>As Olivia Marchmont stood confronting the timid hesitating figure of the +intruder, with the width of the chamber between them, Lavinia Weston, in her +crisp muslin–dress and scarf, her neat bonnet and bright ribbons and +primly–adjusted gloves, looked something like an adventurous canary who +had a mind to intrude upon the den of a hungry lioness. The difference, +physical and moral, between the timid bird and the savage forest–queen +could be scarcely wider than that between the two women.</p> + +<p>But Olivia did not stand for ever embarrassed and silent in her visitor's +presence. Her pride came to her rescue. She turned sternly upon the polite +intruder.</p> + +<p>"Walk in, if you please, Mrs. Weston," she said, "and sit down. I was denied +to you just now because I have been ill, and have ordered my servants to deny +me to every one."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear Mrs. Marchmont," murmured Lavinia Weston in soft, almost +dove–like accents, "if you have been ill, is not your illness another +reason for seeing us, rather than for keeping us away from you? I would not, of +course, say a word which could in any way be calculated to give offence to your +regular medical attendant,––you have a regular medical attendant, +no doubt; from Swampington, I dare say,––but a doctor's wife may +often be useful when a doctor is himself out of place. There are little nervous +ailments––depression of spirits, mental +uneasiness––from which women, and sensitive women, suffer acutely, +and which perhaps a woman's more refined nature alone can thoroughly +comprehend. You are not looking well, my dear Mrs. Marchmont. I left my husband +in the drawing–room, for I was so anxious that our first meeting should +take place without witnesses. Men think women sentimental when they are only +impulsive. Weston is a good simple–hearted creature, but he knows as much +about a woman's mind as he does of an Æolian harp. When the strings vibrate, he +hears the low plaintive notes, but he has no idea whence the melody comes. It +is thus with us, Mrs. Marchmont. These medical men watch us in the agonies of +hysteria; they hear our sighs, they see our tears, and in their awkwardness and +ignorance they prescribe commonplace remedies out of the pharmacopoeia. No, +dear Mrs. Marchmont, you do not look well. I fear it is the mind, the mind, +which has been over–strained. Is it not so?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston put her head on one side as she asked this question, and smiled +at Olivia with an air of gentle insinuation. If the doctor's wife wished to +plumb the depths of the widow's gloomy soul, she had an advantage here; for +Mrs. Marchmont was thrown off her guard by the question, which had been perhaps +asked hap–hazard, or it may be with a deeply considered design. Olivia +turned fiercely upon the polite questioner.</p> + +<p>"I have been suffering from nothing but a cold which I caught the other +day," she said; "I am not subject to any fine–ladylike hysteria, I can +assure you, Mrs. Weston."</p> + +<p>The doctor's wife pursed up her lips into a sympathetic smile, not at all +abashed by this rebuff. She had seated herself in one of the high–backed +chairs, with her muslin skirt spread out about her. She looked a living +exemplification of all that is neat and prim and commonplace, in contrast with +the pale, stern–faced woman, standing rigid and defiant in her long black +robes.</p> + +<p>"How very chy–arming!" exclaimed Mrs. Weston. "You are really +<em>not</em> nervous. Dee–ar me; and from what my brother Paul said, I +should have imagined that any one so highly organised must be rather nervous. +But I really fear I am impertinent, and that I presume upon our very slight +relationship. It <em>is</em> a relationship, is it not, although such a very +slight one?"</p> + +<p>"I have never thought of the subject," Mrs. Marchmont replied coldly. "I +suppose, however, that my marriage with your brother's cousin––"</p> + +<p>"And <em>my</em> cousin––"</p> + +<p>"Made a kind of connexion between us. But Mr. Marchmont gave me to +understand that you lived at Stanfield, Mrs. Weston."</p> + +<p>"Until last week, positively until last week," answered the surgeon's wife. +"I see you take very little interest in village gossip, Mrs. Marchmont, or you +would have heard of the change at Kemberling."</p> + +<p>"What change?"</p> + +<p>"My husband's purchase of poor old Mr. Dawnfield's practice. The dear old +man died a month ago,––you heard of his death, of +course,––and Mr. Weston negotiated the purchase with Mrs. Dawnfield +in less than a fortnight. We came here early last week, and already we are +making friends in the neighbourhood. How strange that you should not have heard +of our coming!"</p> + +<p>"I do not see much society," Olivia answered indifferently, "and I hear +nothing of the Kemberling people."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" cried Mrs. Weston; "and we hear so much of Marchmont Towers at +Kemberling."</p> + +<p>She looked full in the widow's face as she spoke, her stereotyped smile +subsiding into a look of greedy curiosity; a look whose intense eagerness could +not be concealed.</p> + +<p>That look, and the tone in which her last sentence had been spoken, said as +plainly as the plainest words could have done, "I have heard of Mary +Marchmont's flight."</p> + +<p>Olivia understood this; but in the passionate depth of her own madness she +had no power to fathom the meanings or the motives of other people. She +revolted against this Mrs. Weston, and disliked her because the woman intruded +upon her in her desolation; but she never once thought of Lavinia Weston's +interest in Mary's movements; she never once remembered that the frail life of +that orphan girl only stood between this woman's brother and the rich heritage +of Marchmont Towers.</p> + +<p>Blind and forgetful of everything in the hideous egotism of her despair, +what was Olivia Marchmont but a fitting tool, a plastic and +easily–moulded instrument, in the hands of unscrupulous people, whose +hard intellects had never been beaten into confused shapelessness in the fiery +furnace of passion?</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston had heard of Mary Marchmont's flight; but she had heard half a +dozen different reports of that event, as widely diversified in their details +as if half a dozen heiresses had fled from Marchmont Towers. Every gossip in +the place had a separate story as to the circumstances which had led to the +girl's running away from her home. The accounts vied with each other in graphic +force and minute elaboration; the conversations that had taken place between +Mary and her stepmother, between Edward Arundel and Mrs. Marchmont, between the +Rector of Swampington and nobody in particular, would have filled a volume, as +related by the gossips of Kemberling; but as everybody assigned a different +cause for the terrible misunderstanding at the Towers, and a different +direction for Mary's flight,––and as the railway official at the +station, who could have thrown some light on the subject, was a stern and moody +man, who had little sympathy with his kind, and held his tongue +persistently,––it was not easy to get very near the truth. Under +these circumstances, then, Mrs. Weston determined upon seeking information at +the fountain–head, and approaching the cruel stepmother, who, according +to some of the reports, had starved and beaten her dead husband's child.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear Mrs. Marchmont," said Lavinia Weston, seeing that it was +necessary to come direct to the point if she wished to wring the truth from +Olivia; "yes, we hear of everything at Kemberling; and I need scarcely tell +you, that we heard of the sad trouble which you have had to endure since your +ball––the ball that is spoken of as the most chy–arming +entertainment remembered in the neighbourhood for a long time. We heard of this +sad girl's flight."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont looked up with a dark frown, but made no answer.</p> + +<p>"Was she––it really is such a very painful question, that I +almost shrink from––but was Miss Marchmont at +all––eccentric––a little mentally deficient? Pray +pardon me, if I have given you pain by such a question; +but––––"</p> + +<p>Olivia started, and looked sharply at her visitor. "Mentally deficient? No!" +she said. But as she spoke her eyes dilated, her pale cheeks grew paler, her +upper lip quivered with a faint convulsive movement. It seemed as if some idea +presented itself to her with a sudden force that almost took away her +breath.</p> + +<p>"<em>Not</em> mentally deficient!" repeated Lavinia Weston; "dee–ar +me! It's a great comfort to hear that. Of course Paul saw very little of his +cousin, and he was not therefore in a position to judge,––though +his opinions, however rapidly arrived at, are generally so <em>very</em> +accurate;––but he gave me to understand that he thought Miss +Marchmont appeared a little––just a little––weak in her +intellect. I am very glad to find he was mistaken."</p> + +<p>Olivia made no reply to this speech. She had seated herself in her chair by +the window; she looked straight before her into the flagged quadrangle, with +her hands lying idle in her lap. It seemed as if she were actually unconscious +of her visitor's presence, or as if, in her scornful indifference, she did not +even care to affect any interest in that visitor's conversation.</p> + +<p>Lavinia Weston returned again to the attack.</p> + +<p>"Pray, Mrs. Marchmont, do not think me intrusive or impertinent," she said +pleadingly, "if I ask you to favour me with the true particulars of this sad +event. I am sure you will be good enough to remember that my brother Paul, my +sister, and myself are Mary Marchmont's nearest relatives on her father's side, +and that we have therefore some right to feel interested in her?"</p> + +<p>By this very polite speech Lavinia Weston plainly reminded the widow of the +insignificance of her own position at Marchmont Towers. In her ordinary frame +of mind Olivia would have resented the ladylike slight, but to–day she +neither heard nor heeded it; she was brooding with a stupid, unreasonable +persistency over the words "mental deficiency," "weak intellect." She only +roused herself by a great effort to answer Mrs. Weston's question, when that +lady had repeated it in very plain words.</p> + +<p>"I can tell you nothing about Miss Marchmont's flight," she said, coldly, +"except that she chose to run away from her home. I found reason to object to +her conduct upon the night of the ball; and the next morning she left the +house, assigning no reason––to me, at any rate––for her +absurd and improper behaviour."</p> + +<p>"She assigned no reason to <em>you</em>, my dear Mrs. Marchmont; but she +assigned a reason to somebody, I infer, from what you say?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; she wrote a letter to my cousin, Captain Arundel."</p> + +<p>"Telling him the reason of her departure?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know––I forget. The letter told nothing clearly; it was +wild and incoherent."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston sighed,––a long–drawn, desponding sigh.</p> + +<p>"Wild and incoherent!" she murmured, in a pensive tone. "How grieved Paul +will be to hear of this! He took such an interest in his cousin––a +delicate and fragile–looking young creature, he told me. Yes, he took a +very great interest in her, Mrs. Marchmont, though you may perhaps scarcely +believe me when I say so. He kept himself purposely aloof from this place; his +sensitive nature led him to abstain from even revealing his interest in Miss +Marchmont. His position, you must remember, with regard to this poor dear girl, +is a very delicate––I may say a very painful––one."</p> + +<p>Olivia remembered nothing of the kind. The value of the Marchmont estates; +the sordid worth of those wide–stretching farms, spreading far–away +into Yorkshire; the pitiful, closely–calculated revenue, which made Mary +a wealthy heiress,––were so far from the dark thoughts of this +woman's desperate heart, that she no more suspected Mrs. Weston of any +mercenary design in coming to the Towers, than of burglarious intentions with +regard to the silver spoons in the plate–room. She only thought that the +surgeon's wife was a tiresome woman, against whose pertinacious civility her +angry spirit chafed and rebelled, until she was almost driven to order her from +the room.</p> + +<p>In this cruel weariness of spirit Mrs. Marchmont gave a short impatient +sigh, which afforded a sufficient hint to such an accomplished tactician as her +visitor.</p> + +<p>"I know I have tired you, my dear Mrs. Marchmont," the doctor's wife said, +rising and arranging her muslin scarf as she spoke, in token of her immediate +departure. "I am so sorry to find you a sufferer from that nasty hacking cough; +but of course you have the best advice,––Mr. Barlow from +Swampington, I think you said?"––Olivia had said nothing of the +kind;––"and I trust the warm weather will prevent the cough taking +any hold of your chest. If I might venture to suggest flannels––so +many young women quite ridicule the idea of flannels––but, as the +wife of a humble provincial practitioner, I have learned their value. +Good–bye, dear Mrs. Marchmont. I may come again, may I not, now that the +ice is broken, and we are so well acquainted with each other? +Good–bye."</p> + +<p>Olivia could not refuse to take at least <em>one</em> of the two plump and +tightly–gloved hands which were held out to her with an air of frank +cordiality; but the widow's grasp was loose and nerveless, and, inasmuch as two +consentient parties are required to the shaking of hands as well as to the +getting up of a quarrel, the salutation was not a very hearty one.</p> + +<p>The surgeon's pony must have been weary of standing before the flight of +shallow steps leading to the western portico, when Mrs. Weston took her seat by +her husband's side in the gig, which had been newly painted and varnished since +the worthy couple's hegira from Stanfield.</p> + +<p>The surgeon was not an ambitious man, nor a designing man; he was simply +stupid and lazy––lazy although, in spite of himself, he led an +active and hard–working life; but there are many square men whose sides +are cruelly tortured by the pressure of the round holes into which they are +ill–advisedly thrust, and if our destinies were meted out to us in strict +accordance with our temperaments, Mr. Weston should have been a +lotus–eater. As it was, he was content to drudge on, mildly complying +with every desire of his wife; doing what she told him, because it was less +trouble to do the hardest work at her bidding than to oppose her. It would have +been surely less painful for Macbeth to have finished that ugly business of the +murder than to have endured my lady's black contemptuous scowl, and the bitter +scorn and contumely concentrated in those four words, "Give <em>me</em> the +daggers."</p> + +<p>Mr. Weston asked one or two commonplace questions about his wife's interview +with John Marchmont's widow; but, slowly apprehending that Lavinia did not care +to discuss the matter, he relapsed into meek silence, and devoted all his +intellectual powers to the task of keeping the pony out of the deeper ruts in +the rugged road between Marchmont Towers and Kemberling High Street.</p> + +<p>"What is the secret of that woman's life?" thought Lavinia Weston during +that homeward drive. "Has she ill–treated the girl, or is she plotting in +some way or other to get hold of the Marchmont fortune? Pshaw! that's +impossible. And yet she may be making a purse, somehow or other, out of the +estate. Anyhow, there is bad blood between the two women."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER16" id="CHAPTER16">CHAPTER IV.<br /> +A STOLEN HONEYMOON.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>The village to which Edward Arundel took his bride was within a few miles of +Winchester. The young soldier had become familiar with the place in his early +boyhood, when he had gone to spend a part of one bright midsummer holiday at +the house of a schoolfellow; and had ever since cherished a friendly +remembrance of the winding trout–streams, the rich verdure of the +valleys, and the sheltering hills that shut in the pleasant little cluster of +thatched cottages, the pretty white–walled villas, and the grey old +church.</p> + +<p>But to Mary, whose experiences of town and country were limited to the dingy +purlieus of Oakley Street and the fenny flats of Lincolnshire, this Hampshire +village seemed a rustic paradise, which neither trouble nor sorrow could ever +approach. She had trembled at the thought of Olivia's coming in Oakley Street; +but here she seemed to lose all terror of her stern +stepmother,––here, sheltered and protected by her young husband's +love, she fancied that she might live her life out happy and secure.</p> + +<p>She told Edward this one sunny morning, as they sat by the young man's +favourite trout–stream. Captain Arundel's fishing–tackle lay idle +on the turf at his side, for he had been beguiled into forgetfulness of a +ponderous trout he had been watching and finessing with for upwards of an hour, +and had flung himself at full length upon the mossy margin of the water, with +his uncovered head lying in Mary's lap.</p> + +<p>The childish bride would have been content to sit for ever thus in that +rural solitude, with her fingers twisted in her husband's chestnut curls, and +her soft eyes keeping timid watch upon his handsome face,––so +candid and unclouded in its careless repose. The undulating meadow–land +lay half–hidden in a golden haze, only broken here and there by the +glitter of the brighter sunlight that lit up the waters of the wandering +streams that intersected the low pastures. The massive towers of the cathedral, +the grey walls of St. Cross, loomed dimly in the distance; the bubbling plash +of a mill–stream sounded like some monotonous lullaby in the drowsy +summer atmosphere. Mary looked from the face she loved to the fair landscape +about her, and a tender solemnity crept into her mind––a reverent +love and admiration for this beautiful earth, which was almost akin to awe.</p> + +<p>"How pretty this place is, Edward!" she said. "I had no idea there were such +places in all the wide world. Do you know, I think I would rather be a +cottage–girl here than an heiress in Lincolnshire. Edward, if I ask you a +favour, will you grant it?"</p> + +<p>She spoke very earnestly, looking down at her husband's upturned face; but +Captain Arundel only laughed at her question, without even caring to lift the +drowsy eyelids that drooped over his blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well, my pet, if you want anything short of the moon, I suppose your +devoted husband is scarcely likely to refuse it. Our honeymoon is not a +fortnight old yet, Polly dear; you wouldn't have me turn tyrant quite as soon +as this. Speak out, Mrs. Arundel, and assert your dignity as a British matron. +What is the favour I am to grant?"</p> + +<p>"I want you to live here always, Edward darling," pleaded the girlish voice. +"Not for a fortnight or a month, but for ever and ever. I have never been happy +at Marchmont Towers. Papa died there, you know, and I cannot forget that. +Perhaps that ought to have made the place sacred to me, and so it has; but it +is sacred like papa's tomb in Kemberling Church, and it seems like profanation +to be happy in it, or to forget my dead father even for a moment. Don't let us +go back there, Edward. Let my stepmother live there all her life. It would seem +selfish and cruel to turn her out of the house she has so long been mistress +of. Mr. Gormby will go on collecting the rents, you know, and can send us as +much money as we want; and we can take that pretty house we saw to let on the +other side of Milldale,––the house with the rookery, and the +dovecotes, and the sloping lawn leading down to the water. You know you don't +like Lincolnshire, Edward, any more than I do, and there's scarcely any +trout–fishing near the Towers."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel opened his eyes, and lifted himself out of his reclining +position before he answered his wife.</p> + +<p>"My own precious Polly," he said, smiling fondly at the gentle childish face +turned in such earnestness towards his own; "my runaway little wife, rich +people have their duties to perform as well as poor people; and I am afraid it +would never do for you to hide in this out–of–the–way +Hampshire village, and play absentee from stately Marchmont and all its +dependencies. I love that pretty, infantine, unworldly spirit of yours, my +darling; and I sometimes wish we were two grown–up babes in the wood, and +could wander about gathering wild flowers, and eating blackberries and +hazel–nuts, until the shades of evening closed in, and the friendly +robins came to bury us. Don't fancy I am tired of our honeymoon, Polly, or that +I care for Marchmont Towers any more than you do; but I fear the +non–residence plan would never answer. The world would call my little +wife eccentric, if she ran away from her grandeur; and Paul Marchmont the +artist,––of whom your poor father had rather a bad opinion, by the +way,––would be taking out a statute of lunacy against you."</p> + +<p>"Paul Marchmont!" repeated Mary. "Did papa dislike Mr. Paul Marchmont?"</p> + +<p>"Well, poor John had a sort of a prejudice against the man, I believe; but +it was only a prejudice, for he freely confessed that he could assign no reason +for it. But whatever Mr. Paul Marchmont may be, you must live at the Towers, +Mary, and be Lady Bountiful–in–chief in your neighbourhood, and +look after your property, and have long interviews with Mr. Gormby, and become +altogether a woman of business; so that when I go back to +India––––"</p> + +<p>Mary interrupted him with a little cry:</p> + +<p>"Go back to India!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean, Edward?"</p> + +<p>"I mean, my darling, that my business in life is to fight for my Queen and +country, and not to spunge upon my wife's fortune. You don't suppose I'm going +to lay down my sword at seven–and–twenty years of age, and retire +upon my pension? No, Polly; you remember what Lord Nelson said on the deck of +the <em>Victory</em> at Trafalgar. That saying can never be so hackneyed as to +lose its force. I must do my duty, Polly––I must do my duty, even +if duty and love pull different ways, and I have to leave my darling, in the +service of my country."</p> + +<p>Mary clasped her hands in despair, and looked piteously at her +lover–husband, with the tears streaming down her pale cheeks.</p> + +<p>"O Edward," she cried, "how cruel you are; how very, very cruel you are to +me! What is the use of my fortune if you won't share it with me, if you won't +take it all; for it is yours, my dearest––it is all yours? I +remember the words in the Marriage Service, 'with all my goods I thee endow.' I +have given you Marchmont Towers, Edward; nobody in the world can take it away +from you. You never, never, never could be so cruel as to leave me! I know how +brave and good you are, and I am proud to think of your noble courage and all +the brave deeds you did in India. But you <em>have</em> fought for your +country, Edward; you <em>have</em> done your duty. Nobody can expect more of +you; nobody shall take you from me. O my darling, my husband, you promised to +shelter and defend me while our lives last! You won't leave me––you +won't leave me, will you?"</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel kissed the tears away from his wife's pale face, and drew her +head upon his bosom.</p> + +<p>"My love," he said tenderly, "you cannot tell how much pain it gives me to +hear you talk like this. What can I do? To give up my profession would be to +make myself next kin to a pauper. What would the world say of me, Mary? Think +of that. This runaway marriage would be a dreadful dishonour to me, if it were +followed by a life of lazy dependence on my wife's fortune. Nobody can dare to +slander the soldier who spends the brightest years of his life in the service +of his country. You would not surely have me be less than true to myself, Mary +darling? For my honour's sake, I must leave you."</p> + +<p>"O no, no, no!" cried the girl, in a low wailing voice. Unselfish and +devoted as she had been in every other crisis of her young life, she could not +be reasonable or self–denying here; she was seized with despair at the +thought of parting with her husband. No, not even for his honour's sake could +she let him go. Better that they should both die now, in this early noontide of +their happiness.</p> + +<p>"Edward, Edward," she sobbed, clinging convulsively about the young man's +neck, "don't leave me––don't leave me!"</p> + +<p>"Will you go with me to India, then, Mary?"</p> + +<p>She lifted her head suddenly, and looked her husband in the face, with the +gladness in her eyes shining through her tears, like an April sun through a +watery sky.</p> + +<p>"I would go to the end of the world with you, my own darling," she said; +"the burning sands and the dreadful jungles would have no terrors for me, if I +were with you, Edward."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel smiled at her earnestness.</p> + +<p>"I won't take you into the jungle, my love," he answered, playfully; "or if +I do, your palki shall be well guarded, and all ravenous beasts kept at a +respectful distance from my little wife. A great many ladies go to India with +their husbands, Polly, and come back very little the worse for the climate or +the voyage; and except your money, there is no reason you should not go with +me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind my money; let anybody have that."</p> + +<p>"Polly," cried the soldier, very seriously, "we must consult Richard +Paulette as to the future. I don't think I did right in marrying you during his +absence; and I have delayed writing to him too long, Polly. Those letters must +be written this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"The letter to Mr. Paulette and to your father?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; and the letter to my cousin Olivia."</p> + +<p>Mary's face grew sorrowful again, as Captain Arundel said this.</p> + +<p>"<em>Must</em> you tell my stepmother of our marriage?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Most assuredly, my dear. Why should we keep her in ignorance of it? Your +father's will gave her the privilege of advising you, but not the power to +interfere with your choice, whatever that choice might be. You were your own +mistress, Mary, when you married me. What reason have you to fear my cousin +Olivia?"</p> + +<p>"No reason, perhaps," the girl answered, sadly; "but I do fear her. I know I +am very foolish, Edward, and you have reason to despise me,––you +who are so brave. But I could never tell you how I tremble at the thought of +being once more in my stepmother's power. She said cruel things to me, Edward. +Every word she spoke seemed to stab me to the heart; but it isn't that only. +There's something more than that; something that I can't describe, that I can't +understand; something which tells me that she hates me."</p> + +<p>"Hates you, darling?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Edward; yes, she hates me. It wasn't always so, you know. She used to +be only cold and reserved, but lately her manner has changed. I thought that +she was ill, perhaps, and that my presence worried her. People often wish to be +alone, I know, when they are ill. O Edward, I have seen her shrink from me, and +shudder if her dress brushed against mine, as if I had been some horrible +creature. What have I done, Edward, that she should hate me?"</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel knitted his brows, and set himself to work out this womanly +problem, but he could make nothing of it. Yes, what Mary had said was perfectly +true: Olivia hated her. The young man had seen that upon the morning of the +girl's flight from Marchmont Towers; he had seen vengeful fury and vindictive +passion raging in the dark face of John Marchmont's widow. But what reason +could the woman have for her hatred of this innocent girl? Again and again +Olivia's cousin asked himself this question; and he was so far away from the +truth at last, that he could only answer it by imagining the lowest motive for +the widow's bad feeling. "She envies my poor little girl her fortune and +position," he thought.</p> + +<p>"But you won't leave me alone with my stepmother, will you, Edward?" Mary +said, recurring to her old prayer. "I am not afraid of her, nor of anybody or +anything in the world, while you are with me,––how should I +be?––but I think if I were to be alone with her again, I should +die. She would speak to me again as she spoke upon the night of the ball, and +her bitter taunts would kill me. I <em>could</em> not bear to be in her power +again, Edward."</p> + +<p>"And you shall not, my darling," answered the young man, enfolding the +slender, trembling figure in his strong arms. "My own childish pet, you shall +never be exposed to any woman's insolence or tyranny. You shall be sheltered +and protected, and hedged in on every side by your husband's love. And when I +go to India, you shall sail with me, my pearl. Mary, look up and smile at me, +and let's have no more talk of cruel stepmothers. How strange it seems to me, +Polly dear, that you should have been so womanly when you were a child, and yet +are so childlike now you are a woman!"</p> + +<p>The mistress of Marchmont Towers looked doubtfully at her husband, as if she +feared her childishness might be displeasing to him.</p> + +<p>"You don't love me any the less because of that, do you, Edward?" she asked +timidly.</p> + +<p>"Because of what, my treasure?"</p> + +<p>"Because I am so––childish?"</p> + +<p>"Polly," cried the young man, "do you think Jupiter liked Hebe any the less +because she was as fresh and innocent as the nectar she served out to him? If +he had, my dear, he'd have sent for Clotho, or Atropos, or some one or other of +the elderly maiden ladies of Hades, to wait upon him as cupbearer. I wouldn't +have you otherwise than you are, Polly, by so much as one thought."</p> + +<p>The girl looked up at her husband in a rapture of innocent affection.</p> + +<p>"I am too happy, Edward," she said, in a low awe–stricken +whisper––"I am too happy! So much happiness can never last."</p> + +<p>Alas! the orphan girl's experience of this life had early taught her the +lesson which some people learn so late. She had learnt to distrust the equal +blue of a summer sky, the glorious splendour of the blazing sunlight. She was +accustomed to sorrow; but these brief glimpses of perfect happiness filled her +with a dim sense of terror. She felt like some earthly wanderer who had strayed +across the threshold of Paradise. In the midst of her delight and admiration, +she trembled for the moment in which the ruthless angels, bearing flaming +swords, should drive her from the celestial gates.</p> + +<p>"It can't last, Edward," she murmured.</p> + +<p>"Can't last, Polly!" cried the young man; "why, my dove is transformed all +at once into a raven. We have outlived our troubles, Polly, like the hero and +heroine in one of your novels; and what is to prevent our living happy ever +afterwards, like them? If you remember, my dear, no sorrows or trials ever fall +to the lot of people <em>after</em> marriage. The persecutions, the +separations, the estrangements, are all ante–nuptial. When once your true +novelist gets his hero and heroine up to the altar–rails in real +earnest,––he gets them into the church sometimes, and then forbids +the banns, or brings a former wife, or a rightful husband, pale and denouncing, +from behind a pillar, and drives the wretched pair out again, to persecute them +through three hundred pages more before he lets them get back +again,––but when once the important words are spoken and the knot +tied, the story's done, and the happy couple get forty or fifty years' wedded +bliss, as a set–off against the miseries they have endured in the +troubled course of a twelvemonth's courtship. That's the sort of thing, isn't +it, Polly?"</p> + +<p>The clock of St. Cross, sounding faintly athwart the meadows, struck three +as the young man finished speaking.</p> + +<p>"Three o'clock, Polly!" he cried; "we must go home, my pet. I mean to be +businesslike to–day."</p> + +<p>Upon each day in that happy honeymoon holiday Captain Arundel had made some +such declaration with regard to his intention of being businesslike; that is to +say, setting himself deliberately to the task of writing those letters which +should announce and explain his marriage to the people who had a right to hear +of it. But the soldier had a dislike to all letter–writing, and a special +horror of any epistolary communication which could come under the denomination +of a business–letter; so the easy summer days slipped +by,––the delicious drowsy noontides, the soft and dreamy twilight, +the tender moonlit nights,––and the Captain put off the task for +which he had no fancy, from after breakfast until after dinner, and from after +dinner until after breakfast; always beguiled away from his open +travelling–desk by a word from Mary, who called him to the window to look +at a pretty child on the village green before the inn, or at the blacksmith's +dog, or the tinker's donkey, or a tired Italian organ–boy who had strayed +into that out–of–the–way nook, or at the smart butcher from +Winchester, who rattled over in a pony–cart twice a week to take orders +from the gentry round about, and to insult and defy the local purveyor, whose +stock–in–trade generally seemed to consist of one leg of mutton and +a dish of pig's fry.</p> + +<p>The young couple walked slowly through the meadows, crossing rustic wooden +bridges that spanned the winding stream, loitering to look down into the clear +water at the fish which Captain Arundel pointed out, but which Mary could never +see;––that young lady always fixing her eyes upon some long +trailing weed afloat in the transparent water, while the silvery trout +indicated by her husband glided quietly away to the sedgy bottom of the stream. +They lingered by the water–mill, beneath whose shadow some children were +fishing; they seized upon every pretext for lengthening that sunny homeward +walk, and only reached the inn as the village clocks were striking four, at +which hour Captain Arundel had ordered dinner.</p> + +<p>But after the simple little repast, mild and artless in its nature as the +fair young spirit of the bride herself; after the landlord, sympathetic yet +respectful, had in his own person attended upon his two guests; after the +pretty rustic chamber had been cleared of all evidence of the meal that had +been eaten, Edward Arundel began seriously to consider the business in hand.</p> + +<p>"The letters must be written, Polly," he said, seating himself at a table +near the open window. Trailing branches of jasmine and honeysuckle made a +framework round the diamond–paned casement; the perfumed blossoms blew +into the room with every breath of the warm August breeze, and hung trembling +in the folds of the chintz curtains. Mr. Arundel's gaze wandered dreamily away +through this open window to the primitive picture without,––the +scattered cottages upon the other side of the green, the cattle standing in the +pond, the cackling geese hurrying homeward across the purple ridge of common, +the village gossips loitering beneath the faded sign that hung before the low +white tavern at the angle of the road. He looked at all these things as he +flung his leathern desk upon the table, and made a great parade of unlocking +and opening it.</p> + +<p>"The letters must be written," he repeated, with a smothered sigh. "Did you +ever notice a peculiar property in stationery, Polly?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Edward Arundel only opened her brown eyes to their widest extent, and +stared at her husband.</p> + +<p>"No, I see you haven't," said the young man. "How should you, you fortunate +Polly? You've never had to write any business–letters yet, though you are +an heiress. The peculiarity of all stationery, my dear, is, that it is +possessed of an intuitive knowledge of the object for which it is to be used. +If one has to write an unpleasant letter, Polly, it might go a little smoother, +you know; one might round one's paragraphs, and spell the difficult +words––the 'believes' and 'receives,' the 'tills' and 'untils,' and +all that sort of thing––better with a pleasant pen, an +easy–going, jolly, soft–nibbed quill, that would seem to say, +'Cheer up, old fellow! I'll carry you through it; we'll get to "your very +obedient servant" before you know where you are,' and so on. But, bless your +heart, Polly! let a poor unbusinesslike fellow try to write a +business–letter, and everything goes against him. The pen knows what he's +at, and jibs, and stumbles, and shies about the paper, like a broken–down +screw; the ink turns thick and lumpy; the paper gets as greasy as a London +pavement after a fall of snow, till a poor fellow gives up, and knocks under to +the force of circumstances. You see if my pen doesn't splutter, Polly, the +moment I address Richard Paulette."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel was very careful in the adjustment of his sheet of paper, +and began his letter with an air of resolution.</p> + +<p>"White Hart Inn, Milldale, near Winchester,<br /> +"August 14th.</p> + +<p>"MY DEAR SIR,"</p> + +<p>He wrote as much as this with great promptitude, and then, with his elbow on +the table, fell to staring at his pretty young wife and drumming his fingers on +his chin. Mary was sitting opposite her husband at the open window, working, or +making a pretence of being occupied with some impossible fragment of Berlin +wool–work, while she watched her husband.</p> + +<p>"How pretty you look in that white frock, Polly!" said the soldier; "you +call those things frocks, don't you? And that blue sash, too,––you +ought always to wear white, Mary, like your namesakes abroad who are <em>vouée +au blanc</em> by their faithful mothers, and who are a blessing to the +laundresses for the first seven or fourteen years of their lives. What shall I +say to Paulette? He's such a jolly fellow, there oughtn't to be much difficulty +about the matter. 'My dear sir,' seems absurdly stiff; 'my dear +Paulette,'––that's better,––'I write this to inform you +that your client, Miss Mary March––––' What's that, +Polly?"</p> + +<p>It was the postman, a youth upon a pony, with the afternoon letters from +London. Captain Arundel flung down his pen and went to the window. He had some +interest in this young man's arrival, as he had left orders that such letters +as were addressed to him at the hotel in Covent Garden should be forwarded to +him at Milldale.</p> + +<p>"I daresay there's a letter from Germany, Polly," he said eagerly. "My +mother and Letitia are capital correspondents; I'll wager anything there's a +letter, and I can answer it in the one I'm going to write this evening, and +that'll be killing two birds with one stone. I'll run down to the postman, +Polly."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel had good reason to go after his letters, for there seemed +little chance of those missives being brought to him. The youthful postman was +standing in the porch drinking ale out of a ponderous earthenware mug, and +talking to the landlord, when Edward went down.</p> + +<p>"Any letters for me, Dick?" the Captain asked. He knew the Christian name of +almost every visitor or hanger–on at the little inn, though he had not +stayed there an entire fortnight, and was as popular and admired as if he had +been some free–spoken young squire to whom all the land round about +belonged.</p> + +<p>"'Ees, sir," the young man answered, shuffling off his cap; "there be two +letters for ye."</p> + +<p>He handed the two packets to Captain Arundel, who looked doubtfully at the +address of the uppermost, which, like the other, had been re–directed by +the people at the London hotel. The original address of this letter was in a +handwriting that was strange to him; but it bore the postmark of the village +from which the Dangerfield letters were sent.</p> + +<p>The back of the inn looked into an orchard, and through an open door +opposite to the porch Edward Arundel saw the low branches of the trees, and the +ripening fruit red and golden in the afternoon sunlight. He went out into this +orchard to read his letters, his mind a little disturbed by the strange +handwriting upon the Dangerfield epistle.</p> + +<p>The letter was from his father's housekeeper, imploring him most earnestly +to go down to the Park without delay. Squire Arundel had been stricken with +paralysis, and was declared to be in imminent danger. Mrs. and Miss Arundel and +Mr. Reginald were away in Germany. The faithful old servant implored the +younger son to lose no time in hurrying home, if he wished to see his father +alive.</p> + +<p>The soldier leaned against the gnarled grey trunk of an old +apple–tree, and stared at this letter with a white awe–stricken +face.</p> + +<p>What was he to do? He must go to his father, of course. He must go without a +moment's delay. He must catch the first train that would carry him westward +from Southampton. There could be no question as to his duty. He must go; he +must leave his young wife.</p> + +<p>His heart sank with a sharp thrill of pain, and with perhaps some faint +shuddering sense of an unknown terror, as he thought of this.</p> + +<p>"It was lucky I didn't write the letters," he reflected; "no one will guess +the secret of my darling's retreat. She can stay here till I come back to her. +God knows I shall hurry back the moment my duty sets me free. These people will +take care of her. No one will know where to look for her. I'm very glad I +didn't write to Olivia. We were so happy this morning! Who could think that +sorrow would come between us so soon?"</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel looked at his watch. It was a quarter to six o'clock, and he +knew that an express left Southampton for the west at eight. There would be +time for him to catch that train with the help of a sturdy pony belonging to +the landlord of the White Hart, which would rattle him over to the station in +an hour and a half. There would be time for him to catch the train; but, oh! +how little time to comfort his darling––how little time to +reconcile his young wife to the temporary separation!</p> + +<p>He hurried back to the porch, briefly explained to the landlord what had +happened, ordered the pony and gig to be got ready immediately, and then went +very, very slowly upstairs, to the room in which his young wife sat by the open +window waiting for his return.</p> + +<p>Mary looked up at his face as he entered the room, and that one glance told +her of some new sorrow.</p> + +<p>"Edward," she cried, starting up from her chair with a look of terror, "my +stepmother has come."</p> + +<p>Even in his trouble the young man smiled at his foolish wife's +all–absorbing fear of Olivia Marchmont.</p> + +<p>"No, my darling," he said; "I wish to heaven our worst trouble were the +chance of your father's widow breaking in upon us. Something has happened, +Mary; something very sorrowful, very serious for me. My father is ill, Polly +dear, dangerously ill, and I must go to him."</p> + +<p>Mary Arundel drew a long breath. Her face had grown very white, and the +hands that were linked tightly round her husband's arm trembled a little.</p> + +<p>"I will try to bear it," she said; "I will try to bear it."</p> + +<p>"God bless you, my darling!" the soldier answered fervently, clasping his +young wife to his breast. "I know you will. It will be a very short parting, +Mary dearest. I will come back to you directly I have seen my father. If he is +worse, there will be little need for me to stop at Dangerfield; if he is +better, I can take you back there with me. My own darling love, it is very +bitter for us to be parted thus; but I know that you will bear it like a +heroine. Won't you, Polly?"</p> + +<p>"I will try to bear it, dear."</p> + +<p>She said very little more than this, but clung about her husband, not with +any desperate force, not with any clamorous and tumultuous grief, but with a +half–despondent resignation; as a drowning man, whose strength is +well–nigh exhausted, may cling, in his hopelessness, to a spar, which he +knows he must presently abandon.</p> + +<p>Mary Arundel followed her husband hither and thither while he made his brief +and hurried preparations for the sudden journey; but although she was powerless +to assist him,––for her trembling hands let fall everything she +tried to hold, and there was a mist before her eyes, which distorted and +blotted the outline of every object she looked at,––she hindered +him by no noisy lamentations, she distressed him by no tears. She suffered, as +it was her habit to suffer, quietly and uncomplainingly.</p> + +<p>The sun was sinking when she went with Edward downstairs to the porch, +before which the landlord's pony and gig were in waiting, in custody of a smart +lad who was to accompany Mr. Arundel to Southampton. There was no time for any +protracted farewell. It was better so, perhaps, Edward thought. He would be +back so soon, that the grief he felt in this parting––and it may be +that his suffering was scarcely less than Mary's––seemed wasted +anguish, to which it would have been sheer cowardice to give way. But for all +this the soldier very nearly broke down when he saw his childish wife's piteous +face, white in the evening sunlight, turned to him in mute appeal, as if the +quivering lips would fain have entreated him to abandon all and to remain. He +lifted the fragile figure in his arms,––alas! it had never seemed +so fragile as now,––and covered the pale face with passionate +kisses and fast–dropping tears.</p> + +<p>"God bless and defend you, Mary! God keep––––"</p> + +<p>He was ashamed of the huskiness of his voice, and putting his wife suddenly +away from him, he sprang into the gig, snatched the reins from the boy's hand, +and drove away at the pony's best speed. The old–fashioned vehicle +disappeared in a cloud of dust; and Mary, looking after her husband with eyes +that were as yet tearless, saw nothing but glaring light and confusion, and a +pastoral landscape that reeled and heaved like a stormy sea.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her, as she went slowly back to her room, and sat down amidst +the disorder of open portmanteaus and overturned hatboxes, which the young man +had thrown here and there in his hurried selection of the few things necessary +for him to take on his hasty journey––it seemed as if the greatest +calamity of her life had now befallen her. As hopelessly as she had thought of +her father's death, she now thought of Edward Arundel's departure. She could +not see beyond the acute anguish of this separation. She could not realise to +herself that there was no cause for all this terrible sorrow; that the parting +was only a temporary one; and that her husband would return to her in a few +days at the furthest. Now that she was alone, now that the necessity for +heroism was past, she abandoned herself utterly to the despair that had held +possession of her soul from the moment in which Captain Arundel had told her of +his father's illness.</p> + +<p>The sun went down behind the purple hills that sheltered the western side of +the little village. The tree–tops in the orchard below the open window of +Mrs. Arundel's bedroom grew dim in the grey twilight. Little by little the +sound of voices in the rooms below died away into stillness. The fresh +rosy–cheeked country girl who had waited upon the young husband and wife, +came into the sitting–room with a pair of wax–candles in +old–fashioned silver candlesticks, and lingered in the room for a little +time, expecting to receive some order from the lonely watcher. But Mary had +locked the door of her bedchamber, and sat with her head upon the sill of the +open window, looking out into the dim orchard. It was only when the stars +glimmered in the tranquil sky that the girl's blank despair gave way before a +sudden burst of tears, and she flung herself down beside the +white–curtained bed to pray for her young husband. She prayed for him in +an ecstatic fervour of love and faith, carried away by the new hopefulness that +arose out of her ardent supplications, and picturing him going triumphant on +his course, to find his father out of danger,––restored to health, +perhaps,––and to return to her before the stars glimmered through +the darkness of another summer's night. She prayed for him, hoping and +believing everything; though at the hour in which she knelt, with the faint +starlight shimmering upon her upturned face and clasped hands, Edward Arundel +was lying, maimed and senseless, in the wretched waiting–room of a little +railway–station in Dorsetshire, watched over by an obscure country +surgeon, while the frightened officials scudded here and there in search of +some vehicle in which the young man might be conveyed to the nearest town.</p> + +<p>There had been one of those accidents which seem terribly common on every +line of railway, however well managed. A signalman had mistaken one train for +another; a flag had been dropped too soon; and the down–express had run +into a heavy luggage–train blundering up from Exeter with +farm–produce for the London markets. Two men had been killed, and a great +many passengers hurt; some very seriously. Edward Arundel's case was perhaps +one of the most serious amongst these.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER17" id="CHAPTER17">CHAPTER V.<br /> +SOUNDING THE DEPTHS.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Lavinia Weston spent the evening after her visit to Marchmont Towers at her +writing–desk, which, like everything else appertaining to her, was a +model of neatness and propriety; perfect in its way, although it was no +marvellous specimen of walnut–wood and burnished gold, no elegant +structure of papier–mâché and mother–of–pearl, but simply a +schoolgirl's homely rosewood desk, bought for fifteen shillings or a guinea.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston had administered the evening refreshment of weak tea, stale +bread, and strong butter to her meek husband, and had dismissed him to the +surgery, a sunken and rather cellar–like apartment opening out of the +prim second–best parlour, and approached from the village street by a +side–door. The surgeon was very well content to employ himself with the +preparation of such draughts and boluses as were required by the ailing +inhabitants of Kemberling, while his wife sat at her desk in the room above +him. He left his gallipots and pestle and mortar once or twice in the course of +the evening, to clamber ponderously up the three or four stairs leading to the +sitting–room, and stare through the keyhole of the door at Mrs. Weston's +thoughtful face, and busy hand gliding softly over the smooth note–paper. +He did this in no prying or suspicious spirit, but out of sheer admiration for +his wife.</p> + +<p>"What a mind she has!" he murmured rapturously, as he went back to his work; +"what a mind!"</p> + +<p>The letter which Lavinia Weston wrote that evening was a very long one. She +was one of those women who write long letters upon every convenient occasion. +To–night she covered two sheets of note–paper with her small neat +handwriting. Those two sheets contained a detailed account of the interview +that had taken place that day between the surgeon's wife and Olivia; and the +letter was addressed to the artist, Paul Marchmont.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was in consequence of the receipt of this letter that Paul +Marchmont arrived at his sister's house at Kemberling two days after Mrs. +Weston's visit to Marchmont Towers. He told the surgeon that he came to +Lincolnshire for a few days' change of air, after a long spell of very hard +work; and George Weston, who looked upon his brother–in–law as an +intellectual demigod, was very well content to accept any explanation of Mr. +Marchmont's visit.</p> + +<p>"Kemberling isn't a very lively place for you, Mr. Paul," he said +apologetically,––he always called his wife's brother Mr. +Paul,––"but I dare say Lavinia will contrive to make you +comfortable. She persuaded me to come here when old Dawnfield died; but I can't +say she acted with her usual tact, for the business ain't as good as my +Stanfield practice; but I don't tell Lavinia so."</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont smiled.</p> + +<p>"The business will pick up by–and–by, I daresay," he said. +"You'll have the Marchmont Towers family to attend to in good time, I +suppose."</p> + +<p>"That's what Lavinia said," answered the surgeon. "'Mrs. John Marchmont +can't refuse to employ a relation,' she says; 'and, as first–cousin to +Mary Marchmont's father, I ought'––meaning herself, you +know––'to have some influence in that quarter.' But then, you see, +the very week we come here the gal goes and runs away; which rather, as one may +say, puts a spoke in our wheel, you know."</p> + +<p>Mr. George Weston rubbed his chin reflectively as he concluded thus. He was +a man given to spending his leisure–hours––when he had any +leisure, which was not very often––in tavern parlours, where the +affairs of the nation were settled and unsettled every evening over sixpenny +glasses of hollands and water; and he regretted his removal from Stanfield, +which had been as the uprooting of all his dearest associations. He was a +solemn man, who never hazarded an opinion lightly,––perhaps because +he never had an opinion to hazard,––and his stolidity won him a +good deal of respect from strangers; but in the hands of his wife he was meeker +than the doves that cooed in the pigeon–house behind his dwelling, and +more plastic than the knob of white wax upon which industrious Mrs. Weston was +wont to rub her thread when engaged in the mysteries of that elaborate and +terrible science which women paradoxically call <em>plain</em> needlework.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont presented himself at the Towers upon the day after his +arrival at Kemberling. His interview with the widow was a very long one. He had +studied every line of his sister's letter; he had weighed every word that had +fallen from Olivia's lips and had been recorded by Lavinia Weston; and taking +the knowledge thus obtained as his starting–point, he took his +dissecting–knife and went to work at an intellectual autopsy. He +anatomised the wretched woman's soul. He made her tell her secret, and bare her +tortured breast before him; now wringing some hasty word from her impatience, +now entrapping her into some admission,––if only so much as a +defiant look, a sudden lowering of the dark brows, an involuntary compression +of the lips. He <em>made</em> her reveal herself to him. Poor Rosencranz and +Guildenstern were sorry blunderers in that art which is vulgarly called +pumping, and were easily put out by a few quips and quaint retorts from the mad +Danish prince; but Paul Marchmont <em>would</em> have played upon Hamlet more +deftly than ever mortal musician played upon pipe or recorder, and would have +fathomed the remotest depths of that sorrowful and erratic soul. Olivia writhed +under the torture of that polite inquisition, for she knew that her secrets +were being extorted from her; that her pitiful folly––that folly +which she would have denied even to herself, if possible––was being +laid bare in all its weak foolishness. She knew this; but she was compelled to +smile in the face of her bland inquisitor, to respond to his commonplace +expressions of concern about the protracted absence of the missing girl, and +meekly to receive his suggestions respecting the course it was her duty to +take. He had the air of responding to <em>her</em> suggestions, rather than of +himself dictating any particular line of conduct. He affected to believe that +he was only agreeing with some understood ideas of hers, while he urged his own +views upon her.</p> + +<p>"Then we are quite of one mind in this, my dear Mrs. Marchmont," he said at +last; "this unfortunate girl must not be suffered to remain away from her +legitimate home any longer than we can help. It is our duty to find and bring +her back. I need scarcely say that you, being bound to her by every tie of +affection, and having, beyond this, the strongest claim upon her gratitude for +your devoted fulfilment of the trust confided in you,––one hears of +these things, Mrs. Marchmont, in a country village like +Kemberling,––I need scarcely say that you are the most fitting +person to win the poor child back to a sense of her duty––if she +<em>can</em> be won to such a sense." Paul Marchmont added, after a sudden +pause and a thoughtful sigh, "I sometimes fear––––"</p> + +<p>He stopped abruptly, waiting until Olivia should question him.</p> + +<p>"You sometimes fear––––?"</p> + +<p>"That––that the error into which Miss Marchmont has fallen is +the result of a mental rather than of a moral deficiency."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"I mean this, my dear Mrs. Marchmont," answered the artist, gravely; "one of +the most powerful evidences of the soundness of a man's brain is his capability +of assigning a reasonable motive for every action of his life. No matter how +unreasonable the action in itself may seem, if the motive for that action can +be demonstrated. But the moment a man acts <em>without</em> motive, we begin to +take alarm and to watch him. He is eccentric; his conduct is no longer amenable +to ordinary rule; and we begin to trace his eccentricities to some weakness or +deficiency in his judgment or intellect. Now, I ask you what motive Mary +Marchmont can have had for running away from this house?"</p> + +<p>Olivia quailed under the piercing scrutiny of the artist's cold grey eyes, +but she did not attempt to reply to his question.</p> + +<p>"The answer is very simple," he continued, after that long scrutiny; "the +girl could have had no cause for flight; while, on the other hand, every +reasonable motive that can be supposed to actuate a woman's conduct was arrayed +against her. She had a happy home, a kind stepmother. She was within a few +years of becoming undisputed mistress of a very large estate. And yet, +immediately after having assisted at a festive entertainment, to all appearance +as gay and happy as the gayest and happiest there, this girl runs away in the +dead of the night, abandoning the mansion which is her own property, and +assigning no reason whatever for what she does. Can you wonder, then, if I feel +confirmed in an opinion that I formed upon the day on which I heard the reading +of my cousin's will?"</p> + +<p>"What opinion?"</p> + +<p>"That Mary Marchmont is as feeble in mind as she is fragile in body."</p> + +<p>He launched this sentence boldly, and waited for Olivia's reply. He had +discovered the widow's secret. He had fathomed the cause of her jealous hatred +of Mary Marchmont; but even <em>he</em> did not yet understand the nature of +the conflict in the desperate woman's breast. She could not be wicked all at +once. Against every fresh sin she made a fresh struggle, and she would not +accept the lie which the artist tried to force upon her.</p> + +<p>"I do not think that there is any deficiency in my stepdaughter's +intellect," she said, resolutely.</p> + +<p>She was beginning to understand that Paul Marchmont wanted to ally himself +with her against the orphan heiress, but as yet she did not understand why he +should do so. She was slow to comprehend feelings that were utterly foreign to +her own nature. There was so little of mercenary baseness in this strange +woman's soul, that had the flame of a candle alone stood between her and the +possession of Marchmont Towers, I doubt if she would have cared to waste a +breath upon its extinction. She had lived away from the world, and out of the +world; and it was difficult for her to comprehend the mean and paltry +wickedness which arise out of the worship of Baal.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont recoiled a little before the straight answer which the widow +had given him.</p> + +<p>"You think Miss Marchmont strong–minded, then, perhaps?" he said.</p> + +<p>"No; not strong minded."</p> + +<p>"My dear Mrs. Marchmont, you deal in paradoxes," exclaimed the artist. "You +say that your stepdaughter is neither weak–minded nor +strong–minded?"</p> + +<p>"Weak enough, perhaps, to be easily influenced by other people; weak enough +to believe anything my cousin Edward Arundel might choose to tell her; but not +what is generally called deficient in intellect."</p> + +<p>"You think her perfectly able to take care of herself?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I think so."</p> + +<p>"And yet this running away looks almost as if––––. +But I have no wish to force any unpleasant belief upon you, my dear madam. I +think––as you yourself appear to suggest––that the best +thing we can do is to get this poor girl home again as quickly as possible. It +will never do for the mistress of Marchmont Towers to be wandering about the +world with Mr. Edward Arundel. Pray pardon me, Mrs. Marchmont, if I speak +rather disrespectfully of your cousin; but I really cannot think that the +gentleman has acted very honourably in this business."</p> + +<p>Olivia was silent. She remembered the passionate indignation of the young +soldier, the angry defiance hurled at her, as Edward Arundel galloped away from +the gaunt western façade. She remembered these things, and involuntarily +contrasted them with the smooth blandness of Paul Marchmont's talk, and the +deadly purpose lurking beneath it––of which deadly purpose some +faint suspicion was beginning to dawn upon her.</p> + +<p>If she could have thought Mary Marchmont mad,––if she could have +thought Edward Arundel base, she would have been glad; for then there would +have been some excuse for her own wickedness. But she could not think so. She +slipped little by little down into the black gulf; now dragged by her own mad +passion; now lured yet further downward by Paul Marchmont.</p> + +<p>Between this man and eleven thousand a year the life of a fragile girl was +the solitary obstacle. For three years it had been so, and for three years Paul +Marchmont had waited––patiently, as it was his habit to +wait––the hour and the opportunity for action. The hour and +opportunity had come, and this woman, Olivia Marchmont, only stood in his way. +She must become either his enemy or his tool, to be baffled or to be made +useful. He had now sounded the depths of her nature, and he determined to make +her his tool.</p> + +<p>"It shall be my business to discover this poor child's hiding–place," +he said; "when that is found I will communicate with you, and I know you will +not refuse to fulfil the trust confided to you by your late husband. You will +bring your stepdaughter back to this house, and henceforward protect her from +the dangerous influence of Edward Arundel."</p> + +<p>Olivia looked at the speaker with an expression which seemed like terror. It +was as if she said,––</p> + +<p>"Are you the devil, that you hold out this temptation to me, and twist my +own passions to serve your purpose?"</p> + +<p>And then she paltered with her conscience.</p> + +<p>"Do you consider that it is my duty to do this?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"My dear Mrs. Marchmont, most decidedly."</p> + +<p>"I will do it, then. I––I––wish to do my duty."</p> + +<p>"And you can perform no greater act of charity than by bringing this unhappy +girl back to a sense of <em>her</em> duty. Remember, that her reputation, her +future happiness, may fall a sacrifice to this foolish conduct, which, I regret +to say, is very generally known in the neighbourhood. Forgive me if I express +my opinion too freely; but I cannot help thinking, that if Mr. Arundel's +intentions had been strictly honourable, he would have written to you before +this, to tell you that his search for the missing girl had failed; or, in the +event of his finding her, he would have taken the earliest opportunity of +bringing her back to her own home. My poor cousin's somewhat unprotected +position, her wealth, and her inexperience of the world, place her at the mercy +of a fortune–hunter; and Mr. Arundel has himself to thank if his conduct +gives rise to the belief that he wishes to compromise this girl in the eyes of +the scandalous, and thus make sure of your consent to a marriage which would +give him command of my cousin's fortune."</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont's bosom heaved with the stormy beating of her heart. Was +she to sit calmly by and hold her peace while this man slandered the brave +young soldier, the bold, reckless, generous–hearted lad, who had shone +upon her out of the darkness of her life, as the very incarnation of all that +is noble and admirable in mankind? Was she to sit quietly by and hear a +stranger lie away her kinsman's honour, truth, and manhood?</p> + +<p>Yes, she must do so. This man had offered her a price for her truth and her +soul. He was ready to help her to the revenge she longed for. He was ready to +give her his aid in separating the innocent young lovers, whose pure affection +had poisoned her life, whose happiness was worse than the worst death to her. +She kept silent, therefore, and waited for Paul to speak again.</p> + +<p>"I will go up to Town to–morrow, and set to work about this business," +the artist said, as he rose to take leave of Mrs. Marchmont. "I do not believe +that I shall have much difficulty in finding the young lady's +hiding–place. My first task shall be to look for Mr. Arundel. You can +perhaps give me the address of some place in London where your cousin is in the +habit of staying?"</p> + +<p>"I can."</p> + +<p>"Thank you; that will very much simplify matters. I shall write you +immediate word of any discovery I make, and will then leave all the rest to +you. My influence over Mary Marchmont as an entire stranger could be nothing. +Yours, on the contrary, must be unbounded. It will be for you to act upon my +letter."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont waited for two days and nights for the promised letter. +Upon the third morning it came. The artist's epistle was very brief:</p> + +<p>"MY DEAR MRS. MARCHMONT,––I have made the necessary discovery. +Miss Marchmont is to be found at the White Hart Inn, Milldale, near Winchester. +May I venture to urge your proceeding there in search of her without delay?</p> + +<p>"Yours very faithfully,</p> + +<p>"PAUL MARCHMONT.</p> + +<p>"<em>Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square,<br /> +</em>"<em>Aug.</em> 15<em>th</em>."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER18" id="CHAPTER18">CHAPTER VI.<br /> +RISEN FROM THE GRAVE.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>The rain dripped ceaselessly upon the dreary earth under a grey November +sky,––a dull and lowering sky, that seemed to brood over this lower +world with some menace of coming down to blot out and destroy it. The +express–train, rushing headlong across the wet flats of Lincolnshire, +glared like a meteor in the gray fog; the dismal shriek of the engine was like +the cry of a bird of prey. The few passengers who had chosen that dreary +winter's day for their travels looked despondently out at the monotonous +prospect, seeking in vain to descry some spot of hope in the joyless prospect; +or made futile attempts to read their newspapers by the dim light of the lamp +in the roof of the carriage. Sulky passengers shuddered savagely as they +wrapped themselves in huge woollen rugs or ponderous coverings made from the +skins of wild beasts. Melancholy passengers drew grotesque and hideous +travelling–caps over their brows, and, coiling themselves in the corner +of their seats, essayed to sleep away the weary hours. Everything upon this +earth seemed dismal and damp, cold and desolate, incongruous and +uncomfortable.</p> + +<p>But there was one first–class passenger in that Lincolnshire express +who made himself especially obnoxious to his fellows by the display of an +amount of restlessness and superabundant energy quite out of keeping with the +lazy despondency of those about him.</p> + +<p>This was a young man with a long tawny beard and a white +face,––a very handsome face, though wan and attenuated, as if with +some terrible sickness, and somewhat disfigured by certain strappings of +plaister, which were bound about a patch of his skull a little above the left +temple. This young man had one side of the carriage to himself; and a sort of +bed had been made up for him with extra cushions, upon which he lay at full +length, when he was still, which was never for very long together. He was +enveloped almost to the chin in voluminous railway–rugs, but, in spite of +these coverings, shuddered every now and then, as if with cold. He had a +pocket–pistol amongst his travelling paraphernalia, which he applied +occasionally to his dry lips. Sometimes drops of perspiration broke suddenly +out upon his forehead, and were brushed away by a tremulous hand, that was +scarcely strong enough to hold a cambric handkerchief. In short, it was +sufficiently obvious to every one that this young man with the tawny beard had +only lately risen from a sick–bed, and had risen therefrom considerably +before the time at which any prudent medical practitioner would have given him +licence to do so.</p> + +<p>It was evident that he was very, very ill, but that he was, if anything, +more ill at ease in mind than in body; and that some terrible gnawing anxiety, +some restless care, some horrible uncertainty or perpetual foreboding of +trouble, would not allow him to be at peace. It was as much as the three +fellow–passengers who sat opposite to him could do to bear with his +impatience, his restlessness, his short half–stifled moans, his long +weary sighs; the horror of his fidgety feet shuffled incessantly upon the +cushions; the suddenly convulsive jerks with which he would lift himself upon +his elbow to stare fiercely into the dismal fog outside the carriage window; +the groans that were wrung from him as he flung himself into new and painful +positions; the frightful aspect of physical agony which came over his face as +he looked at his watch,––and he drew out and consulted that +ill–used chronometer, upon an average, once in a quarter of an hour; his +impatient crumpling of the crisp leaves of a new "Bradshaw," which he turned +over ever and anon, as if, by perpetual reference to that mysterious +time–table, he might hasten the advent of the hour at which he was to +reach his destination. He was, altogether, a most aggravating and exasperating +travelling companion; and it was only out of Christian forbearance with the +weakness of his physical state that his irritated fellow–passengers +refrained from uniting themselves against him, and casting him bodily out of +the window of the carriage; as a clown sometimes flings a venerable but +tiresome pantaloon through a square trap or pitfall, lurking, undreamed of, in +the façade of an honest tradesman's dwelling.</p> + +<p>The three passengers had, in divers manners, expressed their sympathy with +the invalid traveller; but their courtesies had not been responded to with any +evidence of gratitude or heartiness. The young man had answered his companions +in an absent fashion, scarcely deigning to look at them as he +spoke;––speaking altogether with the air of some +sleep–walker, who roams hither and thither absorbed in a dreadful dream, +making a world for himself, and peopling it with horrible images unknown to +those about him.</p> + +<p>Had he been ill?––Yes, very ill. He had had a railway accident, +and then brain–fever. He had been ill for a long time.</p> + +<p>Somebody asked him how long.</p> + +<p>He shuffled about upon the cushions, and groaned aloud at this question, to +the alarm of the man who had asked it.</p> + +<p>"How long?" he cried, in a fierce agony of mental or bodily +uneasiness;––"how long? Two months,––three +months,––ever since the 15th of August."</p> + +<p>Then another passenger, looking at the young man's very evident sufferings +from a commercial point of view, asked him whether he had had any +compensation.</p> + +<p>"Compensation!" cried the invalid. "What compensation?"</p> + +<p>"Compensation from the Railway Company. I hope you've a strong case against +them, for you've evidently been a terrible sufferer."</p> + +<p>It was dreadful to see the way in which the sick man writhed under this +question.</p> + +<p>"Compensation!" he cried. "What compensation can they give me for an +accident that shut me in a living grave for three months, that separated me +from––––? You don't know what you're talking about, +sir," he added suddenly; "I can't think of this business patiently; I can't be +reasonable. If they'd hacked <em>me</em> to pieces, I shouldn't have cared. +I've been under a red–hot Indian sun, when we fellows couldn't see the +sky above us for the smoke of the cannons and the flashing of the sabres about +our heads, and I'm not afraid of a little cutting and smashing more or less; +but when I think what others may have suffered +through––––I'm almost mad, +and––––!"</p> + +<p>He couldn't say any more, for the intensity of his passion had shaken him as +a leaf is shaken by a whirlwind; and he fell back upon the cushions, trembling +in every limb, and groaning aloud. His fellow–passengers looked at each +other rather nervously, and two out of the three entertained serious thoughts +of changing carriages when the express stopped midway between London and +Lincoln.</p> + +<p>But they were reassured by–and–by; for the invalid, who was +Captain Edward Arundel, or that pale shadow of the dashing young cavalry +officer which had risen from a sick–bed, relapsed into silence, and +displayed no more alarming symptoms than that perpetual restlessness and +disquietude which is cruelly wearying even to the strongest nerves. He only +spoke once more, and that was when the short day, in which there had been no +actual daylight, was closing in, and the journey nearly finished, when he +startled his companions by crying out suddenly,––</p> + +<p>"O my God! will this journey never come to an end? Shall I never be put out +of this horrible suspense?"</p> + +<p>The journey, or at any rate Captain Arundel's share of it, came to an end +almost immediately afterwards, for the train stopped at Swampington; and while +the invalid was staggering feebly to his feet, eager to scramble out of the +carriage, his servant came to the door to assist and support him.</p> + +<p>"You seem to have borne the journey wonderful, sir," the man said +respectfully, as he tried to rearrange his master's wrappings, and to do as +much as circumstances, and the young man's restless impatience, would allow of +being done for his comfort.</p> + +<p>"I have suffered the tortures of the infernal regions, Morrison," Captain +Arundel ejaculated, in answer to his attendant's congratulatory address. "Get +me a fly directly; I must go to the Towers at once."</p> + +<p>"Not to–night, sir, surely?" the servant remonstrated, in a tone of +alarm. "Your Mar and the doctors said you <em>must</em> rest at Swampington for +a night."</p> + +<p>"I'll rest nowhere till I've been to Marchmont Towers," answered the young +soldier passionately. "If I must walk there,––if I'm to drop down +dead on the road,––I'll go. If the cornfields between this and the +Towers were a blazing prairie or a raging sea, I'd go. Get me a fly, man; and +don't talk to me of my mother or the doctors. I'm going to look for my wife. +Get me a fly."</p> + +<p>This demand for a commonplace hackney vehicle sounded rather like an +anti–climax, after the young man's talk of blazing prairies and raging +seas; but passionate reality has no ridiculous side, and Edward Arundel's most +foolish words were sublime by reason of their earnestness.</p> + +<p>"Get me a fly, Morrison," he said, grinding his heel upon the platform in +the intensity of his impatience. "Or, stay; we should gain more in the end if +you were to go to the George––it's not ten minutes' walk from here; +one of the porters will take you––the people there know me, and +they'll let you have some vehicle, with a pair of horses and a clever driver. +Tell them it's for an errand of life and death, and that Captain Arundel will +pay them three times their usual price, or six times, if they wish. Tell them +anything, so long as you get what we want."</p> + +<p>The valet, an old servant of Edward Arundel's father, was carried away by +the young man's mad impetuosity. The vitality of this broken–down +invalid, whose physical weakness contrasted strangely with his mental energy, +bore down upon the grave man–servant like an avalanche, and carried him +whither it would. He was fain to abandon all hope of being true to the promises +which he had given to Mrs. Arundel and the medical men, and to yield himself to +the will of the fiery young soldier.</p> + +<p>He left Edward Arundel sitting upon a chair in the solitary +waiting–room, and hurried after the porter who had volunteered to show +him the way to the George Inn, the most prosperous hotel in Swampington.</p> + +<p>The valet had good reason to be astonished by his young master's energy and +determination; for Mary Marchmont's husband was as one rescued from the very +jaws of death. For eleven weeks after that terrible concussion upon the +South–Western Railway, Edward Arundel had lain in a state of +coma,––helpless, mindless; all the story of his life blotted away, +and his brain transformed into as blank a page as if he had been an infant +lying on his mother's knees. A fractured skull had been the young Captain's +chief share in those injuries which were dealt out pretty freely to the +travellers in the Exeter mail on the 15th of August; and the young man had been +conveyed to Dangerfield Park, whilst his father's corpse lay in stately +solemnity in one of the chief rooms, almost as much a corpse as that dead +father.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arundel's troubles had come, as the troubles of rich and prosperous +people often do come, in a sudden avalanche, that threatened to overwhelm the +tender–hearted matron. She had been summoned from Germany to attend her +husband's deathbed; and she was called away from her faithful watch beside that +deathbed, to hear tidings of the accident that had befallen her younger son.</p> + +<p>Neither the Dorsetshire doctor who attended the stricken traveller upon his +homeward journey, and brought the strong man, helpless as a child, to claim the +same tender devotion that had watched over his infancy, nor the Devonshire +doctors who were summoned to Dangerfield, gave any hope of their patient's +recovery. The sufferer might linger for years, they said; but his existence +would be only a living death, a horrible blank, which it was a cruelty to wish +prolonged. But when a great London surgeon appeared upon the scene, a new +light, a wonderful gleam of hope, shone in upon the blackness of the mother's +despair.</p> + +<p>This great London surgeon, who was a very unassuming and +matter–of–fact little man, and who seemed in a great hurry to earn +his fee and run back to Saville Row by the next express, made a brief +examination of the patient, asked a very few sharp and trenchant questions of +the reverential provincial medical practitioners, and then declared that the +chief cause of Edward Arundel's state lay in the fact that a portion of the +skull was depressed,––a splinter pressed upon the brain.</p> + +<p>The provincial practitioners opened their eyes very wide; and one of them +ventured to mutter something to the effect that he had thought as much for a +long time. The London surgeon further stated, that until the pressure was +removed from the patient's brain, Captain Edward Arundel would remain in +precisely the same state as that into which he had fallen immediately upon the +accident. The splinter could only be removed by a very critical operation, and +this operation must be deferred until the patient's bodily strength was in some +measure restored.</p> + +<p>The surgeon gave brief but decisive directions to the provincial medical men +as to the treatment of their patient during this interregnum, and then +departed, after promising to return as soon as Captain Arundel was in a fit +state for the operation. This period did not arrive till the first week in +November, when the Devonshire doctors ventured to declare their patient's +shattered frame in a great measure renovated by their devoted attention, and +the tender care of the best of mothers.</p> + +<p>The great surgeon came. The critical operation was performed, with such +eminent success as to merit a very long description, which afterwards appeared +in the <em>Lancet</em>; and slowly, like the gradual lifting of a curtain, the +black shadows passed away from Edward Arundel's mind, and the memory of the +past returned to him.</p> + +<p>It was then that he raved madly about his young wife, perpetually demanding +that she might be summoned to him; continually declaring that some great +misfortune would befall her if she were not brought to his side, that, even in +his feebleness, he might defend and protect her. His mother mistook his +vehemence for the raving of delirium. The doctors fell into the same error, and +treated him for brain–fever. It was only when the young soldier +demonstrated to them that he could, by making an effort over himself, be as +reasonable as they were, that he convinced them of their mistake. Then he +begged to be left alone with his mother; and, with his feverish hands clasped +in hers, asked her the meaning of her black dress, and the reason why his young +wife had not come to him. He learned that his mother's mourning garments were +worn in memory of his dead father. He learned also, after much bewilderment and +passionate questioning, that no tidings of Mary Marchmont had ever come to +Dangerfield.</p> + +<p>It was then that the young man told his mother the story of his marriage: +how that marriage had been contracted in haste, but with no real desire for +secrecy; how he had, out of mere idleness, put off writing to his friends until +that last fatal night; and how, at the very moment when the pen was in his hand +and the paper spread out before him, the different claims of a double duty had +torn him asunder, and he had been summoned from the companionship of his bride +to the deathbed of his father.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arundel tried in vain to set her son's mind at rest upon the subject of +his wife's silence.</p> + +<p>"No, mother!" he cried; "it is useless talking to me. You don't know my poor +darling. She has the courage of a heroine, as well as the simplicity of a +child. There has been some foul play at the bottom of this; it is treachery +that has kept my wife from me. She would have come here on foot, had she been +free to come. I know whose hand is in this business. Olivia Marchmont has kept +my poor girl a prisoner; Olivia Marchmont has set herself between me and my +darling!"</p> + +<p>"But you don't know this, Edward. I'll write to Mr. Paulette; he will be +able to tell us what has happened."</p> + +<p>The young man writhed in a sudden paroxysm of mental agony.</p> + +<p>"Write to Mr. Paulette!" he exclaimed. "No, mother; there shall be no delay, +no waiting for return–posts. That sort of torture would kill me in a few +hours. No, mother; I will go to my wife by the first train that will take me on +my way to Lincolnshire."</p> + +<p>"You will go! You, Edward! in your state!"</p> + +<p>There was a terrible outburst of remonstrance and entreaty on the part of +the poor mother. Mrs. Arundel went down upon her knees before her son, +imploring him not to leave Dangerfield till his strength was recovered; +imploring him to let her telegraph a summons to Richard Paulette; to let her go +herself to Marchmont Towers in search of Mary; to do anything rather than carry +out the one mad purpose that he was bent on,––the purpose of going +himself to look for his wife.</p> + +<p>The mother's tears and prayers were vain; no adamant was ever firmer than +the young soldier.</p> + +<p>"She is my wife, mother," he said; "I have sworn to protect and cherish her; +and I have reason to think she has fallen into merciless hands. If I die upon +the road, I must go to her. It is not a case in which I can do my duty by +proxy. Every moment I delay is a wrong to that poor helpless girl. Be +reasonable, dear mother, I implore you; I should suffer fifty times more by the +torture of suspense if I stayed here, than I can possibly suffer in a railroad +journey from here to Lincolnshire."</p> + +<p>The soldier's strong will triumphed over every opposition. The provincial +doctors held up their hands, and protested against the madness of their +patient; but without avail. All that either Mrs. Arundel or the doctors could +do, was to make such preparations and arrangements as would render the weary +journey easier; and it was under the mother's superintendence that the +air–cushions, the brandy–flasks, the hartshorn, sal–volatile, +and railway–rugs, had been provided for the Captain's comfort.</p> + +<p>It was thus that, after a blank interval of three months, Edward Arundel, +like some creature newly risen from the grave, returned to Swampington, upon +his way to Marchmont Towers.</p> + +<p>The delay seemed endless to this restless passenger, sitting in the empty +waiting–room of the quiet Lincolnshire station, though the ostler and +stable–boys at the "George" were bestirring themselves with +good–will, urged on by Mr. Morrison's promises of liberal reward for +their trouble, and though the man who was to drive the carriage lost no time in +arraying himself for the journey. Captain Arundel looked at his watch three +times while he sat in that dreary Swampington waiting–room. There was a +clock over the mantelpiece, but he would not trust to that.</p> + +<p>"Eight o'clock!" he muttered. "It will be ten before I get to the Towers, if +the carriage doesn't come directly."</p> + +<p>He got up, and walked from the waiting–room to the platform, and from +the platform to the door of the station. He was so weak as to be obliged to +support himself with his stick; and even with that help he tottered and reeled +sometimes like a drunken man. But, in his eager impatience, he was almost +unconscious of his own weakness.</p> + +<p>"Will it never come?" he muttered. "Will it never come?"</p> + +<p>At last, after an intolerable delay, as it seemed to the young man, the +carriage–and–pair from the George Inn rattled up to the door of the +station, with Mr. Morrison upon the box, and a postillion loosely balanced upon +one of the long–legged, long–backed, bony grey horses. Edward +Arundel got into the vehicle before his valet could alight to assist him.</p> + +<p>"Marchmont Towers!" he cried to the postillion; "and a five–pound note +if you get there in less than an hour."</p> + +<p>He flung some money to the officials who had gathered about the door to +witness his departure, and who had eagerly pressed forward to render him that +assistance which, even in his weakness, he disdained.</p> + +<p>These men looked gravely at each other as the carriage dashed off into the +fog, blundering and reeling as it went along the narrow half–made road, +that led from the desert patch of waste ground upon which the station was built +into the high–street of Swampington.</p> + +<p>"Marchmont Towers!" said one of the men, in a tone that seemed to imply that +there was something ominous even in the name of the Lincolnshire mansion. "What +does <em>he</em> want at Marchmont Towers, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>"Why, don't you know who he is, mate?" responded the other man, +contemptuously.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"He's Parson Arundel's nevy,––the young officer that some folks +said ran away with the poor young miss oop at the Towers."</p> + +<p>"My word! is he now? Why, I shouldn't ha' known him."</p> + +<p>"No; he's a'most like the ghost of what he was, poor young chap. I've heerd +as he was in that accident as happened last August on the +Sou'–Western."</p> + +<p>The railway official shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"It's all a queer story," he said. "I can't make out naught about it; but I +know <em>I</em> shouldn't care to go up to the Towers after dark."</p> + +<p>Marchmont Towers had evidently fallen into rather evil repute amongst these +simple Lincolnshire people.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>The carriage in which Edward Arundel rode was a superannuated old chariot, +whose uneasy springs rattled and shook the sick man to pieces. He groaned aloud +every now and then from sheer physical agony; and yet I almost doubt if he knew +that he suffered, so superior in its intensity was the pain of his mind to +every bodily torture. Whatever consciousness he had of his racked and aching +limbs was as nothing in comparison to the racking anguish of suspense, the +intolerable agony of anxiety, which seemed multiplied by every moment. He sat +with his face turned towards the open window of the carriage, looking out +steadily into the night. There was nothing before him but a blank darkness and +thick fog, and a flat country blotted out by the falling rain; but he strained +his eyes until the pupils dilated painfully, in his desire to recognise some +landmark in the hidden prospect.</p> + +<p>"<em>When</em> shall I get there?" he cried aloud, in a paroxysm of rage and +grief. "My own one, my pretty one, my wife, when shall I get to you?"</p> + +<p>He clenched his thin hands until the nails cut into his flesh. He stamped +upon the floor of the carriage. He cursed the rusty, creaking springs, the +slow–footed horses, the pools of water through which the wretched animals +floundered pastern–deep. He cursed the darkness of the night, the +stupidity of the postillion, the length of the way,––everything, +and anything, that kept him back from the end which he wanted to reach.</p> + +<p>At last the end came. The carriage drew up before the tall iron gates, +behind which stretched, dreary and desolate as some patch of common–land, +that melancholy waste which was called a park.</p> + +<p>A light burned dimly in the lower window of the lodge,––a little +spot that twinkled faintly red and luminous through the darkness and the rain; +but the iron gates were as closely shut as if Marchmont Towers had been a +prison–house. Edward Arundel was in no humour to linger long for the +opening of those gates. He sprang from the carriage, reckless of the weakness +of his cramped limbs, before the valet could descend from the rickety +box–seat, or the postillion could get off his horse, and shook the wet +and rusty iron bars with his own wasted hands. The gates rattled, but resisted +the concussion; they had evidently been locked for the night. The young man +seized an iron ring, dangling at the end of a chain, which hung beside one of +the stone pillars, and rang a peal that resounded like an alarm–signal +through the darkness. A fierce watchdog far away in the distance howled +dismally at the summons, and the dissonant shriek of a peacock sounded across +the flat.</p> + +<p>The door of the lodge was opened about five minutes after the bell had rung, +and an old man peered out into the night, holding a candle shaded by his feeble +hand, and looking suspiciously towards the gate.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" he said.</p> + +<p>"It is I, Captain Arundel. Open the gate, please."</p> + +<p>The man, who was very old, and whose intellect seemed to have grown as dim +and foggy as the night itself, reflected for a few moments, and then +mumbled,––</p> + +<p>"Cap'en Arundel! Ay, to be sure, to be sure. Parson Arundel's nevy; ay, +ay."</p> + +<p>He went back into the lodge, to the disgust and aggravation of the young +soldier, who rattled fiercely at the gate once more in his impatience. But the +old man emerged presently, as tranquil as if the blank November night had been +some sunshiny noontide in July, carrying a lantern and a bunch of keys, one of +which he proceeded in a leisurely manner to apply to the great lock of the +gate.</p> + +<p>"Let me in!" cried Edward Arundel. "Man alive! do you think I came down here +to stand all night staring through these iron bars? Is Marchmont Towers a +prison, that you shut your gates as if they were never to be opened until the +Day of Judgment?"</p> + +<p>The old man responded with a feeble, chirpy laugh, an audible grin, senile +and conciliatory.</p> + +<p>"We've no need to keep t' geates open arter dark," he said; "folk doan't +coome to the Toowers arter dark."</p> + +<p>He had succeeded by this time in turning the key in the lock; one of the +gates rolled slowly back upon its rusty hinges, creaking and groaning as if in +hoarse protest against all visitors to the Towers; and Edward Arundel entered +the dreary domain which John Marchmont had inherited from his kinsman.</p> + +<p>The postillion turned his horses from the highroad without the gates into +the broad drive leading up to the mansion. Far away, across the wet flats, the +broad western front of that gaunt stone dwelling–place frowned upon the +travellers, its black grimness only relieved by two or three dim red patches, +that told of lighted windows and human habitation. It was rather difficult to +associate friendly flesh and blood with Marchmont Towers on this dark November +night. The nervous traveller would have rather expected to find diabolical +denizens lurking within those black and stony walls; hideous enchantments +beneath that rain–bespattered roof; weird and incarnate horrors brooding +by deserted hearths, and fearful shrieks of souls in perpetual pain breaking +upon the stillness of the night.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel had no thought of these things. He knew that the place was +darksome and gloomy, and that, in very spite of himself, he had always been +unpleasantly impressed by it; but he knew nothing more. He only wanted to reach +the house without delay, and to ask for the young wife whom he had parted with +upon a balmy August evening three months before. He wanted this passionately, +almost madly; and every moment made his impatience wilder, his anxiety more +intense. It seemed as if all the journey from Dangerfield Park to Lincolnshire +was as nothing compared to the space that still lay between him and Marchmont +Towers.</p> + +<p>"We've done it in double–quick time, sir," the postillion said, +complacently pointing to the steaming sides of his horses. "Master'll gie it to +me for driving the beasts like this."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel looked at the panting animals. They had brought him quickly, +then, though the way had seemed so long.</p> + +<p>"You shall have a five–pound note, my lad," he said, "if you get me up +to yonder house in five minutes."</p> + +<p>He had his hand upon the door of the carriage, and was leaning against it +for support, while he tried to recover enough strength with which to clamber +into the vehicle, when his eye was caught by some white object flapping in the +rain against the stone pillar of the gate, and made dimly visible in a +flickering patch of light from the lodge–keeper's lantern.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" he cried, pointing to this white spot upon the +moss–grown stone.</p> + +<p>The old man slowly raised his eyes to the spot towards which the soldier's +finger pointed.</p> + +<p>"That?" he mumbled. "Ay, to be sure, to be sure. Poor young lady! That's the +printed bill as they stook oop. It's the printed bill, to be sure, to be sure. +I'd a'most forgot it. It ain't been much good, anyhow; and I'd a'most forgot +it."</p> + +<p>"The printed bill! the young lady!" gasped Edward Arundel, in a hoarse, +choking voice.</p> + +<p>He snatched the lantern from the lodge–keeper's hand with a force that +sent the old man reeling and tottering several paces backward; and, rushing to +the stone pillar, held the light up above his head, on a level with the white +placard which had attracted his notice. It was damp and dilapidated at the +edges; but that which was printed upon it was as visible to the soldier as +though each commonplace character had been a fiery sign inscribed upon a +blazing scroll.</p> + +<p>This was the announcement which Edward Arundel read upon the gate–post +of Marchmont Towers:––</p> + +<p>"ONE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD.––Whereas Miss Mary Marchmont left +her home on Wednesday last, October 17th, and has not since been heard of, this +is to give notice that the above reward will be given to any one who shall +afford such information as will lead to her recovery if she be alive, or to the +discovery of her body if she be dead. The missing young lady is eighteen years +of age, rather below the middle height, of fair complexion, light–brown +hair, and hazel eyes. When she left her home, she had on a grey silk dress, +grey shawl, and straw bonnet. She was last seen near the river–side upon +the afternoon of Wednesday, the 17th instant.</p> + +<p>"<em>Marchmont Towers, October</em> 20<em>th</em>, 1848."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER19" id="CHAPTER19">CHAPTER VII.<br /> +FACE TO FACE.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p>It is not easy to imagine a lion–hearted young cavalry officer, whose +soldiership in the Punjaub had won the praises of a Napier and an Outram, +fainting away like a heroine of romance at the coming of evil tidings; but +Edward Arundel, who had risen from a sick–bed to take a long and +fatiguing journey in utter defiance of the doctors, was not strong enough to +bear the dreadful welcome that greeted him upon the gate–post at +Marchmont Towers.</p> + +<p>He staggered, and would have fallen, had not the extended arms of his +father's confidential servant been luckily opened to receive and support him. +But he did not lose his senses.</p> + +<p>"Get me into the carriage, Morrison," he cried. "Get me up to that house. +They've tortured and tormented my wife while I've been lying like a log on my +bed at Dangerfield. For God's sake, get me up there as quick as you can!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Morrison had read the placard on the gate across his young master's +shoulder. He lifted the Captain into the carriage, shouted to the postillion to +drive on, and took his seat by the young man's side.</p> + +<p>"Begging you pardon, Mr. Edward," he said, gently; "but the young lady may +be found by this time. That bill's been sticking there for upwards of a month, +you see, sir, and it isn't likely but what Miss Marchmont has been found +between that time and this."</p> + +<p>The invalid passed his hand across his forehead, down which the cold sweat +rolled in great beads.</p> + +<p>"Give me some brandy," he whispered; "pour some brandy down my throat, +Morrison, if you've any compassion upon me; I must get strength somehow for the +struggle that lies before me."</p> + +<p>The valet took a wicker–covered flask from his pocket, and put the +neck of it to Edward Arundel's lips.</p> + +<p>"She may be found, Morrison," muttered the young man, after drinking a long +draught of the fiery spirit; he would willingly have drunk living fire itself, +in his desire to obtain unnatural strength in this crisis. "Yes; you're right +there. She may be found. But to think that she should have been driven away! To +think that my poor, helpless, tender girl should have been driven a second time +from the home that is her own! Yes; her own by every law and every right. Oh, +the relentless devil, the pitiless devil!––what can be the motive +of her conduct? Is it madness, or the infernal cruelty of a fiend +incarnate?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Morrison thought that his young master's brain had been disordered by +the shock he had just undergone, and that this wild talk was mere delirium.</p> + +<p>"Keep your heart up, Mr. Edward," he murmured, soothingly; "you may rely +upon it, the young lady has been found."</p> + +<p>But Edward was in no mind to listen to any mild consolatory remarks from his +valet. He had thrust his head out of the carriage–window, and his eyes +were fixed upon the dimly–lighted casements of the western +drawing–room.</p> + +<p>"The room in which John and Polly and I used to sit together when first I +came from India," he murmured. "How happy we were!––how happy we +were!"</p> + +<p>The carriage stopped before the stone portico, and the young man got out +once more, assisted by his servant. His breath came short and quick now that he +stood upon the threshold. He pushed aside the servant who opened the familiar +door at the summons of the clanging bell, and strode into the hall. A fire +burned on the wide hearth; but the atmosphere of the great stone–paved +chamber was damp and chilly.</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel walked straight to the door of the western +drawing–room. It was there that he had seen lights in the windows; it was +there that he expected to find Olivia Marchmont.</p> + +<p>He was not mistaken. A shaded lamp burnt dimly on a table near the fire. +There was a low invalid–chair beside this table, an open book upon the +floor, and an Indian shawl, one he had sent to his cousin, flung carelessly +upon the pillows. The neglected fire burned low in the old–fashioned +grate, and above the dull–red blaze stood the figure of a woman, tall, +dark, and gloomy of aspect.</p> + +<p>It was Olivia Marchmont, in the mourning–robes that she had worn, with +but one brief intermission, ever since her husband's death. Her profile was +turned towards the door by which Edward Arundel entered the room; her eyes were +bent steadily upon the low heap of burning ashes in the grate. Even in that +doubtful light the young man could see that her features were sharpened, and +that a settled frown had contracted her straight black brows.</p> + +<p>In her fixed attitude, in her air of deathlike tranquillity, this woman +resembled some sinful vestal sister, set, against her will, to watch a sacred +fire, and brooding moodily over her crimes.</p> + +<p>She did not hear the opening of the door; she had not even heard the +trampling of the horses' hoofs, or the crashing of the wheels upon the gravel +before the house. There were times when her sense of external things was, as it +were, suspended and absorbed in the intensity of her obstinate despair.</p> + +<p>"Olivia!" said the soldier.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont looked up at the sound of that accusing voice, for there was +something in Edward Arundel's simple enunciation of her name which seemed like +an accusation or a menace. She looked up, with a great terror in her face, and +stared aghast at her unexpected visitor. Her white cheeks, her trembling lips, +and dilated eyes could not have more palpably expressed a great and absorbing +horror, had the young man standing quietly before her been a corpse newly risen +from its grave.</p> + +<p>"Olivia Marchmont," said Captain Arundel, after a brief pause, "I have come +here to look for my wife."</p> + +<p>The woman pushed her trembling hands across her forehead, brushing the dead +black hair from her temples, and still staring with the same unutterable horror +at the face of her cousin. Several times she tried to speak; but the broken +syllables died away in her throat in hoarse, inarticulate mutterings. At last, +with a great effort, the words came.</p> + +<p>"I––I––never expected to see you," she said; "I +heard that you were very ill; I heard that you––––"</p> + +<p>"You heard that I was dying," interrupted Edward Arundel; "or that, if I +lived, I should drag out the rest of my existence in hopeless idiocy. The +doctors thought as much a week ago, when one of them, cleverer than the rest I +suppose, had the courage to perform an operation that restored me to +consciousness. Sense and memory came back to me by degrees. The thick veil that +had shrouded the past was rent asunder; and the first image that came to me was +the image of my young wife, as I had seen her upon the night of our parting. +For more than three months I had been dead. I was suddenly restored to life. I +asked those about me to give me tidings of my wife. Had she sought me +out?––had she followed me to Dangerfield? No! They could tell me +nothing. They thought that I was delirious, and tried to soothe me with +compassionate speeches, merciful falsehoods, promising me that I should see my +darling. But I soon read the secret of their scared looks. I saw pity and +wonder mingled in my mother's face, and I entreated her to be merciful to me, +and to tell me the truth. She had compassion upon me, and told me all she knew, +which was very little. She had never heard from my wife. She had never heard of +any marriage between Mary Marchmont and me. The only communication which she +had received from any of her Lincolnshire relations had been a letter from my +uncle Hubert, in reply to one of hers telling him of my hopeless state.</p> + +<p>"This was the shock that fell upon me when life and memory came back. I +could not bear the imprisonment of a sick–bed. I felt that for the second +time I must go out into the world to look for my darling; and in defiance of +the doctors, in defiance of my poor mother, who thought that my departure from +Dangerfield was a suicide, I am here. It is here that I come first to seek for +my wife. I might have stopped in London to see Richard Paulette; I might sooner +have gained tidings of my darling. But I came here; I came here without +stopping by the way, because an uncontrollable instinct and an unreasoning +impulse tells me that it is here I ought to seek her. I am here, her husband, +her only true and legitimate defender; and woe be to those who stand between me +and my wife!"</p> + +<p>He had spoken rapidly in his passion; and he stopped, exhausted by his own +vehemence, and sank heavily into a chair near the lamplit table.</p> + +<p>Then for the first time that night Olivia Marchmont plainly saw her cousin's +face, and saw the terrible change that had transformed the handsome young +soldier, since the bright August morning on which he had gone forth from +Marchmont Towers. She saw the traces of a long and wearisome illness sadly +visible in his waxen–hued complexion, his hollow cheeks, the faded lustre +of his eyes, his dry and pallid lips. She saw all this, the woman whose one +great sin had been to love this man wickedly and madly, in spite of her better +self, in spite of her womanly pride; she saw the change in him that had altered +him from a young Apollo to a shattered and broken invalid. And did any +revulsion of feeling arise in her breast? Did any corresponding transformation +in her own heart bear witness to the baseness of her love?</p> + +<p>No; a thousand times, no! There was no thrill of disgust, how transient +soever; not so much as one passing shudder of painful surprise, one pang of +womanly regret. No! In place of these, a passionate yearning arose in this +woman's haughty soul; a flood of sudden tenderness rushed across the black +darkness of her mind. She fain would have flung herself upon her knees, in +loving self–abasement, at the sick man's feet. She fain would have cried +aloud, amid a tempest of passionate sobs,––</p> + +<p>"O my love, my love! you are dearer to me a hundred times by this cruel +change. It was <em>not</em> your bright–blue eyes and waving chestnut +hair,––it was not your handsome face, your brave, +soldier–like bearing that I loved. My love was not so base as that. I +inflicted a cruel outrage upon myself when I thought that I was the weak fool +of a handsome face. Whatever <em>I</em> have been, my love, at least, has been +pure. My love is pure, though I am base. I will never slander that again, for I +know now that it is immortal."</p> + +<p>In the sudden rush of that flood–tide of love and tenderness, all +these thoughts welled into Olivia Marchmont's mind. In all her sin and +desperation she had never been so true a woman as now; she had never, perhaps, +been so near being a good woman. But the tender emotion was swept out of her +breast the next moment by the first words of Edward Arundel.</p> + +<p>"Why do you not answer my question?" he said.</p> + +<p>She drew herself up in the erect and rigid attitude that had become almost +habitual to her. Every trace of womanly feeling faded out of her face, as the +sunlight disappears behind the sudden darkness of a thundercloud.</p> + +<p>"What question?" she asked, with icy indifference.</p> + +<p>"The question I have come to Lincolnshire to ask––the question I +have perilled my life, perhaps, to ask," cried the young man. "Where is my +wife?"</p> + +<p>The widow turned upon him with a horrible smile.</p> + +<p>"I never heard that you were married," she said. "Who is your wife?"</p> + +<p>"Mary Marchmont, the mistress of this house."</p> + +<p>Olivia opened her eyes, and looked at him in half–sardonic +surprise.</p> + +<p>"Then it was not a fable?" she said.</p> + +<p>"What was not a fable?"</p> + +<p>"The unhappy girl spoke the truth when she said that you had married her at +some out–of–the–way church in Lambeth."</p> + +<p>"The truth! Yes!" cried Edward Arundel. "Who should dare to say that she +spoke other than the truth? Who should dare to disbelieve her?"</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont smiled again,––that same strange smile which +was almost too horrible for humanity, and yet had a certain dark and gloomy +grandeur of its own. Satan, the star of the morning, may have so smiled +despairing defiance upon the Archangel Michael.</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately," she said, "no one believed the poor child. Her story was +such a very absurd one, and she could bring forward no shred of evidence in +support of it."</p> + +<p>"O my God!" ejaculated Edward Arundel, clasping his hands above his head in +a paroxysm of rage and despair. "I see it all––I see it all! My +darling has been tortured to death. Woman!" he cried, "are you possessed by a +thousand fiends? Is there no one sentiment of womanly compassion left in your +breast? If there is one spark of womanhood in your nature, I appeal to that; I +ask you what has happened to my wife?"</p> + +<p>"My wife! my wife!" The reiteration of that familiar phrase was to Olivia +Marchmont like the perpetual thrust of a dagger aimed at an open wound. It +struck every time upon the same tortured spot, and inflicted the same agony.</p> + +<p>"The placard upon the gates of this place can tell you as much as I can," +she said.</p> + +<p>The ghastly whiteness of the soldier's face told her that he had seen the +placard of which she spoke.</p> + +<p>"She has not been found, then?" he said, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"How did she disappear?"</p> + +<p>"As she disappeared upon the morning on which you followed her. She wandered +out of the house, this time leaving no letter, nor message, nor explanation of +any kind whatever. It was in the middle of the day that she went out; and for +some time her absence caused no alarm. But, after some hours, she was waited +for and watched for very anxiously. Then a search was made."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Wherever she had at any time been in the habit of walking,––in +the park; in the wood; along the narrow path by the water; at Pollard's farm; +at Hester's house at Kemberling,––in every place where it might be +reasonably imagined there was the slightest chance of finding her."</p> + +<p>"And all this was without result?"</p> + +<p>"It was."</p> + +<p>"<em>Why</em> did she leave this place? God help you, Olivia Marchmont, if +it was your cruelty that drove her away!"</p> + +<p>The widow took no notice of the threat implied in these words. Was there +anything upon earth that she feared now? No––nothing. Had she not +endured the worst long ago, in Edward Arundel's contempt? She had no fear of a +battle with this man; or with any other creature in the world; or with the +whole world arrayed and banded together against her, if need were. Amongst all +the torments of those black depths to which her soul had gone down, there was +no such thing as fear. That cowardly baseness is for the happy and prosperous, +who have something to lose. This woman was by nature dauntless and resolute as +the hero of some classic story; but in her despair she had the desperate and +reckless courage of a starving wolf. The hand of death was upon her; what could +it matter how she died?</p> + +<p>"I am very grateful to you, Edward Arundel," she said, bitterly, "for the +good opinion you have always had of me. The blood of the Dangerfield Arundels +must have had some drop of poison intermingled with it, I should think, before +it could produce so vile a creature as myself; and yet I have heard people say +that my mother was a good woman."</p> + +<p>The young man writhed impatiently beneath the torture of his cousin's +deliberate speech. Was there to be no end to this unendurable delay? Even +now,––now that he was in this house, face to face with the woman he +had come to question––it seemed as if he <em>could</em> not get +tidings of his wife.</p> + +<p>So, often in his dreams, he had headed a besieging–party against the +Affghans, with the scaling–ladders reared against the wall; he had seen +the dark faces grinning down upon him––all savage glaring eyes and +fierce glistening teeth––and had heard the voices of his men urging +him on to the encounter, but had felt himself paralysed and helpless, with his +sabre weak as a withered reed in his nerveless hand.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, let there be no quarrelling with phrases between you and +me, Olivia!" he cried. "If you or any other living being have injured my wife, +the reckoning between us shall be no light one. But there will be time enough +to talk of that by–and–by. I stand before you, newly risen from a +grave in which I have lain for more than three months, as dead to the world, +and to every creature I have ever loved or hated, as if the Funeral Service had +been read over my coffin. I come to demand from you an account of what has +happened during that interval. If you palter or prevaricate with me, I shall +know that it is because you fear to tell me the truth."</p> + +<p>"Fear!"</p> + +<p>"Yes; you have good reason to fear, if you have wronged Mary Arundel. Why +did she leave this house?"</p> + +<p>"Because she was not happy in it, I suppose. She chose to shut herself up in +her own room, and to refuse to be governed, or advised, or consoled. I tried to +do my duty to her; yes," cried Olivia Marchmont, suddenly raising her voice, as +if she had been vehemently contradicted;––"yes, I did try to do my +duty to her. I urged her to listen to reason; I begged her to abandon her +foolish falsehood about a marriage with you in London."</p> + +<p>"You disbelieved in that marriage?"</p> + +<p>"I did," answered Olivia.</p> + +<p>"You lie!" cried Edward Arundel. "You knew the poor child had spoken the +truth. You knew her––you knew me––well enough to know +that I should not have detained her away from her home an hour, except to make +her my wife––except to give myself the strongest right to love and +defend her."</p> + +<p>"I knew nothing of the kind, Captain Arundel; you and Mary Marchmont had +taken good care to keep your secrets from me. I knew nothing of your plots, +your intentions. <em>I</em> should have considered that one of the Dangerfield +Arundels would have thought his honour sullied by such an act as a stolen +marriage with an heiress, considerably under age, and nominally in the +guardianship of her stepmother. I did, therefore, disbelieve the story Mary +Marchmont told me. Another person, much more experienced than I, also +disbelieved the unhappy girl's account of her absence."</p> + +<p>"Another person! What other person?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marchmont."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marchmont!"</p> + +<p>"Yes; Paul Marchmont,––my husband's first–cousin."</p> + +<p>A sudden cry of rage and grief broke from Edward Arundel's lips.</p> + +<p>"O my God!" he exclaimed, "there was some foundation for the warning in John +Marchmont's letter, after all. And I laughed at him; I laughed at my poor +friend's fears."</p> + +<p>The widow looked at her kinsman in mute wonder.</p> + +<p>"Has Paul Marchmont been in this house?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When was he here?"</p> + +<p>"He has been here often; he comes here constantly. He has been living at +Kemberling for the last three months."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"For his own pleasure, I suppose," Olivia answered haughtily. "It is no +business of mine to pry into Mr. Marchmont's motives."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel ground his teeth in an access of ungovernable passion. It was +not against Olivia, but against himself this time that he was enraged. He hated +himself for the arrogant folly, the obstinate presumption, with which he had +ridiculed and slighted John Marchmont's vague fears of his kinsman Paul.</p> + +<p>"So this man has been here,––is here constantly," he muttered. +"Of course, it is only natural that he should hang about the place. And you and +he are stanch allies, I suppose?" he added, turning upon Olivia.</p> + +<p>"Stanch allies! Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because you both hate my wife."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"You both hate her. You, out of a base envy of her wealth; because of her +superior rights, which made you a secondary person in this house, +perhaps,––there is nothing else for which you <em>could</em> hate +her. Paul Marchmont, because she stands between him and a fortune. Heaven help +her! Heaven help my poor, gentle, guileless darling! Surely Heaven must have +had some pity upon her when her husband was not by!"</p> + +<p>The young man dashed the blinding tears from his eyes. They were the first +that he had shed since he had risen from that which many people had thought his +dying–bed, to search for his wife.</p> + +<p>But this was no time for tears or lamentations. Stern determination took the +place of tender pity and sorrowful love. It was a time for resolution and +promptitude.</p> + +<p>"Olivia Marchmont," he said, "there has been some foul play in this +business. My wife has been missing a month; yet when I asked my mother what had +happened at this house during my illness, she could tell me nothing. Why did +you not write to tell her of Mary's flight?"</p> + +<p>"Because Mrs. Arundel has never done me the honour to cultivate any intimacy +between us. My father writes to his sister–in–law sometimes; I +scarcely ever write to my aunt. On the other hand, your mother had never seen +Mary Marchmont, and could not be expected to take any great interest in her +proceedings. There was, therefore, no reason for my writing a special letter to +announce the trouble that had befallen me."</p> + +<p>"You might have written to my mother about my marriage. You might have +applied to her for confirmation of the story which you disbelieved."</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont smiled.</p> + +<p>"Should I have received that confirmation?" she said. "No. I saw your +mother's letters to my father. There was no mention in those letters of any +marriage; no mention whatever of Mary Marchmont. This in itself was enough to +confirm my disbelief. Was it reasonable to imagine that you would have married, +and yet have left your mother in total ignorance of the fact?"</p> + +<p>"O God, help me!" cried Edward Arundel, wringing his hands. "It seems as if +my own folly, my own vile procrastination, have brought this trouble upon my +wife. Olivia Marchmont, have pity upon me. If you hate this girl, your malice +must surely have been satisfied by this time. She has suffered enough. Pity me, +and help me; if you have any human feeling in your breast. She left this house +because her life here had grown unendurable; because she saw herself doubted, +disbelieved, widowed in the first month of her marriage, utterly desolate and +friendless. Another woman might have borne up against all this misery. Another +woman would have known how to assert herself, and to defend herself, even in +the midst of her sorrow and desolation. But my poor darling is a child; a baby +in ignorance of the world. How should <em>she</em> protect herself against her +enemies? Her only instinct was to run away from her +persecutors,––to hide herself from those whose pretended doubts +flung the horror of dishonour upon her. I can understand all now; I can +understand. Olivia Marchmont, this man Paul has a strong reason for being a +villain. The motives that have induced you to do wrong must be very small in +comparison to his. He plays an infamous game, I believe; but he plays for a +high stake."</p> + +<p>A high stake! Had not <em>she</em> perilled her soul upon the casting of +this die? Had <em>she</em> not flung down her eternal happiness in that fatal +game of hazard?</p> + +<p>"Help me, then, Olivia," said Edward, imploringly; "help me to find my wife; +and atone for all that you have ever done amiss in the past. It is not too +late."</p> + +<p>His voice softened as he spoke. He turned to her, with his hands clasped, +waiting anxiously for her answer. Perhaps this appeal was the last cry of her +good angel, pleading against the devils for her redemption. But the devils had +too long held possession of this woman's breast. They arose, arrogant and +unpitying, and hardened her heart against that pleading voice.</p> + +<p>"How much he loves her!" thought Olivia Marchmont; "how dearly he loves her! +For her sake he humiliates himself to me."</p> + +<p>Then, with no show of relenting in her voice or manner, she said +deliberately:</p> + +<p>"I can only tell you again what I told you before. The placard you saw at +the park–gates can tell you as much as I can. Mary Marchmont ran away. +She was sought for in every direction, but without success. Mr. Marchmont, who +is a man of the world, and better able to suggest what is right in such a case +as this, advised that Mr. Paulette should be sent for. He was accordingly +communicated with. He came, and instituted a fresh search. He also caused a +bill to be printed and distributed through the country. Advertisements were +inserted in the 'Times' and other papers. For some reason––I forget +what reason––Mary Marchmont's name did not appear in these +advertisements. They were so worded as to render the publication of the name +unnecessary."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel pushed his hand across his forehead.</p> + +<p>"Richard Paulette has been here?" he murmured, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>He had every confidence in the lawyer; and a deadly chill came over him at +the thought that the cool, hard–headed solicitor had failed to find the +missing girl.</p> + +<p>"Yes; he was here two or three days."</p> + +<p>"And he could do nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, except what I have told you."</p> + +<p>The young man thrust his hand into his breast to still the cruel beating of +his heart. A sudden terror had taken possession of him,––a horrible +dread that he should never look upon his young wife's face again. For some +minutes there was a dead silence in the room, only broken once or twice by the +falling of some ashes on the hearth. Captain Arundel sat with his face hidden +behind his hand. Olivia still stood as she had stood when her cousin entered +the room, erect and gloomy, by the old–fashioned chimney–piece.</p> + +<p>"There was something in that placard," the soldier said at last, in a +hoarse, altered voice,––"there was something about my wife having +been seen last by the water–side. Who saw her there?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Weston, a surgeon of Kemberling,––Paul Marchmont's +brother–in–law."</p> + +<p>"Was she seen by no one else?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; she was seen at about the same time––a little sooner or +later, we don't know which––by one of Farmer Pollard's men."</p> + +<p>"And she has never been seen since?"</p> + +<p>"Never; that is to say, we can hear of no one who has seen her."</p> + +<p>"At what time in the day was she seen by this Mr. Weston?"</p> + +<p>"At dusk; between five and six o'clock."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel put his hand suddenly to his throat, as if to check some +choking sensation that prevented his speaking.</p> + +<p>"Olivia," he said, "my wife was last seen by the river–side. Does any +one think that, by any unhappy accident, by any terrible fatality, she lost her +way after dark, and fell into the water? or that––O God, that would +be too horrible!––does any one suspect that she drowned +herself?"</p> + +<p>"Many things have been said since her disappearance," Olivia Marchmont +answered. "Some people say one thing, some another."</p> + +<p>"And it has been said that she––that she was drowned?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; many people have said so. The river was dragged while Mr. Paulette was +here, and after he went away. The men were at work with the drags for more than +a week."</p> + +<p>"And they found nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"Was there any other reason for supposing that––that my wife +fell into the river?"</p> + +<p>"Only one reason."</p> + +<p>"What was that?"</p> + +<p>"I will show you," Olivia Marchmont answered.</p> + +<p>She took a bunch of keys from her pocket, and went to an old–fashioned +bureau or cabinet upon the other side of the room. She unlocked the upper part +of this bureau, opened one of the drawers, and took from it something which she +brought to Edward Arundel.</p> + +<p>This something was a little shoe; a little shoe of soft bronzed leather, +stained and discoloured with damp and moss, and trodden down upon one side, as +if the wearer had walked a weary way in it, and had been unaccustomed to so +much walking.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel remembered, in that brief, childishly–happy honeymoon +at the little village near Winchester, how often he had laughed at his young +wife's propensity for walking about damp meadows in such delicate little +slippers as were better adapted to the requirements of a ballroom. He +remembered the slender foot, so small that he could take it in his hand; the +feeble little foot that had grown tired in long wanderings by the Hampshire +trout–streams, but which had toiled on in heroic self–abnegation so +long as it was the will of the sultan to pedestrianise.</p> + +<p>"Was this found by the river–side?" he asked, looking piteously at the +slipper which Mrs. Marchmont had put into his hand.</p> + +<p>"Yes; it was found amongst the rushes on the shore, a mile below the spot at +which Mr. Weston saw my step–daughter."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel put the little shoe into his bosom.</p> + +<p>"I'll not believe it," he cried suddenly; "I'll not believe that my darling +is lost to me. She was too good, far too good, to think of suicide; and +Providence would never suffer my poor lonely child to be led away to a dreary +death upon that dismal river–shore. No, no; she fled away from this place +because she was too wretched here. She went away to hide herself amongst those +whom she could trust, until her husband came to claim her. I will believe +anything in the world except that she is lost to me. And I will not believe +that, I will never believe that, until I look down at her corpse; until I lay +my hand on her cold breast, and feel that her true heart has ceased beating. As +I went out of this place four months ago to look for her, I will go again now. +My darling, my darling, my innocent pet, my childish bride; I will go to the +very end of the world in search of you."</p> + +<p>The widow ground her teeth as she listened to her kinsman's passionate +words. Why did he for ever goad her to blacker wickedness by this parade of his +love for Mary? Why did he force her to remember every moment how much cause she +had to hate this pale–faced girl?</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel rose, and walked a few paces, leaning on his stick as he +went.</p> + +<p>"You will sleep here to–night, of course?" Olivia Marchmont said.</p> + +<p>"Sleep here!"</p> + +<p>His tone expressed plainly enough that the place was abhorrent to him.</p> + +<p>"Yes; where else should you stay?"</p> + +<p>"I meant to have stopped at the nearest inn."</p> + +<p>"The nearest inn is at Kemberling."</p> + +<p>"That would suit me well enough," the young man answered indifferently; "I +must be in Kemberling early to–morrow, for I must see Paul Marchmont. I +am no nearer the comprehension of my wife's flight by anything that you have +told me. It is to Paul Marchmont that I must look next. Heaven help him if he +tries to keep the truth from me."</p> + +<p>"You will see Mr. Marchmont here as easily as at Kemberling," Olivia +answered; "he comes here every day."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"He has built a sort of painting–room down by the river–side, +and he paints there whenever there is light."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" cried Edward Arundel; "he makes himself at home at Marchmont +Towers, then?"</p> + +<p>"He has a right to do so, I suppose," answered the widow indifferently. "If +Mary Marchmont is dead, this place and all belonging to it is his. As it is, I +am only here on sufferance."</p> + +<p>"He has taken possession, then?"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, he shrinks from doing so."</p> + +<p>"And, by the Heaven above us, he does wisely," cried Edward Arundel. "No man +shall seize upon that which belongs to my darling. No foul plot of this +artist–traitor shall rob her of her own. God knows how little value +<em>I</em> set upon her wealth; but I will stand between her and those who try +to rob her, until my last gasp. No, Olivia; I'll not stay here; I'll accept no +hospitality from Mr. Marchmont. I suspect him too much."</p> + +<p>He walked to the door; but before he reached it the widow went to one of the +windows, and pushed aside the blind.</p> + +<p>"Look at the rain," she said; "hark at it; don't you hear it, drip, drip, +drip upon the stone? I wouldn't turn a dog out of doors upon such a night as +this; and you––you are so ill––so weak. Edward Arundel, +do you hate me so much that you refuse to share the same shelter with me, even +for a night?"</p> + +<p>There is nothing so difficult of belief to a man, who is not a coxcomb, as +the simple fact that he is beloved by a woman whom he does not love, and has +never wooed by word or deed. But for this, surely Edward Arundel must, in that +sudden burst of tenderness, that one piteous appeal, have discovered a clue to +his cousin's secret.</p> + +<p>He discovered nothing; he guessed nothing. But he was touched by her tone, +even in spite of his utter ignorance of its meaning, and he replied, in an +altered manner,</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Olivia, if you really wish it, I will stay. Heaven knows I have +no desire that you and I should be ill friends. I want your help; your pity, +perhaps. I am quite willing to believe that any cruel things you said to Mary +arose from an outbreak of temper. I cannot think that you could be base at +heart. I will even attribute your disbelief of the statement made by my poor +girl as to our marriage to the narrow prejudices learnt in a small country +town. Let us be friends, Olivia."</p> + +<p>He held out his hand. His cousin laid her cold fingers in his open palm, and +he shuddered as if he had come in contact with a corpse. There was nothing very +cordial in the salutation. The two hands seemed to drop asunder, lifeless and +inert; as if to bear mute witness that between these two people there was no +possibility of sympathy or union.</p> + +<p>But Captain Arundel accepted his cousin's hospitality. Indeed he had need to +do so; for he found that his valet had relied upon his master's stopping at the +Towers, and had sent the carriage back to Swampington. A tray with cold meat +and wine was brought into the drawing–room for the young soldier's +refreshment. He drank a glass of Madeira, and made some pretence of eating a +few mouthfuls, out of courtesy to Olivia; but he did this almost mechanically. +He sat silent and gloomy, brooding over the terrible shock that he had so newly +received; brooding over the hidden things that had happened in that dreary +interval, during which he had been as powerless to defend his wife from trouble +as a dead man.</p> + +<p>Again and again the cruel thought returned to him, each time with a fresh +agony,––that if he had written to his mother, if he had told her +the story of his marriage, the things which had happened could never have come +to pass. Mary would have been sheltered and protected by a good and loving +woman. This thought, this horrible self–reproach, was the bitterest thing +the young man had to bear.</p> + +<p>"It is too great a punishment," he thought; "I am too cruelly punished for +having forgotten everything in my happiness with my darling."</p> + +<p>The widow sat in her low easy–chair near the fire, with her eyes fixed +upon the burning coals; the grate had been replenished, and the light of the +red blaze shone full upon Olivia Marchmont's haggard face. Edward Arundel, +aroused for a few moments out of his gloomy abstraction, was surprised at the +change which an interval of a few months had made in his cousin. The gloomy +shadow which he had often seen on her face had become a fixed expression; every +line had deepened, as if by the wear and tear of ten years, rather than by the +progress of a few months. Olivia Marchmont had grown old before her time. Nor +was this the only change. There was a look, undefined and undefinable, in the +large luminous grey eyes, unnaturally luminous now, which filled Edward Arundel +with a vague sense of terror; a terror which he would not––which he +dared not––attempt to analyse. He remembered Mary's unreasoning +fear of her stepmother, and he now scarcely wondered at that fear. There was +something almost weird and unearthly in the aspect of the woman sitting +opposite to him by the broad hearth: no vestige of colour in her gloomy face, a +strange light burning in her eyes, and her black draperies falling round her in +straight, lustreless folds.</p> + +<p>"I fear you have been ill, Olivia," the young man said, presently.</p> + +<p>Another sentiment had arisen in his breast side by side with that vague +terror,––a fancy that perhaps there was some reason why his cousin +should be pitied.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered indifferently; as if no subject of which Captain Arundel +could have spoken would have been of less concern to her,––"yes, I +have been very ill."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to hear it."</p> + +<p>Olivia looked up at him and smiled. Her smile was the strangest he had ever +seen upon a woman's face.</p> + +<p>"I am very sorry to hear it. What has been the matter with you?"</p> + +<p>"Slow fever, Mr. Weston said."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Weston?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; Mr. Marchmont's brother–in–law. He has succeeded to Mr. +Dawnfield's practice at Kemberling. He attended me, and he attended my +step–daughter."</p> + +<p>"My wife was ill, then?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; she had brain–fever: she recovered from that, but she did not +recover strength. Her low spirits alarmed me, and I considered it only +right––Mr. Marchmont suggested also––that a medical man +should be consulted."</p> + +<p>"And what did this man, this Mr. Weston, say?"</p> + +<p>"Very little; there was nothing the matter with Mary, he said. He gave her a +little medicine, but only in the desire of strengthening her nervous system. He +could give her no medicine that would have any very good effect upon her +spirits, while she chose to keep herself obstinately apart from every one."</p> + +<p>The young man's head sank upon his breast. The image of his desolate young +wife arose before him; the image of a pale, sorrowful girl, holding herself +apart from her persecutors, abandoned, lonely, despairing. Why had she remained +at Marchmont Towers? Why had she ever consented to go there, when she had again +and again expressed such terror of her stepmother? Why had she not rather +followed her husband down to Devonshire, and thrown herself upon his relatives +for protection? Was it like this girl to remain quietly here in Lincolnshire, +when the man she loved with such innocent devotion was lying between life and +death in the west?</p> + +<p>"She is such a child," he thought,––"such a child in her +ignorance of the world. I must not reason about her as I would about another +woman."</p> + +<p>And then a sudden flush of passionate emotion rose to his face, as a new +thought flashed into his mind. What if this helpless girl had been detained by +force at Marchmont Towers?</p> + +<p>"Olivia," he cried, "whatever baseness this man, Paul Marchmont, may be +capable of, you at least must be superior to any deliberate sin. I have all my +life believed in you, and respected you, as a good woman. Tell me the truth, +then, for pity's sake. Nothing that you can tell me will fill up the dead blank +that the horrible interval since my accident has made in my life. But you can +give me some help. A few words from you may clear away much of this darkness. +How did you find my wife? How did you induce her to come back to this place? I +know that she had an unreasonable dread of returning here."</p> + +<p>"I found her through the agency of Mr. Marchmont," Olivia answered, quietly. +"I had some difficulty in inducing her to return here; but after hearing of +your accident––"</p> + +<p>"How was the news of that broken to her?"</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately she saw a paper that had happened to be left in her way."</p> + +<p>"By whom?"</p> + +<p>"By Mr. Marchmont."</p> + +<p>"Where was this?"</p> + +<p>"In Hampshire."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Then Paul Marchmont went with you to Hampshire?"</p> + +<p>"He did. He was of great service to me in this crisis. After seeing the +paper, my stepdaughter was seized with brain–fever. She was unconscious +when we brought her back to the Towers. She was nursed by my old servant +Barbara, and had the highest medical care. I do not think that anything more +could have been done for her."</p> + +<p>"No," answered Edward Arundel, bitterly; "unless you could have loved +her."</p> + +<p>"We cannot force our affections," the widow said, in a hard voice.</p> + +<p>Another voice in her breast seemed to whisper, "Why do you reproach me for +not having loved this girl? If you had loved <em>me</em>, the whole world would +have been different."</p> + +<p>"Olivia Marchmont," said Captain Arundel, "by your own avowal there has +never been any affection for this orphan girl in your heart. It is not my +business to dwell upon the fact, as something almost unnatural under the +peculiar circumstances through which that helpless child was cast upon your +protection. It is needless to try to understand why you have hardened your +heart against my poor wife. Enough that it is so. But I may still believe that, +whatever your feelings may be towards your dead husband's daughter, you would +not be guilty of any deliberate act of treachery against her. I can afford to +believe this of you; but I cannot believe it of Paul Marchmont. That man is my +wife's natural enemy. If he has been here during my illness, he has been here +to plot against her. When he came here, he came to attempt her destruction. She +stands between him and this estate. Long ago, when I was a careless schoolboy, +my poor friend, John Marchmont, told me that, if ever the day came upon which +Mary's interests should be opposed to the interests of her cousin, that man +would be a dire and bitter enemy; so much the more terrible because in all +appearance her friend. The day came; and I, to whom the orphan girl had been +left as a sacred legacy, was not by to defend her. But I have risen from a bed +that many have thought a bed of death; and I come to this place with one +indomitable resolution paramount in my breast,––the determination +to find my wife, and to bring condign punishment upon the man who has done her +wrong."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel spoke in a low voice; but his passion was all the more +terrible because of the suppression of those common outward evidences by which +anger ordinarily betrays itself. He relapsed into thoughtful silence.</p> + +<p>Olivia made no answer to anything that he had said. She sat looking at him +steadily, with an admiring awe in her face. How splendid he +was––this young hero––even in his sickness and +feebleness! How splendid, by reason of the grand courage, the chivalrous +devotion, that shone out of his blue eyes!</p> + +<p>The clock struck eleven while the cousins sat opposite to each +other,––only divided, physically, by the width of the tapestried +hearth–rug; but, oh, how many weary miles asunder in +spirit!––and Edward Arundel rose, startled from his sorrowful +reverie.</p> + +<p>"If I were a strong man," he said, "I would see Paul Marchmont +to–night. But I must wait till to–morrow morning. At what time does +he come to his painting–room?"'</p> + +<p>"At eight o'clock, when the mornings are bright; but later when the weather +is dull."</p> + +<p>"At eight o'clock! I pray Heaven the sun may shine early to–morrow! I +pray Heaven I may not have to wait long before I find myself face to face with +that man! Good–night, Olivia."</p> + +<p>He took a candle from a table near the door, and lit it almost mechanically. +He found Mr. Morrison waiting for him, very sleepy and despondent, in a large +bedchamber in which Captain Arundel had never slept before,––a +dreary apartment, decked out with the faded splendours of the past; a chamber +in which the restless sleeper might expect to see a phantom lady in a ghostly +sacque, cowering over the embers, and spreading her transparent hands above the +red light.</p> + +<p>"It isn't particular comfortable, after Dangerfield," the valet muttered in +a melancholy voice; "and all I 'ope, Mr. Edward, is, that the sheets are not +damp. I've been a stirrin' of the fire and puttin' on fresh coals for the last +hour. There's a bed for me in the dressin' room, within call."</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel scarcely heard what his servant said to him. He was standing +at the door of the spacious chamber, looking out into a long low–roofed +corridor, in which he had just encountered Barbara, Mrs. Marchmont's +confidential attendant,––the wooden–faced, +inscrutable–looking woman, who, according to Olivia, had watched and +ministered to his wife.</p> + +<p>"Was that the tenderest face that looked down upon my darling as she lay on +her sick–bed?" he thought. "I had almost as soon have had a ghoul to +watch by my poor dear's pillow."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER20" id="CHAPTER20">CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +THE PAINTING–ROOM BY THE RIVER.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p>Edward Arundel lay awake through the best part of that November night, +listening to the ceaseless dripping of the rain upon the terrace, and thinking +of Paul Marchmont. It was of this man that he must demand an account of his +wife. Nothing that Olivia had told him had in any way lessened this +determination. The little slipper found by the water's edge; the placard +flapping on the moss–grown pillar at the entrance to the park; the story +of a possible suicide, or a more probable accident;––all these +things were as nothing beside the young man's suspicion of Paul Marchmont. He +had pooh–poohed John's dread of his kinsman as weak and unreasonable; and +now, with the same unreason, he was ready to condemn this man, whom he had +never seen, as a traitor and a plotter against his young wife.</p> + +<p>He lay tossing from side to side all that night, weak and feverish, with +great drops of cold perspiration rolling down his pale face, sometimes falling +into a fitful sleep, in whose distorted dreams Paul Marchmont was for ever +present, now one man, now another. There was no sense of fitness in these +dreams; for sometimes Edward Arundel and the artist were wrestling together +with newly–sharpened daggers in their eager hands, each thirsting for the +other's blood; and in the next moment they were friends, and had been +friendly––as it seemed––for years.</p> + +<p>The young man woke from one of these last dreams, with words of +good–fellowship upon his lips, to find the morning light gleaming through +the narrow openings in the damask window–curtains, and Mr. Morrison +laying out his master's dressing apparatus upon the carved oak +toilette–table.</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel dressed himself as fast as he could, with the assistance of +the valet, and then made his way down the broad staircase, with the help of his +cane, upon which he had need to lean pretty heavily, for he was as weak as a +child.</p> + +<p>"You had better give me the brandy–flask, Morrison," he said. "I am +going out before breakfast. You may as well come with me, +by–the–by; for I doubt if I could walk as far as I want to go, +without the help of your arm."</p> + +<p>In the hall Captain Arundel found one of the servants. The western door was +open, and the man was standing on the threshold looking out at the morning. The +rain had ceased; but the day did not yet promise to be very bright, for the sun +gleamed like a ball of burnished copper through a pale November mist.</p> + +<p>"Do you know if Mr. Paul Marchmont has gone down to the boat–house?" +Edward asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," the man answered; "I met him just now in the quadrangle. He'd +been having a cup of coffee with my mistress."</p> + +<p>Edward started. They were friends, then, Paul Marchmont and +Olivia!––friends, but surely not allies! Whatever villany this man +might be capable of committing, Olivia must at least be guiltless of any +deliberate treachery?</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel took his servant's arm and walked out into the quadrangle, +and from the quadrangle to the low–lying woody swamp, where the stunted +trees looked grim and weird–like in their leafless ugliness. Weak as the +young man was, he walked rapidly across the sloppy ground, which had been +almost flooded by the continual rains. He was borne up by his fierce desire to +be face to face with Paul Marchmont. The savage energy of his mind was stronger +than any physical debility. He dismissed Mr. Morrison as soon as he was within +sight of the boat–house, and went on alone, leaning on his stick, and +pausing now and then to draw breath, angry with himself for his weakness.</p> + +<p>The boat–house, and the pavilion above it, had been patched up by some +country workmen. A handful of plaster here and there, a little new brickwork, +and a mended window–frame bore witness of this. The ponderous +old–fashioned wooden shutters had been repaired, and a good deal of the +work which had been begun in John Marchmont's lifetime had now, in a certain +rough manner, been completed. The place, which had hitherto appeared likely to +fall into utter decay, had been rendered weather–tight and habitable; the +black smoke creeping slowly upward from the ivy–covered chimney, gave +evidence of occupation. Beyond this, a large wooden shed, with a wide window +fronting the north, had been erected close against the boat–house. This +rough shed Edward Arundel at once understood to be the painting–room +which the artist had built for himself.</p> + +<p>He paused a moment outside the door of this shed. A man's +voice––a tenor voice, rather thin and metallic in +quality––was singing a scrap of Rossini upon the other side of the +frail woodwork.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel knocked with the handle of his stick upon the door. The voice +left off singing, to say "Come in."</p> + +<p>The soldier opened the door, crossed the threshold, and stood face to face +with Paul Marchmont in the bare wooden shed. The painter had dressed himself +for his work. His coat and waistcoat lay upon a chair near the door. He had put +on a canvas jacket, and had drawn a loose pair of linen trousers over those +which belonged to his usual costume. So far as this paint–besmeared coat +and trousers went, nothing could have been more slovenly than Paul Marchmont's +appearance; but some tincture of foppery exhibited itself in the black velvet +smoking–cap, which contrasted with and set off the silvery whiteness of +his hair, as well as in the delicate curve of his amber moustache. A moustache +was not a very common adornment in the year 1848. It was rather an eccentricity +affected by artists, and permitted as the wild caprice of irresponsible beings, +not amenable to the laws that govern rational and respectable people.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel sharply scrutinised the face and figure of the artist. He +cast a rapid glance round the bare whitewashed walls of the shed, trying to +read even in those bare walls some chance clue to the painter's character. But +there was not much to be gleaned from the details of that almost empty chamber. +A dismal, black–looking iron stove, with a crooked chimney, stood in one +corner. A great easel occupied the centre of the room. A sheet of tin, nailed +upon a wooden shutter, swung backwards and forwards against the northern +window, blown to and fro by the damp wind that crept in through the crevices in +the framework of the roughly–fashioned casement. A heap of canvases were +piled against the walls, and here and there a half–finished +picture––a lurid Turneresque landscape; a black stormy sky; or a +rocky mountain–pass, dyed blood–red by the setting +sun––was propped up against the whitewashed background. Scattered +scraps of water–colour, crayon, old engravings, sketches torn and +tumbled, bits of rockwork and foliage, lay littered about the floor; and on a +paint–stained deal–table of the roughest and plainest fashion were +gathered the colour–tubes and palettes, the brushes and sponges and dirty +cloths, the greasy and sticky tin–cans, which form the paraphernalia of +an artist. Opposite the northern window was the moss–grown +stone–staircase leading up to the pavilion over the boat–house. Mr. +Marchmont had built his painting–room against the side of the pavilion, +in such a manner as to shut in the staircase and doorway which formed the only +entrance to it. His excuse for the awkwardness of this piece of architecture +was the impossibility of otherwise getting the all–desirable northern +light for the illumination of his rough studio.</p> + +<p>This was the chamber in which Edward Arundel found the man from whom he came +to demand an account of his wife's disappearance. The artist was evidently +quite prepared to receive his visitor. He made no pretence of being taken off +his guard, as a meaner pretender might have done. One of Paul Marchmont's +theories was, that as it is only a fool who would use brass where he could as +easily employ gold, so it is only a fool who tells a lie when he can +conveniently tell the truth.</p> + +<p>"Captain Arundel, I believe?" he said, pushing a chair forward for his +visitor. "I am sorry to say I recognise you by your appearance of ill health. +Mrs. Marchmont told me you wanted to see me. Does my meerschaum annoy you? I'll +put it out if it does. No? Then, if you'll allow me, I'll go on smoking. Some +people say tobacco–smoke gives a tone to one's pictures. If so, mine +ought to be Rembrandts in depth of colour."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel dropped into the chair that had been offered to him. If he +could by any possibility have rejected even this amount of hospitality from +Paul Marchmont, he would have done so; but he was a great deal too weak to +stand, and he knew that his interview with the artist must be a long one.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marchmont," he said, "if my cousin Olivia told you that you might +expect to see me here to–day, she most likely told you a great deal more. +Did she tell you that I looked to you to account to me for the disappearance of +my wife?"</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont shrugged his shoulders, as who should say, "This young man is +an invalid. I must not suffer myself to be aggravated by his absurdity." Then +taking his meerschaum from his lips, he set it down, and seated himself at a +few paces from Edward Arundel on the lowest of the moss–grown steps +leading up to the pavilion.</p> + +<p>"My dear Captain Arundel," he said, very gravely, "your cousin did repeat to +me a great deal of last night's conversation. She told me that you had spoken +of me with a degree of violence, natural enough perhaps to a hot–tempered +young soldier, but in no manner justified by our relations. When you call upon +me to account for the disappearance of Mary Marchmont, you act about as +rationally as if you declared me answerable for the pulmonary complaint that +carried away her father. If, on the other hand, you call upon me to assist you +in the endeavour to fathom the mystery of her disappearance, you will find me +ready and willing to aid you to the very uttermost. It is to my interest as +much as to yours that this mystery should be cleared up."</p> + +<p>"And in the meantime you take possession of this estate?"</p> + +<p>"No, Captain Arundel. The law would allow me to do so; but I decline to +touch one farthing of the revenue which this estate yields, or to commit one +act of ownership, until the mystery of Mary Marchmont's disappearance, or of +her death, is cleared up."</p> + +<p>"The mystery of her death?" said Edward Arundel; "you believe, then, that +she is dead?"</p> + +<p>"I anticipate nothing; I think nothing," answered the artist; "I only wait. +The mysteries of life are so many and so incomprehensible,––the +stories, which are every day to be read by any man who takes the trouble to +look through a newspaper, are so strange, and savour so much of the +improbabilities of a novel–writer's first wild fiction,––that +I am ready to believe everything and anything. Mary Marchmont struck me, from +the first moment in which I saw her, as sadly deficient in mental power. +Nothing she could do would astonish me. She may be hiding herself away from us, +prompted only by some eccentric fancy of her own. She may have fallen into the +power of designing people. She may have purposely placed her slipper by the +water–side, in order to give the idea of an accident or a suicide; or she +may have dropped it there by chance, and walked barefoot to the nearest +railway–station. She acted unreasonably before when she ran away from +Marchmont Towers; she may have acted unreasonably again."</p> + +<p>"You do not think, then, that she is dead?"</p> + +<p>"I hesitate to form any opinion; I positively decline to express one."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel gnawed savagely at the ends of his moustache. This man's cool +imperturbability, which had none of the studied smoothness of hypocrisy, but +which seemed rather the plain candour of a thorough man of the world, who had +no wish to pretend to any sentiment he did not feel, baffled and infuriated the +passionate young soldier. Was it possible that this man, who met him with such +cool self–assertion, who in no manner avoided any discussion of Mary +Marchmont's disappearance,––was it possible that he could have had +any treacherous and guilty part in that calamity? Olivia's manner looked like +guilt; but Paul Marchmont's seemed the personification of innocence. Not angry +innocence, indignant that its purity should have been suspected; but the +matter–of–fact, commonplace innocence of a man of the world, who is +a great deal too clever to play any hazardous and villanous game.</p> + +<p>"You can perhaps answer me this question, Mr. Marchmont," said Edward +Arundel. "Why was my wife doubted when she told the story of her marriage?"</p> + +<p>The artist smiled, and rising from his seat upon the stone step, took a +pocket–book from one of the pockets of the coat that he had been +wearing.</p> + +<p>"I <em>can</em> answer that question," he said, selecting a paper from +amongst others in the pocket–book. "This will answer it."</p> + +<p>He handed Edward Arundel the paper, which was a letter folded lengthways, +and indorsed, "From Mrs. Arundel, August 31st." Within this letter was another +paper, indorsed, "Copy of letter to Mrs. Arundel, August 28th."</p> + +<p>"You had better read the copy first," Mr. Marchmont said, as Edward looked +doubtfully at the inner paper.</p> + +<p>The copy was very brief, and ran thus:</p> + +<p>"Marchmont Towers, August 28, 1848.</p> + +<p>"MADAM,––I have been given to understand that your son, Captain +Arundel, within a fortnight of his sad accident, contracted a secret marriage +with a young lady, whose name I, for several reasons, prefer to withhold. If +you can oblige me by informing me whether there is any foundation for this +statement, you will confer a very great favour upon</p> + +<p>"Your obedient servant,</p> + +<p>"PAUL MARCHMONT."</p> + +<p>The answer to this letter, in the hand of Edward Arundel's mother, was +equally brief:</p> + +<p>"Dangerfield Park, August 31, 1848.</p> + +<p>"SIR,––In reply to your inquiry, I beg to state that there can +be no foundation whatever for the report to which you allude. My son is too +honourable to contract a secret marriage; and although his present unhappy +state renders it impossible for me to receive the assurance from his own lips, +my confidence in his high principles justifies me in contradicting any such +report as that which forms the subject of your letter.</p> + +<p>"I am, sir,</p> + +<p>"Yours obediently,</p> + +<p>"LETITIA ARUNDEL."</p> + +<p>The soldier stood, mute and confounded, with his mother's letter in his +hand. It seemed as if every creature had been against the helpless girl whom he +had made his wife. Every hand had been lifted to drive her from the house that +was her own; to drive her out upon the world, of which she was ignorant, a +wanderer and an outcast; perhaps to drive her to a cruel death.</p> + +<p>"You can scarcely wonder if the receipt of that letter confirmed me in my +previous belief that Mary Marchmont's story of a marriage arose out of the +weakness of a brain, never too strong, and at that time very much enfeebled by +the effect of a fever."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel was silent. He crushed his mother's letter in his hand. Even +his mother––even his mother––that tender and +compassionate woman, whose protection he had so freely promised, ten years +before, in the lobby of Drury Lane, to John Marchmont's motherless +child,––even she, by some hideous fatality, had helped to bring +grief and shame upon the lonely girl. All this story of his young wife's +disappearance seemed enveloped in a wretched obscurity, through whose thick +darkness he could not penetrate. He felt himself encompassed by a web of +mystery, athwart which it was impossible to cut his way to the truth. He asked +question after question, and received answers which seemed freely given; but +the story remained as dark as ever. What did it all mean? What was the clue to +the mystery? Was this man, Paul Marchmont,––busy amongst his +unfinished pictures, and bearing in his every action, in his every word, the +stamp of an easy–going, free–spoken soldier of +fortune,––likely to have been guilty of any dark and subtle villany +against the missing girl? He had disbelieved in the marriage; but he had had +some reason for his doubt of a fact that could not very well be welcome to +him.</p> + +<p>The young man rose from his chair, and stood irresolute, brooding over these +things.</p> + +<p>"Come, Captain Arundel," cried Paul Marchmont, heartily, "believe me, though +I have not much superfluous sentimentality left in my composition after a +pretty long encounter with the world, still I can truly sympathise with your +regret for this poor silly child. I hope, for your sake, that she still lives, +and is foolishly hiding herself from us all. Perhaps, now you are able to act +in the business, there may be a better chance of finding her. I am old enough +to be your father, and am ready to give you the help of any knowledge of the +world which I may have gathered in the experience of a lifetime. Will you +accept my help?"</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel paused for a moment, with his head still bent, and his eyes +fixed upon the ground. Then suddenly lifting his head, he looked full in the +artist's face as he answered him.</p> + +<p>"No!" he cried. "Your offer may be made in all good faith, and if so, I +thank you for it; but no one loves this missing girl as I love her; no one has +so good a right as I have to protect and shelter her. I will look for my wife, +alone, unaided; except by such help as I pray that God may give me."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER21" id="CHAPTER21">CHAPTER IX.<br /> +IN THE DARK.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Edward Arundel walked slowly back to the Towers, shaken in body, perplexed +in mind, baffled, disappointed, and most miserable; the young husband, whose +married life had been shut within the compass of a brief honeymoon, went back +to that dark and gloomy mansion within whose encircling walls Mary had pined +and despaired.</p> + +<p>"Why did she stop here?" he thought; "why didn't she come to me? I thought +her first impulse would have brought her to me. I thought my poor childish love +would have set out on foot to seek her husband, if need were."</p> + +<p>He groped his way feebly and wearily amidst the leafless wood, and through +the rotting vegetation decaying in oozy slime beneath the black shelter of the +naked trees. He groped his way towards the dismal eastern front of the great +stone dwelling–house, his face always turned towards the blank windows, +that stared down at him from the discoloured walls.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if they could speak!" he exclaimed, almost beside himself in his +perplexity and desperation; "if they could speak! If those cruel walls could +find a voice, and tell me what my darling suffered within their shadow! If they +could tell me why she despaired, and ran away to hide herself from her husband +and protector! <em>If</em> they could speak!"</p> + +<p>He ground his teeth in a passion of sorrowful rage.</p> + +<p>"I should gain as much by questioning yonder stone wall as by talking to my +cousin, Olivia Marchmont," he thought, presently. "Why is that woman so +venomous a creature in her hatred of my innocent wife? Why is it that, whether +I threaten, or whether I appeal, I can gain nothing from +her––nothing? She baffles me as completely by her measured answers, +which seem to reply to my questions, and which yet tell me nothing, as if she +were a brazen image set up by the dark ignorance of a heathen people, and dumb +in the absence of an impostor–priest. She baffles me, question her how I +will. And Paul Marchmont, again,––what have I learned from him? Am +I a fool, that people can prevaricate and lie to me like this? Has my brain no +sense, and my arm no strength, that I cannot wring the truth from the false +throats of these wretches?"</p> + +<p>The young man gnashed his teeth again in the violence of his rage.</p> + +<p>Yes, it was like a dream; it was like nothing but a dream. In dreams he had +often felt this terrible sense of impotence wrestling with a mad desire to +achieve something or other. But never before in his waking hours had the young +soldier experienced such a sensation.</p> + +<p>He stopped, irresolute, almost bewildered, looking back at the +boat–house, a black spot far away down by the sedgy brink of the slow +river, and then again turning his face towards the monotonous lines of windows +in the eastern frontage of Marchmont Towers.</p> + +<p>"I let that man play with me to–day," he thought; "but our reckoning +is to come. We have not done with each other yet."</p> + +<p>He walked on towards the low archway leading into the quadrangle.</p> + +<p>The room which had been John Marchmont's study, and which his widow had been +wont to occupy since his death, looked into this quadrangle. Edward Arundel saw +his cousin's dark head bending over a book, or a desk perhaps, behind the +window.</p> + +<p>"Let her beware of me, if she has done any wrong to my wife!" he thought. +"To which of these people am I to look for an account of my poor lost girl? To +which of these two am I to look! Heaven guide me to find the guilty one; and +Heaven have mercy upon that wretched creature when the hour of reckoning comes; +for I will have none."</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont, looking through the window, saw her kinsman's face while +this thought was in his mind. The expression which she saw there was so +terrible, so merciless, so sublime in its grand and vengeful beauty, that her +own face blanched even to a paler hue than that which had lately become +habitual to it.</p> + +<p>"Am I afraid of him?" she thought, as she pressed her forehead against the +cold glass, and by a physical effort restrained the convulsive trembling that +had suddenly shaken her frame. "Am I afraid of him? No; what injury can he +inflict upon me worse than that which he has done me from the very first? If he +could drag me to a scaffold, and deliver me with his own hands into the grasp +of the hangman, he would do me no deeper wrong than he has done me from the +hour of my earliest remembrance of him. He could inflict no new pangs, no +sharper tortures, than I have been accustomed to suffer at his hands. He does +not love me. He has never loved me. He never will love me. <em>That</em> is my +wrong; and it is for that I take my revenge!"</p> + +<p>She lifted her head, which had rested in a sullen attitude against the +glass, and looked at the soldier's figure slowly advancing towards the western +side of the house.</p> + +<p>Then, with a smile,––the same horrible smile which Edward +Arundel had seen light up her face on the previous night,––she +muttered between her set teeth:––</p> + +<p>"Shall I be sorry because this vengeance has fallen across my pathway? Shall +I repent, and try to undo what I have done? Shall I thrust myself between +others and Mr. Edward Arundel? Shall <em>I</em> make myself the ally and +champion of this gallant soldier, who seldom speaks to me except to insult and +upbraid me? Shall <em>I</em> take justice into my hands, and interfere for my +kinsman's benefit? No; he has chosen to threaten me; he has chosen to believe +vile things of me. From the first his indifference has been next kin to +insolence. Let him take care of himself."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel took no heed of the grey eyes that watched him with such a +vengeful light in their fixed gaze. He was still thinking of his missing wife, +still feeling, to a degree that was intolerably painful, that miserable +dream–like sense of helplessness and prostration.</p> + +<p>"What am I to do?" he thought. "Shall I be for ever going backwards and +forwards between my Cousin Olivia and Paul Marchmont; for ever questioning +them, first one and then the other, and never getting any nearer to the +truth?"</p> + +<p>He asked himself this question, because the extreme anguish, the intense +anxiety, which he had endured, seemed to have magnified the smallest events, +and to have multiplied a hundred–fold the lapse of time. It seemed as if +he had already spent half a lifetime in his search after John Marchmont's lost +daughter.</p> + +<p>"O my friend, my friend!" he thought, as some faint link of association, +some memory thrust upon him by the aspect of the place in which he was, brought +back the simple–minded tutor who had taught him mathematics eighteen +years before,––"my poor friend, if this girl had not been my love +and my wife, surely the memory of your trust in me would be enough to make me a +desperate and merciless avenger of her wrongs."</p> + +<p>He went into the hall, and from the hall to the tenantless western +drawing–room,––a dreary chamber, with its grim and faded +splendour, its stiff, old–fashioned furniture; a chamber which, unadorned +by the presence of youth and innocence, had the aspect of belonging to a day +that was gone, and people that were dead. So might have looked one of those +sealed–up chambers in the buried cities of Italy, when the doors were +opened, and eager living eyes first looked in upon the habitations of the +dead.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel walked up and down the empty drawing–room. There were +the ivory chessmen that he had brought from India, under a glass shade on an +inlaid table in a window. How often he and Mary had played together in that +very window; and how she had always lost her pawns, and left bishops and +knights undefended, while trying to execute impossible manoeuvres with her +queen! The young man paced slowly backwards and forwards across the +old–fashioned bordered carpet, trying to think what he should do. He must +form some plan of action in his own mind, he thought. There was foul work +somewhere, he most implicitly believed; and it was for him to discover the +motive of the treachery, and the person of the traitor.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont! Paul Marchmont!</p> + +<p>His mind always travelled back to this point. Paul Marchmont was Mary's +natural enemy. Paul Marchmont was therefore surely the man to be suspected, the +man to be found out and defeated.</p> + +<p>And yet, if there was any truth in appearances, it was Olivia who was most +inimical to the missing girl; it was Olivia whom Mary had feared; it was Olivia +who had driven John Marchmont's orphan–child from her home once, and who +might, by the same power to tyrannise and torture a weak and yielding nature, +have so banished her again.</p> + +<p>Or these two, Paul and Olivia, might both hate the defenceless girl, and +might have between them plotted a wrong against her.</p> + +<p>"Who will tell me the truth about my lost darling?" cried Edward Arundel. +"Who will help me to look for my missing love?"</p> + +<p>His lost darling; his missing love. It was thus that the young man spoke of +his wife. That dark thought which had been suggested to him by the words of +Olivia, by the mute evidence of the little bronze slipper picked up near the +river–brink, had never taken root, or held even a temporary place in his +breast. He would not––nay, more, he could not––think +that his wife was dead. In all his confused and miserable dreams that dreary +November night, no dream had ever shown him <em>that</em>. No image of death +had mingled itself with the distorted shadows that had tormented his sleep. No +still white face had looked up at him through a veil of murky waters. No +moaning sob of a rushing stream had mixed its dismal sound with the many voices +of his slumbers. No; he feared all manner of unknown sorrows; he looked vaguely +forward to a sea of difficulty, to be waded across in blindness and +bewilderment before he could clasp his rescued wife in his arms; but he never +thought that she was dead.</p> + +<p>Presently the idea came to him that it was outside Marchmont +Towers,––away, beyond the walls of this grim, enchanted castle, +where evil spirits seemed to hold possession,––that he should seek +for the clue to his wife's hiding–place.</p> + +<p>"There is Hester, that girl who was fond of Mary," he thought; "she may be +able to tell me something, perhaps. I will go to her."</p> + +<p>He went out into the hall to look for his servant, the faithful Morrison, +who had been eating a very substantial breakfast with the domestics of the +Towers––"the sauce to meat" being a prolonged discussion of the +facts connected with Mary Marchmont's disappearance and her relations with +Edward Arundel––and who came, radiant and greasy from the enjoyment +of hot buttered cakes and Lincolnshire bacon, at the sound of his master's +voice.</p> + +<p>"I want you to get me some vehicle, and a lad who will drive me a few miles, +Morrison," the young soldier said; "or you can drive me yourself, perhaps?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Master Edward; I have driven your pa often, when we was +travellin' together. I'll go and see if there's a phee–aton or a shay +that will suit you, sir; something that goes easy on its springs."</p> + +<p>"Get anything," muttered Captain Arundel, "so long as you can get it without +loss of time."</p> + +<p>All fuss and anxiety upon the subject of his health worried the young man. +He felt his head dizzied with weakness and excitement; his +arm––that muscular right arm, which had done him good service two +years before in an encounter with a tigress––was weaker than the +jewel–bound wrist of a woman. But he chafed against anything like +consideration of his weakness; he rebelled against anything that seemed likely +to hinder him in that one object upon which all the powers of his mind were +bent.</p> + +<p>Mr. Morrison went away with some show of briskness, but dropped into a very +leisurely pace as soon as he was fairly out of his master's sight. He went +straight to the stables, where he had a pleasant gossip with the grooms and +hangers–on, and amused himself further by inspecting every bit of +horseflesh in the Marchmont stables, prior to selecting a quiet grey cob which +he felt himself capable of driving, and an old–fashioned gig with a +yellow body and black and yellow wheels, bearing a strong resemblance to a +monstrous wooden wasp.</p> + +<p>While the faithful attendant to whom Mrs. Arundel had delegated the care of +her son was thus employed, the soldier stood in the stone hall, looking out at +the dreary wintry landscape, and pining to hurry away across the dismal swamps +to the village in which he hoped to hear tidings of her he sought. He was +lounging in a deep oaken window–seat, looking hopelessly at that barren +prospect, that monotonous expanse of flat morass and leaden sky, when he heard +a footstep behind him; and turning round saw Olivia's confidential servant, +Barbara Simmons, the woman who had watched by his wife's +sick–bed,––the woman whom he had compared to a ghoule.</p> + +<p>She was walking slowly across the hall towards Olivia's room, whither a bell +had just summoned her. Mrs. Marchmont had lately grown fretful and capricious, +and did not care to be waited upon by any one except this woman, who had known +her from her childhood, and was no stranger to her darkest moods.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel had determined to appeal to every living creature who was +likely to know anything of his wife's disappearance, and he snatched the first +opportunity of questioning this woman.</p> + +<p>"Stop, Mrs. Simmons," he said, moving away from the window; "I want to speak +to you; I want to talk to you about my wife."</p> + +<p>The woman turned to him with a blank face, whose expressionless stare might +mean either genuine surprise or an obstinate determination not to understand +anything that might be said to her.</p> + +<p>"Your wife, Captain Arundel!" she said, in cold measured tones, but with an +accent of astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Yes; my wife. Mary Marchmont, my lawfully–wedded wife. Look here, +woman," cried Edward Arundel; "if you cannot accept the word of a soldier, and +an honourable man, you can perhaps believe the evidence of your eyes."</p> + +<p>He took a morocco memorandum–book from his breast–pocket. It was +full of letters, cards, bank–notes, and miscellaneous scraps of paper +carelessly stuffed into it, and amongst them Captain Arundel found the +certificate of his marriage, which he had put away at random upon his wedding +morning, and which had lain unheeded in his pocket–book ever since.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he cried, spreading the document before the +waiting–woman's eyes, and pointing, with a shaking hand, to the lines. +"You believe that, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"O yes, sir," Barbara Simmons answered, after deliberately reading the +certificate. "I have no reason to disbelieve it; no wish to disbelieve it."</p> + +<p>"No; I suppose not," muttered Edward Arundel, "unless you too are leagued +with Paul Marchmont."</p> + +<p>The woman did not flinch at this hinted accusation, but answered the young +man in that slow and emotionless manner which no change of circumstance seemed +to have power to alter.</p> + +<p>"I am leagued with no one, sir," she said, coldly. "I serve no one except my +mistress, Miss Olivia––I mean Mrs. Marchmont."</p> + +<p>The study–bell rang for the second time while she was speaking.</p> + +<p>"I must go to my mistress now, sir," she said. "You heard her ringing for +me."</p> + +<p>"Go, then, and let me see you as you come back. I tell you I must and will +speak to you. Everybody in this house tries to avoid me. It seems as if I was +not to get a straight answer from any one of you. But I <em>will</em> know all +that is to be known about my lost wife. Do you hear, woman? I will know!"</p> + +<p>"I will come back to you directly, sir," Barbara Simmons answered +quietly.</p> + +<p>The leaden calmness of this woman's manner irritated Edward Arundel beyond +all power of expression. Before his cousin Olivia's gloomy coldness he had been +flung back upon himself as before an iceberg; but every now and then some +sudden glow of fiery emotion had shot up amid that frigid mass, lurid and +blazing, and the iceberg had been transformed into an angry and passionate +woman, who might, in that moment of fierce emotion, betray the dark secrets of +her soul. But <em>this</em> woman's manner presented a passive barrier, athwart +which the young soldier was as powerless to penetrate as he would have been to +walk through a block of solid stone.</p> + +<p>Olivia was like some black and stony castle, whose barred windows bade +defiance to the besieger, but behind whose narrow casements transient flashes +of light gleamed fitfully upon the watchers without, hinting at the mysteries +that were hidden within the citadel.</p> + +<p>Barbara Simmons resembled a blank stone wall, grimly confronting the eager +traveller, and giving no indication whatever of the unknown country on the +other side.</p> + +<p>She came back almost immediately, after being only a few moments in Olivia's +room,––certainly not long enough to consult with her mistress as to +what she was to say or to leave unsaid,––and presented herself +before Captain Arundel.</p> + +<p>"If you have any questions to ask, sir, about Miss +Marchmont––about your wife––I shall be happy to answer +them," she said.</p> + +<p>"I have a hundred questions to ask," exclaimed the young man; "but first +answer me this one plainly and truthfully––Where do you think my +wife has gone? What do you think has become of her?"</p> + +<p>The woman was silent for a few moments, and then answered very +gravely,––</p> + +<p>"I would rather not say what I think, sir."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because I might say that which would make you unhappy."</p> + +<p>"Can anything be more miserable to me than the prevarication which I meet +with on every side?" cried Edward Arundel. "If you or any one else will be +straightforward with me––remembering that I come to this place like +a man who has risen from the grave, depending wholly on the word of others for +the knowledge of that which is more vital to me than anything upon this +earth––that person will be the best friend I have found since I +rose from my sick–bed to come hither. You can have had no +motive––if you are not in Paul Marchmont's pay––for +being cruel to my poor girl. Tell me the truth, then; speak, and speak +fearlessly."</p> + +<p>"I have no reason to fear, sir," answered Barbara Simmons, lifting her faded +eyes to the young man's eager face, with a gaze that seemed to say, "I have +done no wrong, and I do not shrink from justifying myself." "I have no reason +to fear, sir; I was piously brought up, and have done my best always to do my +duty in the state of life in which Providence has been pleased to place me. I +have not had a particularly happy life, sir; for thirty years ago I lost all +that made me happy, in them that loved me, and had a claim to love me. I have +attached myself to my mistress; but it isn't for me to expect a lady like her +would stoop to make me more to her or nearer to her than I have a right to be +as a servant."</p> + +<p>There was no accent of hypocrisy or cant in any one of these +deliberately–spoken words. It seemed as if in this speech the woman had +told the history of her life; a brief, unvarnished history of a barren life, +out of which all love and sunlight had been early swept away, leaving behind a +desolate blank, that was not destined to be filled up by any affection from the +young mistress so long and patiently served.</p> + +<p>"I am faithful to my mistress, sir," Barbara Simmons added, presently; "and +I try my best to do my duty to her. I owe no duty to any one else."</p> + +<p>"You owe a duty to humanity," answered Edward Arundel. "Woman, do you think +duty is a thing to be measured by line and rule? Christ came to save the lost +sheep of the children of Israel; but was He less pitiful to the Canaanitish +woman when she carried her sorrows to His feet? You and your mistress have made +hard precepts for yourselves, and have tried to live by them. You try to +circumscribe the area of your Christian charity, and to do good within given +limits. The traveller who fell among thieves would have died of his wounds, for +any help he might have had from you, if he had lain beyond your radius. Have +you yet to learn that Christianity is cosmopolitan, illimitable, inexhaustible, +subject to no laws of time or space? The duty you owe to your mistress is a +duty that she buys and pays for––a matter of sordid barter, to be +settled when you take your wages; the duty you owe to every miserable creature +in your pathway is a sacred debt, to be accounted for to God."</p> + +<p>As the young soldier spoke thus, carried away by his passionate agitation, +suddenly eloquent by reason of the intensity of his feeling, a change came over +Barbara's face. There was no very palpable evidence of emotion in that stolid +countenance; but across the wooden blankness of the woman's face flitted a +transient shadow, which was like the shadow of fear.</p> + +<p>"I tried to do my duty to Miss Marchmont as well as to my mistress," she +said. "I waited on her faithfully while she was ill. I sat up with her six +nights running; I didn't take my clothes off for a week. There are folks in the +house who can tell you as much."</p> + +<p>"God knows I am grateful to you, and will reward you for any pity you may +have shown my poor darling," the young man answered, in a more subdued tone; +"only, if you pity me, and wish to help me, speak out, and speak plainly. What +do you think has become of my lost girl?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell you, sir. As God looks down upon me and judges me, I declare +to you that I know no more than you know. But I +think––––"</p> + +<p>"You think what?"</p> + +<p>"That you will never see Miss Marchmont again."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel started as violently as if, of all sentences, this was the +last he had expected to hear pronounced. His sanguine temperament, fresh in its +vigorous and untainted youth, could not grasp the thought of despair. He could +be mad with passionate anger against the obstacles that separated him from his +wife; but he could not believe those obstacles to be insurmountable. He could +not doubt the power of his own devotion and courage to bring him back his lost +love.</p> + +<p>"Never––see her––again!"</p> + +<p>He repeated these words as if they had belonged to a strange language, and +he were trying to make out their meaning.</p> + +<p>"You think," he gasped hoarsely, after a long pause,––"you +think––that––she is––dead?"</p> + +<p>"I think that she went out of this house in a desperate state of mind. She +was seen––not by me, for I should have thought it my duty to stop +her if I had seen her so––she was seen by one of the servants +crying and sobbing awfully as she went away upon that last afternoon."</p> + +<p>"And she was never seen again?"</p> + +<p>"Never by me."</p> + +<p>"And––you––you think she went out of this house with +the intention of––of––destroying herself?"</p> + +<p>The words died away in a hoarse whisper, and it was by the motion of his +white lips that Barbara Simmons perceived what the young man meant.</p> + +<p>"I do, sir."</p> + +<p>"Have you any––particular reason for thinking so?"</p> + +<p>"No reason beyond what I have told you, sir."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel bent his head, and walked away to hide his blanched face. He +tried instinctively to conceal this mental suffering, as he had sometimes +hidden physical torture in an Indian hospital, prompted by the involuntary +impulse of a brave man. But though the woman's words had come upon him like a +thunderbolt, he had no belief in the opinion they expressed. No; his young +spirit wrestled against and rejected the awful conclusion. Other people might +think what they chose; but he knew better than they. His wife was <em>not</em> +dead. His life had been so smooth, so happy, so prosperous, so unclouded and +successful, that it was scarcely strange he should be sceptical of +calamity,––that his mind should be incapable of grasping the idea +of a catastrophe so terrible as Mary's suicide.</p> + +<p>"She was intrusted to me by her father," he thought. "She gave her faith to +me before God's altar. She <em>cannot</em> have perished body and soul; she +<em>cannot</em> have gone down to destruction for want of my arm outstretched +to save her. God is too good to permit such misery."</p> + +<p>The young soldier's piety was of the simplest and most unquestioning order, +and involved an implicit belief that a right cause must always be ultimately +victorious. With the same blind faith in which he had often muttered a hurried +prayer before plunging in amidst the mad havoc of an Indian battle–field, +confident that the justice of Heaven would never permit heathenish Affghans to +triumph over Christian British gentlemen, he now believed that, in the darkest +hour of Mary Marchmont's life, God's arm had held her back from the dread +horror––the unatonable offence––of +self–destruction.</p> + +<p>"I thank you for having spoken frankly to me," he said to Barbara Simmons; +"I believe that you have spoken in good faith. But I do not think my darling is +for ever lost to me. I anticipate trouble and anxiety, disappointment, defeat +for a time,––for a long time, perhaps; but I <em>know</em> that I +shall find her in the end. The business of my life henceforth is to look for +her."</p> + +<p>Barbara's dull eyes held earnest watch upon the young man's countenance as +he spoke. Anxiety and even fear were in that gaze, palpable to those who knew +how to read the faint indications of the woman's stolid face.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER22" id="CHAPTER22">CHAPTER X.<br /> +THE PARAGRAPH IN THE NEWSPAPER.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Mr. Morrison brought the gig and pony to the western porch while Captain +Arundel was talking to his cousin's servant, and presently the invalid was +being driven across the flat between the Towers and the high–road to +Kemberling.</p> + +<p>Mary's old favourite, Farmer Pollard's daughter, came out of a low rustic +shop as the gig drew up before her husband's door. This good–natured, +tender–hearted Hester, advanced to matronly dignity under the name of +Mrs. Jobson, carried a baby in her arms, and wore a white dimity hood, that +made a penthouse over her simple rosy face. But at the sight of Captain Arundel +nearly all the rosy colour disappeared from the country–woman's plump +cheeks, and she stared aghast at the unlooked–for visitor, almost ready +to believe that, if anything so substantial as a pony and gig could belong to +the spiritual world, it was the phantom only of the soldier that she looked +upon.</p> + +<p>"O sir!" she said; "O Captain Arundel, is it really you?"</p> + +<p>Edward alighted before Hester could recover from the surprise occasioned by +his appearance.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Jobson," he said. "May I come into your house? I wish to speak to +you."</p> + +<p>Hester curtseyed, and stood aside to allow her visitor to pass her. Her +manner was coldly respectful, and she looked at the young officer with a grave, +reproachful face, which was strange to him. She ushered her guest into a +parlour at the back of the shop; a prim apartment, splendid with varnished +mahogany, shell–work boxes––bought during Hester's +honeymoon–trip to a Lincolnshire watering–place––and +voluminous achievements in the way of crochet–work; a gorgeous and +Sabbath–day chamber, looking across a stand of geraniums into a garden +that was orderly and trimly kept even in this dull November weather.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Jobson drew forward an uneasy easy–chair, covered with horsehair, +and veiled by a crochet–work representation of a peacock embowered among +roses. She offered this luxurious seat to Captain Arundel, who, in his +weakness, was well content to sit down upon the slippery cushions.</p> + +<p>"I have come here to ask you to help me in my search for my wife, Hester," +Edward Arundel said, in a scarcely audible voice.</p> + +<p>It is not given to the bravest mind to be utterly independent and defiant of +the body; and the soldier was beginning to feel that he had very nearly run the +length of his tether, and must soon submit himself to be prostrated by sheer +physical weakness.</p> + +<p>"Your wife!" cried Hester eagerly. "O sir, is that true?"</p> + +<p>"Is what true?"</p> + +<p>"That poor Miss Mary was your lawful wedded wife?"</p> + +<p>"She was," replied Edward Arundel sternly, "my true and lawful wife. What +else should she have been, Mrs. Jobson?"</p> + +<p>The farmer's daughter burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"O sir," she said, sobbing violently as she spoke,––"O sir, the +things that was said against that poor dear in this place and all about the +Towers! The things that was said! It makes my heart bleed to think of them; it +makes my heart ready to break when I think what my poor sweet young lady must +have suffered. And it set me against you, sir; and I thought you was a bad and +cruel–hearted man!"</p> + +<p>"What did they say?" cried Edward. "What did they dare to say against her or +against me?"</p> + +<p>"They said that you had enticed her away from her home, sir, and +that––that––there had been no marriage; and that you +had deluded that poor innocent dear to run away with you; and that you'd +deserted her afterwards, and the railway accident had come upon you as a +punishment like; and that Mrs. Marchmont had found poor Miss Mary all alone at +a country inn, and had brought her back to the Towers."</p> + +<p>"But what if people did say this?" exclaimed Captain Arundel. "You could +have contradicted their foul slanders; you could have spoken in defence of my +poor helpless girl."</p> + +<p>"Me, sir!"</p> + +<p>"Yes. You must have heard the truth from my wife's own lips."</p> + +<p>Hester Jobson burst into a new flood of tears as Edward Arundel said +this.</p> + +<p>"O no, sir," she sobbed; "that was the most cruel thing of all. I never +could get to see Miss Mary; they wouldn't let me see her."</p> + +<p>"Who wouldn't let you?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Marchmont and Mr. Paul Marchmont. I was laid up, sir, when the report +first spread about that Miss Mary had come home. Things was kept very secret, +and it was said that Mrs. Marchmont was dreadfully cut up by the disgrace that +had come upon her stepdaughter. My baby was born about that time, sir; but as +soon as ever I could get about, I went up to the Towers, in the hope of seeing +my poor dear miss. But Mrs. Simmons, Mrs. Marchmont's own maid, told me that +Miss Mary was ill, very ill, and that no one was allowed to see her except +those that waited upon her and that she was used to. And I begged and prayed +that I might be allowed to see her, sir, with the tears in my eyes; for my +heart bled for her, poor darling dear, when I thought of the cruel things that +was said against her, and thought that, with all her riches and her learning, +folks could dare to talk of her as they wouldn't dare talk of a poor man's wife +like me. And I went again and again, sir; but it was no good; and, the last +time I went, Mrs. Marchmont came out into the hall to me, and told me that I +was intrusive and impertinent, and that it was me, and such as me, as had set +all manner of scandal afloat about her stepdaughter. But I went again, sir, +even after that; and I saw Mr. Paul Marchmont, and he was very kind to me, and +frank and free–spoken,––almost like you, sir; and he told me +that Mrs. Marchmont was rather stern and unforgiving towards the poor young +lady,––he spoke very kind and pitiful of poor Miss +Mary,––and that he would stand my friend, and he'd contrive that I +should see my poor dear as soon as ever she picked up her spirits a bit, and +was more fit to see me; and I was to come again in a week's time, he said."</p> + +<p>"Well; and when you went––––?"</p> + +<p>"When I went, sir," sobbed the carpenter's wife, "it was the 18th of +October, and Miss Mary had run away upon the day before, and every body at the +Towers was being sent right and left to look for her. I saw Mrs. Marchmont for +a minute that afternoon; and she was as white as a sheet, and all of a tremble +from head to foot, and she walked about the place as if she was out of her mind +like."</p> + +<p>"Guilt," thought the young soldier; "guilt of some sort. God only knows what +that guilt has been!"</p> + +<p>He covered his face with his hands, and waited to hear what more Hester +Jobson had to tell him. There was no need of questioning here––no +reservation or prevarication. With almost as tender regret as he himself could +have felt, the carpenter's wife told him all that she knew of the sad story of +Mary's disappearance.</p> + +<p>"Nobody took much notice of me, sir, in the confusion of the place," Mrs. +Jobson continued; "and there is a parlour–maid at the Towers called Susan +Rose, that had been a schoolfellow with me ten years before, and I got her to +tell me all about it. And she said that poor dear Miss Mary had been weak and +ailing ever since she had recovered from the brain–fever, and that she +had shut herself up in her room, and had seen no one except Mrs. Marchmont, and +Mr. Paul, and Barbara Simmons; but on the 17th Mrs. Marchmont sent for her, +asking her to come to the study. And the poor young lady went; and then Susan +Rose thinks that there was high words between Mrs. Marchmont and her +stepdaughter; for as Susan was crossing the hall poor Miss came out of the +study, and her face was all smothered in tears, and she cried out, as she came +into the hall, 'I can't bear it any longer. My life is too miserable; my fate +is too wretched!' And then she ran upstairs, and Susan Rose followed up to her +room and listened outside the door; and she heard the poor dear sobbing and +crying out again and again, 'O papa, papa! If you knew what I suffer! O papa, +papa, papa!'––so pitiful, that if Susan Rose had dared she would +have gone in to try and comfort her; but Miss Mary had always been very +reserved to all the servants, and Susan didn't dare intrude upon her. It was +late that evening when my poor young lady was missed, and the servants sent out +to look for her."</p> + +<p>"And you, Hester,––you knew my wife better than any of these +people,––where do you think she went?"</p> + +<p>Hester Jobson looked piteously at the questioner.</p> + +<p>"O sir!" she cried; "O Captain Arundel, don't ask me; pray, pray don't ask +me."</p> + +<p>"You think like these other people,––you think that she went +away to destroy herself?"</p> + +<p>"O sir, what can I think, what can I think except that? She was last seen +down by the water–side, and one of her shoes was picked up amongst the +rushes; and for all there's been such a search made after her, and a reward +offered, and advertisements in the papers, and everything done that mortal +could do to find her, there's been no news of her, sir,––not a +trace to tell of her being living; not a creature to come forward and speak to +her being seen by them after that day. What can I think, sir, what can I think, +except––"</p> + +<p>"Except that she threw herself into the river behind Marchmont Towers."</p> + +<p>"I've tried to think different, sir; I've tried to hope I should see that +poor sweet lamb again; but I can't, I can't. I've worn mourning for these three +last Sundays, sir; for I seemed to feel as if it was a sin and a +disrespectfulness towards her to wear colours, and sit in the church where I +have seen her so often, looking so meek and beautiful, Sunday after Sunday."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel bowed his head upon his hands and wept silently. This woman's +belief in Mary's death afflicted him more than he dared confess to himself. He +had defied Olivia and Paul Marchmont, as enemies, who tried to force a false +conviction upon him; but he could neither doubt nor defy this honest, +warm–hearted creature, who wept aloud over the memory of his wife's +sorrows. He could not doubt her sincerity; but he still refused to accept the +belief which on every side was pressed upon him. He still refused to think that +his wife was dead.</p> + +<p>"The river was dragged for more than a week," he said, presently, "and my +wife's body was never found."</p> + +<p>Hester Jobson shook her head mournfully.</p> + +<p>"That's a poor sign, sir," she answered; "the river's full of holes, I've +heard say. My husband had a fellow–'prentice who drowned himself in that +river seven year ago, and <em>his</em> body was never found."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel rose and walked towards the door.</p> + +<p>"I do not believe that my wife is dead," he cried. He held out his hand to +the carpenter's wife. "God bless you!" he said. "I thank you from my heart for +your tender feeling towards my lost girl."</p> + +<p>He went out to the gig, in which Mr. Morrison waited for him, rather tired +of his morning's work.</p> + +<p>"There is an inn a little way farther along the street, Morrison," Captain +Arundel said. "I shall stop there."</p> + +<p>The man stared at his master.</p> + +<p>"And not go back to Marchmont Towers, Mr. Edward?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel had held Nature in abeyance for more than +four–and–twenty hours, and this outraged Nature now took her +revenge by flinging the young man prostrate and powerless upon his bed at the +simple Kemberling hostelry, and holding him prisoner there for three dreary +days; three miserable days, with long, dark interminable evenings, during which +the invalid had no better employment than to lie brooding over his sorrows, +while Mr. Morrison read the "Times" newspaper in a monotonous and droning +voice, for his sick master's entertainment.</p> + +<p>How that helpless and prostrate prisoner, bound hand and foot in the stern +grasp of retaliative Nature, loathed the leading–articles, the foreign +correspondence, in the leviathan journal! How he sickened at the fiery English +of Printing–House Square, as expounded by Mr. Morrison! The sound of the +valet's voice was like the unbroken flow of a dull river. The great names that +surged up every now and then upon that sluggish tide of oratory made no +impression upon the sick man's mind. What was it to him if the glory of England +were in danger, the freedom of a mighty people wavering in the balance? What +was it to him if famine–stricken Ireland were perishing, and the +far–away Indian possessions menaced by contumacious and treacherous +Sikhs? What was it to him if the heavens were shrivelled like a blazing scroll, +and the earth reeling on its shaken foundations? What had he to do with any +catastrophe except that which had fallen upon his innocent young wife?</p> + +<p>"O my broken trust!" he muttered sometimes, to the alarm of the confidential +servant; "O my broken trust!"</p> + +<p>But during the three days in which Captain Arundel lay in the best chamber +at the Black Bull––the chief inn of Kemberling, and a very splendid +place of public entertainment long ago, when all the northward–bound +coaches had passed through that quiet Lincolnshire village––he was +not without a medical attendant to give him some feeble help in the way of +drugs and doctor's stuff, in the battle which he was fighting with offended +Nature. I don't know but that the help, however well intended, may have gone +rather to strengthen the hand of the enemy; for in those days––the +year '48 is very long ago when we take the measure of time by +science––country practitioners were apt to place themselves upon +the side of the disease rather than of the patient, and to assist grim Death in +his siege, by lending the professional aid of purgatives and phlebotomy.</p> + +<p>On this principle Mr. George Weston, the surgeon of Kemberling, and the +submissive and well–tutored husband of Paul Marchmont's sister, would +fain have set to work with the prostrate soldier, on the plea that the +patient's skin was hot and dry, and his white lips parched with fever. But +Captain Arundel protested vehemently against any such treatment.</p> + +<p>"You shall not take an ounce of blood out of my veins," he said, "or give me +one drop of medicine that will weaken me. What I want is strength; strength to +get up and leave this intolerable room, and go about the business that I have +to do. As to fever," he added scornfully, "as long as I have to lie here and am +hindered from going about the business of my life, every drop of my blood will +boil with a fever that all the drugs in Apothecaries' Hall would have no power +to subdue. Give me something to strengthen me. Patch me up somehow or other, +Mr. Weston, if you can. But I warn you that, if you keep me long here, I shall +leave this place either a corpse or a madman."</p> + +<p>The surgeon, drinking tea with his wife and brother–in–law half +an hour afterwards, related the conversation that had taken place between +himself and his patient, breaking up his narrative with a great many "I said's" +and "said he's," and with a good deal of rambling commentary upon the text.</p> + +<p>Lavinia Weston looked at her brother while the surgeon told his story.</p> + +<p>"He is very desperate about his wife, then, this dashing young captain?" Mr. +Marchmont said, presently.</p> + +<p>"Awful," answered the surgeon; "regular awful. I never saw anything like it. +Really it was enough to cut a man up to hear him go on so. He asked me all +sorts of questions about the time when she was ill and I attended upon her, and +what did she say to me, and did she seem very unhappy, and all that sort of +thing. Upon my word, you know, Mr. Paul,––of course I am very glad +to think of your coming into the fortune, and I'm very much obliged to you for +the kind promises you've made to me and Lavinia; but I almost felt as if I +could have wished the poor young lady hadn't drowned herself."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston shrugged her shoulders, and looked at her brother.</p> + +<p>"<em>Imbécile!</em>" she muttered.</p> + +<p>She was accustomed to talk to her brother very freely in rather +school–girl French before her husband, to whom that language was as the +most recondite of tongues, and who heartily admired her for superior +knowledge.</p> + +<p>He sat staring at her now, and eating bread–and–butter with a +simple relish, which in itself was enough to mark him out as a man to be +trampled upon.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>On the fourth day after his interview with Hester, Edward Arundel was strong +enough to leave his chamber at the Black Bull.</p> + +<p>"I shall go to London by to–night's mail, Morrison," he said to his +servant; "but before I leave Lincolnshire, I must pay another visit to +Marchmont Towers. You can stop here, and pack my portmanteau while I go."</p> + +<p>A rumbling old fly––looked upon as a splendid equipage by the +inhabitants of Kemberling––was furnished for Captain Arundel's +accommodation by the proprietor of the Black Bull; and once more the soldier +approached that ill–omened dwelling–place which had been the home +of his wife.</p> + +<p>He was ushered without any delay to the study in which Olivia spent the +greater part of her time.</p> + +<p>The dusky afternoon was already closing in. A low fire burned in the +old–fashioned grate, and one lighted wax–candle stood upon an open +davenport, before which the widow sat amid a confusion of torn papers, cast +upon the ground about her.</p> + +<p>The open drawers of the davenport, the littered scraps of paper and +loosely–tied documents, thrust, without any show of order, into the +different compartments of the desk, bore testimony to that state of mental +distraction which had been common to Olivia Marchmont for some time past. She +herself, the gloomy tenant of the Towers, sat with her elbow resting on her +desk, looking hopelessly and absently at the confusion before her.</p> + +<p>"I am very tired," she said, with a sigh, as she motioned her cousin to a +chair. "I have been trying to sort my papers, and to look for bills that have +to be paid, and receipts. They come to me about everything. I am very +tired."</p> + +<p>Her manner was changed from that stern defiance with which she had last +confronted her kinsman to an air of almost piteous feebleness. She rested her +head on her hand, repeating, in a low voice,</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am very tired."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel looked earnestly at her faded face, so faded from that which +he remembered it in its proud young beauty, that, in spite of his doubt of this +woman, he could scarcely refrain from some touch of pity for her.</p> + +<p>"You are ill, Olivia," he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am ill; I am worn out; I am tired of my life. Why does not God have +pity upon me, and take the bitter burden away? I have carried it too long."</p> + +<p>She said this not so much to her cousin as to herself. She was like Job in +his despair, and cried aloud to the Supreme Himself in a gloomy protest against +her anguish.</p> + +<p>"Olivia," said Edward Arundel very earnestly, "what is it that makes you +unhappy? Is the burden that you carry a burden on your conscience? Is the black +shadow upon your life a guilty secret? Is the cause of your unhappiness that +which I suspect it to be? Is it that, in some hour of passion, you consented to +league yourself with Paul Marchmont against my poor innocent girl? For pity's +sake, speak, and undo what you have done. You cannot have been guilty of a +crime. There has been some foul play, some conspiracy, some suppression; and my +darling has been lured away by the machinations of this man. But he could not +have got her into his power without your help. You hated +her,––Heaven alone knows for what reason,––and in an +evil hour you helped him, and now you are sorry for what you have done. But it +is not too late, Olivia; Olivia, it is surely not too late. Speak, speak, +woman, and undo what you have done. As you hope for mercy and forgiveness from +God, undo what you have done. I will exact no atonement from you. Paul +Marchmont, this smooth traitor, this frank man of the world, who defied me with +a smile,––he only shall be called upon to answer for the wrong done +against my darling. Speak, Olivia, for pity's sake," cried the young man, +casting himself upon his knees at his cousin's feet. "You are of my own blood; +you must have some spark of regard for me; have compassion upon me, then, or +have compassion upon your own guilty soul, which must perish everlastingly if +you withhold the truth. Have pity, Olivia, and speak!"</p> + +<p>The widow had risen to her feet, recoiling from the soldier as he knelt +before her, and looking at him with an awful light in the eyes that alone gave +life to her corpse–like face.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she flung her arms up above her head, stretching her wasted hands +towards the ceiling.</p> + +<p>"By the God who has renounced and abandoned me," she cried, "I have no more +knowledge than you have of Mary Marchmont's fate. From the hour in which she +left this house, upon the 17th of October, until this present moment, I have +neither seen her nor heard of her. If I have lied to you, Edward Arundel," she +added, dropping her extended arms, and turning quietly to her +cousin,––"if I have lied to you in saying this, may the tortures +which I suffer be doubled to me,––if in the infinite of suffering +there is any anguish worse than that I now endure."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel paused for a little while, brooding over this strange reply +to his appeal. Could he disbelieve his cousin?</p> + +<p>It is common to some people to make forcible and impious asseverations of an +untruth shamelessly, in the very face of an insulted Heaven. But Olivia +Marchmont was a woman who, in the very darkest hour of her despair, knew no +wavering from her faith in the God she had offended.</p> + +<p>"I cannot refuse to believe you, Olivia," Captain Arundel said presently. "I +do believe in your solemn protestations, and I no longer look for help from you +in my search for my lost love. I absolve you from all suspicion of being aware +of her fate <em>after</em> she left this house. But so long as she remained +beneath this roof she was in your care, and I hold you responsible for the ills +that may have then befallen her. You, Olivia, must have had some hand in +driving that unhappy girl away from her home."</p> + +<p>The widow had resumed her seat by the open davenport. She sat with her head +bent, her brows contracted, her mouth fixed and rigid, her left hand trifling +absently with the scattered papers before her.</p> + +<p>"You accused me of this once before, when Mary Marchmont left this house," +she said sullenly.</p> + +<p>"And you were guilty then," answered Edward.</p> + +<p>"I cannot hold myself answerable for the actions of others. Mary Marchmont +left this time, as she left before, of her own free will."</p> + +<p>"Driven away by your cruel words."</p> + +<p>"She must have been very weak," answered Olivia, with a sneer, "if a few +harsh words were enough to drive her away from her own house."</p> + +<p>"You deny, then, that you were guilty of causing this poor deluded child's +flight from this house?"</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont sat for some moments in moody silence; then suddenly +raising her head, she looked her cousin full in the face.</p> + +<p>"I do," she exclaimed; "if any one except herself is guilty of an act which +was her own, I am not that person."</p> + +<p>"I understand," said Edward Arundel; "it was Paul Marchmont's hand that +drove her out upon the dreary world. It was Paul Marchmont's brain that plotted +against her. You were only a minor instrument; a willing tool, in the hands of +a subtle villain. But he shall answer; he shall answer!"</p> + +<p>The soldier spoke the last words between his clenched teeth. Then with his +chin upon his breast, he sat thinking over what he had just heard.</p> + +<p>"How was it?" he muttered; "how was it? He is too consummate a villain to +use violence. His manner the other morning told me that the law was on his +side. He had done nothing to put himself into my power, and he defied me. How +was it, then? By what means did he drive my darling to her despairing +flight?"</p> + +<p>As Captain Arundel sat thinking of these things, his cousin's idle fingers +still trifled with the papers on the desk; while, with her chin resting on her +other hand, and her eyes fixed upon the wall before her, she stared blankly at +the reflection of the flame of the candle on the polished oaken panel. Her idle +fingers, following no design, strayed here and there among the scattered +papers, until a few that lay nearest the edge of the desk slid off the smooth +morocco, and fluttered to the ground.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel, as absent–minded as his cousin, stooped involuntarily +to pick up the papers. The uppermost of those that had fallen was a slip cut +from a country newspaper, to which was pinned an open letter, a few lines only. +The paragraph in the newspaper slip was marked by double ink–lines, drawn +round it by a neat penman. Again almost involuntarily, Edward Arundel looked at +this marked paragraph. It was very brief:</p> + +<p>"We regret to be called upon to state that another of the sufferers in the +accident which occurred last August on the South–Western Railway has +expired from injuries received upon that occasion. Captain Arundel, of the +H.E.I.C.S., died on Friday night at Dangerfield Park, Devon, the seat of his +elder brother."</p> + +<p>The letter was almost as brief as the paragraph:</p> + +<p>"Kemberling, October 17th.</p> + +<p>"MY DEAR MRS. MARCHMONT,––The enclosed has just come to hand. +Let us hope it is not true. But, in case of the worst, it should be shown to +Miss Marchmont <em>immediately</em>. Better that she should hear the news from +you than from a stranger.</p> + +<p>"Yours sincerely,</p> + +<p>"PAUL MARCHMONT."</p> + +<p>"I understand everything now," said Edward Arundel, laying these two papers +before his cousin; "it was with this printed lie that you and Paul Marchmont +drove my wife to despair––perhaps to death. My darling, my +darling," cried the young man, in a burst of uncontrollable agony, "I refused +to believe that you were dead; I refused to believe that you were lost to me. I +can believe it now; I can believe it now."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER23" id="CHAPTER23">CHAPTER XI.<br /> +EDWARD ARUNDEL'S DESPAIR.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Yes; Edward Arundel could believe the worst now. He could believe now that +his young wife, on hearing tidings of his death, had rushed madly to her own +destruction; too desolate, too utterly unfriended and miserable, to live under +the burden of her sorrows.</p> + +<p>Mary had talked to her husband in the happy, loving confidence of her bright +honeymoon; she had talked to him of her father's death, and the horrible grief +she had felt; the heart–sickness, the eager yearning to be carried to the +same grave, to rest in the same silent sleep.</p> + +<p>"I think I tried to throw myself from the window upon the night before +papa's funeral," she had said; "but I fainted away. I know it was very wicked +of me. But I was mad. My wretchedness had driven me mad."</p> + +<p>He remembered this. Might not this girl, this helpless child, in the first +desperation of her grief, have hurried down to that dismal river, to hide her +sorrows for ever under its slow and murky tide?</p> + +<p>Henceforward it was with a new feeling that Edward Arundel looked for his +missing wife. The young and hopeful spirit which had wrestled against +conviction, which had stubbornly preserved its own sanguine fancies against the +gloomy forebodings of others, had broken down before the evidence of that false +paragraph in the country newspaper. That paragraph was the key to the sad +mystery of Mary Arundel's disappearance. Her husband could understand now why +she ran away, why she despaired; and how, in that desperation and despair, she +might have hastily ended her short life.</p> + +<p>It was with altered feelings, therefore, that he went forth to look for her. +He was no longer passionate and impatient, for he no longer believed that his +young wife lived to yearn for his coming, and to suffer for the want of his +protection; he no longer thought of her as a lonely and helpless wanderer +driven from her rightful home, and in her childish ignorance straying farther +and farther away from him who had the right to succour and to comfort her. No; +he thought of her now with sullen despair at his heart; he thought of her now +in utter hopelessness; he thought of her with a bitter and agonising regret, +which we only feel for the dead.</p> + +<p>But this grief was not the only feeling that held possession of the young +soldier's breast. Stronger even than his sorrow was his eager yearning for +vengeance, his savage desire for retaliation.</p> + +<p>"I look upon Paul Marchmont as the murderer of my wife," he said to Olivia, +on that November evening on which he saw the paragraph in the newspaper; "I +look upon that man as the deliberate destroyer of a helpless girl; and he shall +answer to me for her life. He shall answer to me for every pang she suffered, +for every tear she shed. God have mercy upon her poor erring soul, and help me +to my vengeance upon her destroyer."</p> + +<p>He lifted his eyes to heaven as he spoke, and a solemn shadow overspread his +pale face, like a dark cloud upon a winter landscape.</p> + +<p>I have said that Edward Arundel no longer felt a frantic impatience to +discover his wife's fate. The sorrowful conviction which at last had forced +itself upon him left no room for impatience. The pale face he had loved was +lying hidden somewhere beneath those dismal waters. He had no doubt of that. +There was no need of any other solution to the mystery of his wife's +disappearance. That which he had to seek for was the evidence of Paul +Marchmont's guilt.</p> + +<p>The outspoken young soldier, whose nature was as transparent as the +stainless soul of a child, had to enter into the lists with a man who was so +different from himself, that it was almost difficult to believe the two +individuals belonged to the same species.</p> + +<p>Captain Arundel went back to London, and betook himself forthwith to the +office of Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson. He had the idea, common to +many of his class, that all lawyers, whatever claims they might have to +respectability, are in a manner past–masters in every villanous art; and, +as such, the proper people to deal with a villain.</p> + +<p>"Richard Paulette will be able to help me," thought the young man; "Richard +Paulette saw through Paul Marchmont, I dare say."</p> + +<p>But Richard Paulette had very little to say about the matter. He had known +Edward Arundel's father, and he had known the young soldier from his early +boyhood, and he seemed deeply grieved to witness his client's distress; but he +had nothing to say against Paul Marchmont.</p> + +<p>"I cannot see what right you have to suspect Mr. Marchmont of any guilty +share in your wife's disappearance," he said. "Do not think I defend him +because he is our client. You know that we are rich enough, and honourable +enough, to refuse the business of any man whom we thought a villain. When I was +in Lincolnshire, Mr. Marchmont did everything that a man could do to testify +his anxiety to find his cousin."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," Edward Arundel answered bitterly; "that is only consistent with +the man's diabolical artifice; <em>that</em> was a part of his scheme. He +wished to testify that anxiety, and he wanted you as a witness to his +conscientious search after my––poor––lost girl." His +voice and manner changed for a moment as he spoke of Mary.</p> + +<p>Richard Paulette shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Prejudice, prejudice, my dear Arundel," he said; "this is all prejudice +upon your part, I assure you. Mr. Marchmont behaved with perfect honesty and +candour. 'I won't tell you that I'm sorry to inherit this fortune,' he said, +'because if I did you wouldn't believe me––what man in his senses +<em>could</em> believe that a poor devil of a landscape painter would regret +coming into eleven thousand a year?––but I am very sorry for this +poor little girl's unhappy fate.' And I believe," added Mr. Paulette, +decisively, "that the man was heartily sorry."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel groaned aloud.</p> + +<p>"O God! this is too terrible," he muttered. "Everybody will believe in this +man rather than in me. How am I to be avenged upon the wretch who caused my +darling's death?"</p> + +<p>He talked for a long time to the lawyer, but with no result. Richard +Paulette considered the young man's hatred of Paul Marchmont only a natural +consequence of his grief for Mary's death.</p> + +<p>"I can't wonder that you are prejudiced against Mr. Marchmont," he said; +"it's natural; it's only natural; but, believe me, you are wrong. Nothing could +be more straightforward, and even delicate, than his conduct. He refuses to +take possession of the estate, or to touch a farthing of the rents. 'No,' he +said, when I suggested to him that he had a right to enter in +possession,––'no; we will not shut the door against hope. My cousin +may be hiding herself somewhere; she may return by–and–by. Let us +wait a twelvemonth. If at the end of that time, she does not return, and if in +the interim we receive no tidings from her, no evidence of her existence, we +may reasonably conclude that she is dead; and I may fairly consider myself the +rightful owner of Marchmont Towers. In the mean time, you will act as if you +were still Mary Marchmont's agent, holding all moneys as in trust for her, but +to be delivered up to me at the expiration of a year from the day on which she +disappeared.' I do not think anything could be more straightforward than that," +added Richard Paulette, in conclusion.</p> + +<p>"No," Edward answered, with a sigh; "it <em>seems</em> very straightforward. +But the man who could strike at a helpless girl by means of a lying paragraph +in a newspaper––"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marchmont may have believed in that paragraph."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel rose, with a gesture of impatience.</p> + +<p>"I came to you for help, Mr. Paulette," he said; "but I see you don't mean +to help me. Good day."</p> + +<p>He left the office before the lawyer could remonstrate with him. He walked +away, with passionate anger against all the world raging in his breast.</p> + +<p>"Why, what a smooth–spoken, false–tongued world it is!" he +thought. "Let a man succeed in the vilest scheme, and no living creature will +care to ask by what foul means he may have won his success. What weapons can I +use against this Paul Marchmont, who twists truth and honesty to his own ends, +and masks his basest treachery under an appearance of candour?"</p> + +<p>From Lincoln's Inn Fields Captain Arundel drove over Waterloo Bridge to +Oakley Street. He went to Mrs. Pimpernel's establishment, without any hope of +the glad surprise that had met him there a few months before. He believed +implicitly that his wife was dead, and wherever he went in search of her he +went in utter hopelessness, only prompted by the desire to leave no part of his +duty undone.</p> + +<p>The honest–hearted dealer in cast–off apparel wept bitterly when +she heard how sadly the Captain's honeymoon had ended. She would have been +content to detain the young soldier all day, while she bemoaned the misfortunes +that had come upon him; and now, for the first time, Edward heard of dismal +forebodings, and horrible dreams, and unaccountable presentiments of evil, with +which this honest woman had been afflicted on and before his wedding–day, +and of which she had made special mention at the time to divers friends and +acquaintances.</p> + +<p>"I never shall forget how shivery–like I felt as the cab drove off, +with that pore dear a–lookin' and smilin' at me out of the winder. I says +to Mrs. Polson, as her husband is in the shoemakin' line, two doors further +down,––I says, 'I do hope Capting Harungdell's lady will get safe +to the end of her journey.' I felt the cold shivers a–creepin' up my back +just azackly like I did a fortnight before my pore Jane died, and I couldn't +get it off my mind as somethink was goin' to happen."</p> + +<p>From London Captain Arundel went to Winchester, much to the disgust of his +valet, who was accustomed to a luxuriously idle life at Dangerfield Park, and +who did not by any means relish this desultory wandering from place to place. +Perhaps there was some faint ray of hope in the young man's mind, as he drew +near to that little village–inn beneath whose shelter he had been so +happy with his childish bride. If she had <em>not</em> committed suicide; if +she had indeed wandered away, to try and bear her sorrows in gentle Christian +resignation; if she had sought some retreat where she might be safe from her +tormentors,––would not every instinct of her loving heart have led +her here?––here, amid these low meadows and winding streams, +guarded and surrounded by the pleasant shelter of grassy hill–tops, +crowned by waving trees?––here, where she had been so happy with +the husband of her choice?</p> + +<p>But, alas! that newly–born hope, which had made the soldier's heart +beat and his cheek flush, was as delusive as many other hopes that lure men and +women onward in their weary wanderings upon this earth. The landlord of the +White Hart Inn answered Edward Arundel's question with stolid indifference.</p> + +<p>No; the young lady had gone away with her ma, and a gentleman who came with +her ma. She had cried a deal, poor thing, and had seemed very much cut up. (It +was from the chamber–maid Edward heard this.) But her ma and the +gentleman had seemed in a great hurry to take her away. The gentleman said that +a village inn wasn't the place for her, and he said he was very much shocked to +find her there; and he had a fly got ready, and took the two ladies away in it +to the George, at Winchester, and they were to go from there to London; and the +young lady was crying when she went away, and was as pale as death, poor +dear.</p> + +<p>This was all that Captain Arundel gained by his journey to Milldale. He went +across country to the farming people near Reading, his wife's poor relations. +But they had heard nothing of her. They had wondered, indeed, at having no +letters from her, for she had been very kind to them. They were terribly +distressed when they were told of her disappearance.</p> + +<p>This was the forlorn hope. It was all over now. Edward Arundel could no +longer struggle against the cruel truth. He could do nothing now but avenge his +wife's sorrows. He went down to Devonshire, saw his mother, and told her the +sad story of Mary's flight. But he could not rest at Dangerfield, though Mrs. +Arundel implored him to stay long enough to recruit his shattered health. He +hurried back to London, made arrangements with his agent for being bought out +of his regiment by his brother officers, and then, turning his back upon the +career that had been far dearer to him than his life, he went down to +Lincolnshire once more, in the dreary winter weather, to watch and wait +patiently, if need were, for the day of retribution.</p> + +<p>There was a detached cottage, a lonely place enough, between Kemberling and +Marchmont Towers, that had been to let for a long time, being very much out of +repair, and by no means inviting in appearance. Edward Arundel took this +cottage. All necessary repairs and alterations were executed under the +direction of Mr. Morrison, who was to remain permanently in the young man's +service. Captain Arundel had a couple of horses brought down to his new stable, +and hired a country lad, who was to act as groom under the eye of the factotum. +Mr. Morrison and this lad, with one female servant, formed Edward's +establishment.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont lifted his auburn eyebrows when he heard of the new tenant of +Kemberling Retreat. The lonely cottage had been christened Kemberling Retreat +by a sentimental tenant; who had ultimately levanted, leaving his rent three +quarters in arrear. The artist exhibited a gentlemanly surprise at this new +vagary of Edward Arundel's, and publicly expressed his pity for the foolish +young man.</p> + +<p>"I am so sorry that the poor fellow should sacrifice himself to a romantic +grief for my unfortunate cousin," Mr. Marchmont said, in the parlour of the +Black Bull, where he condescended to drop in now and then with his +brother–in–law, and to make himself popular amongst the magnates of +Kemberling, and the tenant–farmers, who looked to him as their future, if +not their actual, landlord. "I am really sorry for the poor lad. He's a +handsome, high–spirited fellow, and I'm sorry he's been so weak as to +ruin his prospects in the Company's service. Yes; I am heartily sorry for +him."</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont discussed the matter very lightly in the parlour of the Black +Bull, but he kept silence as he walked home with the surgeon; and Mr. George +Weston, looking askance at his brother–in–law's face, saw that +something was wrong, and thought it advisable to hold his peace.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont sat up late that night talking to Lavinia after the surgeon +had gone to bed. The brother and sister conversed in subdued murmurs as they +stood close together before the expiring fire, and the faces of both were very +grave, indeed, almost apprehensive.</p> + +<p>"He must be terribly in earnest," Paul Marchmont said, "or he would never +have sacrificed his position. He has planted himself here, close upon us, with +a determination of watching us. We shall have to be very careful."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>It was early in the new year that Edward Arundel completed all his +arrangements, and took possession of Kemberling Retreat. He knew that, in +retiring from the East India Company's service, he had sacrificed the prospect +of a brilliant and glorious career, under some of the finest soldiers who ever +fought for their country. But he had made this sacrifice +willingly––as an offering to the memory of his lost love; as an +atonement for his broken trust. For it was one of his most bitter miseries to +remember that his own want of prudence had been the first cause of all Mary's +sorrows. Had he confided in his mother,––had he induced her to +return from Germany to be present at his marriage, and to accept the orphan +girl as a daughter,––Mary need never again have fallen into the +power of Olivia Marchmont. His own imprudence, his own rashness, had flung this +poor child, helpless and friendless, into the hands of the very man against +whom John Marchmont had written a solemn warning,––a warning that +it should have been Edward's duty to remember. But who could have calculated +upon the railway accident; and who could have foreseen a separation in the +first blush of the honeymoon? Edward Arundel had trusted in his own power to +protect his bride from every ill that might assail her. In the pride of his +youth and strength he had forgotten that he was not immortal, and the last idea +that could have entered his mind was the thought that he should be stricken +down by a sudden calamity, and rendered even more helpless than the girl he had +sworn to shield and succour.</p> + +<p>The bleak winter crept slowly past, and the shrill March winds were loud +amidst the leafless trees in the wood behind Marchmont Towers. This wood was +open to any foot–passenger who might choose to wander that way; and +Edward Arundel often walked upon the bank of the slow river, and past the +boat–house, beneath whose shadow he had wooed his young wife in the +bright summer that was gone. The place had a mournful attraction for the young +man, by reason of the memory of the past, and a different and far keener +fascination in the fact of Paul Marchmont's frequent occupation of his +roughly–built painting–room.</p> + +<p>In a purposeless and unsettled frame of mind, Edward Arundel kept watch upon +the man he hated, scarcely knowing why he watched, or for what he hoped, but +with a vague belief that something would be discovered; that some accident +might come to pass which would enable him to say to Paul Marchmont,</p> + +<p>"It was by your treachery my wife perished; and it is you who must answer to +me for her death."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel had seen nothing of his cousin Olivia during that dismal +winter. He had held himself aloof from the Towers,––that is to say, +he had never presented himself there as a guest, though he had been often on +horseback and on foot in the wood by the river. He had not seen Olivia, but he +had heard of her through his valet, Mr. Morrison, who insisted on repeating the +gossip of Kemberling for the benefit of his listless and indifferent master.</p> + +<p>"They do say as Mr. Paul Marchmont is going to marry Mrs. John Marchmont, +sir," Mr. Morrison said, delighted at the importance of his information. "They +say as Mr. Paul is always up at the Towers visitin' Mrs. John, and that she +takes his advice about everything as she does, and that she's quite wrapped up +in him like."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel looked at his attendant with unmitigated surprise.</p> + +<p>"My cousin Olivia marry Paul Marchmont!" he exclaimed. "You should be wiser +than to listen to such foolish gossip, Morrison. You know what country people +are, and you know they can't keep their tongues quiet."</p> + +<p>Mr. Morrison took this reproach as a compliment to his superior +intelligence.</p> + +<p>"It ain't oftentimes as I listens to their talk, sir," he said; "but if I've +heard this said once, I've heard it twenty times; and I've heard it at the +Black Bull, too, Mr. Edward, where Mr. Marchmont fre<em>quents</em> sometimes +with his sister's husband; and the landlord told me as it had been spoken of +once before his face, and he didn't deny it."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel pondered gravely over this gossip of the Kemberling people. +It was not so very improbable, perhaps, after all. Olivia only held Marchmont +Towers on sufferance. It might be that, rather than be turned out of her +stately home, she would accept the hand of its rightful owner. She would marry +Paul Marchmont, perhaps, as she had married his brother,––for the +sake of a fortune and a position. She had grudged Mary her wealth, and now she +sought to become a sharer in that wealth.</p> + +<p>"Oh, the villany, the villany!" cried the soldier. "It is all one base +fabric of treachery and wrong. A marriage between these two will be only a part +of the scheme. Between them they have driven my darling to her death, and they +will now divide the profits of their guilty work."</p> + +<p>The young man determined to discover whether there had been any foundation +for the Kemberling gossip. He had not seen his cousin since the day of his +discovery of the paragraph in the newspaper, and he went forthwith to the +Towers, bent on asking Olivia the straight question as to the truth of the +reports that had reached his ears.</p> + +<p>He walked over to the dreary mansion. He had regained his strength by this +time, and he had recovered his good looks; but something of the brightness of +his youth was gone; something of the golden glory of his beauty had faded. He +was no longer the young Apollo, fresh and radiant with the divinity of the +skies. He had suffered; and suffering had left its traces on his countenance. +That smiling hopefulness, that supreme confidence in a bright future, which is +the virginity of beauty, had perished beneath the withering influence of +affliction.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont was not to be seen at the Towers. She had gone down to the +boat–house with Mr. Paul Marchmont and Mrs. Weston, the servant said.</p> + +<p>"I will see them together," Edward Arundel thought. "I will see if my cousin +dares to tell me that she means to marry this man."</p> + +<p>He walked through the wood to the lonely building by the river. The March +winds were blowing among the leafless trees, ruffling the black pools of water +that the rain had left in every hollow; the smoke from the chimney of Paul +Marchmont's painting–room struggled hopelessly against the wind, and was +beaten back upon the roof from which it tried to rise. Everything succumbed +before that pitiless north–easter.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel knocked at the door of the wooden edifice erected by his foe. +He scarcely waited for the answer to his summons, but lifted the latch, and +walked across the threshold, uninvited, unwelcome.</p> + +<p>There were four people in the painting–room. Two or three seemed to +have been talking together when Edward knocked at the door; but the speakers +had stopped simultaneously and abruptly, and there was a dead silence when he +entered.</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont was standing under the broad northern window; the artist +was sitting upon one of the steps leading up to the pavilion; and a few paces +from him, in an old cane–chair near the easel, sat George Weston, the +surgeon, with his wife leaning over the back of his chair. It was at this man +that Edward Arundel looked longest, riveted by the strange expression of his +face. The traces of intense agitation have a peculiar force when seen in a +usually stolid countenance. Your mobile faces are apt to give an exaggerated +record of emotion. We grow accustomed to their changeful expression, their +vivid betrayal of every passing sensation. But this man's was one of those +faces which are only changed from their apathetic stillness by some moral +earthquake, whose shock arouses the most impenetrable dullard from his stupid +imperturbability. Such a shock had lately affected George Weston, the quiet +surgeon of Kemberling, the submissive husband of Paul Marchmont's sister. His +face was as white as death; a slow trembling shook his ponderous frame; with +one of his big fat hands he pulled a cotton handkerchief from his pocket, and +tremulously wiped the perspiration from his bald forehead. His wife bent over +him, and whispered a few words in his ear; but he shook his head with a piteous +gesture, as if to testify his inability to comprehend her. It was impossible +for a man to betray more obvious signs of violent agitation than this man +betrayed.</p> + +<p>"It's no use, Lavinia," he murmured hopelessly, as his wife whispered to him +for the second time; "it's no use, my dear; I can't get over it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston cast one rapid, half–despairing, half–appealing +glance at her brother, and in the next moment recovered herself, by an effort +only such as great women, or wicked women, are capable of.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you men!" she cried, in her liveliest voice; "oh, you men! What big +silly babies, what nervous creatures you are! Come, George, I won't have you +giving way to this foolish nonsense, just because an extra glass or so of Mrs. +Marchmont's very fine old port has happened to disagree with you. You must not +think we are a drunkard, Mr. Arundel," added the lady, turning playfully to +Edward, and patting her husband's clumsy shoulder as she spoke; "we are only a +poor village surgeon, with a limited income, and a very weak head, and quite +unaccustomed to old light port. Come, Mr. George Weston, walk out into the open +air, sir, and let us see if the March wind will bring you back your senses."</p> + +<p>And without another word Lavinia Weston hustled her husband, who walked like +a man in a dream, out of the painting–room, and closed the door behind +her.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont laughed as the door shut upon his +brother–in–law.</p> + +<p>"Poor George!" he said, carelessly; "I thought he helped himself to the port +a little too liberally. He never could stand a glass of wine; and he's the most +stupid creature when he is drunk."</p> + +<p>Excellent as all this by–play was, Edward Arundel was not deceived by +it.</p> + +<p>"The man was not drunk," he thought; "he was frightened. What could have +happened to throw him into that state? What mystery are these people hiding +amongst themselves; and what should <em>he</em> have to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Captain Arundel," Paul Marchmont said. "I congratulate you on +the change in your appearance since you were last in this place. You seem to +have quite recovered the effects of that terrible railway accident."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel drew himself up stiffly as the artist spoke to him.</p> + +<p>"We cannot meet except as enemies, Mr. Marchmont," he said. "My cousin has +no doubt told you what I said of you when I discovered the lying paragraph +which you caused to be shown to my wife."</p> + +<p>"I only did what any one else would have done under the circumstances," Paul +Marchmont answered quietly. "I was deceived by a penny–a–liner's +false report. How should I know the effect that report would have upon my +unhappy cousin?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot discuss this matter with you," cried Edward Arundel, his voice +tremulous with passion; "I am almost mad when I think of it. I am not safe; I +dare not trust myself. I look upon you as the deliberate assassin of a helpless +girl; but so skilful an assassin, that nothing less than the vengeance of God +can touch you. I cry aloud to Him night and day, in the hope that He will hear +me and avenge my wife's death. I cannot look to any earthly law for help: but I +trust in God; I put my trust in God."</p> + +<p>There are very few positive and consistent atheists in this world. Mr. Paul +Marchmont was a philosopher of the infidel school, a student of Voltaire and +the brotherhood of the Encyclopedia, and a believer in those liberal days +before the Reign of Terror, when Frenchmen, in coffee–houses, discussed +the Supreme under the soubriquet of Mons. l'Etre; but he grew a little paler as +Edward Arundel, with kindling eyes and uplifted hand, declared his faith in a +Divine Avenger.</p> + +<p>The sceptical artist may have thought,</p> + +<p>"What if there should be some reality in the creed so many weak fools +confide in? What if there <em>is</em> a God who cannot abide iniquity?"</p> + +<p>"I came here to look for you, Olivia," Edward Arundel said presently. "I +want to ask you a question. Will you come into the wood with me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you wish it," Mrs. Marchmont answered quietly.</p> + +<p>The cousins went out of the painting–room together, leaving Paul +Marchmont alone. They walked on for a few yards in silence.</p> + +<p>"What is the question you came here to ask me?" Olivia asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"The Kemberling people have raised a report about you which I should fancy +would be scarcely agreeable to yourself," answered Edward. "You would hardly +wish to benefit by Mary's death, would you, Olivia?"</p> + +<p>He looked at her searchingly as he spoke. Her face was at all times so +expressive of hidden cares, of cruel mental tortures, that there was little +room in her countenance for any new emotion. Her cousin looked in vain for any +change in it now.</p> + +<p>"Benefit by her death!" she exclaimed. "How should I benefit by her +death?"</p> + +<p>"By marrying the man who inherits this estate. They say you are going to +marry Paul Marchmont."</p> + +<p>Olivia looked at him with an expression of surprise.</p> + +<p>"Do they say that of me?" she asked. "Do people say that?"</p> + +<p>"They do. Is it true, Olivia?"</p> + +<p>The widow turned upon him almost fiercely.</p> + +<p>"What does it matter to you whether it is true or not? What do you care whom +I marry, or what becomes of me?"</p> + +<p>"I care this much," Edward Arundel answered, "that I would not have your +reputation lied away by the gossips of Kemberling. I should despise you if you +married this man. But if you do not mean to marry him, you have no right to +encourage his visits; you are trifling with your own good name. You should +leave this place, and by that means give the lie to any false reports that have +arisen about you."</p> + +<p>"Leave this place!" cried Olivia Marchmont, with a bitter laugh. "Leave this +place! O my God, if I could; if I could go away and bury myself somewhere at +the other end of the world, and forget,––and forget!" She said this +as if to herself; as if it had been a cry of despair wrung from her in despite +of herself; then, turning to Edward Arundel, she added, in a quieter voice, "I +can never leave this place till I leave it in my coffin. I am a prisoner here +for life."</p> + +<p>She turned from him, and walked slowly away, with her face towards the dying +sunlight in the low western sky.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER24" id="CHAPTER24">CHAPTER XII.<br /> +EDWARD'S VISITORS.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Perhaps no greater sacrifice had ever been made by an English gentleman than +that which Edward Arundel willingly offered up as an atonement for his broken +trust, as a tribute to his lost wife. Brave, ardent, generous, and sanguine, +this young soldier saw before him a brilliant career in the profession which he +loved. He saw glory and distinction beckoning to him from afar, and turned his +back upon those shining sirens. He gave up all, in the vague hope of, sooner or +later, avenging Mary's wrongs upon Paul Marchmont.</p> + +<p>He made no boast, even to himself, of that which he had done. Again and +again memory brought back to him the day upon which he breakfasted in Oakley +Street, and walked across Waterloo Bridge with the Drury Lane supernumerary. +Every word that John Marchmont had spoken; every look of the meek and trusting +eyes, the pale and thoughtful face; every pressure of the thin hand which had +grasped his in grateful affection, in friendly confidence,––came +back to Edward Arundel after an interval of nearly ten years, and brought with +it a bitter sense of self–reproach.</p> + +<p>"He trusted his daughter to me," the young man thought. "Those last words in +the poor fellow's letter are always in my mind: 'The only bequest which I can +leave to the only friend I have is the legacy of a child's helplessness.' And I +have slighted his solemn warning: and I have been false to my trust."</p> + +<p>In his scrupulous sense of honour, the soldier reproached himself as +bitterly for that imprudence, out of which so much evil had arisen, as another +man might have done after a wilful betrayal of his trust. He could not forgive +himself. He was for ever and ever repeating in his own mind that one brief +phase which is the universal chorus of erring men's regret: "If I had acted +differently, if I had done otherwise, this or that would not have come to +pass." We are perpetually wandering amid the hopeless deviations of a maze, +finding pitfalls and precipices, quicksands and morasses, at every turn in the +painful way; and we look back at the end of our journey to discover a straight +and pleasant roadway by which, had we been wise enough to choose it, we might +have travelled safely and comfortably to our destination.</p> + +<p>But Wisdom waits for us at the goal instead of accompanying us upon our +journey. She is a divinity whom we meet very late in life; when we are too near +the end of our troublesome march to derive much profit from her counsels. We +can only retail them to our juniors, who, not getting them from the +fountain–head, have very small appreciation of their value.</p> + +<p>The young captain of East Indian cavalry suffered very cruelly from the +sacrifice which he had made. Day after day, day after day, the slow, dreary, +changeless, eventless, and unbroken life dragged itself out; and nothing +happened to bring him any nearer to the purpose of this monotonous existence; +no promise of even ultimate success rewarded his heroic self–devotion. +Afar, he heard of the rush and clamour of war, of dangers and terror, of +conquest and glory. His own regiment was in the thick of the strife, his +brothers in arms were doing wonders. Every mail brought some new record of +triumph and glory.</p> + +<p>The soldier's heart sickened as he read the story of each new encounter; his +heart sickened with that terrible yearning,––that yearning which +seems physically palpable in its perpetual pain; the yearning with which a +child at a hard school, lying broad awake in the long, gloomy, rush–lit +bedchamber in the dead of the silent night, remembers the soft +resting–place of his mother's bosom; the yearning with which a faithful +husband far away from home sighs for the presence of the wife he loves. Even +with such a heart–sickness as this Edward Arundel pined to be amongst the +familiar faces yonder in the East,––to hear the triumphant yell of +his men as they swarmed after him through the breach in an Affghan +wall,––to see the dark heathens blanch under the terror of +Christian swords.</p> + +<p>He read the records of the war again and again, again and again, till every +scene arose before him,––a picture, flaming and lurid, grandly +beautiful, horribly sublime. The very words of those newspaper reports seemed +to blaze upon the paper on which they were written, so palpable were the images +which they evoked in the soldier's mind. He was frantic in his eager impatience +for the arrival of every mail, for the coming of every new record of that +Indian warfare. He was like a devourer of romances, who reads a thrilling story +link by link, and who is impatient for every new chapter of the fiction. His +dreams were of nothing but battle and victory, danger, triumph, and death; and +he often woke in the morning exhausted by the excitement of those visionary +struggles, those phantom terrors.</p> + +<p>His sabre hung over the chimney–piece in his simple bedchamber. He +took it down sometimes, and drew it from the sheath. He could have almost wept +aloud over that idle sword. He raised his arm, and the weapon vibrated with a +whirring noise as he swept the glittering steel in a wide circle through the +empty air. An infidel's head should have been swept from his vile carcass in +that rapid circle of the keen–edged blade. The soldier's arm was as +strong as ever, his wrist as supple, his muscular force unwasted by mental +suffering. Thank Heaven for that! But after that brief thanksgiving his arm +dropped inertly, and the idle sword fell out of his relaxing grasp.</p> + +<p>"I seem a craven to myself," he cried; "I have no right to be +here––I have no right to be here while those other fellows are +fighting for their lives out yonder. O God, have mercy upon me! My brain gets +dazed sometimes; and I begin to wonder whether I am most bound to remain here +and watch Paul Marchmont, or to go yonder and fight for my country and my +Queen."</p> + +<p>There were many phases in this mental fever. At one time the young man was +seized with a savage jealousy of the officer who had succeeded to his +captaincy. He watched this man's name, and every record of his movements, and +was constantly taking objection to his conduct. He was grudgingly envious of +this particular officer's triumphs, however small. He could not feel generously +towards this happy successor, in the bitterness of his own enforced +idleness.</p> + +<p>"What opportunities this man has!" he thought; "<em>I</em> never had such +chances."</p> + +<p>It is almost impossible for me to faithfully describe the tortures which +this monotonous existence inflicted upon the impetuous young man. It is the +speciality of a soldier's career that it unfits most men for any other life. +They cannot throw off the old habitudes. They cannot turn from the noisy stir +of war to the tame quiet of every–day life; and even when they fancy +themselves wearied and worn out, and willingly retire from service, their souls +are stirred by every sound of the distant contest, as the war–steed is +aroused by the blast of a trumpet. But Edward Arundel's career had been cut +suddenly short at the very hour in which it was brightest with the promise of +future glory. It was as if a torrent rushing madly down a mountain–side +had been dammed up, and its waters bidden to stagnate upon a level plain. The +rebellious waters boiled and foamed in a sullen fury. The soldier could not +submit himself contentedly to his fate. He might strip off his uniform, and +accept sordid coin as the price of the epaulettes he had won so dearly; but he +was at heart a soldier still. When he received the sum which had been raised +amongst his juniors as the price of his captaincy, it seemed to him almost as +if he had sold his brother's blood.</p> + +<p>It was summer–time now. Ten months had elapsed since his marriage with +Mary Marchmont, and no new light had been thrown upon the disappearance of his +young wife. No one could feel a moment's doubt as to her fate. She had perished +in that lonely river which flowed behind Marchmont Towers, and far away down to +the sea.</p> + +<p>The artist had kept his word, and had as yet taken no step towards entering +into possession of the estate which he inherited by his cousin's death. But Mr. +Paul Marchmont spent a great deal of time at the Towers, and a great deal more +time in the painting–room by the river–side, sometimes accompanied +by his sister, sometimes alone.</p> + +<p>The Kemberling gossips had grown by no means less talkative upon the subject +of Olivia and the new owner of Marchmont Towers. On the contrary, the voices +that discussed Mrs. Marchmont's conduct were a great deal more numerous than +heretofore; in other words, John Marchmont's widow was "talked about." +Everything is said in this phrase. It was scarcely that people said bad things +of her; it was rather that they talked more about her than any woman can suffer +to be talked of with safety to her fair fame. They began by saying that she was +going to marry Paul Marchmont; they went on to wonder <em>whether</em> she was +going to marry him; then they wondered <em>why</em> she didn't marry him. From +this they changed the venue, and began to wonder whether Paul Marchmont meant +to marry her,––there was an essential difference in this new +wonderment,––and next, why Paul Marchmont didn't marry her. And by +this time Olivia's reputation was overshadowed by a terrible cloud, which had +arisen no bigger than a man's hand, in the first conjecturings of a few +ignorant villagers.</p> + +<p>People made it their business first to wonder about Mrs. Marchmont, and then +to set up their own theories about her; to which theories they clung with a +stupid persistence, forgetting, as people generally do forget, that there might +be some hidden clue, some secret key, to the widow's conduct, for want of which +the cleverest reasoning respecting her was only so much groping in the dark.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel heard of the cloud which shadowed his cousin's name. Her +father heard of it, and went to remonstrate with her, imploring her to come to +him at Swampington, and to leave Marchmont Towers to the new lord of the +mansion. But she only answered him with gloomy, obstinate reiteration, and +almost in the same terms as she had answered Edward Arundel; declaring that she +would stay at the Towers till her death; that she would never leave the place +till she was carried thence in her coffin.</p> + +<p>Hubert Arundel, always afraid of his daughter, was more than ever afraid of +her now; and he was as powerless to contend against her sullen determination as +he would have been to float up the stream of a rushing river.</p> + +<p>So Olivia was talked about. She had scared away all visitors, after the ball +at the Towers, by the strangeness of her manner and the settled gloom in her +face; and she lived unvisited and alone in the gaunt stony mansion; and people +said that Paul Marchmont was almost perpetually with her, and that she went to +meet him in the painting–room by the river.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel sickened of his wearisome life, and no one helped him to +endure his sufferings. His mother wrote to him imploring him to resign himself +to the loss of his young wife, to return to Dangerfield, to begin a new +existence, and to blot out the memory of the past.</p> + +<p>"You have done all that the most devoted affection could prompt you to do," +Mrs. Arundel wrote. "Come back to me, my dearest boy. I gave you up to the +service of your country because it was my duty to resign you then. But I cannot +afford to lose you now; I cannot bear to see you sacrificing yourself to a +chimera. Return to me; and let me see you make a new and happier choice. Let me +see my son the father of little children who will gather round my knees when I +grow old and feeble."</p> + +<p>"A new and happier choice!" Edward Arundel repeated the words with a +melancholy bitterness. "No, my poor lost girl; no, my blighted wife; I will not +be false to you. The smiles of happy women can have no sunlight for me while I +cherish the memory of the sad eyes that watched me when I drove away from +Milldale, the sweet sorrowful face that I was never to look upon again."</p> + +<p>The dull empty days succeeded each other, and <em>did</em> resemble each +other, with a wearisome similitude that well–nigh exhausted the patience +of the impetuous young man. His fiery nature chafed against this miserable +delay. It was so hard to have to wait for his vengeance. Sometimes he could +scarcely refrain from planting himself somewhere in Paul Marchmont's way, with +the idea of a hand–to–hand struggle in which either he or his enemy +must perish.</p> + +<p>Once he wrote the artist a desperate letter, denouncing him as an +arch–plotter and villain; calling upon him, if his evil nature was +redeemed by one spark of manliness, to fight as men had been in the habit of +fighting only a few years before, with a hundred times less reason than these +two men had for their quarrel.</p> + +<p>"I have called you a villain and traitor; in India we fellows would kill +each other for smaller words than those," wrote the soldier. "But I have no +wish to take any advantage of my military experience. I may be a better shot +than you. Let us have only one pistol, and draw lots for it. Let us fire at +each other across a dinner–table. Let us do anything; so that we bring +this miserable business to an end."</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont read this letter slowly and thoughtfully, more than once; +smiling as he read.</p> + +<p>"He's getting tired," thought the artist. "Poor young man, I thought he +would be the first to grow tired of this sort of work."</p> + +<p>He wrote Edward Arundel a long letter; a friendly but rather facetious +letter; such as he might have written to a child who had asked him to jump over +the moon. He ridiculed the idea of a duel, as something utterly Quixotic and +absurd.</p> + +<p>"I am fifteen years older than you, my dear Mr. Arundel," he wrote, "and a +great deal too old to have any inclination to fight with windmills; or to +represent the windmill which a high–spirited young Quixote may choose to +mistake for a villanous knight, and run his hot head against in that delusion. +I am not offended with you for calling me bad names, and I take your anger +merely as a kind of romantic manner you have of showing your love for my poor +cousin. We are not enemies, and we never shall be enemies; for I will never +suffer myself to be so foolish as to get into a passion with a brave and +generous–hearted young soldier, whose only error is an unfortunate +hallucination with regard to</p> + +<p>"Your very humble servant,</p> + +<p>"PAUL MARCHMONT."</p> + +<p>Edward ground his teeth with savage fury as he read this letter.</p> + +<p>"Is there no making this man answer for his infamy?" he muttered. "Is there +no way of making him suffer?"</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>June was nearly over, and the year was wearing round to the anniversary of +Edward's wedding–day, the anniversaries of those bright days which the +young bride and bridegroom had loitered away by the trout–streams in the +Hampshire meadows, when some most unlooked–for visitors made their +appearance at Kemberling Retreat.</p> + +<p>The cottage lay back behind a pleasant garden, and was hidden from the dusty +high road by a hedge of lilacs and laburnums which grew within the wooden +fence. It was Edward's habit, in this hot summer–time, to spend a great +deal of his time in the garden; walking up and down the neglected paths, with a +cigar in his mouth; or lolling in an easy chair on the lawn reading the papers. +Perhaps the garden was almost prettier, by reason of the long neglect which it +had suffered, than it would have been if kept in the trimmest order by the +industrious hands of a skilful gardener. Everything grew in a wild and wanton +luxuriance, that was very beautiful in this summer–time, when the earth +was gorgeous with all manner of blossoms. Trailing branches from the espaliered +apple–trees hung across the pathways, intermingled with roses that had +run wild; and made "bits" that a landscape–painter might have delighted +to copy. Even the weeds, which a gardener would have looked upon with horror, +were beautiful. The wild convolvulus flung its tendrils into fantastic wreaths +about the bushes of sweetbrier; the honeysuckle, untutored by the +pruning–knife, mixed its tall branches with seringa and clematis; the +jasmine that crept about the house had mounted to the very chimney–pots, +and strayed in through the open windows; even the stable–roof was half +hidden by hardy monthly roses that had clambered up to the thatch. But the +young soldier took very little interest in this disorderly garden. He pined to +be far away in the thick jungle, or on the burning plain. He hated the quiet +and repose of an existence which seemed little better than the living death of +a cloister.</p> + +<p>The sun was low in the west at the close of a long midsummer day, when Mr. +Arundel strolled up and down the neglected pathways, backwards and forwards +amid the long tangled grass of the lawn, smoking a cigar, and brooding over his +sorrows.</p> + +<p>He was beginning to despair. He had defied Paul Marchmont, and no good had +come of his defiance. He had watched him, and there had been no result of his +watching. Day after day he had wandered down to the lonely pathway by the river +side; again and again he had reconnoitered the boat–house, only to hear +Paul Marchmont's treble voice singing scraps out of modern operas as he worked +at his easel; or on one or two occasions to see Mr. George Weston, the surgeon, +or Lavinia his wife, emerge from the artist's painting–room.</p> + +<p>Upon one of these occasions Edward Arundel had accosted the surgeon of +Kemberling, and had tried to enter into conversation with him. But Mr. Weston +had exhibited such utterly hopeless stupidity, mingled with a very evident +terror of his brother–in–law's foe, that Edward had been fain to +abandon all hope of any assistance from this quarter.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I'm very sorry for you, Mr. Arundel," the surgeon said, looking, +not at Edward, but about and around him, in a hopeless, wandering manner, like +some hunted animal that looks far and near for a means of escape from his +pursuer,––"I'm very sorry for you––and for all your +trouble––and I was when I attended you at the Black +Bull––and you were the first patient I ever had +there––and it led to my having many more––as I may +say––though that's neither here nor there. And I'm very sorry for +you, and for the poor young woman too––particularly for the poor +young woman––and I always tell Paul +so––and––and Paul––"</p> + +<p>And at this juncture Mr. Weston stopped abruptly, as if appalled by the +hopeless entanglement of his own ideas, and with a brief "Good evening, Mr. +Arundel," shot off in the direction of the Towers, leaving Edward at a loss to +understand his manner.</p> + +<p>So, on this midsummer evening, the soldier walked up and down the neglected +grass–plat, thinking of the men who had been his comrades, and of the +career which he had abandoned for the love of his lost wife.</p> + +<p>He was aroused from his gloomy reverie by the sound of a fresh girlish voice +calling to him by his name.</p> + +<p>"Edward! Edward!"</p> + +<p>Who could there be in Lincolnshire with the right to call to him thus by his +Christian name? He was not long left in doubt. While he was asking himself the +question, the same feminine voice cried out again.</p> + +<p>"Edward! Edward! Will you come and open the gate for me, please? Or do you +mean to keep me out here for ever?"</p> + +<p>This time Mr. Arundel had no difficulty in recognising the familiar tones of +his sister Letitia, whom he had believed, until that moment, to be safe under +the maternal wing at Dangerfield. And lo, here she was, on horseback at his own +gate; with a cavalier hat and feathers overshadowing her girlish face; and with +another young Amazon on a thorough–bred chestnut, and an elderly groom on +a thorough–bred bay, in the background.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel, utterly confounded by the advent of such visitors, flung +away his cigar, and went to the low wooden gate beyond which his sister's steed +was pawing the dusty road, impatient of this stupid delay, and eager to be +cantering stablewards through the scented summer air.</p> + +<p>"Why, Letitia!" cried the young man, "what, in mercy's name, has brought you +here?"</p> + +<p>Miss Arundel laughed aloud at her brother's look of surprise.</p> + +<p>"You didn't know I was in Lincolnshire, did you?" she asked; and then +answered her own question in the same breath: "Of course you didn't, because I +wouldn't let mamma tell you I was coming; for I wanted to surprise you, you +know. And I think I have surprised you, haven't I? I never saw such a +scared–looking creature in all my life. If I were a ghost coming here in +the gloaming, you couldn't look more frightened than you did just now. I only +came the day before yesterday––and I'm staying at Major Lawford's, +twelve miles away from here––and this is Miss Lawford, who was at +school with me at Bath. You've heard me talk of Belinda Lawford, my dearest, +dearest friend? Miss Lawford, my brother; my brother, Miss Lawford. Are you +going to open the gate and let us in, or do you mean to keep your citadel +closed upon us altogether, Mr. Edward Arundel?"</p> + +<p>At this juncture the young lady in the background drew a little nearer to +her friend, and murmured a remonstrance to the effect that it was very late, +and that they were expected home before dark; but Miss Arundel refused to hear +the voice of wisdom.</p> + +<p>"Why, we've only an hour's ride back," she cried; "and if it should be dark, +which I don't think it will be, for it's scarcely dark all night through at +this time of year, we've got Hoskins with us, and Hoskins will take care of us. +Won't you, Hoskins?" demanded the young lady, turning to the elderly groom.</p> + +<p>Of course Hoskins declared that he was ready to achieve all that man could +do or dare in the defence of his liege ladies, or something pretty nearly to +that effect; but delivered in a vile Lincolnshire patois, not easily rendered +in printer's ink.</p> + +<p>Miss Arundel waited for no further discussion, but gave her hand to her +brother, and vaulted lightly from her saddle.</p> + +<p>Then, of course, Edward Arundel offered his services to his sister's +companion, and then for the first time he looked in Belinda Lawford's face, and +even in that one first glance saw that she was a good and beautiful creature, +and that her hair, of which she had a great quantity, was of the colour of her +horse's chestnut coat; that her eyes were the bluest he had ever seen, and that +her cheeks were like the neglected roses in his garden. He held out his hand to +her. She took it with a frank smile, and dismounted, and came in amongst the +grass–grown pathways, amid the confusion of trailing branches and bright +garden–flowers growing wild.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>In that moment began the second volume of Edward Arundel's life. The first +volume had begun upon the Christmas night on which the boy of seventeen went to +see the pantomime at Drury Lane Theatre. The old story had been a long, sad +story, fall of tenderness and pathos, but with a cruel and dismal ending. The +new story began to–night, in this fading western sunshine, in this +atmosphere of balmy perfume, amidst these dew–laden garden–flowers +growing wild.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>But, as I think I observed before at the outset of this story, we are rarely +ourselves aware of the commencement of any new section in our lives. It is only +after the fact that we recognise the awful importance which actions, in +themselves most trivial, assume by reason of their consequences; and when the +action, in itself so unimportant, in its consequences so fatal, has been in any +way a deviation from the right, how bitterly we reproach ourselves for that +false step!</p> + +<p>"I am so <em>glad</em> to see you, Edward!" Miss Arundel exclaimed, as she +looked about her, criticising her brother's domain; "but you don't seem a bit +glad to see me, you poor gloomy old dear. And how much better you look than you +did when you left Dangerfield! only a little careworn, you know, still. And to +think of your coming and burying yourself here, away from all the people who +love you, you silly old darling! And Belinda knows the story, and she's so +sorry for you. Ain't you, Linda? I call her Linda for short, and because it's +prettier than <em>Be</em>–linda," added the young lady aside to her +brother, and with a contemptuous emphasis upon the first syllable of her +friend's name.</p> + +<p>Miss Lawford, thus abruptly appealed to, blushed, and said nothing.</p> + +<p>If Edward Arundel had been told that any other young lady was acquainted +with the sad story of his married life, I think he would have been inclined to +revolt against the very idea of her pity. But although he had only looked once +at Belinda Lawford, that one look seemed to have told him a great deal. He felt +instinctively that she was as good as she was beautiful, and that her pity must +be a most genuine and tender emotion, not to be despised by the proudest man +upon earth.</p> + +<p>The two ladies seated themselves upon a dilapidated rustic bench amid the +long grass, and Mr. Arundel sat in the low basket–chair in which he was +wont to lounge a great deal of his time away.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you have a gardener, Ned?" Letitia Arundel asked, after looking +rather contemptuously at the flowery luxuriance around her.</p> + +<p>Her brother shrugged his shoulders with a despondent gesture.</p> + +<p>"Why should I take any care of the place?" he said. "I only took it because +it was near the spot where––where my poor girl––where I +wanted to be. I have no object in beautifying it. I wish to Heaven I could +leave it, and go back to India."</p> + +<p>He turned his face eastward as he spoke, and the two girls saw that +half–eager, half–despairing yearning that was always visible in his +face when he looked to the east. It was over yonder, the scene of strife, the +red field of glory, only separated from him by a patch of purple ocean and a +strip of yellow sand. It was yonder. He could almost feel the hot blast of the +burning air. He could almost hear the shouts of victory. And he was a prisoner +here, bound by a sacred duty,––by a duty which he owed to the +dead.</p> + +<p>"Major Lawford––Major Lawford is Belinda's papa; 33rd +Foot––Major Lawford knew that we were coming here, and he begged me +to ask you to dinner; but I said you wouldn't come, for I knew you had shut +yourself out of all society––though the Major's the dearest +creature, and the Grange is a most delightful place to stay at. I was down here +in the midsummer holidays once, you know, while you were in India. But I give +the message as the Major gave it to me; and you are to come to dinner whenever +you like."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel murmured a few polite words of refusal. No; he saw no +society; he was in Lincolnshire to achieve a certain object; he should remain +there no longer than was necessary in order for him to do so.</p> + +<p>"And you don't even say that you're glad to see me!" exclaimed Miss Arundel, +with an offended air, "though it's six months since you were last at +Dangerfield! Upon my word, you're a nice brother for an unfortunate girl to +waste her affections upon!"</p> + +<p>Edward smiled faintly at his sister's complaint.</p> + +<p>"I am very glad to see you, Letitia," he said; "very, very glad."</p> + +<p>And indeed the young hermit could not but confess to himself that those two +innocent young faces seemed to bring light and brightness with them, and to +shed a certain transitory glimmer of sunshine upon the horrible gloom of his +life. Mr. Morrison had come out to offer his duty to the young +lady––whom he had been intimate with from a very early period of +her existence, and had carried upon his shoulder some fifteen years +before––under the pretence of bringing wine for the visitors; and +the stable–lad had been sent to a distant corner of the garden to search +for strawberries for their refreshment. Even the solitary maid–servant +had crept into the parlour fronting the lawn, and had shrouded herself behind +the window–curtains, whence she could peep out at the two Amazons, and +gladden her eyes with the sight of something that was happy and beautiful.</p> + +<p>But the young ladies would not stop to drink any wine, though Mr. Morrison +informed Letitia that the sherry was from the Dangerfield cellar, and had been +sent to Master Edward by his ma; nor to eat any strawberries, though the +stable–boy, who made the air odorous with the scent of hay and oats, +brought a little heap of freshly–gathered fruit piled upon a +cabbage–leaf, and surmounted by a rampant caterpillar of the woolly +species. They could not stay any longer, they both declared, lest there should +be terror at Lawford Grange because of their absence. So they went back to the +gate, escorted by Edward and his confidential servant; and after Letitia had +given her brother a kiss, which resounded almost like the report of a pistol +through the still evening air, the two ladies mounted their horses, and +cantered away in the twilight.</p> + +<p>"I shall come and see you again, Ned," Miss Arundel cried, as she shook the +reins upon her horse's neck; "and so will Belinda––won't you, +Belinda?"</p> + +<p>Miss Lawford's reply, if she spoke at all, was quite inaudible amidst the +clattering of the horses' hoofs upon the hard highroad.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER25" id="CHAPTER25">CHAPTER XIII.<br /> +ONE MORE SACRIFICE.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Letitia Arundel kept her word, and came very often to Kemberling Retreat; +sometimes on horseback, sometimes in a little pony–carriage; sometimes +accompanied by Belinda Lawford, sometimes accompanied by a younger sister of +Belinda's, as chestnut–haired and blue–eyed as Belinda herself, but +at the school–room and bread–and–butter period of life, and +not particularly interesting. Major Lawford came one day with his daughter and +her friend, and Edward and the half–pay officer walked together up and +down the grass–plat, smoking and talking of the Indian war, while the two +girls roamed about the garden amidst the roses and butterflies, tearing the +skirts of their riding–habits every now and then amongst the briers and +gooseberry–bushes. It was scarcely strange after this visit that Edward +Arundel should consent to accept Major Lawford's invitation to name a day for +dining at the Grange; he could not, with a very good grace, have refused. And +yet––and yet––it seemed to him almost a treason against +his lost love, his poor pensive Mary,––whose face, with the very +look it had worn upon that last day, was ever present with him,––to +mix with happy people who had never known sorrow. But he went to the Grange +nevertheless, and grew more and more friendly with the Major, and walked in the +gardens––which were very large and old–fashioned, but most +beautifully kept––with his sister and Belinda Lawford; with Belinda +Lawford, who knew his story and was sorry for him. He always remembered +<em>that</em> as he looked at her bright face, whose varying expression gave +perpetual evidence of a compassionate and sympathetic nature.</p> + +<p>"If my poor darling had had this girl for a friend," he thought sometimes, +"how much happier she might have been!"</p> + +<p>I dare say there have been many lovelier women in this world than Belinda +Lawford; many women whose faces, considered artistically, came nearer +perfection; many noses more exquisitely chiselled, and scores of mouths bearing +a closer affinity to Cupid's bow; but I doubt if any face was ever more +pleasant to look upon than the face of this blooming English maiden. She had a +beauty that is sometimes wanting in perfect faces, and, lacking which, the most +splendid loveliness will pall at last upon eyes that have grown weary of +admiring; she had a charm for want of which the most rigidly classical +profiles, the most exquisitely statuesque faces, have seemed colder and harder +than the marble it was their highest merit to resemble. She had the beauty of +goodness, and to admire her was to do homage to the purest and brightest +attributes of womanhood. It was not only that her pretty little nose was +straight and well–shaped, that her lips were rosy red, that her eyes were +bluer than the summer heavens, and her chestnut hair tinged with the golden +light of a setting sun; above and beyond such commonplace beauties as these, +the beauties of tenderness, truth, faith, earnestness, hope and charity, were +enthroned upon her broad white brow, and crowned her queen by right divine of +womanly perfection. A loving and devoted daughter, an affectionate sister, a +true and faithful friend, an untiring benefactress to the poor, a gentle +mistress, a well–bred Christian lady; in every duty and in every position +she bore out and sustained the impression which her beauty made on the minds of +those who looked upon her. She was only nineteen years of age, and no sorrow +had ever altered the brightness of her nature. She lived a happy life with a +father who was proud of her, and with a mother who resembled her in almost +every attribute. She led a happy but a busy life, and did her duty to the poor +about her as scrupulously as even Olivia had done in the old days at +Swampington Rectory; but in such a genial and cheerful spirit as to win, not +cold thankfulness, but heartfelt love and devotion from all who partook of her +benefits.</p> + +<p>Upon the Egyptian darkness of Edward Arundel's life this girl arose as a +star, and by–and–by all the horizon brightened under her influence. +The soldier had been very little in the society of women. His mother, his +sister Letitia, his cousin Olivia, and John Marchmont's gentle daughter were +the only women whom he had ever known in the familiar freedom of domestic +intercourse; and he trusted himself in the presence of this beautiful and +noble–minded girl in utter ignorance of any danger to his own peace of +mind. He suffered himself to be happy at Lawford Grange; and in those quiet +hours which he spent there he put away his old life, and forgot the stern +purpose that alone held him a prisoner in England.</p> + +<p>But when he went back to his lonely dwelling–place, he reproached +himself bitterly for that which he considered a treason against his love.</p> + +<p>"What right have I to be happy amongst these people?" he thought; "what +right have I to take life easily, even for an hour, while my darling lies in +her unhallowed grave, and the man who drove her to her death remains +unpunished? I will never go to Lawford Grange again."</p> + +<p>It seemed, however, as if everybody, except Belinda, was in a plot against +this idle soldier; for sometimes Letitia coaxed him to ride back with her after +one of her visits to Kemberling Retreat, and very often the Major himself +insisted, in a hearty military fashion, upon the young man's taking the empty +seat in his dog–cart, to be driven over to the Grange. Edward Arundel had +never once mentioned Mary's name to any member of this hospitable and friendly +family. They were very good to him, and were prepared, he knew, to sympathise +with him; but he could not bring himself to talk of his lost wife. The thought +of that rash and desperate act which had ended her short life was too cruel to +him. He would not speak of her, because he would have had to plead excuses for +that one guilty act; and her image to him was so stainless and pure, that he +could not bear to plead for her as for a sinner who had need of men's pity, +rather than a claim to their reverence.</p> + +<p>"Her life had been so sinless," he cried sometimes; "and to think that it +should have ended in sin! If I could forgive Paul Marchmont for all the +rest––if I could forgive him for my loss of her, I would never +forgive him for that."</p> + +<p>The young widower kept silence, therefore, upon the subject which occupied +so large a share of his thoughts, which was every day and every night the theme +of his most earnest prayers; and Mary's name was never spoken in his presence +at Lawford Grange.</p> + +<p>But in Edward Arundel's absence the two girls sometimes talked of the sad +story.</p> + +<p>"Do you really think, Letitia, that your brother's wife committed suicide?" +Belinda asked her friend.</p> + +<p>"Oh, as for that, there can't be any doubt about it, dear," answered Miss +Arundel, who was of a lively, not to say a flippant, disposition, and had no +very great reverence for solemn things; "the poor dear creature drowned +herself. I think she must have been a little wrong in her head. I don't say so +to Edward, you know; at least, I did say so once when he was at Dangerfield, +and he flew into an awful passion, and called me hard–hearted and cruel, +and all sorts of shocking things; so, of course, I have never said so since. +But really, the poor dear thing's goings–on were so eccentric: first she +ran away from her stepmother and went and hid herself in a horrid lodging; and +then she married Edward at a nasty church in Lambeth, without so much as a +wedding–dress, or a creature to give her away, or a cake, or cards, or +anything Christian–like; and then she ran away again; and as her father +had been a super––what's its name?––a man who carries +banners in pantomimes, and all that––I dare say she'd seen Mr. +Macready as Hamlet, and had Ophelia's death in her head when she ran down to +the river–side and drowned herself. I'm sure it's a very sad story; and, +of course, I'm awfully sorry for Edward."</p> + +<p>The young lady said no more than this; but Belinda brooded over the story of +that early marriage,––the stolen honeymoon, the sudden parting. How +dearly they must have loved each other, the young bride and bridegroom, +absorbed in their own happiness, and forgetful of all the outer world! She +pictured Edward Arundel's face as it must have been before care and sorrow had +blotted out the brightest attribute of his beauty. She thought of him, and +pitied him, with such tender sympathy, that by–and–by the thought +of this young man's sorrow seemed to shut almost every idea out of her mind. +She went about all her duties still, cheerfully and pleasantly, as it was her +nature to do everything; but the zest with which she had performed every loving +office––every act of sweet benevolence, seemed lost to her now.</p> + +<p>Remember that she was a simple country damsel, leading a quiet life, whose +peaceful course was almost as calm and eventless as the existence of a +cloister; a life so quiet that a decently–written romance from the +Swampington book–club was a thing to be looked forward to with +impatience, to read with breathless excitement, and to brood upon afterwards +for months. Was it strange, then, that this romance in real +life––this sweet story of love and devotion, with its sad +climax,––this story, the scene of which lay within a few miles of +her home, the hero of which was her father's constant guest,––was +it strange that this story, whose saddest charm was its truth, should make a +strong impression upon the mind of an innocent and unworldly woman, and that +day by day and hour by hour she should, all unconsciously to herself, feel a +stronger interest in the hero of the tale?</p> + +<p>She was interested in him. Alas! the truth must be set down, even if it has +to be in the plain old commonplace words. <em>She fell in love with him</em>. +But love in this innocent and womanly nature was so different a sentiment to +that which had raged in Olivia's stormy breast, that even she who felt it was +unconscious of its gradual birth. It was not "an Adam at its birth," +by–the–by. It did not leap, Minerva–like, from the brain; for +I believe that love is born of the brain oftener than of the heart, being a +strange compound of ideality, benevolence, and veneration. It came rather like +the gradual dawning of a summer's day,––first a little patch of +light far away in the east, very faint and feeble; then a slow widening of the +rosy brightness; and at last a great blaze of splendour over all the width of +the vast heavens. And then Miss Lawford grew more reserved in her intercourse +with her friend's brother. Her frank good–nature gave place to a timid, +shrinking bashfulness, that made her ten times more fascinating than she had +been before. She was so very young, and had mixed so little with the world, +that she had yet to learn the comedy of life. She had yet to learn to smile +when she was sorry, or to look sorrowful when she was pleased, as prudence +might dictate––to blush at will, or to grow pale when it was +politic to sport the lily tint. She was a natural, artless, spontaneous +creature; and she was utterly powerless to conceal her emotions, or to pretend +a sentiment she did not feel. She blushed rosy red when Edward Arundel spoke to +her suddenly. She betrayed herself by a hundred signs; mutely confessing her +love almost as artlessly as Mary had revealed her affection a twelvemonth +before. But if Edward saw this, he gave no sign of having made the discovery. +His voice, perhaps, grew a little lower and softer in its tone when he spoke to +Belinda; but there was a sad cadence in that low voice, which was too mournful +for the accent of a lover. Sometimes, when his eyes rested for a moment on the +girl's blushing face, a shadow would darken his own, and a faint quiver of +emotion stir his lower lip; but it is impossible to say what this emotion may +have been. Belinda hoped nothing, expected nothing. I repeat, that she was +unconscious of the nature of her own feeling; and she had never for a moment +thought of Edward otherwise than as a man who would go to his grave faithful to +that sad love–story which had blighted the promise of his youth. She +never thought of him otherwise than as Mary's constant mourner; she never hoped +that time would alter his feelings or wear out his constancy; yet she loved +him, notwithstanding.</p> + +<p>All through July and August the young man visited at the Grange, and at the +beginning of September Letitia Arundel went back to Dangerfield. But even then +Edward was still a frequent guest at Major Lawford's; for his enthusiasm upon +all military matters had made him a favourite with the old officer. But towards +the end of September Mr. Arundel's visits suddenly were restricted to an +occasional call upon the Major; he left off dining at the Grange; his evening +rambles in the gardens with Mrs. Lawford and her blooming +daughters––Belinda had no less than four blue–eyed sisters, +all more or less resembling herself––ceased altogether, to the +wonderment of every one in the old–fashioned country–house.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel shut out the new light which had dawned upon his life, and +withdrew into the darkness. He went back to the stagnant monotony, the hopeless +despondency, the bitter regret of his old existence.</p> + +<p>"While my sister was at the Grange, I had an excuse for going there," he +said to himself sternly. "I have no excuse now."</p> + +<p>But the old monotonous life was somehow or other a great deal more difficult +to bear than it had been before. Nothing seemed to interest the young man now. +Even the records of Indian victories were "flat, stale, and unprofitable." He +wondered as he remembered with what eager impatience he had once pined for the +coming of the newspapers, with what frantic haste he had devoured every +syllable of the Indian news. All his old feelings seemed to have gone away, +leaving nothing in his mind but a blank waste, a weary sickness of life and all +belonging to it. Leaving nothing else––positively nothing? "No!" he +answered, in reply to these mute questionings of his own +spirit,––"no," he repeated doggedly, "nothing."</p> + +<p>It was strange to find what a blank was left in his life by reason of his +abandonment of the Grange. It seemed as if he had suddenly retired from an +existence full of pleasure and delight into the gloomy solitude of La Trappe. +And yet what was it that he had lost, after all? A quiet dinner at a +country–house, and an evening spent half in the leafy silence of an +old–fashioned garden, half in a pleasant drawing–room amongst a +group of well–bred girls, and only enlivened by simple English ballads, +or pensive melodies by Mendelssohn. It was not much to forego, surely. And yet +Edward Arundel felt, in sacrificing these new acquaintances at the Grange to +the stern purpose of his life, almost as if he had resigned a second captaincy +for Mary's sake.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER26" id="CHAPTER26">CHAPTER XIV.<br /> +THE CHILD'S VOICE IN THE PAVILION BY THE WATER.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>The year wore slowly on. Letitia Arundel wrote very long letters to her +friend and confidante, Belinda Lawford, and in each letter demanded particular +intelligence of her brother's doings. Had he been to the Grange? how had he +looked? what had he talked about? &c., &c. But to these questions Miss +Lawford could only return one monotonous reply: Mr. Arundel had not been to the +Grange; or Mr. Arundel had called on papa one morning, but had only stayed a +quarter of an hour, and had not been seen by any female member of the +family.</p> + +<p>The year wore slowly on. Edward endured his self–appointed solitude, +and waited, waited, with a vengeful hatred for ever brooding in his breast, for +the day of retribution. The year wore on, and the anniversary of the day upon +which Mary ran away from the Towers, the 17th of October, came at last.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont had declared his intention of taking possession of the Towers +upon the day following this. The twelvemonth's probation which he had imposed +upon himself had expired; every voice was loud in praise of his conscientious +and honourable conduct. He had grown very popular during his residence at +Kemberling. Tenant farmers looked forward to halcyon days under his dominion; +to leases renewed on favourable terms; to repairs liberally executed; to +everything that is delightful between landlord and tenant. Edward Arundel heard +all this through his faithful servitor, Mr. Morrison, and chafed bitterly at +the news. This traitor was to be happy and prosperous, and to have the good +word of honest men; while Mary lay in her unhallowed grave, and people shrugged +their shoulders, half compassionately, half contemptuously, as they spoke of +the mad heiress who had committed suicide.</p> + +<p>Mr. Morrison brought his master tidings of all Paul Marchmont's doings about +this time. He was to take possession of the Towers on the 19th. He had already +made several alterations in the arrangement of the different rooms. He had +ordered new furniture from Swampington,––another man would have +ordered it from London; but Mr. Marchmont was bent upon being popular, and did +not despise even the good opinion of a local tradesman,––and by +several other acts, insignificant enough in themselves, had asserted his +ownership of the mansion which had been the airy castle of Mary Marchmont's +day–dreams ten years before.</p> + +<p>The coming–in of the new master of Marchmont Towers was to be, take it +altogether, a very grand affair. The Chorley–Castle foxhounds were to +meet at eleven o'clock, upon the great grass–flat, or lawn, as it was +popularly called, before the western front. The county gentry from far and near +had been invited to a hunting breakfast. Open house was to be kept all day for +rich and poor. Every male inhabitant of the district who could muster anything +in the way of a mount was likely to join the friendly gathering. Poor Reynard +is decidedly England's most powerful leveller. All differences of rank and +station, all distinctions which Mammon raises in every other quarter, melt away +before the friendly contact of the hunting–field. The man who rides best +is the best man; and the young butcher who makes light of sunk fences, and +skims, bird–like, over bullfinches and timber, may hold his own with the +dandy heir to half the country–side. The cook at Marchmont Towers had +enough to do to prepare for this great day. It was the first meet of the +season, and in itself a solemn festival. Paul Marchmont knew this; and though +the Cockney artist of Fitzroy Square knew about as much of fox–hunting as +he did of the source of the Nile, he seized upon the opportunity of making +himself popular, and determined to give such a hunting–breakfast as had +never been given within the walls of Marchmont Towers since the time of a +certain rackety Hugh Marchmont, who had drunk himself to death early in the +reign of George III. He spent the morning of the 17th in the steward's room, +looking through the cellar–book with the old butler, selecting the wines +that were to be drunk the following day, and planning the arrangements for the +mass of visitors, who were to be entertained in the great stone +entrance–hall, in the kitchens, in the housekeeper's room, in the +servants' hall, in almost every chamber that afforded accommodation for a +guest.</p> + +<p>"You will take care that people get placed according to their rank," Paul +said to the grey–haired servant. "You know everybody about here, I dare +say, and will be able to manage so that we may give no offence."</p> + +<p>The gentry were to breakfast in the long dining–room and in the +western drawing–room. Sparkling hocks and Burgundies, fragrant Moselles, +champagnes of choicest brand and rarest bouquet, were to flow like water for +the benefit of the country gentlemen who should come to do honour to Paul +Marchmont's installation. Great cases of comestibles had been sent by rail from +Fortnum and Mason's; and the science of the cook at the Towers had been taxed +to the utmost, in the struggles which she made to prove herself equal to the +occasion. Twenty–one casks of ale, every cask containing twenty–one +gallons, had been brewed long ago, at the birth of Arthur Marchmont, and had +been laid in the cellar ever since, waiting for the majority of the young heir +who was never to come of age. This very ale, with a certain sense of triumph, +Paul Marchmont ordered to be brought forth for the refreshment of the +commoners.</p> + +<p>"Poor young Arthur!" he thought, after he had given this order. "I saw him +once when he was a pretty boy with fair ringlets, dressed in a suit of black +velvet. His father brought him to my studio one day, when he came to patronise +me and buy a picture of me,––out of sheer charity, of course, for +he cared as much for pictures as I care for foxhounds. <em>I</em> was a poor +relation then, and never thought to see the inside of Marchmont Towers. It was +a lucky September morning that swept that bright–faced boy out of my +pathway, and left only sickly John Marchmont and his daughter between me and +fortune."</p> + +<p>Yes; Mr. Paul Marchmont's year of probation was past. He had asserted +himself to Messrs. Paulette, Paulette, and Mathewson, and before the face of +all Lincolnshire, in the character of an honourable and high–minded man; +slow to seize upon the fortune that had fallen to him, conscientious, +punctilious, generous, and unselfish. He had done all this; and now the trial +was over, and the day of triumph had come.</p> + +<p>There has been a race of villains of late years very popular with the +novel–writer and the dramatist, but not, I think, quite indigenous to +this honest British soil; a race of pale–faced, dark–eyed, and +all–accomplished scoundrels, whose chiefest attribute is +imperturbability. The imperturbable villain has been guilty of every iniquity +in the black catalogue of crimes; but he has never been guilty of an emotion. +He wins a million of money at <em>trente et quarante</em>, to the terror and +astonishment of all Homburg; and by not so much as one twinkle of his eye or +one quiver of his lip does that imperturbable creature betray a sentiment of +satisfaction. Ruin or glory, shame or triumph, defeat, disgrace, or +death,––all are alike to the callous ruffian of the +Anglo–Gallic novel. He smiles, and murders while he smiles, and smiles +while he murders. He kills his adversary, unfairly, in a duel, and wipes his +sword on a cambric handkerchief; and withal he is so elegant, so fascinating, +and so handsome, that the young hero of the novel has a very poor chance +against him; and the reader can scarcely help being sorry when retribution +comes with the last chapter, and some crushing catastrophe annihilates the +well–bred scoundrel.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont was not this sort of man. He was a hypocrite when it was +essential to his own safety to practice hypocrisy; but he did not accept life +as a drama, in which he was for ever to be acting a part. Life would scarcely +be worth the having to any man upon such terms. It is all very well to wear +heavy plate armour, and a casque that weighs fourteen pounds or so, when we go +into the thick of the fight. But to wear the armour always, to live in it, to +sleep in it, to carry the ponderous protection about us for ever and ever! +Safety would be too dear if purchased by such a sacrifice of all personal ease. +Paul Marchmont, therefore, being a selfish and self–indulgent man, only +wore his armour of hypocrisy occasionally, and when it was vitally necessary +for his preservation. He had imposed upon himself a penance, and acted a part +in holding back for a year from the enjoyment of a splendid fortune; and he had +made this one great sacrifice in order to give the lie to Edward Arundel's +vague accusations, which might have had an awkward effect upon the minds of +other people, had the artist grasped too eagerly at his missing cousin's +wealth. Paul Marchmont had made this sacrifice; but he did not intend to act a +part all his life. He meant to enjoy himself, and to get the fullest possible +benefit out of his good fortune. He meant to do this; and upon the 17th of +October he made no effort to restrain his spirits, but laughed and talked +joyously with whoever came in his way, winning golden opinions from all sorts +of men; for happiness is contagious, and everybody likes happy people.</p> + +<p>Forty years of poverty is a long apprenticeship to the very hardest of +masters,––an apprenticeship calculated to give the keenest possible +zest to newly–acquired wealth. Paul Marchmont rejoiced in his wealth with +an almost delirious sense of delight. It was his at last. At last! He had +waited, and waited patiently; and at last, while his powers of enjoyment were +still in their zenith, it had come. How often he had dreamed of this; how often +he had dreamed of that which was to take place to–morrow! How often in +his dreams he had seen the stone–built mansion, and heard the voices of +the crowd doing him honour. He had felt all the pride and delight of +possession, to awake suddenly in the midst of his triumph, and gnash his teeth +at the remembrance of his poverty. And now the poverty was a thing to be dreamt +about, and the wealth was his. He had always been a good son and a kind +brother; and his mother and sister were to arrive upon the eve of his +installation, and were to witness his triumph. The rooms that had been altered +were those chosen by Paul for his mother and maiden sister, and the new +furniture had been ordered for their comfort. It was one of his many pleasures +upon this day to inspect these apartments, to see that all his directions had +been faithfully carried out, and to speculate upon the effect which these +spacious and luxurious chambers would have upon the minds of Mrs. Marchmont and +her daughter, newly come from shabby lodgings in Charlotte Street.</p> + +<p>"My poor mother!" thought the artist, as he looked round the pretty +sitting–room. This sitting–room opened into a noble bedchamber, +beyond which there was a dressing–room. "My poor mother!" he thought; +"she has suffered a long time, and she has been patient. She has never ceased +to believe in me; and she will see now that there was some reason for that +belief. I told her long ago, when our fortunes were at the lowest ebb, when I +was painting landscapes for the furniture–brokers at a pound +a–piece,––I told her I was meant for something better than a +tradesman's hack; and I have proved it––I have proved it."</p> + +<p>He walked about the room, arranging the furniture with his own hands; +walking a few paces backwards now and then to contemplate such and such an +effect from an artistic point of view; flinging the rich stuff of the curtains +into graceful folds; admiring and examining everything, always with a smile on +his face. He seemed thoroughly happy. If he had done any wrong; if by any act +of treachery he had hastened Mary Arundel's death, no recollection of that foul +work arose in his breast to disturb the pleasant current of his thoughts. +Selfish and self–indulgent, only attached to those who were necessary to +his own happiness, his thoughts rarely wandered beyond the narrow circle of his +own cares or his own pleasures. He was thoroughly selfish. He could have sat at +a Lord Mayor's feast with a famine–stricken population clamouring at the +door of the banquet–chamber. He believed in himself as his mother and +sister had believed; and he considered that he had a right to be happy and +prosperous, whosoever suffered sorrow or adversity.</p> + +<p>Upon this 17th of October Olivia Marchmont sat in the little study looking +out upon the quadrangle, while the household was busied with the preparations +for the festival of the following day. She was to remain at Marchmont Towers as +a guest of the new master of the mansion. She would be protected from all +scandal, Paul had said, by the presence of his mother and sister. She could +retain the apartments she had been accustomed to occupy; she could pursue her +old mode of life. He himself was not likely to be very much at the Towers. He +was going to travel and to enjoy life now that he was a rich man.</p> + +<p>These were the arguments which Mr. Marchmont used when openly discussing the +widow's residence in his house. But in a private conversation between Olivia +and himself he had only said a very few words upon the subject.</p> + +<p>"You <em>must</em> remain," he said; and Olivia submitted, obeying him with +a sullen indifference that was almost like the mechanical submission of an +irresponsible being.</p> + +<p>John Marchmont's widow seemed entirely under the dominion of the new master +of the Towers. It was as if the stormy passions which had arisen out of a +slighted love had worn out this woman's mind, and had left her helpless to +stand against the force of Paul Marchmont's keen and vigorous intellect. A +remarkable change had come over Olivia's character. A dull apathy had succeeded +that fiery energy of soul which had enfeebled and well–nigh worn out her +body. There were no outbursts of passion now. She bore the miserable monotony +of her life uncomplainingly. Day after day, week after week, month after month, +idle and apathetic, she sat in her lonely room, or wandered slowly in the +grounds about the Towers. She very rarely went beyond those grounds. She was +seldom seen now in her old pew at Kemberling Church; and when her father went +to her and remonstrated with her for her non–attendance, she told him +sullenly that she was too ill to go. She <em>was</em> ill. George Weston +attended her constantly; but he found it very difficult to administer to such a +sickness as hers, and he could only shake his head despondently when he felt +her feeble pulse, or listened to the slow beating of her heart. Sometimes she +would shut herself up in her room for a month at a time, and see no one but her +faithful servant Barbara, and Mr. Weston––whom, in her utter +indifference, she seemed to regard as a kind of domestic animal, whose going or +coming were alike unimportant.</p> + +<p>This stolid, silent Barbara waited upon her mistress with untiring patience. +She bore with every change of Olivia's gloomy temper; she was a perpetual +shield and protection to her. Even upon this day of preparation and disorder +Mrs. Simmons kept guard over the passage leading to the study, and took care +that no one intruded upon her mistress. At about four o'clock all Paul +Marchmont's orders had been given, and the new master of the house dined for +the first time by himself at the head of the long carved–oak +dining–table, waited upon in solemn state by the old butler. His mother +and sister were to arrive by a train that would reach Swampington at ten +o'clock, and one of the carriages from the Towers was to meet them at the +station. The artist had leisure in the meantime for any other business he might +have to transact.</p> + +<p>He ate his dinner slowly, thinking deeply all the time. He did not stop to +drink any wine after dinner; but, as soon as the cloth was removed, rose from +the table, and went straight to Olivia's room.</p> + +<p>"I am going down to the painting–room," he said. "Will you come there +presently? I want very much to say a few words to you."</p> + +<p>Olivia was sitting near the window, with her hands lying idle in her lap. +She rarely opened a book now, rarely wrote a letter, or occupied herself in any +manner. She scarcely raised her eyes as she answered him.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said; "I will come."</p> + +<p>"Don't be long, then. It will be dark very soon. I am not going down there +to paint; I am going to fetch a landscape that I want to hang in my mother's +room, and to say a few words about––"</p> + +<p>He closed the door without stopping to finish the sentence, and went out +into the quadrangle.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes afterwards Olivia Marchmont rose, and taking a heavy woollen +shawl from a chair near her, wrapped it loosely about her head and +shoulders.</p> + +<p>"I am his slave and his prisoner," she muttered to herself. "I must do as he +bids me."</p> + +<p>A cold wind was blowing in the quadrangle, and the stone pavement was wet +with a drizzling rain. The sun had just gone down, and the dull autumn sky was +darkening. The fallen leaves in the wood were sodden with damp, and rotted +slowly on the swampy ground.</p> + +<p>Olivia took her way mechanically along the narrow pathway leading to the +river. Half–way between Marchmont Towers and the boat–house she +came suddenly upon the figure of a man walking towards her through the dusk. +This man was Edward Arundel.</p> + +<p>The two cousins had not met since the March evening upon which Edward had +gone to seek the widow in Paul Marchmont's painting–room. Olivia's pale +face grew whiter as she recognised the soldier.</p> + +<p>"I was coming to the house to speak to you, Mrs. Marchmont," Edward said +sternly. "I am lucky in meeting you here, for I don't want any one to overhear +what I've got to say."</p> + +<p>He had turned in the direction in which Olivia had been walking; but she +made a dead stop, and stood looking at him.</p> + +<p>"You were going to the boat–house," he said. "I will go there with +you."</p> + +<p>She looked at him for a moment, as if doubtful what to do, and then said,</p> + +<p>"Very well. You can say what you have to say to me, and then leave me. There +is no sympathy between us, there is no regard between us; we are only +antagonists."</p> + +<p>"I hope not, Olivia. I hope there is some spark of regard still, in spite of +all. I separate you in my own mind from Paul Marchmont. I pity you; for I +believe you to be his tool."</p> + +<p>"Is this what you have to say to me?"</p> + +<p>"No; I came here, as your kinsman, to ask you what you mean to do now that +Paul Marchmont has taken possession of the Towers?"</p> + +<p>"I mean to stay there."</p> + +<p>"In spite of the gossip that your remaining will give rise to amongst these +country–people!"</p> + +<p>"In spite of everything. Mr. Marchmont wishes me to stay. It suits me to +stay. What does it matter what people say of me? What do I care for any one's +opinion––now?"</p> + +<p>"Olivia," cried the young man, "are you mad?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I am," she answered, coldly.</p> + +<p>"Why is it that you shut yourself from the sympathy of those who have a +right to care for you? What is the mystery of your life?"</p> + +<p>His cousin laughed bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to know, Edward Arundel?" she said. "You <em>shall</em> +know, perhaps, some day. You have despised me all my life; you will despise me +more then."</p> + +<p>They had reached Paul Marchmont's painting–room by this time. Olivia +opened the door and walked in, followed by Edward. Paul was not there. There +was a picture covered with green–baize upon the easel, and the artist's +hat stood upon the table amidst the litter of brushes and palettes; but the +room was empty. The door at the top of the stone steps leading to the pavilion +was ajar.</p> + +<p>"Have you anything more to say to me?" Olivia asked, turning upon her cousin +as if she would have demanded why he had followed her.</p> + +<p>"Only this: I want to know your determination; whether you will be advised +by me––and by your father,––I saw my uncle Hubert this +morning, and his opinion exactly coincides with mine,––or whether +you mean obstinately to take your own course in defiance of everybody?"</p> + +<p>"I do," Olivia answered. "I shall take my own course. I defy everybody. I +have not been gifted with the power of winning people's affection. Other women +possess that power, and trifle with it, and turn it to bad account. I have +prayed, Edward Arundel,––yes, I have prayed upon my knees to the +God who made me, that He would give me some poor measure of that gift which +Nature has lavished upon other women; but He would not hear me, He would not +hear me! I was not made to be loved. Why, then, should I make myself a slave +for the sake of winning people's esteem? If they have despised me, I can +despise them."</p> + +<p>"Who has despised you, Olivia?" Edward asked, perplexed by his cousin's +manner.</p> + +<p>"YOU HAVE!" she cried, with flashing eyes; "you have! From first to +last––from first to last!" She turned away from him impatiently. +"Go," she said; "why should we keep up a mockery of friendliness and +cousinship? We are nothing to each other."</p> + +<p>Edward walked towards the door; but he paused upon the threshold, with his +hat in his hand, undecided as to what he ought to do.</p> + +<p>As he stood thus, perplexed and irresolute, a cry, the feeble cry of a +child, sounded within the pavilion.</p> + +<p>The young man started, and looked at his cousin. Even in the dusk he could +see that her face had suddenly grown livid.</p> + +<p>"There is a child in that place," he said pointing to the door at the top of +the steps.</p> + +<p>The cry was repeated as he spoke,––the low, complaining wail of +a child. There was no other voice to be heard,––no mother's voice +soothing a helpless little one. The cry of the child was followed by a dead +silence.</p> + +<p>"There is a child in that pavilion," Edward Arundel repeated.</p> + +<p>"There is," Olivia answered.</p> + +<p>"Whose child?"</p> + +<p>"What does it matter to you?"</p> + +<p>"Whose child?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell you, Edward Arundel."</p> + +<p>The soldier strode towards the steps, but before he could reach them, Olivia +flung herself across his pathway.</p> + +<p>"I will see whose child is hidden in that place," he said. "Scandalous +things have been said of you, Olivia. I will know the reason of your visits to +this place."</p> + +<p>She clung about his knees, and hindered him from moving; half kneeling, half +crouching on the lowest of the stone steps, she blocked his pathway, and +prevented him from reaching the door of the pavilion. It had been ajar a few +minutes ago; it was shut now. But Edward had not noticed this.</p> + +<p>"No, no, no!" shrieked Olivia; "you shall trample me to death before you +enter that place. You shall walk over my corpse before you cross that +threshold."</p> + +<p>The young man struggled with her for a few moments; then he suddenly flung +her from him; not violently, but with a contemptuous gesture.</p> + +<p>"You are a wicked woman, Olivia Marchmont," he said; "and it matters very +little to me what you do, or what becomes of you. I know now the secret of the +mystery between you and Paul Marchmont. I can guess your motive for perpetually +haunting this place."</p> + +<p>He left the solitary building by the river, and walked slowly back through +the wood.</p> + +<p>His mind––predisposed to think ill of Olivia by the dark rumours +he had heard through his servant, and which had had a certain amount of +influence upon him, as all scandals have, however baseless––could +imagine only one solution to the mystery of a child's presence in the lonely +building by the river. Outraged and indignant at the discovery he had made, he +turned his back upon Marchmont Towers.</p> + +<p>"I will stay in this hateful place no longer," he thought, as he went back +to his solitary home; "but before I leave Lincolnshire the whole county shall +know what I think of Paul Marchmont."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h3>VOLUME III.</h3> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER27" id="CHAPTER27">CHAPTER I.<br /> +CAPTAIN ARUNDEL'S REVENGE.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Edward Arundel went back to his lonely home with a settled purpose in his +mind. He would leave Lincolnshire,––and immediately. He had no +motive for remaining. It may be, indeed, that he had a strong motive for going +away from the neighbourhood of Lawford Grange. There was a lurking danger in +the close vicinage of that pleasant, old–fashioned country mansion, and +the bright band of blue–eyed damsels who inhabited there.</p> + +<p>"I will turn my back upon Lincolnshire for ever," Edward Arundel said to +himself once more, upon his way homeward through the October twilight; "but +before I go, the whole country shall know what I think of Paul Marchmont."</p> + +<p>He clenched his fists and ground his teeth involuntarily as he thought +this.</p> + +<p>It was quite dark when he let himself in at the old–fashioned +half–glass door that led into his humble sitting–room at Kemberling +Retreat. He looked round the little chamber, which had been furnished forty +years before by the proprietor of the cottage, and had served for one tenant +after another, until it seemed as if the spindle–legged chairs and tables +had grown attenuated and shadowy by much service. He looked at the simple room, +lighted by a bright fire and a pair of wax–candles in antique silver +candlesticks. The red firelight flickered and trembled upon the painted roses +on the walls, on the obsolete engravings in clumsy frames of +imitation–ebony and tarnished gilt. A silver tea–service and a +Sèvres china cup and saucer, which Mrs. Arundel had sent to the cottage for her +son's use, stood upon the small oval table: and a brown setter, a favourite of +the young man's, lay upon the hearth–rug, with his chin upon his +outstretched paws, blinking at the blaze.</p> + +<p>As Mr. Arundel lingered in the doorway, looking at these things, an image +rose before him, as vivid and distinct as any apparition of Professor Pepper's +manufacture; and he thought of what that commonplace cottage–chamber +might have been if his young wife had lived. He could fancy her bending over +the low silver teapot,––the sprawling inartistic teapot, that stood +upon quaint knobs like gouty feet, and had been long ago banished from the +Dangerfield breakfast–table as utterly rococo and ridiculous. He conjured +up the dear dead face, with faint blushes flickering amidst its lily pallor, +and soft hazel eyes looking up at him through the misty steam of the +tea–table, innocent and virginal as the eyes of that mythic nymph who was +wont to appear to the old Roman king. How happy she would have been! How +willing to give up fortune and station, and to have lived for ever and ever in +that queer old cottage, ministering to him and loving him!</p> + +<p>Presently the face changed. The hazel–brown hair was suddenly lit up +with a glitter of barbaric gold; the hazel eyes grew blue and bright; and the +cheeks blushed rosy red. The young man frowned at this new and brighter vision; +but he contemplated it gravely for some moments, and then breathed a long sigh, +which was somehow or other expressive of relief.</p> + +<p>"No," he said to himself, "I am <em>not</em> false to my poor lost girl; I +do <em>not</em> forget her. Her image is dearer to me than any living creature. +The mournful shadow of her face is more precious to me than the brightest +reality."</p> + +<p>He sat down in one of the spindle–legged arm–chairs, and poured +out a cup of tea. He drank it slowly, brooding over the fire as he sipped the +innocuous beverage, and did not deign to notice the caresses of the brown +setter, who laid his cold wet nose in his master's hand, and performed a +species of spirit–rapping upon the carpet with his tail.</p> + +<p>After tea the young man rang the bell, which was answered by Mr. +Morrison.</p> + +<p>"Have I any clothes that I can hunt in, Morrison?" Mr. Arundel asked.</p> + +<p>His factotum stared aghast at this question.</p> + +<p>"You ain't a–goin' to 'unt, are you, Mr. Edward?" he inquired, +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Never mind that. I asked you a question about my clothes, and I want a +straightforward answer."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Edward," remonstrated the old servant, "I don't mean no offence; +and the 'orses is very tidy animals in their way; but if you're thinkin' of +goin' across country,––and a pretty stiffish country too, as I've +heard, in the way of bulfinches and timber,––neither of them 'orses +has any more of a 'unter in him than I have."</p> + +<p>"I know that as well as you do," Edward Arundel answered coolly; "but I am +going to the meet at Marchmont Towers to–morrow morning, and I want you +to look me out a decent suit of clothes––that's all. You can have +Desperado saddled ready for me a little after eleven o'clock."</p> + +<p>Mr. Morrison looked even more astonished than before. He knew his master's +savage enmity towards Paul Marchmont; and yet that very master now deliberately +talked of joining in an assembly which was to gather together for the special +purpose of doing the same Paul Marchmont honour. However, as he afterwards +remarked to the two fellow–servants with whom he sometimes condescended +to be familiar, it wasn't his place to interfere or to ask any questions, and +he had held his tongue accordingly.</p> + +<p>Perhaps this respectful reticence was rather the result of prudence than of +inclination; for there was a dangerous light in Edward Arundel's eyes upon this +particular evening which Mr. Morrison never had observed before.</p> + +<p>The factotum said something about this later in the evening.</p> + +<p>"I do really think," he remarked, "that, what with that young 'ooman's +death, and the solitood of this most dismal place, and the rainy +weather,––which those as says it always rains in Lincolnshire ain't +far out,––my poor young master is not the man he were."</p> + +<p>He tapped his forehead ominously to give significance to his words, and +sighed heavily over his supper–beer.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>The sun shone upon Paul Marchmont on the morning of the 18th of October. The +autumn sunshine streamed into his bedchamber, and awoke the new master of +Marchmont Towers. He opened his eyes and looked about him. He raised himself +amongst the down pillows, and contemplated the figures upon the tapestry in a +drowsy reverie. He had been dreaming of his poverty, and had been disputing a +poor–rate summons with an impertinent tax–collector in the dingy +passage of the house in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. Ah! that horrible +house had so long been the only scene of his life, that it had grown almost a +part of his mind, and haunted him perpetually in his sleep, like a nightmare of +brick and mortar, now that he was rich, and had done with it for ever.</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont gave a faint shudder, and shook off the influence of the bad +dream. Then, propped up by the pillows, he amused himself by admiring his new +bedchamber.</p> + +<p>It was a handsome room, certainly––the very room for an artist +and a sybarite. Mr. Marchmont had not chosen it without due consideration. It +was situated in an angle of the house; and though its chief windows looked +westward, being immediately above those of the western drawing–room, +there was another casement, a great oriel window, facing the east, and +admitting all the grandeur of the morning sun through painted glass, on which +the Marchmont escutcheon was represented in gorgeous hues of sapphire and ruby, +emerald and topaz, amethyst and aqua–marine. Bright splashes of these +colours flashed and sparkled on the polished oaken floor, and mixed themselves +with the Oriental gaudiness of a Persian carpet, stretched beneath the low +Arabian bed, which was hung with ruby–coloured draperies that trailed +upon the ground. Paul Marchmont was fond of splendour, and meant to have as +much of it as money could buy. There was a voluptuous pleasure in all this +finery, which only a parvenu could feel; it was the sharpness of the contrast +between the magnificence of the present and the shabby miseries of the past +that gave a piquancy to the artist's enjoyment of his new habitation.</p> + +<p>All the furniture and draperies of the chamber had been made by Paul +Marchmont's direction; but its chief beauty was the tapestry that covered the +walls, which had been worked, two hundred and fifty years before, by a patient +chatelaine of the House of Marchmont. This tapestry lined the room on every +side. The low door had been cut in it; so that a stranger going into that +apartment at night, a little under the influence of the Marchmont cellars, and +unable to register the topography of the chamber upon the tablet of his memory, +might have been sorely puzzled to find an exit the next morning. Most +tapestried chambers have a certain dismal grimness about them, which is more +pleasant to the sightseer than to the constant inhabitant; but in this tapestry +the colours were almost as bright and glowing to–day as when the fingers +that had handled the variegated worsteds were still warm and flexible. The +subjects, too, were of a more pleasant order than usual. No mailed ruffians or +drapery–clad barbarians menaced the unoffending sleeper with uplifted +clubs, or horrible bolts, in the very act of being launched from ponderous +crossbows; no wicked–looking Saracens, with ferocious eyes and +copper–coloured visages, brandished murderous scimitars above their +turbaned heads. No; here all was pastoral gaiety and peaceful delight. Maidens, +with flowing kirtles and crisped yellow hair, danced before great wagons loaded +with golden wheat. Youths, in red and purple jerkins, frisked as they played +the pipe and tabor. The Flemish horses dragging the heavy wain were hung with +bells and garlands as for a rustic festival, and tossed their untrimmed manes +into the air, and frisked and gamboled with their awkward legs, in ponderous +imitation of the youths and maidens. Afar off, in the distance, wonderful +villages, very queer as to perspective, but all a–bloom with gaudy +flowers and quaint roofs of bright–red tiles, stood boldly out against a +bluer sky than the most enthusiastic pre–Raphaelite of to–day would +care to send to the Academy in Trafalgar Square.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont smiled at the youths and maidens, the laden wagons, the +revellers, and the impossible village. He was in a humour to be pleased with +everything to–day. He looked at his dressing–table, which stood +opposite to him, in the deep oriel window. His valet––he had a +valet now––had opened the great inlaid dressing–case, and the +silver–gilt fittings reflected the crimson hues of the velvet lining, as +if the gold had been flecked with blood. Glittering bottles of +diamond–cut glass, that presented a thousand facets to the morning light, +stood like crystal obelisks amid the litter of carved–ivory brushes and +Sèvres boxes of pomatum; and one rare hothouse flower, white and fragile, +peeped out of a slender crystal vase, against a background of dark shining +leaves.</p> + +<p>"It's better than Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square," said Mr. Marchmont, +throwing himself back amongst the pillows until such time as his valet should +bring him a cup of strong tea to refresh and invigorate his nerves withal. "I +remember the paper in my room: drab hexagons and yellow spots upon a brown +ground. <em>So</em> pretty! And then the dressing–table: deal, gracefully +designed; with a shallow drawer, in which my razors used to rattle like +castanets when I tried to pull it open; a most delicious table, exquisitely +painted in stripes, olive–green upon stone colour, picked out with the +favourite brown. Oh, it was a most delightful life; but it's over, thank +Providence; it's over!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Paul Marchmont thanked Providence as devoutly as if he had been the most +patient attendant upon the Divine pleasure, and had never for one moment +dreamed of intruding his own impious handiwork amid the mysterious designs of +Omnipotence.</p> + +<p>The sun shone upon the new master of Marchmont Towers. This bright October +morning was not the very best for hunting purposes; for there was a fresh +breeze blowing from the north, and a blue unclouded sky. But it was most +delightful weather for the breakfast, and the assembling on the lawn, and all +the pleasant preliminaries of the day's sport. Mr. Paul Marchmont, who was a +thorough–bred Cockney, troubled himself very little about the hunt as he +basked in that morning light. He only thought that the sun was shining upon +him, and that he had come at last––no matter by what crooked +ways––to the realisation of his great day–dream, and that he +was to be happy and prosperous for the rest of his life.</p> + +<p>He drank his tea, and then got up and dressed himself. He wore the +conventional "pink," the whitest buckskins, the most approved boots and tops; +and he admired himself very much in the cheval glass when this toilet was +complete. He had put on the dress for the gratification of his vanity, rather +than from any serious intention of doing what he was about as incapable of +doing, as he was of becoming a modern Rubens or a new Raphael. He would receive +his friends in this costume, and ride to cover, and follow the hounds, +perhaps,––a little way. At any rate, it was very delightful to him +to play the country gentleman; and he had never felt so much a country +gentleman as at this moment, when he contemplated himself from head to heel in +his hunting costume.</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock the guests began to assemble; the meet was not to take place +until twelve, so that there might be plenty of time for the breakfast.</p> + +<p>I don't think Paul Marchmont ever really knew what took place at that long +table, at which he sat for the first time in the place of host and master. He +was intoxicated from the first with the sense of triumph and delight in his new +position; and he drank a great deal, for he drank unconsciously, emptying his +glass every time it was filled, and never knowing who filled it, or what was +put into it. By this means he took a very considerable quantity of various +sparkling and effervescing wines; sometimes hock, sometimes Moselle, very often +champagne, to say nothing of a steady undercurrent of unpronounceable German +hocks and crusted Burgundies. But he was not drunk after the common fashion of +mortals; he could not be upon this particular day. He was not stupid, or +drowsy, or unsteady upon his legs; he was only preternaturally excited, looking +at everything through a haze of dazzling light, as if all the gold of his +newly–acquired fortune had been melted into the atmosphere.</p> + +<p>He knew that the breakfast was a great success; that the long table was +spread with every delicious comestible that the science of a first–rate +cook, to say nothing of Fortnum and Mason, could devise; that the profusion of +splendid silver, the costly china, the hothouse flowers, and the sunshine, made +a confused mass of restless glitter and glowing colour that dazzled his eyes as +he looked at it. He knew that everybody courted and flattered him, and that he +was almost stifled by the overpowering sense of his own grandeur. Perhaps he +felt this most when a certain county magnate, a baronet, member of Parliament, +and great landowner, rose,––primed with champagne, and rather +thicker of utterance than a man should be who means to be in at the death, +by–and–by,––and took the opportunity +of––hum––expressing, in a few +words,––haw––the very great pleasure which +he––aw, yes––and he thought he might venture to +remark,––aw––everybody about +him––ha––felt on this most––arrah, +arrah––interesting––er––occasion; and said +a great deal more, which took a very long time to say, but the gist of which +was, that all these country gentlemen were so enraptured by the new addition to +their circle, and so altogether delighted with Mr. Paul Marchmont, that they +really were at a loss to understand how it was they had ever managed to endure +existence without him.</p> + +<p>And then there was a good deal of rather unnecessary but very enthusiastic +thumping of the table, whereat the costly glass shivered, and the hothouse +blossoms trembled, amidst the musical chinking of silver forks; while the +foxhunters declared in chorus that the new owner of Marchmont Towers was a +jolly good fellow, which––<em>i.e.</em>, the fact of his +jollity––nobody could deny.</p> + +<p>It was not a very fine demonstration, but it was a very hearty one. +Moreover, these noisy foxhunters were all men of some standing in the county; +and it is a proof of the artist's inherent snobbery that to him the husky +voices of these half–drunken men were more delicious than the sweet +soprano tones of an equal number of Pattis––penniless and obscure +Pattis, that is to say––sounding his praises. He was lifted at last +out of that poor artist–life, in which he had always been a +groveller,––not so much for lack of talent as by reason of the +smallness of his own soul,––into a new sphere, where everybody was +rich and grand and prosperous, and where the pleasant pathways were upon the +necks of prostrate slaves, in the shape of grooms and hirelings, respectful +servants, and reverential tradespeople.</p> + +<p>Yes, Paul Marchmont was more drunken than any of his guests; but his +drunkenness was of a different kind to theirs. It was not the wine, but his own +grandeur that intoxicated and besotted him.</p> + +<p>These foxhunters might get the better of their drunkenness in half an hour +or so; but his intoxication was likely to last for a very long time, unless he +should receive some sudden shock, powerful enough to sober him.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the hounds were yelping and baying upon the lawn, and the huntsmen +and whippers–in were running backwards and forwards from the lawn to the +servants' hall, devouring snacks of beef and ham,––a pound and a +quarter or so at one sitting; or crunching the bones of a frivolous young +chicken,––there were not half a dozen mouthfuls on such +insignificant half–grown fowls; or excavating under the roof of a great +game–pie; or drinking a quart or so of strong ale, or half a tumbler of +raw brandy, <em>en passant</em>; and doing a great deal more in the same way, +merely to beguile the time until the gentlefolks should appear upon the broad +stone terrace.</p> + +<p>It was half–past twelve o'clock, and Mr. Marchmont's guests were still +drinking and speechifying. They had been on the point of making a move ever so +many times; but it had happened every time that some gentleman, who had been +very quiet until that moment, suddenly got upon his legs, and began to make +swallowing and gasping noises, and to wipe his lips with a napkin; whereby it +was understood that he was going to propose somebody's health. This had +considerably lengthened the entertainment, and it seemed rather likely that the +ostensible business of the day would be forgotten altogether. But at +half–past twelve, the county magnate, who had bidden Paul Marchmont a +stately welcome to Lincolnshire, remembered that there were twenty couple of +impatient hounds scratching up the turf in front of the long windows of the +banquet–chamber, while as many eager young tenant–farmers, stalwart +yeomen, well–to–do butchers, and a herd of tag–rag and +bobtail, were pining for the sport to begin;––at last, I say, Sir +Lionel Boport remembered this, and led the way to the terrace, leaving the +renegades to repose on the comfortable sofas lurking here and there in the +spacious rooms. Then the grim stone front of the house was suddenly lighted up +into splendour. The long terrace was one blaze of "pink," relieved here and +there by patches of sober black and forester's green. Amongst all these +stalwart, florid–visaged country gentlemen, Paul Marchmont, very elegant, +very picturesque, but extremely unsportsmanlike, the hero of the hour, walked +slowly down the broad stone steps amidst the vociferous cheering of the crowd, +the snapping and yelping of impatient hounds, and the distant braying of a +horn.</p> + +<p>It was the crowning moment of his life; the moment he had dreamed of again +and again in the wretched days of poverty and obscurity. The scene was scarcely +new to him,––he had acted it so often in his imagination; he had +heard the shouts and seen the respectful crowd. There was a little difference +in detail; that was all. There was no disappointment, no shortcoming in the +realisation; as there so often is when our brightest dreams are fulfilled, and +the one great good, the all–desired, is granted to us. No; the prize was +his, and it was worth all that he had sacrificed to win it.</p> + +<p>He looked up, and saw his mother and his sisters in the great window over +the porch. He could see the exultant pride in his mother's pale face; and the +one redeeming sentiment of his nature, his love for the womankind who depended +upon him, stirred faintly in his breast, amid the tumult of gratified ambition +and selfish joy.</p> + +<p>This one drop of unselfish pleasure filled the cup to the brim. He took off +his hat and waved it high up above his head in answer to the shouting of the +crowd. He had stopped halfway down the flight of steps to bow his +acknowledgment of the cheering. He waved his hat, and the huzzas grew still +louder; and a band upon the other side of the lawn played that familiar and +triumphant march which is supposed to apply to every living hero, from a +Wellington just come home from Waterloo, to the winner of a boat–race, or +a patent–starch proprietor newly elected by an admiring constituency.</p> + +<p>There was nothing wanting. I think that in that supreme moment Paul +Marchmont quite forgot the tortuous and perilous ways by which he had reached +this all–glorious goal. I don't suppose the young princes smothered in +the Tower were ever more palpably present in Tyrant Richard's memory than when +the murderous usurper grovelled in Bosworth's miry clay, and knew that the +great game of life was lost. It was only when Henry the Eighth took away the +Great Seal that Wolsey was able to see the foolishness of man's ambition. In +that moment memory and conscience, never very wakeful in the breast of Paul +Marchmont, were dead asleep, and only triumph and delight reigned in their +stead. No; there was nothing wanting. This glory and grandeur paid him a +thousandfold for his patience and self–abnegation during the past +year.</p> + +<p>He turned half round to look up at those eager watchers at the window.</p> + +<p>Good God! It was his sister Lavinia's face he saw; no longer full of triumph +and pleasure, but ghastly pale, and staring at someone or something horrible in +the crowd. Paul Marchmont turned to look for this horrible something the sight +of which had power to change his sister's face; and found himself confronted by +a young man,––a young man whose eyes flamed like coals of fire, +whose cheeks were as white as a sheet of paper, and whose firm lips were locked +as tightly as if they had been chiseled out of a block of granite.</p> + +<p>This man was Edward Arundel,––the young widower, the handsome +soldier,––whom everybody remembered as the husband of poor lost +Mary Marchmont.</p> + +<p>He had sprung out from amidst the crowd only one moment before, and had +dashed up the steps of the terrace before any one had time to think of +hindering him or interfering with him. It seemed to Paul Marchmont as if his +foe must have leaped out of the solid earth, so sudden and so +unlooked–for was his coming. He stood upon the step immediately below the +artist; but as the terrace–steps were shallow, and as he was taller by +half a foot than Paul, the faces of the two men were level, and they confronted +each other.</p> + +<p>The soldier held a heavy hunting–whip in his hand––no +foppish toy, with a golden trinket for its head, but a stout handle of +stag–horn, and a formidable leathern thong. He held this whip in his +strong right hand, with the thong twisted round the handle; and throwing out +his left arm, nervous and muscular as the limb of a young gladiator, he seized +Paul Marchmont by the collar of that fashionably–cut scarlet coat which +the artist had so much admired in the cheval–glass that morning.</p> + +<p>There was a shout of surprise and consternation from the gentlemen on the +terrace and the crowd upon the lawn, a shrill scream from the women; and in the +next moment Paul Marchmont was writhing under a shower of blows from the +hunting–whip in Edward Arundel's hand. The artist was not physically +brave, yet he was not such a cur as to submit unresistingly to this hideous +disgrace; but the attack was so sudden and unexpected as to paralyse +him––so rapid in its execution as to leave him no time for +resistance. Before he had recovered his presence of mind; before he knew the +meaning of Edward Arundel's appearance in that place; even before he could +fully realise the mere fact of his being there,––the thing was +done; he was disgraced for ever. He had sunk in that one moment from the very +height of his new grandeur to the lowest depth of social degradation.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen!" Edward Arundel cried, in a loud voice, which was distinctly +heard by every member of the gaping crowd, "when the law of the land suffers a +scoundrel to prosper, honest men must take the law into their own hands. I +wished you to know my opinion of the new master of Marchmont Towers; and I +think I've expressed it pretty clearly. I know him to be a most consummate +villain; and I give you fair warning that he is no fit associate for honourable +men. Good morning."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel lifted his hat, bowed to the assembly, and then ran down the +steps. Paul Marchmont, livid, and foaming at the mouth, rushed after him, +brandishing his clenched fists, and gesticulating in impotent rage; but the +young man's horse was waiting for him at a few paces from the terrace, in the +care of a butcher's apprentice, and he was in the saddle before the artist +could overtake him.</p> + +<p>"I shall not leave Kemberling for a week, Mr. Marchmont," he called out; and +then he walked his horse away, holding himself erect as a dart, and staring +defiance at the crowd.</p> + +<p>I am sorry to have to testify to the fickle nature of the British populace; +but I am bound to own that a great many of the stalwart yeomen who had eaten +game–pies and drunk strong liquors at Paul Marchmont's expense not half +an hour before, were base enough to feel an involuntary admiration for Edward +Arundel, as he rode slowly away, with his head up and his eyes flaming. There +is seldom very much genuine sympathy for a man who has been horsewhipped; and +there is a pretty universal inclination to believe that the man who inflicts +chastisement upon him must be right in the main. It is true that the +tenant–farmers, especially those whose leases were nearly run out, were +very loud in their indignation against Mr. Arundel, and one adventurous spirit +made a dash at the young man's bridle as he went by; but the general feeling +was in favour of the conqueror, and there was a lack of heartiness even in the +loudest expressions of sympathy.</p> + +<p>The crowd made a lane for Paul Marchmont as he went back to the house, white +and helpless, and sick with shame.</p> + +<p>Several of the gentlemen upon the terrace came forward to shake hands with +him, and to express their indignation, and to offer any friendly service that +he might require of them by–and–by,––such as standing +by to see him shot, if he should choose an old–fashioned mode of +retaliation; or bearing witness against Edward Arundel in a law–court, if +Mr. Marchmont preferred to take legal measures. But even these men recoiled +when they felt the cold dampness of the artist's hands, and saw that <em>he had +been frightened</em>. These sturdy, uproarious foxhunters, who braved the peril +of sudden death every time they took a day's sport, entertained a sovereign +contempt for a man who <em>could</em> be frightened of anybody or anything. +They made no allowance for Paul Marchmont's Cockney education; they were not in +the dark secrets of his life, and knew nothing of his guilty conscience; and it +was <em>that</em> which had made him more helpless than a child in the fierce +grasp of Edward Arundel.</p> + +<p>So one by one, after this polite show of sympathy, the rich man's guests +fell away from him; and the yelping hounds and the cantering horses left the +lawn before Marchmont Towers; the sound of the brass band and the voices of the +people died away in the distance; and the glory of the day was done.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont crawled slowly back to that luxurious bedchamber which he had +left only a few hours before, and, throwing himself at full length upon the +bed, sobbed like a frightened child.</p> + +<p>He was panic–stricken; not because of the horsewhipping, but because +of a sentence that Edward Arundel had whispered close to his ear in the midst +of the struggle.</p> + +<p>"I know <em>everything</em>," the young man had said; "I know the secrets +you hide in the pavilion by the river!"</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER28" id="CHAPTER28">CHAPTER II.<br /> +THE DESERTED CHAMBERS.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Edward Arundel kept his word. He waited for a week and upwards, but Paul +Marchmont made no sign; and after having given him three days' grace over and +above the promised time, the young man abandoned Kemberling Retreat, for ever, +as he thought, and went away from Lincolnshire.</p> + +<p>He had waited; hoping that Paul Marchmont would try to retaliate, and that +some desperate struggle, physical or legal,––he scarcely cared +which,––would occur between them. He would have courted any hazard +which might have given him some chance of revenge. But nothing happened. He +sent out Mr. Morrison to beat up information about the master of Marchmont +Towers; and the factotum came back with the intelligence that Mr. Marchmont was +ill, and would see no one––"leastways" excepting his mother and Mr. +George Weston.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel shrugged his shoulders when he heard these tidings.</p> + +<p>"What a contemptible cur the man is!" he thought. "There was a time when I +could have suspected him of any foul play against my lost girl. I know him +better now, and know that he is not even capable of a great crime. He was only +strong enough to stab his victim in the dark, with lying paragraphs in +newspapers, and dastardly hints and inuendoes."</p> + +<p>It would have been only perhaps an act of ordinary politeness had Edward +Arundel paid a farewell visit to his friends at the Grange. But he did not go +near the hospitable old house. He contented himself with writing a cordial +letter to Major Lawford, thanking him for his hospitality and kindness, and +referring, vaguely enough, to the hope of a future meeting.</p> + +<p>He despatched this letter by Mr. Morrison, who was in very high spirits at +the prospect of leaving Kemberling, and who went about his work with almost +boyish activity in the exuberance of his delight. The valet worked so briskly +as to complete all necessary arrangements in a couple of days; and on the 29th +of October, late in the afternoon, all was ready, and he had nothing to do but +to superintend the departure of the two horses from the Kemberling +railway–station, under the guardianship of the lad who had served as +Edward's groom.</p> + +<p>Throughout that last day Mr. Arundel wandered here and there about the house +and garden that so soon were to be deserted. He was dreadfully at a loss what +to do with himself, and, alas! it was not to–day only that he felt the +burden of his hopeless idleness. He felt it always; a horrible load, not to be +cast away from him. His life had been broken off short, as it were, by the +catastrophe which had left him a widower before his honeymoon was well over. +The story of his existence was abruptly broken asunder; all the better part of +his life was taken away from him, and he did not know what to do with the blank +and useless remnant. The ravelled threads of a once–harmonious web, +suddenly wrenched in twain, presented a mass of inextricable confusion; and the +young man's brain grew dizzy when he tried to draw them out, or to consider +them separately.</p> + +<p>His life was most miserable, most hopeless, by reason of its emptiness. He +had no duty to perform, no task to achieve. That nature must be utterly +selfish, entirely given over to sybarite rest and self–indulgence, which +does not feel a lack of something wanting these,––a duty or a +purpose. Better to be Sisyphus toiling up the mountain–side, than +Sisyphus with the stone taken away from him, and no hope of ever reaching the +top. I heard a man once––a bill–sticker, and not by any means +a sentimental or philosophical person––declare that he had never +known real prosperity until he had thirteen orphan grandchildren to support; +and surely there was a universal moral in that bill–sticker's confession. +He had been a drunkard before, perhaps,––he didn't say anything +about that,––and a reprobate, it may be; but those thirteen small +mouths clamoring for food made him sober and earnest, brave and true. He had a +duty to do, and was happy in its performance. He was wanted in the world, and +he was somebody. From Napoleon III., holding the destinies of civilised Europe +in his hands, and debating whether he shall re–create Poland or build a +new boulevard, to Paterfamilias in a Government office, working for the little +ones at home,––and from Paterfamilias to the +crossing–sweeper, who craves his diurnal halfpenny from busy citizens, +tramping to their daily toil,––every man has his separate labour +and his different responsibility. For ever and for ever the busy wheel of life +turns round; but duty and ambition are the motive powers that keep it going.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel felt the barrenness of his life, now that he had taken the +only revenge which was possible for him upon the man who had persecuted his +wife. <em>That</em> had been a rapturous but brief enjoyment. It was over. He +could do no more to the man; since there was no lower depth of +humiliation––in these later days, when pillories and +whipping–posts and stocks are exploded from our +market–places––to which a degraded creature could descend. +No; there was no more to be done. It was useless to stop in Lincolnshire. The +sad suggestion of the little slipper found by the water–side was but too +true. Paul Marchmont had not murdered his helpless cousin; he had only tortured +her to death. He was quite safe from the law of the land, which, being of a +positive and arbitrary nature, takes no cognisance of indefinable offences. +This most infamous man was safe; and was free to enjoy his ill–gotten +grandeur––if he could take much pleasure in it, after the scene +upon the stone terrace.</p> + +<p>The only joy that had been left for Edward Arundel after his retirement from +the East India Company's service was this fierce delight of vengeance. He had +drained the intoxicating cup to the dregs, and had been drunken at first in the +sense of his triumph. But he was sober now; and he paced up and down the +neglected garden beneath a chill October sky, crunching the fallen leaves under +his feet, with his arms folded and his head bent, thinking of the barren +future. It was all bare,––a blank stretch of desert land, with no +city in the distance; no purple domes or airy minarets on the horizon. It was +in the very nature of this young man to be a soldier; and he was nothing if not +a soldier. He could never remember having had any other aspiration than that +eager thirst for military glory. Before he knew the meaning of the word "war," +in his very infancy, the sound of a trumpet or the sight of a waving banner, a +glittering weapon, a sentinel's scarlet coat, had moved him to a kind of +rapture. The unvarnished schoolroom records of Greek and Roman warfare had been +as delightful to him as the finest passages of a Macaulay or a Froude, a Thiers +or Lamartine. He was a soldier by the inspiration of Heaven, as all great +soldiers are. He had never known any other ambition, or dreamed any other +dream. Other lads had talked of the bar, and the senate, and <em>their</em> +glories. Bah! how cold and tame they seemed! What was the glory of a +parliamentary triumph, in which words were the only weapons wielded by the +combatants, compared with a hand–to–hand struggle, ankle deep in +the bloody mire of a crowded trench, or a cavalry charge, before which a +phalanx of fierce Affghans fled like frightened sheep upon a moor! Edward +Arundel was a soldier, like the Duke of Wellington or Sir Colin +Campbell,––one writes the old romantic name involuntarily, because +one loves it best,––or Othello. The Moor's first lamentation when +he believes that Desdemona is false, and his life is broken, is that sublime +farewell to all the glories of the battle–field. It was almost the same +with Edward Arundel. The loss of his wife and of his captaincy were blent and +mingled in his mind and he could only bewail the one great loss which left life +most desolate.</p> + +<p>He had never felt the full extent of his desolation until now; for +heretofore he had been buoyed up by the hope of vengeance upon Paul Marchmont; +and now that his solitary hope had been realised to the fullest possible +extent, there was nothing left,––nothing but to revoke the +sacrifice he had made, and to regain his place in the Indian army at any +cost.</p> + +<p>He tried not to think of the possibility of this. It seemed to him almost an +infidelity towards his dead wife to dream of winning honours and distinction, +now that she, who would have been so proud of any triumph won by him, was for +ever lost.</p> + +<p>So, under the grey October sky he paced up and down upon the +grass–grown pathways, amidst the weeds and briars, the brambles and +broken branches that crackled as he trod upon them; and late in the afternoon, +when the day, which had been sunless and cold, was melting into dusky twilight, +he opened the low wooden gateway and went out into the road. An impulse which +he could not resist took him towards the river–bank and the wood behind +Marchmont Towers. Once more, for the last time in his life perhaps, he went +down to that lonely shore. He went to look at the bleak unlovely place which +had been the scene of his betrothal.</p> + +<p>It was not that he had any thought of meeting Olivia Marchmont; he had +dismissed her from his mind ever since his last visit to the lonely +boat–house. Whatever the mystery of her life might be, her secret lay at +the bottom of a black depth which the impetuous soldier did not care to fathom. +He did not want to discover that hideous secret. Tarnished honour, shame, +falsehood, disgrace, lurked in the obscurity in which John Marchmont's widow +had chosen to enshroud her life. Let them rest. It was not for him to drag away +the curtain that sheltered his kinswoman from the world.</p> + +<p>He had no thought, therefore, of prying into any secrets that might be +hidden in the pavilion by the water. The fascination that lured him to the spot +was the memory of the past. He could not go to Mary's grave; but he went, in as +reverent a spirit as he would have gone thither, to the scene of his betrothal, +to pay his farewell visit to the spot which had been for ever hallowed by the +confession of her innocent love.</p> + +<p>It was nearly dark when he got to the river–side. He went by a path +which quite avoided the grounds about Marchmont Towers,––a narrow +footpath, which served as a towing–path sometimes, when some black barge +crawled by on its way out to the open sea. To–night the river was hidden +by a mist,––a white fog,––that obscured land and water; +and it was only by the sound of the horses' hoofs that Edward Arundel had +warning to step aside, as a string of them went by, dragging a chain that +grated on the pebbles by the river–side.</p> + +<p>"Why should they say my darling committed suicide?" thought Edward Arundel, +as he groped his way along the narrow pathway. "It was on such an evening as +this that she ran away from home. What more likely than that she lost the +track, and wandered into the river? Oh, my own poor lost one, God grant it was +so! God grant it was by His will, and not your own desperate act, that you were +lost to me!"</p> + +<p>Sorrowful as the thought of his wife's death was to him, it soothed him to +believe that death might have been accidental. There was all the difference +betwixt sorrow and despair in the alternative.</p> + +<p>Wandering ignorantly and helplessly through this autumnal fog, Edward +Arundel found himself at the boat–house before he was aware of its +vicinity.</p> + +<p>There was a light gleaming from the broad north window of the +painting–room, and a slanting line of light streamed out of the +half–open door. In this lighted doorway Edward saw the figure of a +girl,––an unkempt, red–headed girl, with a flat freckled +face; a girl who wore a lavender–cotton pinafore and hob–nailed +boots, with a good deal of brass about the leathern fronts, and a redundancy of +rusty leathern boot–lace twisted round the ankles.</p> + +<p>The young man remembered having seen this girl once in the village of +Kemberling. She had been in Mrs. Weston's service as a drudge, and was supposed +to have received her education in the Swampington union.</p> + +<p>This young lady was supporting herself against the half–open door, +with her arms a–kimbo, and her hands planted upon her hips, in humble +imitation of the matrons whom she had been wont to see lounging at their +cottage–doors in the high street of Kemberling, when the labours of the +day were done.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel started at the sudden apparition of this damsel.</p> + +<p>"Who are you, girl?" he asked; "and what brings you to this place?"</p> + +<p>He trembled as he spoke. A sudden agitation had seized upon him, which he +had no power to account for. It seemed as if Providence had brought him to this +spot to–night, and had placed this ignorant country–girl in his +way, for some special purpose. Whatever the secrets of this place might be, he +was to know them, it appeared, since he had been led here, not by the +promptings of curiosity, but only by a reverent love for a scene that was +associated with his dead wife.</p> + +<p>"Who are you, girl?" he asked again.</p> + +<p>"Oi be Betsy Murrel, sir," the damsel answered; "some on 'em calls me +'Wuk–us Bet;' and I be coom here to cle–an oop a bit."</p> + +<p>"To clean up what?"</p> + +<p>"The paa–intin' room. There's a de–al o' moock aboot, and aw'm +to fettle oop, and make all toidy agen t' squire gets well."</p> + +<p>"Are you all alone here?"</p> + +<p>"All alo–an? Oh, yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Have you been here long?"</p> + +<p>The girl looked at Mr. Arundel with a cunning leer, which was one of her +"wuk–us" acquirements.</p> + +<p>"Aw've bin here off an' on ever since t' squire ke–ame," she said. +"There's a deal o' cleanin' down 'ere."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel looked at her sternly; but there was nothing to be gathered +from her stolid countenance after its agreeable leer had melted away. The young +man might have scrutinised the figure–head of the black barge creeping +slowly past upon the hidden river with quite as much chance of getting any +information out of its play of feature.</p> + +<p>He walked past the girl into Paul Marchmont's painting–room. Miss +Betsy Murrel made no attempt to hinder him. She had spoken the truth as to the +cleaning of the place, for the room smelt of soapsuds, and a pail and +scrubbing–brush stood in the middle of the floor. The young man looked at +the door behind which he had heard the crying of the child. It was ajar, and +the stone–steps leading up to it were wet, bearing testimony to Betsy +Murrel's industry.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel took the flaming tallow–candle from the table in the +painting–room, and went up the steps into the pavilion. The girl +followed, but she did not try to restrain him, or to interfere with him. She +followed him with her mouth open, staring at him after the manner of her kind, +and she looked the very image of rustic stupidity.</p> + +<p>With the flaring candle shaded by his left hand, Edward Arundel examined the +two chambers in the pavilion. There was very little to reward his scrutiny. The +two small rooms were bare and cheerless. The repairs that had been executed had +only gone so far as to make them tolerably inhabitable, and secure from wind +and weather. The furniture was the same that Edward remembered having seen on +his last visit to the Towers; for Mary had been fond of sitting in one of the +little rooms, looking out at the slow river and the trembling rushes on the +shore. There was no trace of recent occupation in the empty rooms, no ashes in +the grates. The girl grinned maliciously as Mr. Arundel raised the light above +his head, and looked about him. He walked in and out of the two rooms. He +stared at the obsolete chairs, the rickety tables, the dilapidated damask +curtains, flapping every now and then in the wind that rushed in through the +crannies of the doors and windows. He looked here and there, like a man +bewildered; much to the amusement of Miss Betsy Murrel, who, with her arms +crossed, and her elbows in the palms of her moist hands, followed him backwards +and forwards between the two small chambers.</p> + +<p>"There was some one living here a week ago," he said; "some one who had the +care of a––––"</p> + +<p>He stopped suddenly. If he had guessed rightly at the dark secret, it was +better that it should remain for ever hidden. This girl was perhaps more +ignorant than himself. It was not for him to enlighten her.</p> + +<p>"Do you know if anybody has lived here lately?" he asked.</p> + +<p>Betsy Murrel shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Nobody has lived here––not that <em>oi</em> knows of," she +replied; "not to take their victuals, and such loike. Missus brings her work +down sometimes, and sits in one of these here rooms, while Muster Poll does his +pictur' paa–intin'; that's all <em>oi</em> knows of."</p> + +<p>Edward went back to the painting–room, and set down his candle. The +mystery of those empty chambers was no business of his. He began to think that +his cousin Olivia was mad, and that her outbursts of terror and agitation had +been only the raving of a mad woman, after all. There had been a great deal in +her manner during the last year that had seemed like insanity. The presence of +the child might have been purely accidental; and his cousin's wild vehemence +only a paroxysm of insanity. He sighed as he left Miss Murrel to her scouring. +The world seemed out of joint; and he, whose energetic nature fitted him for +the straightening of crooked things, had no knowledge of the means by which it +might be set right.</p> + +<p>"Good–bye, lonely place," he said; "good–bye to the spot where +my young wife first told me of her love."</p> + +<p>He walked back to the cottage, where the bustle of packing and preparation +was all over, and where Mr. Morrison was entertaining a select party of friends +in the kitchen. Early the next morning Mr. Arundel and his servant left +Lincolnshire; the key of Kemberling Retreat was given up to the landlord; and a +wooden board, flapping above the dilapidated trellis–work of the porch, +gave notice that the habitation was to be let.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER29" id="CHAPTER29">CHAPTER III.<br /> +TAKING IT QUIETLY.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>All the county, or at least all that part of the county within a certain +radius of Marchmont Towers, waited very anxiously for Mr. Paul Marchmont to +make some move. The horsewhipping business had given quite a pleasant zest, a +flavour of excitement, a dash of what it is the fashion nowadays to call +"sensation," to the wind–up of the hunting breakfast. Poor Paul's +thrashing had been more racy and appetising than the finest olives that ever +grew, and his late guests looked forward to a great deal more excitement and +"sensation" before the business was done with. Of course Paul Marchmont would +do something. He <em>must</em> make a stir; and the sooner he made it the +better. Matters would have to be explained. People expected to know the +<em>cause</em> of Edward Arundel's enmity; and of course the new master of the +Towers would see the propriety of setting himself right in the eyes of his +influential acquaintance, his tenantry, and retainers; especially if he +contemplated standing for Swampington at the next general election.</p> + +<p>This was what people said to each other. The scene at the +hunting–breakfast was a most fertile topic of conversation. It was almost +as good as a popular murder, and furnished scandalous paragraphs <em>ad +infinitum</em> for the provincial papers, most of them beginning, "It is +understood––," or "It has been whispered in our hearing +that––," or "Rochefoucault has observed that––." +Everybody expected that Paul Marchmont would write to the papers, and that +Edward Arundel would answer him in the papers; and that a brisk and stirring +warfare would be carried on in printer's–ink––at least. But +no line written by either of the gentlemen appeared in any one of the county +journals; and by slow degrees it dawned upon people that there was no further +amusement to be got out of Paul's chastisement, and that the master of the +Towers meant to take the thing quietly, and to swallow the horrible outrage, +taking care to hide any wry faces he made during that operation.</p> + +<p>Yes; Paul Marchmont let the matter drop. The report was circulated that he +was very ill, and had suffered from a touch of brain–fever, which kept +him a victim to incessant delirium until after Mr. Arundel had left the county. +This rumour was set afloat by Mr. Weston the surgeon; and as he was the only +person admitted to his brother–in–law's apartment, it was +impossible for any one to contradict his assertion.</p> + +<p>The fox–hunting squires shrugged their shoulders; and I am sorry to +say that the epithets, "hound," "cur," "sneak," and "mongrel," were more often +applied to Mr. Marchmont than was consistent with Christian feeling on the part +of the gentlemen who uttered them. But a man who can swallow a sound thrashing, +administered upon his own door–step, has to contend with the prejudices +of society, and must take the consequences of being in advance of his age.</p> + +<p>So, while his new neighbours talked about him, Paul Marchmont lay in his +splendid chamber, with the frisking youths and maidens staring at him all day +long, and simpering at him with their unchanging faces, until he grew sick at +heart, and began to loathe all this new grandeur, which had so delighted him a +little time ago. He no longer laughed at the recollection of shabby Charlotte +Street. He dreamt one night that he was back again in the old bedroom, with the +painted deal furniture, and the hideous paper on the walls, and that the +Marchmont–Towers magnificence had been only a feverish vision; and he was +glad to be back in that familiar place, and was sorry on awaking to find that +Marchmont Towers was a splendid reality.</p> + +<p>There was only one faint red streak upon his shoulders, for the thrashing +had not been a brutal one. It was <em>disgrace</em> Edward Arundel had wanted +to inflict, not physical pain, the commonplace punishment with which a man +corrects his refractory horse. The lash of the hunting–whip had done very +little damage to the artist's flesh; but it had slashed away his manhood, as +the sickle sweeps the flowers amidst the corn.</p> + +<p>He could never look up again. The thought of going out of this house for the +first time, and the horror of confronting the altered faces of his neighbours, +was as dreadful to him as the anticipation of that awful exit from the Debtor's +Door, which is the last step but one into eternity, must be to the condemned +criminal.</p> + +<p>"I shall go abroad," he said to his mother, when he made his appearance in +the western drawing–room, a week after Edward's departure. "I shall go on +the Continent, mother; I have taken a dislike to this place, since that savage +attacked me the other day."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont sighed.</p> + +<p>"It will seem hard to lose you, Paul, now that you are rich. You were so +constant to us through all our poverty; and we might be so happy together +now."</p> + +<p>The artist was walking up and down the room, with his hands in the pockets +of his braided velvet coat. He knew that in the conventional costume of a +well–bred gentleman he showed to a disadvantage amongst other men; and he +affected a picturesque and artistic style of dress, whose brighter hues and +looser outlines lighted up his pale face, and gave a grace to his spare +figure.</p> + +<p>"You think it worth something, then, mother?" he said presently, half +kneeling, half lounging in a deep–cushioned easy chair near the table at +which his mother sat. "You think our money is worth something to us? All these +chairs and tables, this great rambling house, the servants who wait upon us, +and the carriages we ride in, are worth something, are they not? they make us +happier, I suppose. I know I always thought such things made up the sum of +happiness when I was poor. I have seen a hearse going away from a rich man's +door, carrying his cherished wife, or his only son, perhaps; and I've thought, +'Ah, but he has forty thousand a year!' You are happier here than you were in +Charlotte Street, eh, mother?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont was a Frenchwoman by birth, though she had lived so long in +London as to become Anglicised. She only retained a slight accent of her native +tongue, and a good deal more vivacity of look and gesture than is common to +Englishwomen. Her elder daughter was sitting on the other side of the broad +fireplace. She was only a quieter and older likeness of Lavinia Weston.</p> + +<p>"<em>Am</em> I happier?" exclaimed Mrs. Marchmont. "Need you ask me the +question, Paul? But it is not so much for myself as for your sake that I value +all this grandeur."</p> + +<p>She held out her long thin hand, which was covered with rings, some +old–fashioned and comparatively valueless, others lately purchased by her +devoted son, and very precious. The artist took the shrunken fingers in his +own, and raised them to his lips.</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad that I've made you happy, mother," he said; "that's something +gained, at any rate."</p> + +<p>He left the fireplace, and walked slowly up and down the room, stopping now +and then to look out at the wintry sky, or the flat expanse of turf below it; +but he was quite a different creature to that which he had been before his +encounter with Edward Arundel. The chairs and tables palled upon him. The mossy +velvet pile of the new carpets seemed to him like the swampy ground of a +morass. The dark–green draperies of Genoa velvet deepened into black with +the growing twilight, and seemed as if they had been fashioned out of palls.</p> + +<p>What was it worth, this fine house, with the broad flat before it? Nothing, +if he had lost the respect and consideration of his neighbours. He wanted to be +a great man as well as a rich one. He wanted admiration and flattery, reverence +and esteem; not from poor people, whose esteem and admiration were scarcely +worth having, but from wealthy squires, his equals or his superiors by birth +and fortune. He ground his teeth at the thought of his disgrace. He had drunk +of the cup of triumph, and had tasted the very wine of life; and at the moment +when that cup was fullest, it had been snatched away from him by the ruthless +hand of his enemy.</p> + +<p>Christmas came, and gave Paul Marchmont a good opportunity of playing the +country gentleman of the olden time. What was the cost of a couple of bullocks, +a few hogsheads of ale, and a waggon–load of coals, if by such a +sacrifice the master of the Towers could secure for himself the admiration due +to a public benefactor? Paul gave <em>carte blanche</em> to the old servants; +and tents were erected on the lawn, and monstrous bonfires blazed briskly in +the frosty air; while the populace, who would have accepted the bounties of a +new Nero fresh from the burning of a modern Rome, drank to the health of their +benefactor, and warmed themselves by the unlimited consumption of strong +beer.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Marchmont and her invalid daughter assisted Paul in his attempt to +regain the popularity he had lost upon the steps of the western terrace. The +two women distributed square miles of flannel and blanketing amongst greedy +claimants; they gave scarlet cloaks and poke–bonnets to old women; they +gave an insipid feast, upon temperance principles, to the children of the +National Schools. And they had their reward; for people began to say that this +Paul Marchmont was a very noble fellow, after all, by Jove, sir and that fellow +Arundel must have been in the wrong, sir; and no doubt Marchmont had his own +reasons for not resenting the outrage, sir; and a great deal more to the like +effect.</p> + +<p>After this roasting of the two bullocks the wind changed altogether. Mr. +Marchmont gave a great dinner–party upon New–Year's Day. He sent +out thirty invitations, and had only two refusals. So the long +dining–room was filled with all the notabilities of the district, and +Paul held his head up once more, and rejoiced in his own grandeur. After all, +one horsewhipping cannot annihilate a man with a fine estate and eleven +thousand a year, if he knows how to make a splash with his money.</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont shared in none of the festivals that were held. Her father +was very ill this winter; and she spent a good deal of her time at Swampington +Rectory, sitting in Hubert Arundel's room, and reading to him. But her presence +brought very little comfort to the sick man; for there was something in his +daughter's manner that filled him with inexpressible terror; and he would lie +for hours together watching her blank face, and wondering at its horrible +rigidity. What was it? What was the dreadful secret which had transformed this +woman? He tormented himself perpetually with this question, but he could +imagine no answer to it. He did not know the power which a master–passion +has upon these strong–minded women, whose minds are strong because of +their narrowness, and who are the bonden slaves of one idea. He did not know +that in a breast which holds no pure affection the master–fiend Passion +rages like an all–devouring flame, perpetually consuming its victim. He +did not know that in these violent and concentrative natures the line that +separates reason from madness is so feeble a demarcation, that very few can +perceive the hour in which it is passed.</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont had never been the most lively or delightful of companions. +The tenderness which is the common attribute of a woman's nature had not been +given to her. She ought to have been a great man. Nature makes these mistakes +now and then, and the victim expiates the error. Hence comes such imperfect +histories as that of English Elizabeth and Swedish Christina. The fetters that +had bound Olivia's narrow life had eaten into her very soul, and cankered +there. If she could have been Edward Arundel's wife, she would have been the +noblest and truest wife that ever merged her identity into that of another, and +lived upon the refracted glory of her husband's triumphs. She would have been a +Rachel Russell, a Mrs. Hutchinson, a Lady Nithisdale, a Madame de Lavalette. +She would have been great by reason of her power of self–abnegation; and +there would have been a strange charm in the aspect of this fierce nature +attuned to harmonise with its master's soul, all the barbaric discords melting +into melody, all the harsh combinations softening into perfect music; just as +in Mr. Buckstone's most poetic drama we are bewitched by the wild huntress +sitting at the feet of her lord, and admire her chiefly because we know that +only that one man upon all the earth could have had power to tame her. To any +one who had known Olivia's secret, there could have been no sadder spectacle +than this of her decay. The mind and body decayed together, bound by a +mysterious sympathy. All womanly roundness disappeared from the spare figure, +and Mrs. Marchmont's black dresses hung about her in loose folds. Her long, +dead, black hair was pushed away from her thin face, and twisted into a heavy +knot at the back of her head. Every charm that she had ever possessed was gone. +The oldest women generally retain some traits of their lost beauty, some faint +reflection of the sun that has gone down, to light up the soft twilight of age, +and even glimmer through the gloom of death. But this woman's face retained no +token of the past. No empty hull, with shattered bulwarks crumbled by the fury +of fierce seas, cast on a desert shore to rot and perish there, was ever more +complete a wreck than she was. Upon her face and figure, in every look and +gesture, in the tone of every word she spoke, there was an awful something, +worse than the seal of death. Little by little the miserable truth dawned upon +Hubert Arundel. His daughter was mad! He knew this; but he kept the dreadful +knowledge hidden in his own breast,––a hideous secret, whose weight +oppressed him like an actual burden. He kept the secret; for it would have +seemed to him the most cruel treason against his daughter to have confessed his +discovery to any living creature, unless it should be absolutely necessary to +do so. Meanwhile he set himself to watch Olivia, detaining her at the Rectory +for a week together, in order that he might see her in all moods, under all +phases.</p> + +<p>He found that there were no violent or outrageous evidences of this mental +decay. The mind had given way under the perpetual pressure of one set of +thoughts. Hubert Arundel, in his ignorance of his daughter's secrets, could not +discover the cause of her decadence; but that cause was very simple. If the +body is a wonderful and complex machine which must not be tampered with, surely +that still more complex machine the mind must need careful treatment. If such +and such a course of diet is fatal to the body's health, may not some thoughts +be equally fatal to the health of the brain? may not a monotonous recurrence of +the same ideas be above all injurious? If by reason of the peculiar nature of a +man's labour, he uses one limb or one muscle more than the rest, strange bosses +rise up to testify to that ill usage, the idle limbs wither, and the harmonious +perfection of Nature gives place to deformity. So the brain, perpetually +pressed upon, for ever strained to its utmost tension by the wearisome +succession of thoughts, becomes crooked and one–sided, always leaning one +way, continually tripping up the wretched thinker.</p> + +<p>John Marchmont's widow had only one set of ideas. On every subject but that +one which involved Edward Arundel and his fortunes her memory had decayed. She +asked her father the same questions––commonplace questions relating +to his own comfort, or to simple household matters, twenty times a day, always +forgetting that he had answered her. She had that impatience as to the passage +of time which is one of the most painful signs of madness. She looked at her +watch ten times an hour, and would wander out into the cheerless garden, +indifferent to the bitter weather, in order to look at the clock in the +church–steeple, under the impression that her own watch, and her +father's, and all the time–keepers in the house, were slow.</p> + +<p>She was sometimes restless, taking up one occupation after another, to throw +all aside with equal impatience, and sometimes immobile for hours together. But +as she was never violent, never in any way unreasonable, Hubert Arundel had not +the heart to call science to his aid, and to betray her secret. The thought +that his daughter's malady might be cured never entered his mind as within the +range of possibility. There was nothing to cure; no delusions to be exorcised +by medical treatment; no violent vagaries to be held in check by drugs and +nostrums. The powerful intellect had decayed; its force and clearness were +gone. No drugs that ever grew upon this earth could restore that which was +lost.</p> + +<p>This was the conviction which kept the Rector silent. It would have given +him unutterable anguish to have told his daughter's secret to any living being; +but he would have endured that misery if she could have been benefitted +thereby. He most firmly believed that she could not, and that her state was +irremediable.</p> + +<p>"My poor girl!" he thought to himself; "how proud I was of her ten years +ago! I can do nothing for her; nothing except to love and cherish her, and hide +her humiliation from the world."</p> + +<p>But Hubert Arundel was not allowed to do even this much for the daughter he +loved; for when Olivia had been with him a little more than a week, Paul +Marchmont and his mother drove over to Swampington Rectory one morning and +carried her away with them. The Rector then saw for the first time that his +once strong–minded daughter was completely under the dominion of these +two people, and that they knew the nature of her malady quite as well as he +did. He resisted her return to the Towers; but his resistance was useless. She +submitted herself willingly to her new friends, declaring that she was better +in their house than anywhere else. So she went back to her old suite of +apartments, and her old servant Barbara waited upon her; and she sat alone in +dead John Marchmont's study, listening to the January winds shrieking in the +quadrangle, the distant rooks calling to each other amongst the bare branches +of the poplars, the banging of the doors in the corridor, and occasional gusts +of laughter from the open door of the dining–room,––while +Paul Marchmont and his guests gave a jovial welcome to the new year.</p> + +<p>While the master of the Towers re–asserted his grandeur, and made +stupendous efforts to regain the ground he had lost, Edward Arundel wandered +far away in the depths of Brittany, travelling on foot, and making himself +familiar with the simple peasants, who were ignorant of his troubles. He had +sent Mr. Morrison down to Dangerfield with the greater part of his luggage; but +he had not the heart to go back himself––yet awhile. He was afraid +of his mother's sympathy, and he went away into the lonely Breton villages, to +try and cure himself of his great grief, before he began life again as a +soldier. It was useless for him to strive against his vocation. Nature had made +him a soldier, and nothing else; and wherever there was a good cause to be +fought for, his place was on the battle–field.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER30" id="CHAPTER30">CHAPTER IV. <br /> +MISS LAWFORD SPEAKS HER MIND.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Major Lawford and his blue–eyed daughters were not amongst those +guests who accepted Paul Marchmont's princely hospitalities. Belinda Lawford +had never heard the story of Edward's lost bride as he himself could have told +it; but she had heard an imperfect version of the sorrowful history from +Letitia, and that young lady had informed her friend of Edward's animus against +the new master of the Towers.</p> + +<p>"The poor dear foolish boy will insist upon thinking that Mr. Marchmont was +at the bottom of it all," she had said in a confidential chat with Belinda, +"somehow or other; but whether he was, or whether he wasn't, I'm sure I can't +say. But if one attempts to take Mr. Marchmont's part with Edward, he does get +so violent and go on so, that one's obliged to say all sorts of dreadful things +about Mary's cousin for the sake of peace. But really, when I saw him one day +in Kemberling, with a black velvet shooting–coat, and his beautiful +smooth white hair and auburn moustache, I thought him most interesting. And so +would you, Belinda, if you weren't so wrapped up in that doleful brother of +mine."</p> + +<p>Whereupon, of course, Miss Lawford had been compelled to declare that she +was not "wrapped up" in Edward, whatever state of feeling that obscure phrase +might signify; and to express, by the vehemence of her denial, that, if +anything, she rather detested Miss Arundel's brother. By–the–by, +did you ever know a young lady who could understand the admiration aroused in +the breast of other young ladies for that most uninteresting object, a +<em>brother</em>? Or a gentleman who could enter with any warmth of sympathy +into his friend's feelings respecting the auburn tresses or the Grecian nose of +"a sister"? Belinda Lawford, I say, knew something of the story of Mary +Arundel's death, and she implored her father to reject all hospitalities +offered by Paul Marchmont.</p> + +<p>"You won't go to the Towers, papa dear?" she said, with her hands clasped +upon her father's arm, her cheeks kindling, and her eyes filling with tears as +she spoke to him; "you won't go and sit at Paul Marchmont's table, and drink +his wine, and shake hands with him? I know that he had something to do with +Mary Arundel's death. He had indeed, papa. I don't mean anything that the world +calls crime; I don't mean any act of open violence. But he was cruel to her, +papa; he was cruel to her. He tortured her and tormented her until +she––" The girl paused for a moment, and her voice faltered a +little. "Oh, how I wish that I had known her, papa," she cried presently, "that +I might have stood by her, and comforted her, all through that sad time!"</p> + +<p>The Major looked down at his daughter with a tender smile,––a +smile that was a little significant, perhaps, but full of love and +admiration.</p> + +<p>"You would have stood by Arundel's poor little wife, my dear?" he said. "You +would stand by her <em>now</em>, if she were alive, and needed your +friendship?"</p> + +<p>"I would indeed, papa," Miss Lawford answered resolutely.</p> + +<p>"I believe it, my dear; I believe it with all my heart. You are a good girl, +my Linda; you are a noble girl. You are as good as a son to me, my dear."</p> + +<p>Major Lawford was silent for a few moments, holding his daughter in his arms +and pressing his lips upon her broad forehead.</p> + +<p>"You are fit to be a soldier's daughter, my darling," he said, +"or––or a soldier's wife."</p> + +<p>He kissed her once more, and then left her, sighing thoughtfully as he went +away.</p> + +<p>This is how it was that neither Major Lawford nor any of his family were +present at those splendid entertainments which Paul Marchmont gave to his new +friends. Mr. Marchmont knew almost as well as the Lawfords themselves why they +did not come, and the absence of them at his glittering board made his bread +bitter to him and his wine tasteless. He wanted these people as much as the +others,––more than the others, perhaps, for they had been Edward +Arundel's friends; and he wanted them to turn their backs upon the young man, +and join in the general outcry against his violence and brutality. The absence +of Major Lawford at the lighted banquet–table tormented this modern rich +man as the presence of Mordecai at the gate tormented Haman. It was not enough +that all the others should come if these stayed away, and by their absence +tacitly testified to their contempt for the master of the Towers.</p> + +<p>He met Belinda sometimes on horseback with the old grey–headed groom +behind her, a fearless young amazon, breasting the January winds, with her blue +eyes sparkling, and her auburn hair blowing away from her candid face: he met +her, and looked out at her from the luxurious barouche in which it was his +pleasure to loll by his mother's side, half–buried amongst soft furry +rugs and sleek leopard–skins, making the chilly atmosphere through which +he rode odorous with the scent of perfumed hair, and smiling over cruelly +delicious criticisms in newly–cut reviews. He looked out at this fearless +girl whose friends so obstinately stood by Edward Arundel; and the cold +contempt upon Miss Lawford's face cut him more keenly than the sharpest wind of +that bitter January.</p> + +<p>Then he took counsel with his womankind; not telling them his thoughts, +fears, doubts, or wishes––it was not his habit to do +that––but taking <em>their</em> ideas, and only telling them so +much as it was necessary for them to know in order that they might be useful to +him. Paul Marchmont's life was regulated by a few rules, so simple that a child +might have learned them; indeed I regret to say that some children are very apt +pupils in that school of philosophy to which the master of Marchmont Towers +belonged, and cause astonishment to their elders by the precocity of their +intelligence. Mr. Marchmont might have inscribed upon a very small scrap of +parchment the moral maxims by which he regulated his dealings with mankind.</p> + +<p>"Always conciliate," said this philosopher. "Never tell an unnecessary lie. +Be agreeable and generous to those who serve you. N.B. No good carpenter would +allow his tools to get rusty. Make yourself master of the opinions of others, +but hold your own tongue. Seek to obtain the maximum of enjoyment with the +minimum of risk."</p> + +<p>Such golden saws as these did Mr. Marchmont make for his own especial +guidance; and he hoped to pass smoothly onwards upon the railway of life, +riding in a first–class carriage, on the greased wheels of a very easy +conscience. As for any unfortunate fellow–travellers pitched out of the +carriage–window in the course of the journey, or left lonely and helpless +at desolate stations on the way, Providence, and not Mr. Marchmont, was +responsible for <em>their</em> welfare. Paul had a high appreciation of +Providence, and was fond of talking––very piously, as some people +said; very impiously, as others secretly thought––about the +inestimable Wisdom which governed all the affairs of this lower world. Nowhere, +according to the artist, had the hand of Providence been more clearly visible +than in this matter about Paul's poor little cousin Mary. If Providence had +intended John Marchmont's daughter to be a happy bride, a happy wife, the +prosperous mistress of that stately habitation, why all that sad business of +old Mr. Arundel's sudden illness, Edward's hurried journey, the railway +accident, and all the complications that had thereupon arisen? Nothing would +have been easier than for Providence to have prevented all this; and then he, +Paul, would have been still in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, patiently +waiting for a friendly lift upon the high–road of life. Nobody could say +that he had ever been otherwise than patient. Nobody could say that he had ever +intruded himself upon his rich cousins at the Towers, or had been heard to +speculate upon his possible inheritance of the estate; or that he had, in +short, done any thing but that which the best, truest, most conscientious and +disinterested of mankind should do.</p> + +<p>In the course of that bleak, frosty January, Mr. Marchmont sent his mother +and his sister Lavinia to make a call at the Grange. The Grange people had +never called upon Mrs. Marchmont; but Paul did not allow any flimsy ceremonial +law to stand in his way when he had a purpose to achieve. So the ladies went to +the Grange, and were politely received; for Miss Lawford and her mother were a +great deal too innocent and noble–minded to imagine that these +pale–faced, delicate–looking women could have had any part, either +directly or indirectly, in that cruel treatment which had driven Edward's young +wife from her home. Mrs. Marchmont and Mrs. Weston were kindly received, +therefore; and in a little conversation with Belinda about birds, and dahlias, +and worsted work, and the most innocent subjects imaginable, the wily Lavinia +contrived to lead up to Miss Letitia Arundel, and thence, by the easiest +conversational short–cut, to Edward and his lost wife. Mrs. Weston was +obliged to bring her cambric handkerchief out of her muff when she talked about +her cousin Mary; but she was a clever woman, and she had taken to heart Paul's +pet maxim about the folly of <em>unnecessary</em> lies; and she was so candid +as to entirely disarm Miss Lawford, who had a schoolgirlish notion that every +kind of hypocrisy and falsehood was outwardly visible in a servile and slavish +manner. She was not upon her guard against those practised adepts in the art of +deception, who have learnt to make that subtle admixture of truth and falsehood +which defies detection; like some fabrics in whose woof silk and cotton are so +cunningly blended that only a practised eye can discover the inferior +material.</p> + +<p>So when Lavinia dried her eyes and put her handkerchief back in her muff, +and said, betwixt laughing and crying,––</p> + +<p>"Now you know, my dear Miss Lawford, you mustn't think that I would for a +moment pretend to be sorry that my brother has come into this fortune. Of +course any such pretence as that would be ridiculous, and quite useless into +the bargain, as it isn't likely anybody would believe me. Paul is a dear, kind +creature, the best of brothers, the most affectionate of sons, and deserves any +good fortune that could fall to his lot; but I am truly sorry for that poor +little girl. I am truly sorry, believe me, Miss Lawford; and I only regret that +Mr. Weston and I did not come to Kemberling sooner, so that I might have been a +friend to the poor little thing; for then, you know, I might have prevented +that foolish runaway match, out of which almost all the poor child's troubles +arose. Yes, Miss Lawford; I wish I had been able to befriend that unhappy +child, although by my so doing Paul would have been kept out of the fortune he +now enjoys––for some time, at any rate. I say for some time, +because I do not believe that Mary Marchmont would have lived to be old, under +the happiest circumstances. Her mother died very young; and her father, and her +father's father, were consumptive."</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Weston took occasion, incidentally of course, to allude to her +brother's goodness; but even then she was on her guard, and took care not to +say too much.</p> + +<p>"The worst actors are those who over–act their parts." That was +another of Paul Marchmont's golden maxims.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what my brother may be to the rest of the world," Lavinia +said; "but I know how good he is to those who belong to him. I should be +ashamed to tell you all he has done for Mr. Weston and me. He gave me this +cashmere shawl at the beginning of the winter, and a set of sables fit for a +duchess; though I told him they were not at all the thing for a village +surgeon's wife, who keeps only one servant, and dusts her own best parlour."</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Marchmont talked of her son; with no loud enthusiasm, but with a +tone of quiet conviction that was worth any money to Paul. To have an innocent +person, some one not in the secret, to play a small part in the comedy of his +life, was a desideratum with the artist. His mother had always been this +person, this unconscious performer, instinctively falling into the action of +the play, and shedding real tears, and smiling actual smiles,––the +most useful assistant to a great schemer.</p> + +<p>But during the whole of the visit nothing was said as to Paul's conduct +towards his unhappy cousin; nothing was said either to praise or to exculpate; +and when Mrs. Marchmont and her daughter drove away, in one of the new +equipages which Paul had selected for his mother, they left only a vague +impression in Belinda's breast. She didn't quite know what to think. These +people were so frank and candid, they had spoken of Paul with such real +affection, that it was almost impossible to doubt them. Paul Marchmont might be +a bad man, but his mother and sister loved him, and surely they were ignorant +of his wickedness.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lawford troubled herself very little about this unexpected morning +call. She was an excellent, warm–hearted, domestic creature, and thought +a great deal more about the grand question as to whether she should have new +damask curtains for the drawing–room, or send the old ones to be dyed; or +whether she should withdraw her custom from the Kemberling grocer, whose "best +black" at four–and–sixpence was really now so very inferior; or +whether Belinda's summer silk dress could be cut down into a frock for Isabella +to wear in the winter evenings,––than about the rights or wrongs of +that story of the horsewhipping which had been administered to Mr. +Marchmont.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure those Marchmont–Towers people seem very nice, my dear," the +lady said to Belinda; "and I really wish your papa would go and dine there. You +know I like him to dine out a good deal in the winter, Linda; not that I want +to save the housekeeping money,––only it is so difficult to vary +the side–dishes for a man who has been accustomed to mess–dinners, +and a French cook."</p> + +<p>But Belinda stuck fast to her colours. She was a soldier's daughter, as her +father said, and she was almost as good as a son. The Major meant this latter +remark for very high praise; for the great grief of his life had been the want +of a boy's brave face at his fireside. She was as good as a son; that is to +say, she was braver and more outspoken than most women; although she was +feminine and gentle withal, and by no means strong–minded. She would have +fainted, perhaps, at the first sight of blood upon a battle–field; but +she would have bled to death with the calm heroism of a martyr, rather than +have been false to a noble cause.</p> + +<p>"I think papa is quite right not to go to Marchmont Towers, mamma," she +said; the artful minx omitted to state that it was by reason of her entreaties +her father had stayed away. "I think he is quite right. Mrs. Marchmont and Mrs. +Weston may be very nice, and of course it isn't likely <em>they</em> would be +cruel to poor young Mrs. Arundel; but I <em>know</em> that Mr. Marchmont must +have been unkind to that poor girl, or Mr. Arundel would never have done what +he did."</p> + +<p>It is in the nature of good and brave men to lay down their masculine rights +when they leave their hats in the hall, and to submit themselves meekly to +feminine government. It is only the whippersnapper, the sneak, the coward out +of doors who is a tyrant at home. See how meekly the Conqueror of Italy went +home to his charming Creole wife! See how pleasantly the Liberator of Italy +lolls in the carriage of his golden–haired Empress, when the young trees +in that fair wood beyond the triumphal arch are green in the bright spring +weather, and all the hired vehicles in Paris are making towards the cascade! +Major Lawford's wife was too gentle, and too busy with her store–room and +her domestic cares, to tyrannise over her lord and master; but the Major was +duly henpecked by his blue–eyed daughters, and went here and there as +they dictated.</p> + +<p>So he stayed away from Marchmont Towers to please Belinda; and only said, +"Haw," "Yes," "'Pon my honour, now!" "Bless my soul!" when his friends told him +of the magnificence of Paul's dinners.</p> + +<p>But although the Major and his eldest daughter did not encounter Mr. +Marchmont in his own house, they met him sometimes on the neutral ground of +other people's dining–rooms, and upon one especial evening at a pleasant +little dinner–party given by the rector of the parish in which the Grange +was situated.</p> + +<p>Paul made himself particularly agreeable upon this occasion; but in the +brief interval before dinner he was absorbed in a conversation with Mr. +Davenant, the rector, upon the subject of ecclesiastical +architecture,––he knew everything, and could talk about everything, +this dear Paul,––and made no attempt to approach Miss Lawford. He +only looked at her now and then, with a furtive, oblique glance out of his +almond–shaped, pale–grey eyes; a glance that was wisely hidden by +the light auburn lashes, for it had an unpleasant resemblance to the leer of an +evil–natured sprite. Mr. Marchmont contented himself with keeping this +furtive watch upon Belinda, while she talked gaily with the Rector's two +daughters in a pleasant corner near the piano. And as the artist took Mrs. +Davenant down to the dining–room, and sat next her at dinner, he had no +opportunity of fraternising with Belinda during that meal; for the young lady +was divided from him by the whole length of the table and, moreover, very much +occupied by the exclusive attentions of two callow–looking officers from +the nearest garrison–town, who were afflicted with extreme youth, and +were painfully conscious of their degraded state, but tried notwithstanding to +carry it off with a high hand, and affected the opinions of used–up +fifty.</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont had none of his womankind with him at this dinner; for his +mother and invalid sister had neither of them felt strong enough to come, and +Mr. and Mrs. Weston had not been invited. The artist's special object in coming +to this dinner was the conquest of Miss Belinda Lawford: she sided with Edward +Arundel against him: she must be made to believe Edward wrong, and himself +right; or she might go about spreading her opinions, and doing him mischief. +Beyond that, he had another idea about Belinda; and he looked to this dinner as +likely to afford him an opportunity of laying the foundation of a very +diplomatic scheme, in which Miss Lawford should unconsciously become his tool. +He was vexed at being placed apart from her at the dinner–table, but he +concealed his vexation; and he was aggravated by the Rector's +old–fashioned hospitality, which detained the gentlemen over their wine +for some time after the ladies left the dining–room. But the opportunity +that he wanted came nevertheless, and in a manner that he had not +anticipated.</p> + +<p>The two callow defenders of their country had sneaked out of the +dining–room, and rejoined the ladies in the cosy countrified +drawing–rooms. They had stolen away, these two young men; for they were +oppressed by the weight of a fearful secret. <em>They couldn't drink +claret!</em> No; they had tried to like it; they had smacked their lips and +winked their eyes––both at once, for even winking with <em>one</em> +eye is an accomplishment scarcely compatible with extreme +youth––over vintages that had seemed to them like a happy admixture +of red ink and green–gooseberry juice. They had perjured their boyish +souls with hideous falsehoods as to their appreciation of pale tawny port, +light dry wines, '42–ports, '45–ports, Kopke Roriz, Thompson and +Croft's, and Sandemann's; when, in the secret recesses of their minds, they +affected sweet and "slab" compounds, sold by publicans, and facetiously called +"Our prime old port, at four–and–sixpence." They were very young, +these beardless soldiers. They liked strawberry ices, and were on the verge of +insolvency from a predilection for clammy bath–buns, jam–tarts, and +cherry–brandy. They liked gorgeous waistcoats; and varnished boots in a +state of virgin brilliancy; and little bouquets in their button–holes; +and a deluge of <em>millefleurs</em> upon their flimsy handkerchiefs. They were +very young. The men they met at dinner–parties to–day had tipped +them at Eton or Woolwich only yesterday, as it seemed, and remembered it and +despised them. It was only a few months since they had been snubbed for calling +the Douro a mountain in Switzerland, and the Himalayas a cluster of islands in +the Pacific, at horrible examinations, in which the cold perspiration had +bedewed their pallid young cheeks. They were delighted to get away from those +elderly creatures in the Rector's dining–room to the snug little back +drawing–room, where Belinda Lawford and the two Misses Davenant were +murmuring softly in the firelight, like young turtles in a sheltered +dove–cote; while the matrons in the larger apartment sipped their coffee, +and conversed in low awful voices about the iniquities of housemaids, and the +insubordination of gardeners and grooms.</p> + +<p>Belinda and her two companions were very polite to the helpless young +wanderers from the dining–room; and they talked pleasantly enough of all +manner of things; until somehow or other the conversation came round to the +Marchmont–Towers scandal, and Edward's treatment of his lost wife's +kinsman.</p> + +<p>One of the young men had been present at the hunting–breakfast on that +bright October morning, and he was not a little proud of his superior +acquaintance with the whole business.</p> + +<p>"I was the–aw, Miss Lawford," he said. "I was on the tew–wace +after bweakfast,––and a vewy excellent bweakfast it was, I +ass–haw you; the still Moselle was weally admiwable, and Marchmont has +some Medewa that immeasuwably surpasses anything I can indooce my +wine–merchant to send me;––I was on the tew–wace, and I +saw Awundel comin' up the steps, awful pale, and gwasping his whip; and I was a +witness of all the west that occurred; and if I had been Marchmont I should +have shot Awundel befaw he left the pawk, if I'd had to swing for it, Miss +Lawford; for I should have felt, b'Jove, that my own sense of honaw demanded +the sacwifice. Howevaw, Marchmont seems a vewy good fella; so I suppose it's +all wight as far as he goes; but it was a bwutal business altogethaw, and that +fella Awundel must be a scoundwel."</p> + +<p>Belinda could not bear this. She had borne a great deal already. She had +been obliged to sit by very often, and hear Edward Arundel's conduct discussed +by Thomas, Richard, and Henry, or anybody else who chose to talk about it; and +she had been patient, and had held her peace, with her heart bumping +indignantly in her breast, and passionate crimson blushes burning her cheeks. +But she could <em>not</em> submit to hear a beardless, pale–faced, and +rather weak–eyed young ensign––who had never done any greater +service for his Queen and country than to cry "SHUDDRUPH!" to a detachment of +raw recruits in a barrack–yard, in the early bleakness of a winter's +morning––take upon himself to blame Edward Arundel, the brave +soldier, the noble Indian hero, the devoted lover and husband, the valiant +avenger of his dead wife's wrongs.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you know anything of the real story, Mr. Palliser," Belinda +said boldly to the half–fledged ensign. "If you did, I'm sure you would +admire Mr. Arundel's conduct instead of blaming it. Mr. Marchmont fully +deserved the disgrace which Edward––which Mr. Arundel inflicted +upon him."</p> + +<p>The words were still upon her lips, when Paul Marchmont himself came softly +through the flickering firelight to the low chair upon which Belinda sat. He +came behind her, and laying his hand lightly upon the scroll–work at the +back of her chair, bent over her, and said, in a low confidential +voice,––</p> + +<p>"You are a noble girl, Miss Lawford. I am sorry that you should think ill of +me: but I like you for having spoken so frankly. You are a most noble girl. You +are worthy to be your father's daughter."</p> + +<p>This was said with a tone of suppressed emotion; but it was quite a random +shot. Paul didn't know anything about the Major, except that he had a +comfortable income, drove a neat dog–cart, and was often seen riding on +the flat Lincolnshire roads with his eldest daughter. For all Paul knew to the +contrary, Major Lawford might have been the veriest bully and coward who ever +made those about him miserable; but Mr. Marchmont's tone as good as expressed +that he was intimately acquainted with the old soldier's career, and had long +admired and loved him. It was one of Paul's happy inspirations, this allusion +to Belinda's father; one of those bright touches of colour laid on with a +skilful recklessness, and giving sudden brightness to the whole picture; a +little spot of vermilion dabbed upon the canvas with the point of the +palette–knife, and lighting up all the landscape with sunshine.</p> + +<p>"You know my father?" said Belinda, surprised.</p> + +<p>"Who does not know him?" cried the artist. "Do you think, Miss Lawford, that +it is necessary to sit at a man's dinner–table before you know what he +is? I know your father to be a good man and a brave soldier, as well as I know +that the Duke of Wellington is a great general, though I never dined at Apsley +House. I respect your father, Miss Lawford; and I have been very much +distressed by his evident avoidance of me and mine."</p> + +<p>This was coming to the point at once. Mr. Marchmont's manner was candour +itself. Belinda looked at him with widely–opened, wondering eyes. She was +looking for the evidence of his wickedness in his face. I think she +half–expected that Mr. Marchmont would have corked eyebrows, and a +slouched hat, like a stage ruffian. She was so innocent, this simple young +Belinda, that she imagined wicked people must necessarily look wicked.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont saw the wavering of her mind in that half–puzzled +expression, and he went on boldly.</p> + +<p>"I like your father, Miss Lawford," he said; "I like him, and I respect him; +and I want to know him. Other people may misunderstand me, if they please. I +can't help their opinions. The truth is generally strongest in the end; and I +can afford to wait. But I can<em>not</em> afford to forfeit the friendship of a +man I esteem; I cannot afford to be misunderstood by your father, Miss Lawford; +and I have been very much pained––yes, very much +pained––by the manner in which the Major has repelled my little +attempts at friendliness."</p> + +<p>Belinda's heart smote her. She knew that it was her influence that had kept +her father away from Marchmont Towers. This young lady was very conscientious. +She was a Christian, too; and a certain sentence touching wrongful judgments +rose up against her while Mr. Marchmont was speaking. If she had wronged this +man; if Edward Arundel has been misled by his passionate grief for Mary; if she +had been deluded by Edward's error,––how very badly Mr. Marchmont +had been treated between them! She didn't say anything, but sat looking +thoughtfully at the fire; and Paul saw that she was more and more perplexed. +This was just what the artist wanted. To talk his antagonist into a state of +intellectual fog was almost always his manner of commencing an argument.</p> + +<p>Belinda was silent, and Paul seated himself in a chair close to hers. The +callow ensigns had gone into the lamp–lit front drawing–room, and +were busy turning over the leaves––and never turning them over at +the right moment––of a thundering duet which the Misses Davenant +were performing for the edification of their papa's visitors. Miss Lawford and +Mr. Marchmont were alone, therefore, in that cosy inner chamber, and a very +pretty picture they made: the rosy–cheeked girl and the pale, +sentimental–looking artist sitting side by side in the glow of the low +fire, with a background of crimson curtains and gleaming picture–frames; +winter flowers piled in grim Indian jars; the fitful light flickering now and +then upon one sharp angle of the high carved mantelpiece, with all its litter +of antique china; and the rest of the room in sombre shadow. Paul had the field +all to himself, and felt that victory would be easy. He began to talk about +Edward Arundel.</p> + +<p>If he had said one word against the young soldier, I think this impetuous +girl, who had not yet learned to count the cost of what she did, would have +been passionately eloquent in defence of her friend's brother––for +no other reason than that he was the brother of her friend, of course; what +other reason should she have for defending Mr. Arundel?</p> + +<p>But Paul Marchmont did not give her any occasion for indignation. On the +contrary, he spoke in praise of the hot–headed young soldier who had +assaulted him, making all manner of excuses for the young man's violence, and +using that tone of calm superiority with which a man of the world might +naturally talk about a foolish boy.</p> + +<p>"He has been very unreasonable, Miss Lawford," Paul said +by–and–by; "he has been very unreasonable, and has most grossly +insulted me. But, in spite of all, I believe him to be a very noble young +fellow, and I cannot find it in my heart to be really angry with him. What his +particular grievance against me may be, I really do not know."</p> + +<p>The furtive glance from the long narrow grey eyes kept close watch upon +Belinda's face as Paul said this. Mr. Marchmont wanted to ascertain exactly how +much Belinda knew of that grievance of Edward's; but he could see only +perplexity in her face. She knew nothing definite, therefore; she had only +heard Edward talk vaguely of his wrongs. Paul Marchmont was convinced of this; +and he went on boldly now, for he felt that the ground was all clear before +him.</p> + +<p>"This foolish young soldier chooses to be angry with me because of a +calamity which I was as powerless to avert, as to prevent that accident upon +the South–Western Railway by which Mr. Arundel so nearly lost his life. I +cannot tell you how sincerely I regret the misconception that has arisen in his +mind. Because I have profited by the death of John Marchmont's daughter, this +impetuous young husband imagines––what? I cannot answer that +question; nor can he himself, it seems, since he has made no definite statement +of his wrongs to any living being."</p> + +<p>The artist looked more sharply than ever at Belinda's listening face. There +was no change in its expression; the same wondering look, the same +perplexity,––that was all.</p> + +<p>"When I say that I regret the young man's folly, Miss Lawford," Paul +continued, "believe me, it is chiefly on his account rather than my own. Any +insult which he can inflict upon me can only rebound upon himself, since +everybody in Lincolnshire knows that I am in the right, and he in the +wrong."</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont was going on very smoothly; but at this point Miss Lawford, +who had by no means deserted her colours, interrupted his easy progress.</p> + +<p>"It remains to be proved who is right and who wrong, Mr. Marchmont," she +said. "Mr. Arundel is the brother of my friend. I cannot easily believe him to +have done wrong."</p> + +<p>Paul looked at her with a smile––a smile that brought hot +blushes to her face; but she returned his look without flinching. The brave +girl looked full into the narrow grey eyes sheltered under pale auburn lashes, +and her steadfast gaze did not waver.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Miss Lawford," said the artist, still smiling, "when a young man is +handsome, chivalrous, and generous–hearted, it is very difficult to +convince a woman that he can do wrong. Edward Arundel has done wrong. His +ultra–quixotism has made him blind to the folly of his own acts. I can +afford to forgive him. But I repeat that I regret his infatuation about this +poor lost girl far more upon his account than on my own; for I +know––at least I venture to think––that a way lies open +to him of a happier and a better life than he could ever have known with my +poor childish cousin Mary Marchmont. I have reason to know that he has formed +another attachment, and that it is only a chivalrous delusion about that poor +girl––whom he was never really in love with, and whom he only +married because of some romantic notion inspired by my cousin +John––that withholds him from that other and brighter prospect."</p> + +<p>He was silent for a few moments, and then he said hastily,––</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, Miss Lawford; I have been betrayed into saying much that I had +better have left unsaid, more especially to you. +I––––"</p> + +<p>He hesitated a little, as if embarrassed; and then rose and looked into the +next room, where the duet had been followed by a solo.</p> + +<p>One of the Rector's daughters came towards the inner drawing–room, +followed by a callow ensign.</p> + +<p>"We want Belinda to sing," exclaimed Miss Davenant. "We want you to sing, +you tiresome Belinda, instead of hiding yourself in that dark room all the +evening."</p> + +<p>Belinda came out of the darkness, with her cheeks flushed and her eyelids +drooping. Her heart was beating so fast as to make it quite impossible to speak +just yet, or to sing either. But she sat down before the piano, and, with hands +that trembled in spite of herself, began to play one of her pet sonatas.</p> + +<p>Unhappily, Beethoven requires precision of touch in the pianist who is bold +enough to seek to interpret him; and upon this occasion I am compelled to admit +that Miss Lawford's fingering was eccentric, not to say +ridiculous,––in common parlance, she made a mess of it; and just as +she was going to break down, friendly Clara Davenant cried +out,––</p> + +<p>"That won't do, Belinda! We want you to sing, not to play. You are trying to +cheat us. We would rather have one of Moore's melodies than all Beethoven's +sonatas."</p> + +<p>So Miss Lawford, still blushing, with her eyelids still drooping, played Sir +John Stevenson's simple symphony, and in a fresh swelling voice, that filled +the room with melody, began:</p> + +<p>"Oh, the days are gone when beauty bright<br /> +My heart's chain wove;<br /> +When my dream of life, from morn till night,<br /> +Was love, still love!"</p> + +<p>And Paul Marchmont, sitting at the other end of the room turning over Miss +Davenant's scrap–book, looked up through his auburn lashes, and smiled at +the beaming face of the singer. He felt that he had improved the occasion.</p> + +<p>"I am not afraid of Miss Lawford now," he thought to himself.</p> + +<p>This candid, fervent girl was only another piece in the schemer's game of +chess; and he saw a way of making her useful in the attainment of that great +end which, in the strange simplicity of cunning, he believed to be the one +purpose of <em>every</em> man's +life,––Self–Aggrandisement.</p> + +<p>It never for a moment entered into his mind that Edward Arundel was any more +<em>real</em> than he was himself. There can be no perfect comprehension where +there is no sympathy. Paul believed that Edward had tried to become master of +Mary Marchmont's heritage; and had failed; and was angry because of his +failure. He believed this passionate young man to be a schemer like himself; +only a little more impetuous and blundering in his manner of going to work.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER31" id="CHAPTER31">CHAPTER V.<br /> +THE RETURN OF THE WANDERER.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>The March winds were blowing amongst the oaks in Dangerfield Park, when +Edward Arundel went back to the house which had never been his home since his +boyhood. He went back because he had grown weary of lonely wanderings in that +strange Breton country. He had grown weary of himself and of his own thoughts. +He was worn out by the eager desire that devoured him by day and by +night,––the passionate yearning to be far away beyond that low +Eastern horizon line; away amid the carnage and riot of an Indian +battle–field.</p> + +<p>So he went back at last to his mother, who had written to him again and +again, imploring him to return to her, and to rest, and to be happy in the +familiar household where he was beloved. He left his luggage at the little inn +where the coach that had brought him from Exeter stopped, and then he walked +quietly homewards in the gloaming. The early spring evening was bleak and +chill. The blacksmith's fire roared at him as he went by the smithy. All the +lights in the queer latticed windows twinkled and blinked at him, as if in +friendly welcome to the wanderer. He remembered them all: the quaint, +misshapen, lopsided roofs; the tumble–down chimneys; the low doorways, +that had sunk down below the level of the village street, until all the front +parlours became cellars, and strange pedestrians butted their heads against the +flower–pots in the bedroom windows; the withered iron frame and pitiful +oil–lamp hung out at the corner of the street, and making a faint spot of +feeble light upon the rugged pavement; mysterious little shops in +diamond–paned parlour windows, where Dutch dolls and stationery, stale +gingerbread and pickled cabbage, were mixed up with wooden pegtops, squares of +yellow soap, rickety paper kites, green apples, and string; they were all +familiar to him.</p> + +<p>It had been a fine thing once to come into this village with Letitia, and +buy stale gingerbread and rickety kites of a snuffy old pensioner of his +mother's. The kites had always stuck in the upper branches of the oaks, and the +gingerbread had invariably choked him; but with the memory of the kites and +gingerbread came back all the freshness of his youth, and he looked with a +pensive tenderness at the homely little shops, the merchandise flickering in +the red firelight, that filled each quaint interior with a genial glow of +warmth and colour.</p> + +<p>He passed unquestioned by a wicket at the side of the great gates. The +firelight was rosy in the windows of the lodge, and he heard a woman's voice +singing a monotonous song to a sleepy child. Everywhere in this pleasant +England there seemed to be the glow of cottage–fires, and friendliness, +and love, and home. The young man sighed as he remembered that great stone +mansion far away in dismal Lincolnshire, and thought how happy he might have +been in this bleak spring twilight, if he could have sat by Mary Marchmont's +side in the western drawing–room, watching the firelight and the shadows +trembling on her fair young face.</p> + +<p>It never had been; and it never was to be. The happiness of a home; the +sweet sense of ownership; the delight of dispensing pleasure to others; all the +simple domestic joys which make life beautiful,––had never been +known to John Marchmont's daughter, since that early time in which she shared +her father's lodging in Oakley Street, and went out in the cold December +morning to buy rolls for Edward Arundel's breakfast. From the bay–window +of his mother's favourite sitting–room the same red light that he had +seen in every lattice in the village streamed out upon the growing darkness of +the lawn. There was a half–glass door leading into a little lobby near +this sitting–room. Edward Arundel opened it and went in, very quietly. He +expected to find his mother and his sister in the room with the +bay–window.</p> + +<p>The door of this familiar apartment was ajar; he pushed it open, and went +in. It was a very pretty room, and all the womanly litter of open books and +music, needlework and drawing materials, made it homelike. The firelight +flickered upon everything––on the pictures and +picture–frames, the black oak paneling, the open piano, a cluster of +snowdrops in a tall glass on the table, the scattered worsteds by the +embroidery–frame, the sleepy dogs upon the hearth–rug. A young lady +stood in the bay–window with her back to the fire. Edward Arundel crept +softly up to her, and put his arm round her waist.</p> + +<p>"Letty!"</p> + +<p>It was not Letitia, but a young lady with very blue eyes, who blushed +scarlet, and turned upon the young man rather fiercely; and then recognising +him, dropped into the nearest chair and began to tremble and grow pale.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry I startled you, Miss Lawford," Edward said, gently; "I really +thought you were my sister. I did not even know that you were here."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not. I––you didn't startle me much, Mr. Arundel; +only you were not expected home. I thought you were far away in Brittany. I had +no idea that there was any chance of your returning. I thought you meant to be +away all the summer––Mrs. Arundel told me so."</p> + +<p>Belinda Lawford said all this in that fresh girlish voice which was familiar +to Mr. Arundel; but she was still very pale, and she still trembled a little, +and there was something almost apologetic in the way in which she assured +Edward that she had believed he would be abroad throughout the summer. It +seemed almost as if she had said: "I did not come here because I thought I +should see you. I had no thought or hope of meeting you."</p> + +<p>But Edward Arundel was not a coxcomb, and he was very slow to understand any +such signs as these. He saw that he had startled the young lady, and that she +had turned pale and trembled as she recognised him; and he looked at her with a +half–wondering, half–pensive expression in his face.</p> + +<p>She blushed as he looked at her. She went to the table and began to gather +together the silks and worsteds, as if the arrangement of her workbasket were a +matter of vital importance, to be achieved at any sacrifice of politeness. +Then, suddenly remembering that she ought to say something to Mr. Arundel, she +gave evidence of the originality of her intellect by the following remark:</p> + +<p>"How surprised Mrs. Arundel and Letitia will be to see you!"</p> + +<p>Even as she said this her eyes were still bent upon the skeins of worsted in +her hand.</p> + +<p>"Yes; I think they will be surprised. I did not mean to come home until the +autumn. But I got so tired of wandering about a strange country alone. Where +are they––my mother and Letitia?"</p> + +<p>"They have gone down the village, to the school. They will be back to tea. +Your brother is away; and we dine at three o'clock, and drink tea at eight. It +is so much pleasanter than dining late."</p> + +<p>This was quite an effort of genius; and Miss Lawford went on sorting the +skeins of worsted in the firelight. Edward Arundel had been standing all this +time with his hat in his hand, almost as if he had been a visitor making a late +morning call upon Belinda; but he put his hat down now, and seated himself near +the table by which the young lady stood, busy with the arrangement of her +workbasket.</p> + +<p>Her heart was beating very fast, and she was straining her arithmetical +powers to the uttermost, in the endeavour to make a very abstruse calculation +as to the time in which Mrs. Arundel and Letitia could walk to the village +schoolhouse and back to Dangerfield, and the delay that might arise by reason +of sundry interruptions from obsequious gaffers and respectful goodies, eager +for a word of friendly salutation from their patroness.</p> + +<p>The arrangement of the workbasket could not last for ever. It had become the +most pitiful pretence by the time Miss Lawford shut down the wicker lid, and +seated herself primly in a low chair by the fireplace. She sat looking down at +the fire, and twisting a slender gold chain in and out between her smooth white +fingers. She looked very pretty in that fitful firelight, with her waving brown +hair pushed off her forehead, and her white eyelids hiding the tender blue +eyes. She sat twisting the chain in her fingers, and dared not lift her eyes to +Mr. Arundel's face; and if there had been a whole flock of geese in the room, +she could not have said "Bo!" to one of them.</p> + +<p>And yet she was not a stupid girl. Her father could have indignantly refuted +any such slander as that against the azure–eyed Hebe who made his home +pleasant to him. To the Major's mind Belinda was all that man could desire in +the woman of his choice, whether as daughter or wife. She was the bright genius +of the old man's home, and he loved her with that chivalrous devotion which is +common to brave soldiers, who are the simplest and gentlest of men when you +chain them to their firesides, and keep them away from the din of the camp and +the confusion of the transport–ship.</p> + +<p>Belinda Lawford was clever; but only just clever enough to be charming. I +don't think she could have got through "Paradise Lost," or Gibbon's "Decline +and Fall," or a volume by Adam Smith or McCulloch, though you had promised her +a diamond necklace when she came conscientiously to "Finis." But she could read +Shakespeare for the hour together, and did read him aloud to her father in a +fresh, clear voice, that was like music on the water. And she read Macaulay's +"History of England," with eyes that kindled with indignation against cowardly, +obstinate James, or melted with pity for poor weak foolish Monmouth, as the +case might be. She could play Mendelssohn and Beethoven,––plaintive +sonatas; tender songs, that had no need of words to expound the mystic meaning +of the music. She could sing old ballads and Irish melodies, that thrilled the +souls of those who heard her, and made hard men pitiful to brazen Hibernian +beggars in the London streets for the memory of that pensive music. She could +read the leaders in the "Times," with no false quantities in the Latin +quotations, and knew what she was reading about; and had her favourites at St. +Stephen's; and adored Lord Palmerston, and was liberal to the core of her +tender young heart. She was as brave as a true Englishwoman should be, and +would have gone to the wars with her old father, and served him as his page; or +would have followed him into captivity, and tended him in prison, if she had +lived in the days when there was such work for a high–spirited girl to +do.</p> + +<p>But she sat opposite Mr. Edward Arundel, and twisted her chain round her +fingers, and listened for the footsteps of the returning mistress of the house. +She was like a bashful schoolgirl who has danced with an officer at her first +ball. And yet amidst her shy confusion, her fears that she should seem agitated +and embarrassed, her struggles to appear at her ease, there was a sort of +pleasure in being seated there by the low fire with Edward Arundel opposite to +her. There was a strange pleasure, an almost painful pleasure, mingled with her +feelings in those quiet moments. She was acutely conscious of every sound that +broke the stillness––the sighing of the wind in the wide chimney; +the falling of the cinders on the hearth; the occasional snort of one of the +sleeping dogs; and the beating of her own restless heart. And though she dared +not lift her eyelids to the young soldier's face, that handsome, earnest +countenance, with the chestnut hair lit up with gleams of gold, the firm lips +shaded by a brown moustache, the pensive smile, the broad white forehead, the +dark–blue handkerchief tied loosely under a white collar, the careless +grey travelling–dress, even the attitude of the hand and arm, the bent +head drooping a little over the fire,––were as present to her inner +sight as if her eyes had kept watch all this time, and had never wavered in +their steady gaze.</p> + +<p>There is a second–sight that is not recognised by grave professors of +magic––a second–sight which common people call Love.</p> + +<p>But by–and–by Edward began to talk, and then Miss Lawford found +courage, and took heart to question him about his wanderings in Brittany. She +had only been a few weeks in Devonshire, she said. Her thoughts went back to +the dreary autumn in Lincolnshire as she spoke; and she remembered the dull +October day upon which her father had come into the girl's morning–room +at the Grange with Edward's farewell letter in his hand. She remembered this, +and all the talk that there had been about the horsewhipping of Mr. Paul +Marchmont upon his own threshold. She remembered all the warm discussions, the +speculations, the ignorant conjectures, the praise, the blame; and how it had +been her business to sit by and listen and hold her peace, except upon that one +never–to–be–forgotten night at the Rectory, when Paul +Marchmont had hinted at something whose perfect meaning she had never dared to +imagine, but which had, somehow or other, mingled vaguely with all her +day–dreams ever since.</p> + +<p>Was there any truth in that which Paul Marchmont had said to her? Was it +true that Edward Arundel had never really loved his young bride?</p> + +<p>Letitia had said as much, not once, but twenty times.</p> + +<p>"It's quite ridiculous to suppose that he could have ever been in love with +the poor, dear, sickly thing," Miss Arundel had exclaimed; "it was only the +absurd romance of the business that captivated him; for Edward is really +ridiculously romantic, and her father having been a +supernumer––(it's no use, I don't think anybody ever did know how +many syllables there are in that word)––and having lived in Oakley +Street, and having written a pitiful letter to Edward, about this motherless +daughter and all that sort of thing, just like one of those tiresome old novels +with a baby left at a cottage–door, and all the <em>s's</em> looking like +<em>f's</em>, and the last word of one page repeated at the top of the next +page, and printed upon thick yellow–looking ribbed paper, you know. +<em>That</em> was why my brother married Miss Marchmont, you may depend upon +it, Linda; and all I hope is, that he'll be sensible enough to marry again +soon, and to have a Christianlike wedding, with carriages, and a breakfast, and +two clergymen; and <em>I</em> should wear white glacé silk, with tulle +puffings, and a tulle bonnet (I suppose I must wear a bonnet, being only a +bridesmaid?), all showered over with clematis, as if I'd stood under a +clematis–bush when the wind was blowing, you know, Linda."</p> + +<p>With such discourse as this Miss Arundel had frequently entertained her +friend; and she had indulged in numerous inuendoes of an embarrassing nature as +to the propriety of old friends and schoolfellows being united by the endearing +tie of sister–in–lawhood, and other observations to the like +effect.</p> + +<p>Belinda knew that if Edward ever came to love her,––whenever she +did venture to speculate upon such a chance, she never dared to come at all +near it, but thought of it as a thing that might come to pass in half a century +or so––if he should choose her for his second wife, she knew that +she would be gladly and tenderly welcomed at Dangerfield. Mrs. Arundel had +hinted as much as this. Belinda knew how anxiously that loving mother hoped +that her son might, by–and–by, form new ties, and cease to lead a +purposeless life, wasting his brightest years in lamentations for his lost +bride: she knew all this; and sitting opposite to the young man in the +firelight, there was a dull pain at her heart; for there was something in the +soldier's sombre face that told her he had not yet ceased to lament that +irrevocable past.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Arundel and Letitia came in presently, and gave utterance to loud +rejoicings; and preparations were made for the physical comfort of the +wanderer,––bells were rung, lighted wax–candles and a +glittering tea–service were brought in, a cloth was laid, and cold meats +and other comestibles spread forth, with that profusion which has made the west +country as proverbial as the north for its hospitality. I think Miss Lawford +would have sat opposite the traveller for a week without asking any such +commonplace question as to whether Mr. Arundel required refreshment. She had +read in her Hort's "Pantheon" that the gods sometimes ate and drank like +ordinary mortals; yet it had never entered into her mind that Edward could be +hungry. But she now had the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Arundel eat a very good +dinner; while she herself poured out the tea, to oblige Letitia, who was in the +middle of the third volume of a new novel, and went on reading it as coolly as +if there had been no such person as that handsome young soldier in the +world.</p> + +<p>"The books must go back to the club to–morrow morning, you know, mamma +dear, or I wouldn't read at tea–time," the young lady remarked +apologetically. "I want to know whether <em>he'll</em> marry Theodora or that +nasty Miss St. Ledger. Linda thinks he'll marry Miss St. Ledger, and be +miserable, and Theodora will die. I believe Linda likes love–stories to +end unhappily. I don't. I hope if he <em>does</em> marry Miss St. +Ledger––and he'll be a wicked wretch if he does, after the +<em>things</em> he has said to Theodora––I hope, if he does, she'll +die––catch cold at a <em>déjeuner</em> at Twickenham, or something +of that kind, you know; and then he'll marry Theodora afterwards, and all will +end happily. Do you know, Linda, I always fancy that you're like Theodora, and +that Edward's like <em>him</em>."</p> + +<p>After which speech Miss Arundel went back to her book, and Edward helped +himself to a slice of tongue rather awkwardly, and Belinda Lawford, who had her +hand upon the urn, suffered the teapot to overflow amongst the cups and +saucers.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER32" id="CHAPTER32">CHAPTER VI.<br /> +A WIDOWER'S PROPOSAL.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>For some time after his return Edward Arundel was very restless and gloomy: +roaming about the country by himself, under the influence of a pretended +passion for pedestrianism; reading hard for the first time in his life, +shutting himself in his dead father's library, and sitting hour after hour in a +great easy–chair, reading the histories of all the wars that have ever +ravaged this earth––from the days in which the elephants of a +Carthaginian ruler trampled upon the soldiery of Rome, to the era of that +Corsican barrister's wonderful son, who came out of his simple island home to +conquer the civilised half of a world.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel showed himself a very indifferent brother; for, do what she +would, Letitia could not induce him to join in any of her pursuits. She caused +a butt to be set up upon the lawn; but all she could say about Belinda's "best +gold" could not bring the young man out upon the grass to watch the two girls +shooting. He looked at them by stealth sometimes through the window of the +library, and sighed as he thought of the blight upon his manhood, and of all +the things that might have been.</p> + +<p>Might not these things even yet come to pass? Had he not done his duty to +the dead; and was he not free now to begin a fresh life? His mother was +perpetually hinting at some bright prospect that lay smiling before him, if he +chose to take the blossom–bestrewn path that led to that fair country. +His sister told him still more plainly of a prize that was within his reach, if +he were but brave enough to stretch out his hand and claim the precious +treasure for his own. But when he thought of all this,––when he +pondered whether it would not be wise to drop the dense curtain of +forgetfulness over that sad picture of the past,––whether it would +not be well to let the dead bury their dead, and to accept that other blessing +which the same Providence that had blighted his first hope seemed to offer to +him now,––the shadowy phantom of John Marchmont arose out of the +mystic realms of the dead, and a ghostly voice cried to him, "I charged you +with my daughter's safe keeping; I trusted you with her innocent love; I gave +you the custody of her helplessness. What have you done to show yourself worthy +of my faith in you?"</p> + +<p>These thoughts tormented the young widower perpetually, and deprived him of +all pleasure in the congenial society of his sister and Belinda Lawford; or +infused so sharp a flavour of remorse into his cup of enjoyment, that pleasure +was akin to pain.</p> + +<p>So I don't know how it was that, in the dusky twilight of a bright day in +early May, nearly two months after his return to Dangerfield, Edward Arundel, +coming by chance upon Miss Lawford as she sat alone in the deep +bay–window where he had found her on his first coming, confessed to her +the terrible struggle of feeling that made the great trouble of his life, and +asked her if she was willing to accept a love which, in its warmest fervour, +was not quite unclouded by the shadows of the sorrowful past.</p> + +<p>"I love you dearly, Linda," he said; "I love, I esteem, I admire you; and I +know that it is in your power to give me the happiest future that ever a man +imagined in his youngest, brightest dreams. But if you do accept my love, dear, +you must take my memory with it. I cannot forget, Linda. I have tried to +forget. I have prayed that God, in His mercy, might give me forgetfulness of +that irrevocable past. But the prayer has never been granted; the boon has +never been bestowed. I think that love for the living and remorse for the dead +must for ever reign side by side in my heart. It is no falsehood to you that +makes me remember her; it is no forgetfulness of her that makes me love you. I +offer my brighter and happier self to you, Belinda; I consecrate my sorrow and +my tears to her. I love you with all my heart, Belinda; but even for the sake +of your love I will not pretend that I can forget her. If John Marchmont's +daughter had died with her head upon my breast, and a prayer on her lips, I +might have regretted her as other men regret their wives; and I might have +learned by–and–by to look back upon my grief with only a tender and +natural regret, that would have left my future life unclouded. But it can never +be so. The poison of remorse is blended with that sorrowful memory. If I had +done otherwise,––if I had been wiser and more +thoughtful,––my darling need never have suffered; my darling need +never have sinned. It is the thought that her death may have been a sinful one, +that is most cruel to me, Belinda. I have seen her pray, with her pale earnest +face uplifted, and the light of faith shining in her gentle eyes; I have seen +the inspiration of God upon her face; and I cannot bear to think that, in the +darkness that came down upon her young life, that holy light was quenched; I +cannot bear to think that Heaven was ever deaf to the pitiful cry of my +innocent lamb."</p> + +<p>And here Mr. Arundel paused, and sat silently, looking out at the long +shadows of the trees upon the darkening lawn; and I fear that, for the time +being, he forgot that he had just made Miss Lawford an offer of his hand, and +so much of his heart as a widower may be supposed to have at his disposal.</p> + +<p>Ah me! we can only live and die <em>once</em>. There are some things, and +those the most beautiful of all things, that can never be renewed: the bloom on +a butterfly's wing; the morning dew upon a newly–blown rose; our first +view of the ocean; our first pantomime, when all the fairies were fairies for +ever, and when the imprudent consumption of the contents of a pewter +quart–measure in sight of the stage–box could not disenchant us +with that elfin creature, Harlequin the graceful, faithful betrothed of +Columbine the fair. The firstlings of life are most precious. When the black +wing of the angel of death swept over agonised Egypt, and the children were +smitten, offended Heaven, eager for a sacrifice, took the firstborn. The young +mothers would have other children, perhaps; but between those others and the +mother's love there would be the pale shadow of that lost darling whose tiny +hands <em>first</em> drew undreamed–of melodies from the sleeping chords, +<em>first</em> evoked the slumbering spirit of maternal love. Amongst the later +lines––the most passionate, the most sorrowful––that +George Gordon Noel Byron wrote, are some brief verses that breathed a lament +for the lost freshness, the never–to–be–recovered youth.</p> + +<p>"Oh, could I feel as I have felt; or be what I have been;<br /> +Or weep as I could once have wept!"</p> + +<p>cried the poet, when he complained of that "mortal coldness of the soul," +which is "like death itself." It is a pity certainly that so great a man should +die in the prime of life; but if Byron had survived to old age after writing +these lines, he would have been a living anticlimax. When a man writes that +sort of poetry he pledges himself to die young.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel had grown to love Belinda Lawford unconsciously, and in spite +of himself; but the first love of his heart, the first fruit of his youth, had +perished. He could not feel quite the same devotion, the same boyish chivalry, +that he had felt for the innocent bride who had wandered beside him in the +sheltered meadows near Winchester. He might begin a <em>new</em> life, but he +could not live the <em>old</em> life over again. He must wear his rue with a +difference this time. But he loved Belinda very dearly, nevertheless; and he +told her so, and by–and–by won from her a tearful avowal of +affection.</p> + +<p>Alas! she had no power to question the manner of his wooing. He loved +her––he had said as much; and all the good she had desired in this +universe became hers from the moment of Edward Arundel's utterance of those +words. He loved her; that was enough. That he should cherish a remorseful +sorrow for that lost wife, made him only the truer, nobler, and dearer in +Belinda's sight. She was not vain, or exacting, or selfish. It was not in her +nature to begrudge poor dead Mary the tender thoughts of her husband. She was +generous, impulsive, believing; and she had no more inclination to doubt +Edward's love for her, after he had once avowed such a sentiment, than to +disbelieve in the light of heaven when she saw the sun shining. Unquestioning, +and unutterably happy, she received her lover's betrothal kiss, and went with +him to his mother, blushing and trembling, to receive that lady's blessing.</p> + +<p>"Ah, if you knew how I have prayed for this, Linda!" Mrs. Arundel exclaimed, +as she folded the girl's slight figure in her arms.</p> + +<p>"And I shall wear white glacé with pinked flounces, instead of tulle +puffings, you sly Linda," cried Letitia.</p> + +<p>"And I'll give Ted the home–farm, and the white house to live in, if +he likes to try his hand at the new system of farming," said Reginald Arundel, +who had come home from the Continent, and had amused himself for the last week +by strolling about his estate and staring at his timber, and almost wishing +that there was a necessity for cutting down all the oaks in the avenue, so that +he might have something to occupy him until the 12th of August.</p> + +<p>Never was promised bride more welcome to a household than bright Belinda +Lawford; and as for the young lady herself, I must confess that she was almost +childishly happy, and that it was all that she could do to prevent her light +step from falling into a dance as she floated hither and thither through the +house at Dangerfield,––a fresh young Hebe in crisp muslin robes; a +gentle goddess, with smiles upon her face and happiness in her heart.</p> + +<p>"I loved you from the first, Edward," she whispered one day to her lover. "I +knew that you were good, and brave, and noble; and I loved you because of +that."</p> + +<p>And a little for the golden glimmer in his clustering curls; and a little +for his handsome profile, his flashing eyes, and that distinguished air +peculiar to the defenders of their country; more especially peculiar, perhaps, +to those who ride on horseback when they sally forth to defend her. Once a +soldier for ever a soldier, I think. You may rob the noble warrior of his +uniform, if you will; but the <em>je ne sais quoi</em>, the nameless air of the +"long–sword, saddle, bridle," will hang round him still.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arundel and Letitia took matters quite out of the hands of the two +lovers. The elderly lady fixed the wedding–day, by agreement with Major +Lawford, and sketched out the route for the wedding–tour. The younger +lady chose the fabrics for the dresses of the bride and her attendants; and all +was done before Edward and Belinda well knew what their friends were about. I +think that Mrs. Arundel feared her son might change his mind if matters were +not brought swiftly to a climax, and that she hurried on the irrevocable day in +order that he might have no breathing time until the vows had been spoken and +Belinda Lawford was his wedded wife. It had been arranged that Edward should +escort Belinda back to Lincolnshire, and that his mother and Letitia, who was +to be chief bridesmaid, should go with them. The marriage was to be solemnised +at Hillingsworth church, which was within a mile and a half of the Grange.</p> + +<p>The 1st of July was the day appointed by agreement between Major and Mrs. +Lawford and Mrs. Arundel; and on the 18th of June Edward was to accompany his +mother, Letitia, and Belinda to London. They were to break the journey by +stopping in town for a few days, in order to make a great many purchases +necessary for Miss Lawford's wedding paraphernalia, for which the Major had +sent a bouncing cheque to his favourite daughter.</p> + +<p>And all this time the only person at all unsettled, the only person whose +mind was ill at ease, was Edward Arundel, the young widower who was about to +take to himself a second wife. His mother, who watched him with a maternal +comprehension of every change in his face, saw this, and trembled for her son's +happiness.</p> + +<p>"And yet he cannot be otherwise than happy with Belinda Lawford," Mrs. +Arundel thought to herself.</p> + +<p>But upon the eve of that journey to London Edward sat alone with his mother +in the drawing–room at Dangerfield, after the two younger ladies had +retired for the night. They slept in adjoining apartments, these two young +ladies; and I regret to say that a great deal of their conversation was about +Valenciennes lace, and flounces cut upon the cross, moire antique, mull muslin, +glacé silk, and the last "sweet thing" in bonnets. It was only when loquacious +Letitia was shut out that Miss Lawford knelt alone in the still moonlight, and +prayed that she might be a good wife to the man who had chosen her. I don't +think she ever prayed that she might be faithful and true and pure; for it +never entered into her mind that any creature bearing the sacred name of wife +could be otherwise. She only prayed for the mysterious power to preserve her +husband's affection, and make his life happy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Arundel, sitting <em>tête–à–tête</em> with her younger son +in the lamp–lit drawing–room, was startled by hearing the young man +breathe a deep sigh. She looked up from her work to see a sadder expression in +his face than perhaps ever clouded the countenance of an expectant +bridegroom.</p> + +<p>"Edward!" she exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"What, mother?"</p> + +<p>"How heavily you sighed just now!"</p> + +<p>"Did I?" said Mr. Arundel, abstractedly. Then, after a brief pause, he said, +in a different tone, "It is no use trying to hide these things from you, +mother. The truth is, I am not happy."</p> + +<p>"Not happy, Edward!" cried Mrs. Arundel; "but surely +you––––?"</p> + +<p>"I know what you are going to say, mother. Yes, mother, I love this dear +girl Linda with all my heart; I love her most sincerely; and I could look +forward to a life of unalloyed happiness with her, if––if there was +not some inexplicable dread, some vague and most miserable feeling always +coming between me and my hopes. I have tried to look forward to the future, +mother; I have tried to think of what my life may be with Belinda; but I +cannot, I cannot. I cannot look forward; all is dark to me. I try to build up a +bright palace, and an unknown hand shatters it. I try to turn away from the +memory of my old sorrows; but the same hand plucks me back, and chains me to +the past. If I could retract what I have done; if I could, with any show of +honour, draw back, even now, and not go upon this journey to Lincolnshire; if I +<em>could</em> break my faith to this poor girl who loves me, and whom I love, +as God knows, with all truth and earnestness, I would do so––I +would do so."</p> + +<p>"Edward!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother; I would do it. It is not in me to forget. My dead wife haunts +me by night and day. I hear her voice crying to me, 'False, false, false; cruel +and false; heartless and forgetful!' There is never a night that I do not dream +of that dark sluggish river down in Lincolnshire. There is never a dream that I +have––however purposeless, however inconsistent in all its other +details––in which I do not see <em>her</em> dead face looking up at +me through the murky waters. Even when I am talking to Linda, when words of +love for her are on my lips, my mind wanders away, back––always +back––to the sunset by the boat–house, when my little wife +gave me her hand; to the trout–stream in the meadow, where we sat side by +side and talked about the future."</p> + +<p>For a few minutes Mrs. Arundel was quite silent. She abandoned herself for +that brief interval to complete despair. It was all over. The bridegroom would +cry off; insulted Major Lawford would come post–haste to Dangerfield, to +annihilate this dismal widower, who did not know his own mind. All the +shimmering fabrics––the gauzes, and laces, and silks, and +velvets––that were in course of preparation in the upper chambers +would become so much useless finery, to be hidden in +out–of–the–way cupboards, and devoured by misanthropical +moths,––insect iconoclasts, who take a delight in destroying the +decorations of the human temple.</p> + +<p>Poor Mrs. Arundel took a mental photograph of all the complicated horrors of +the situation. An offended father; a gentle, loving girl crushed like some +broken lily; gossip, slander; misery of all kinds. And then the lady plucked up +courage and gave her recreant son a sound lecture, to the effect that this +conduct was atrociously wicked; and that if this trusting young bride, this +fair young second wife, were to be taken away from him as the first had been, +such a calamity would only be a fitting judgment upon him for his folly.</p> + +<p>But Edward told his mother, very quietly, that he had no intention of being +false to his newly–plighted troth.</p> + +<p>"I love Belinda," he said; "and I will be true to her, mother. But I cannot +forget the past; it hangs about me like a bad dream."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER33" id="CHAPTER33">CHAPTER VII.<br /> +HOW THE TIDINGS WERE RECEIVED IN LINCOLNSHIRE.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>The young widower made no further lamentation, but did his duty to his +betrothed bride with a cheerful visage. Ah! what a pleasant journey it was to +Belinda, that progress through London on the way to Lincolnshire! It was like +that triumphant journey of last March, when the Royal bridegroom led his +Northern bride through a surging sea of eager, smiling faces, to the musical +jangling of a thousand bells. If there were neither populace nor +joy–bells on this occasion, I scarcely think Miss Lawford knew that those +elements of a triumphal progress were missing. To her ears all the universe was +musical with the sound of mystic joy–bells; all the earth was glad with +the brightness of happy faces. The railway–carriage,––the +commonplace vehicle,––frouzy with the odour of wool and morocco, +was a fairy chariot, more wonderful than Queen Mab's; the white +chalk–cutting in the hill was a shining cleft in a mountain of silver; +the wandering streams were melted diamonds; the stations were enchanted +castles. The pale sherry, carried in a pocket–flask, and sipped out of a +little silver tumbler––there is apt to be a warm flatness about +sherry taken out of pocket–flasks that is scarcely agreeable to the +connoisseur––was like nectar newly brewed for the gods; even the +anchovies in the sandwiches were like the enchanted fish in the Arabian story. +A magical philter had been infused into the atmosphere: the flavour of first +love was in every sight and sound.</p> + +<p>Was ever bridegroom more indulgent, more devoted, than Edward Arundel? He +sat at the counters of silk–mercers for the hour together, while Mrs. +Arundel and the two girls deliberated over crisp fabrics unfolded for their +inspection. He was always ready to be consulted, and gave his opinion upon the +conflicting merits of peach–colour and pink, apple–green and maize, +with unwearying attention. But sometimes, even while Belinda was smiling at +him, with the rippling silken stuff held up in her white hands, and making a +lustrous cascade upon the counter, the mystic hand plucked him back, and his +mind wandered away to that childish bride who had chosen no splendid garments +for her wedding, but had gone with him to the altar as trustfully as a baby +goes in its mother's arms to the cradle. If he had been left alone with +Belinda, with tender, sympathetic Belinda,––who loved him well +enough to understand him, and was always ready to take her cue from his face, +and to be joyous or thoughtful according to his mood,––it might +have been better for him. But his mother and Letitia reigned paramount during +this ante–nuptial week, and Mr. Arundel was scarcely suffered to take +breath. He was hustled hither and thither in the hot summer noontide. He was +taken to choose a dressing–case for his bride; and he was made to look at +glittering objects until his eyes ached, and he could see nothing but a +bewildering dazzle of ormolu and silver–gilt. He was taken to a great +emporium in Bond Street to select perfumery, and made to sniff at divers +essences until his nostrils were unnaturally distended, and his olfactory +nerves afflicted with temporary paralysis. There was jewellery of his mother +and of Belinda's mother to be re–set; and the hymeneal victim was +compelled to sit for an hour or so, blinking at fiery–crested serpents +that were destined to coil up his wife's arms, and emerald padlocks that were +to lie upon her breast. And then, when his soul was weary of glaring splendours +and glittering confusions, they took him round the Park, in a whirlpool of +diaphanous bonnets, and smiling faces, and brazen harness, and emblazoned +hammer–cloths, on the margin of a river whose waters were like molten +gold under the blazing sun. And then they gave him a seat in an +opera–box, and the crash of a monster orchestra, blended with the hum of +a thousand voices, to soothe his nerves withal.</p> + +<p>But the more wearied this young man became with glitter, and dazzle, and +sunshine, and silk–mercer's ware, the more surely his mind wandered back +to the still meadows, and the limpid trout–stream, the sheltering hills, +the solemn shadows of the cathedral, the distant voices of the rooks high up in +the waving elms.</p> + +<p>The bustle of preparation was over at last, and the bridal party went down +to Lincolnshire. Pleasant chambers had been prepared at the Grange for Mr. +Arundel and his mother and sister; and the bridegroom was received with +enthusiasm by Belinda's blue–eyed younger sisters, who were enchanted to +find that there was going to be a wedding and that they were to have new +frocks.</p> + +<p>So Edward would have been a churl indeed had he seemed otherwise than happy, +had he been anything but devoted to the bright girl who loved him.</p> + +<p>Tidings of the coming wedding flew like wildfire through Lincolnshire. +Edward Arundel's romantic story had elevated him into a hero; all manner of +reports had been circulated about his devotion to his lost young wife. He had +sworn never to mingle in society again, people said. He had sworn never to have +a new suit of clothes, or to have his hair cut, or to shave, or to eat a hot +dinner. And Lincolnshire by no means approved of the defection implied by his +approaching union with Belinda. He was only a commonplace widower, after all, +it seemed; ready to be consoled as soon as the ceremonious interval of decent +grief was over. People had expected something better of him. They had expected +to see him in a year or two with long grey hair, dressed in shabby raiment, +and, with his beard upon his breast, prowling about the village of Kemberling, +baited by little children. Lincolnshire was very much disappointed by the turn +that affairs had taken. Shakesperian aphorisms were current among the gossips +at comfortable tea–tables; and people talked about funeral baked meats, +and the propriety of building churches if you have any ambitious desire that +your memory should outlast your life; and indulged in other bitter +observations, familiar to all admirers of the great dramatist.</p> + +<p>But there were some people in Lincolnshire to whom the news of Edward +Arundel's intended marriage was more welcome than the early May–flowers +to rustic children eager for a festival. Paul Marchmont heard the report, and +rubbed his hands stealthily, and smiled to himself as he sat reading in the +sunny western drawing–room. The good seed that he had sown that night at +the Rectory had borne this welcome fruit. Edward Arundel with a young wife +would be very much less formidable than Edward Arundel single and discontented, +prowling about the neighbourhood of Marchmont Towers, and perpetually +threatening vengeance upon Mary's cousin.</p> + +<p>It was busy little Lavinia Weston who first brought her brother the tidings. +He took both her hands in his, and kissed them in his enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>"My best of sisters," he said, "you shall have a pair of diamond earrings +for this."</p> + +<p>"For only bringing you the news, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"For only bringing me the news. When a messenger carries the tidings of a +great victory to his king, the king makes him a knight upon the spot. This +marriage is a victory to me, Lavinia. From to–day I shall breathe +freely."</p> + +<p>"But they are not married yet. Something may happen, perhaps, to +prevent––––"</p> + +<p>"What should happen?" asked Paul, rather sharply. "By–the–bye, +it will be as well to keep this from Mrs. John," he added, thoughtfully; +"though really now I fancy it matters very little what she hears."</p> + +<p>He tapped his forehead lightly with his two slim fingers, and there was a +horrible significance in the action.</p> + +<p>"She is not likely to hear anything," Mrs. Weston said; "she sees no one but +Barbara Simmons."</p> + +<p>"Then I should be glad if you would give Simmons a hint to hold her tongue. +This news about the wedding would disturb her mistress."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll tell her so. Barbara is a very excellent person. I can always +manage Barbara. But oh, Paul, I don't know what I'm to do with that poor +weak–witted husband of mine."</p> + +<p>"How do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Paul, I have had such a scene with him to–day––such a +scene! You remember the way he went on that day down in the boat–house +when Edward Arundel came in upon us unexpectedly? Well, he's been going on as +badly as that to–day, Paul,––or worse, I really think."</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont frowned, and flung aside his newspaper, with a gesture +expressive of considerable vexation.</p> + +<p>"Now really, Lavinia, this is too bad," he said; "if your husband is a fool, +I am not going to be bored about his folly. You have managed him for fifteen +years: surely you can go on managing him now without annoying <em>me</em> about +him? If Mr. George Weston doesn't know when he's well off, he's an ungrateful +cur, and you may tell him so, with my compliments."</p> + +<p>He picked up his newspaper again, and began to read. But Lavinia Weston, +looking anxiously at her brother's face, saw that his pale auburn brows were +contracted in a thoughtful frown, and that, if he read at all, the words upon +which his eyes rested could convey very little meaning to his brain.</p> + +<p>She was right; for presently he spoke to her, still looking at the page +before him, and with an attempt at carelessness.</p> + +<p>"Do you think that fellow would go to Australia, Lavinia?"</p> + +<p>"Alone?" asked his sister.</p> + +<p>"Yes, alone of course," said Mr. Marchmont, putting down his paper, and +looking at Mrs. Weston rather dubiously. "I don't want you to go to the +Antipodes; but if––if the fellow refused to go without you, I'd +make it well worth your while to go out there, Lavinia. You shouldn't have any +reason to regret obliging me, my dear girl."</p> + +<p>The dear girl looked rather sharply at her affectionate brother.</p> + +<p>"It's like your selfishness, Paul, to propose such a thing," she said, +"after all I've done––––!"</p> + +<p>"I have not been illiberal to you, Lavinia."</p> + +<p>"No; you've been generous enough to me, I know, in the matter of gifts; but +you're rich, Paul, and you can afford to give. I don't like the idea that +you're so willing to pack me out of the way now that I can be no longer useful +to you."</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"For Heaven's sake, Lavinia, don't be sentimental. If there's one thing I +despise more than another, it is this kind of mawkish sentimentality. You've +been a very good sister to me; and I've been a very decent brother to you. If +you have served me, I have made it answer your purpose to do so. I don't want +you to go away. You may bring all your goods and chattels to this house +to–morrow, if you like, and live at free quarters here for the rest of +your existence. But if George Weston is a pig–headed brute, who can't +understand upon which side his bread is buttered, he must be got out of the way +somehow. I don't care what it costs me; but he must be got out of the way. I'm +not going to live the life of a modern Damocles, with a blundering sword always +dangling over my head, in the person of Mr. George Weston. And if the man +objects to leave the country without you, why, I think your going with him +would be only a sisterly act towards me. I hate selfishness, Lavinia, almost as +much as I detest sentimentality."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston was silent for some minutes, absorbed in reflection. Paul got +up, kicked aside a footstool, and walked up and down the room with his hands in +his pockets.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I might get George to leave England, if I promised to join him as +soon as he was comfortably settled in the colonies," Mrs. Weston said, at +last.</p> + +<p>"Yes," cried Paul; "nothing could be more easy. I'll act very liberally +towards him, Lavinia; I'll treat him well; but he shall not stay in England. +No, Lavinia; after what you have told me to–day, I feel that he must be +got out of the country."</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont went to the door and looked out, to see if by chance any one +had been listening to him. The coast was quite clear. The stone–paved +hall looked as desolate as some undiscovered chamber in an Egyptian temple. The +artist went back to Lavinia, and seated himself by her side. For some time the +brother and sister talked together earnestly.</p> + +<p>They settled everything for poor henpecked George Weston. He was to sail for +Sydney immediately. Nothing could be more easy than for Lavinia to declare that +her brother had accidentally heard of some grand opening for a medical +practitioner in the metropolis of the Antipodes. The surgeon was to have a very +handsome sum given him, and Lavinia would <em>of course</em> join him as soon +as he was settled. Paul Marchmont even looked through the "Shipping Gazette" in +search of an Australian vessel which should speedily convey his +brother–in–law to a distant shore.</p> + +<p>Lavinia Weston went home armed with all necessary credentials. She was to +promise almost anything to her husband, provided that he gave his consent to an +early departure.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER34" id="CHAPTER34">CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +MR. WESTON REFUSES TO BE TRAMPLED UPON.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Upon the 31st of June, the eve of Edward Arundel's wedding–day, Olivia +Marchmont sat in her own room,––the room that she had chiefly +occupied ever since her husband's death,––the study looking out +into the quadrangle. She sat alone in that dismal chamber, dimly lighted by a +pair of wax–candles, in tall tarnished silver candlesticks. There could +be no greater contrast than that between this desolate woman and the master of +the house. All about him was bright and fresh, and glittering and splendid; +around her there was only ruin and decay, thickening dust and gathering +cobwebs,––outward evidences of an inner wreck. John Marchmont's +widow was of no importance in that household. The servants did not care to +trouble themselves about her whims or wishes, nor to put her rooms in order. +They no longer curtseyed to her when they met her, wandering––with +a purposeless step and listless feet that dragged along the +ground––up and down the corridor, or out in the dreary quadrangle. +What was to be gained by any show of respect to her, whose brain was too weak +to hold the memory of their conduct for five minutes together?</p> + +<p>Barbara Simmons only was faithful to her mistress with an unvarying +fidelity. She made no boast of her devotion; she expected neither fee nor +reward for her self–abnegation. That rigid religion of discipline which +had not been strong enough to preserve Olivia's stormy soul from danger and +ruin was at least all–sufficient for this lower type of woman. Barbara +Simmons had been taught to do her duty, and she did it without question or +complaint. As she went through rain, snow, hail, or sunshine twice every Sunday +to Kemberling church,––as she sat upon a cushionless seat in an +uncomfortable angle of the servants' pew, with the sharp edges of the woodwork +cutting her thin shoulders, to listen patiently to dull rambling sermons upon +the hardest texts of St. Paul,––so she attended upon her mistress, +submitting to every caprice, putting up with every hardship; because it was her +duty so to do. The only relief she allowed herself was an hour's gossip now and +then in the housekeeper's room; but she never alluded to her mistress's +infirmities, nor would it have been safe for any other servant to have spoken +lightly of Mrs. John Marchmont in stern Barbara's presence.</p> + +<p>Upon this summer evening, when happy people were still lingering amongst the +wild flowers in shady lanes, or in the dusky pathways by the quiet river, +Olivia sat alone, staring at the candles.</p> + +<p>Was there anything in her mind; or was she only a human automaton, slowly +decaying into dust? There was no speculation in those large lustreless eyes, +fixed upon the dim light of the candles. But, for all that, the mind was not a +blank. The pictures of the past, for ever changing like the scenes in some +magic panorama, revolved before her. She had no memory of that which had +happened a quarter of an hour ago; but she could remember every word that +Edward Arundel had said to her in the Rectory–garden at +Swampington,––every intonation of the voice in which those words +had been spoken.</p> + +<p>There was a tea–service on the table: an attenuated little silver +teapot; a lopsided cream–jug, with thin worn edges and one dumpy little +foot missing; and an antique dragon china cup and saucer with the gilding +washed off. That meal, which is generally called social, has but a dismal +aspect when it is only prepared for one. The solitary teacup, half filled with +cold, stagnant tea, with a leaf or two floating upon the top, like weeds on the +surface of a tideless pond; the teaspoon, thrown askew across a little pool of +spilt milk in the tea–tray,––looked as dreary as the ruins of +a deserted city.</p> + +<p>In the western drawing–room Paul was strolling backwards and forwards, +talking to his mother and sisters, and admiring his pictures. He had spent a +great deal of money upon art since taking possession of the Towers, and the +western drawing–room was quite a different place to what it had been in +John Marchmont's lifetime.</p> + +<p>Etty's divinities smiled through hazy draperies, more transparent than the +summer vapours that float before the moon. Pearly–complexioned nymphs, +with faces archly peeping round the corner of soft rosy shoulders, frolicked +amidst the silver spray of classic fountains. Turner's Grecian temples +glimmered through sultry summer mists; while glimpses of ocean sparkled here +and there, and were as beautiful as if the artist's brush had been dipped in +melted opals. Stanfield's breezy beaches made cool spots of freshness on the +wall, and sturdy sailor–boys, with their hands up to their mouths and +their loose hair blowing in the wind, shouted to their comrades upon the decks +of brown–sailed fishing–smacks. Panting deer upon dizzy crags, amid +the misty Highlands, testified to the hand of Landseer. Low down, in the +corners of the room, there lurked quaint cottage–scenes by Faed and +Nichol. Ward's patched and powdered beaux and beauties,––a +Rochester, in a light perriwig; a Nell Gwynne, showing her white teeth across a +basket of oranges; a group of <em>Incroyables</em>, with bunches of ribbons +hanging from their low topboots, and two sets of dangling seals at their +waists––made a blaze of colour upon the walls: and amongst all +these glories of to–day there were prim Madonnas and stiff–necked +angels by Raphael and Tintoretto; a brown–faced grinning boy by Murillo +(no collection ever was complete without that inevitable brown–faced +boy); an obese Venus, by the great Peter Paul; and a pale Charles the First, +with martyrdom foreshadowed in his pensive face, by Vandyke.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont contemplated his treasures complacently, as he strolled about +the room, with his coffee–cup in his hand; while his mother watched him +admiringly from her comfortable cushioned nest at one end of a luxurious +sofa.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother," Mr. Marchmont said presently, "let people say what they may +of me, they can never say that I have used my money badly. When I am dead and +gone, these pictures will remain to speak for me; posterity will say, 'At any +rate the fellow was a man of taste.' Now what, in Heaven's name, could that +miserable little Mary have done with eleven thousand a year, if––if +she had lived to enjoy it?"</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>The minute–hand of the little clock in Mrs. John Marchmont's study was +creeping slowly towards the quarter before eleven, when Olivia was aroused +suddenly from that long reverie, in which the images of the past had shone upon +her across the dull stagnation of the present like the domes and minarets in a +Phantasm City gleaming athwart the barren desert–sands.</p> + +<p>She was aroused by a cautious tap upon the outside of her window. She got +up, opened the window, and looked out. The night was dark and starless, and +there was a faint whisper of wind among the trees.</p> + +<p>"Don't be frightened," whispered a timid voice; "it's only me, George +Weston. I want to talk to you, Mrs. John. I've got something particular to tell +you––awful particular; but <em>they</em> mustn't hear it; +<em>they</em> mustn't know I'm here. I came round this way on purpose. You can +let me in at the little door in the lobby, can't you, Mrs. John? I tell you, I +must tell you what I've got to tell you," cried Mr. Weston, indifferent to +tautology in his excitement. "Do let me in, there's a dear good soul. The +little door in the lobby, you know; it's locked, you know, but I dessay the +key's there."</p> + +<p>"The door in the lobby?" repeated Olivia, in a dreamy voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, <em>you</em> know. Do let me in now, that's a good creature. It's +awful particular, I tell you. It's about Edward Arundel."</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel! The sound of that name seemed to act upon the woman's +shattered nerves like a stroke of electricity. The drooping head reared itself +erect. The eyes, so lustreless before, flashed fire from their sombre depths. +Comprehension, animation, energy returned; as suddenly as if the wand of an +enchanter had summoned the dead back to life.</p> + +<p>"Edward Arundel!" she cried, in a clear voice, which was utterly unlike the +dull deadness of her usual tones.</p> + +<p>"Hush," whispered Mr. Weston; "don't speak loud, for goodness gracious sake. +I dessay there's all manner of spies about. Let me in, and I'll tell you +everything."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes; I'll let you in. The door by the lobby––I understand; +come, come."</p> + +<p>Olivia disappeared from the window. The lobby of which the surgeon had +spoken was close to her own apartment. She found the key in the lock of the +door. The place was dark; she opened the door almost noiselessly, and Mr. +Weston crept in on tiptoe. He followed Olivia into the study, closed the door +behind him, and drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>"I've got in," he said; "and now I am in, wild horses shouldn't hold me from +speaking my mind, much less Paul Marchmont."</p> + +<p>He turned the key in the door as he spoke, and even as he did so glanced +rather suspiciously towards the window. To his mind the very atmosphere of that +house was pervaded by the presence of his brother–in–law.</p> + +<p>"O Mrs. John!" exclaimed the surgeon, in piteous accents, "the way that I've +been trampled upon. <em>You've</em> been trampled upon, Mrs. John, but you +don't seem to mind it; and perhaps it's better to bring oneself to that, if one +can; but I can't. I've tried to bring myself to it; I've even taken to +drinking, Mrs. John, much as it goes against me; and I've tried to drown my +feelings as a man in rum–and–water. But the more spirits I consume, +Mrs. John, the more of a man I feel."</p> + +<p>Mr. Weston struck the top of his hat with his clenched fist, and stared +fiercely at Olivia, breathing very hard, and breathing +rum–and–water with a faint odour of lemon–peel.</p> + +<p>"Edward Arundel!––what about Edward Arundel?" said Olivia, in a +low eager voice.</p> + +<p>"I'm coming to that, Mrs. John, in due c'course," returned Mr. Weston, with +an air of dignity that was superior even to hiccough. "What I say, Mrs. John," +he added, in a confidential and argumentative tone, "is this: <em>I won't be +trampled upon!</em>" Here his voice sank to an awful whisper. "Of course it's +pleasant enough to have one's rent provided for, and not to be kept awake by +poor's–rates, Mrs. John; but, good gracious me! I'd rather have the +Queen's taxes and the poor–rates following me up day and night, and a man +in possession to provide for at every meal––and you don't know how +contemptuous a man in possession can look at you if you offer him salt butter, +or your table in a general way don't meet his views––than the +conscience I've had since Paul Marchmont came into Lincolnshire. I feel, Mrs. +John, as if I'd committed oceans of murders. It's a miracle to me that my hair +hasn't turned white before this; and it would have done it, Mrs. J., if it +wasn't of that stubborn nature which is too wiry to give expression to a man's +sufferings. O Mrs. John, when I think how my pangs of conscience have been made +game of,––when I remember the insulting names I have been called, +because my heart didn't happen to be made of adamant,––my blood +boils; it boils, Mrs. John, to that degree, that I feel the time has come for +action. I have been put upon until the spirit of manliness within me blazes up +like a fiery furnace. I have been trodden upon, Mrs. John; but I'm not the worm +they took me for. To–day they've put the finisher upon it." The surgeon +paused to take breath. His mild and rather sheep–like countenance was +flushed; his fluffy eyebrows twitched convulsively in his endeavours to give +expression to the violence of his feelings. "To–day they've put the +finisher upon it," he repeated. "I'm to go to Australia, am I? Ha! ha! we'll +see about that. There's a nice opening in the medical line, is there? and dear +Paul will provide the funds to start me! Ha! ha! two can play at that game. +It's all brotherly kindness, of course, and friendly interest in my +welfare––that's what it's <em>called</em>, Mrs. J. Shall I tell you +what it <em>is</em>? I'm to be got rid of, at any price, for fear my conscience +should get the better of me, and I should speak. I've been made a tool of, and +I've been trampled upon; but they've been <em>obliged</em> to trust me. I've +got a conscience, and I don't suit their views. If I hadn't got a conscience, I +might stop here and have my rent and taxes provided for, and riot in +rum–and–water to the end of my days. But I've a conscience that all +the pineapple rum in Jamaica wouldn't drown, and they're frightened of me."</p> + +<p>Olivia listened to all this with an impatient frown upon her face. I doubt +if she knew the meaning of Mr. Weston's complaints. She had been listening only +for the one name that had power to transform her from a breathing automaton +into a living, thinking, reasoning woman. She grasped the surgeon's wrist +fiercely.</p> + +<p>"You told me you came here to speak about Edward Arundel," she said. "Have +you been only trying to make a fool of me."</p> + +<p>"No, Mrs. John; I have come to speak about him, and I come to you, because I +think you're not so bad as Paul Marchmont. I think that you've been a tool, +like myself; and they've led you on, step by step, from bad to worse, pretty +much as they have led me. You're Edward Arundel's blood–relation, and +it's your business to look to any wrong that's done him, more than it is mine. +But if you don't speak, Mrs. John, I will. Edward Arundel is going to be +married."</p> + +<p>"Going to be married!" The words burst from Olivia's lips in a kind of +shriek, and she stood glaring hideously at the surgeon, with her lips apart and +her eyes dilated. Mr. Weston was fascinated by the horror of that gaze, and +stared at her in silence for some moments. "You are a madman!" she exclaimed, +after a pause; "you are a madman! Why do you come here with your idiotic +fancies? Surely my life is miserable enough without this!"</p> + +<p>"I ain't mad, Mrs. John, any more than"––Mr. Weston was going to +say, "than you are;" but it struck him that, under existing circumstances, the +comparison might be ill–advised––"I ain't any madder than +other people," he said, presently. "Edward Arundel is going to be married. I +have seen the young lady in Kemberling with her pa; and she's a very sweet +young woman to look at; and her name is Belinda Lawford; and the wedding is to +be at eleven o'clock to–morrow morning at Hillingsworth church."</p> + +<p>Olivia slowly lifted her hands to her head, and swept the loose hair away +from her brow. All the mists that had obscured her brain melted slowly away, +and showed her the past as it had really been in all its naked horror. Yes; +step by step the cruel hand had urged her on from bad to worse; from bad to +worse; until it had driven her <em>here</em>.</p> + +<p>It was for <em>this</em> that she had sold her soul to the powers of hell. +It was for <em>this</em> that she had helped to torture that innocent girl whom +a dying father had given into her pitiless hand. For this! for this! To find at +last that all her iniquity had been wasted, and that Edward Arundel had chosen +another bride––fairer, perhaps, than the first. The mad, unholy +jealousy of her nature awoke from the obscurity of mental decay, a fierce +ungovernable spirit. But another spirit arose in the next moment. CONSCIENCE, +which so long had slumbered, awoke and cried to her, in an awful voice, +"Sinner, whose sin has been wasted, repent! restore! It is not yet too +late."</p> + +<p>The stern precepts of her religion came back to her. She had rebelled +against those rigid laws, she had cast off those iron fetters, only to fall +into a worse bondage; only to submit to a stronger tyranny. She had been a +servant of the God of Sacrifice, and had rebelled when an offering was demanded +of her. She had cast off the yoke of her Master, and had yielded herself up the +slave of sin. And now, when she discovered whither her chains had dragged her, +she was seized with a sudden panic, and wanted to go back to her old master.</p> + +<p>She stood for some minutes with her open palms pressed upon her forehead, +and her chest heaving as if a stormy sea had raged in her bosom.</p> + +<p>"This marriage must not take place," she cried, at last.</p> + +<p>"Of course it mustn't," answered Mr. Weston; "didn't I say so just now? And +if you don't speak to Paul and prevent it, I will. I'd rather you spoke to him, +though," added the surgeon thoughtfully, "because, you see, it would come +better from you, wouldn't it now?"</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont did not answer. Her hands had dropped from her head, and +she was standing looking at the floor.</p> + +<p>"There shall be no marriage," she muttered, with a wild laugh. "There's +another heart to be broken––that's all. Stand aside, man," she +cried; "stand aside, and let me go to <em>him</em>; let me go to him."</p> + +<p>She pushed the terrified surgeon out of her pathway, and locked the door, +hurried along the passage and across the hall. She opened the door of the +western drawing–room, and went in.</p> + +<p>Mr. Weston stood in the corridor looking after her. He waited for a few +minutes, listening for any sound that might come from the western +drawing–room. But the wide stone hall was between him and that apartment; +and however loudly the voices might have been uplifted, no breath of them could +have reached the surgeon's ear. He waited for about five minutes, and then +crept into the lobby and let himself out into the quadrangle.</p> + +<p>"At any rate, nobody can say that I'm a coward," he thought complacently, as +he went under a stone archway that led into the park. "But what a whirlwind +that woman is! O my gracious, what a perfect whirlwind she is!"</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER35" id="CHAPTER35">CHAPTER IX.<br /> +"GOING TO BE MARRIED!"</a></h4> + +<p>Paul Marchmont was still strolling hither and thither about the room, +admiring his pictures, and smiling to himself at the recollection of the easy +manner in which he had obtained George Weston's consent to the Australian +arrangement. For in his sober moments the surgeon was ready to submit to +anything his wife and brother–in–law imposed upon him; it was only +under the influence of pineapple rum that his manhood asserted itself. Paul was +still contemplating his pictures when Olivia burst into the room; but Mrs. +Marchmont and her invalid daughter had retired for the night, and the artist +was alone,––alone with his own thoughts, which were rather of a +triumphal and agreeable character just now; for Edward's marriage and Mr. +Weston's departure were equally pleasant to him.</p> + +<p>He was startled a little by Olivia's abrupt entrance, for it was not her +habit to intrude upon him or any member of that household; on the contrary, she +had shown an obstinate determination to shut herself up in her own room, and to +avoid every living creature except her servant Barbara Simmons.</p> + +<p>Paul turned and confronted her very deliberately, and with the smile that +was almost habitual to him upon his thin pale lips. Her sudden appearance had +blanched his face a little; but beyond this he betrayed no sign of +agitation.</p> + +<p>"My dear Mrs. Marchmont, you quite startle me. It is so very unusual to see +you here, and at this hour especially."</p> + +<p>It did not seem as if she had heard his voice. She went sternly up to him, +with her thin listless arms hanging at her side, and her haggard eyes fixed +upon his face.</p> + +<p>"Is this true?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He started a little, in spite of himself; for he understood in a moment what +she meant. Some one, it scarcely mattered who, had told her of the coming +marriage.</p> + +<p>"Is what true, my dear Mrs. John?" he said carelessly.</p> + +<p>"Is this true that George Weston tells me?" she cried, laying her thin hand +upon his shoulder. Her wasted fingers closed involuntarily upon the collar of +his coat, her lips contracted into a ghastly smile, and a sudden fire kindled +in her eyes. A strange sensation awoke in the tips of those tightening fingers, +and thrilled through every vein of the woman's body,––such a +horrible thrill as vibrates along the nerves of a monomaniac, when the sight of +a dreadful terror in his victim's face first arouses the murderous impulse in +his breast.</p> + +<p>Paul's face whitened as he felt the thin finger–points tightening upon +his neck. He was afraid of Olivia.</p> + +<p>"My dear Mrs. John, what is it you want of me?" he said hastily. "Pray do +not be violent."</p> + +<p>"I am not violent."</p> + +<p>She dropped her hand from his breast. It was true, she was not violent. Her +voice was low; her hand fell loosely by her side. But Paul was frightened of +her, nevertheless; for he saw that if she was not violent, she was something +worse––she was dangerous.</p> + +<p>"Did George Weston tell me the truth just now?" she said.</p> + +<p>Paul bit his nether–lip savagely. George Weston had tricked him, then, +after all, and had communicated with this woman. But what of that? She would +scarcely be likely to trouble herself about this business of Edward Arundel's +marriage. She must be past any such folly as that. She would not dare to +interfere in the matter. She could not.</p> + +<p>"Is it true?" she said; "<em>is</em> it? Is it true that Edward Arundel is +going to be married to–morrow?"</p> + +<p>She waited, looking with fixed, widely–opened eyes at Paul's face.</p> + +<p>"My dear Mrs. John, you take me so completely by surprise, that +I––––"</p> + +<p>"That you have not got a lying answer ready for me," said Olivia, +interrupting him. "You need not trouble yourself to invent one. I see that +George Weston told me the truth. There was reality in his words. There is +nothing but falsehood in yours."</p> + +<p>Paul stood looking at her, but not listening to her. Let her abuse and +upbraid him to her heart's content; it gave him leisure to reflect, and plan +his course of action; and perhaps these bitter words might exhaust the fire +within her, and leave her malleable to his skilful hands once more. He had time +to think this, and to settle his own line of conduct while Olivia was speaking +to him. It was useless to deny the marriage. She had heard of it from George +Weston, and she might hear of it from any one else whom she chose to +interrogate. It was useless to try to stifle this fact.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. John," he said, "it is quite true. Your cousin, Mr. Arundel, is +going to marry Belinda Lawford; a very lucky thing for us, believe me, as it +will put an end to all questioning and watching and suspicion, and place us +beyond all danger."</p> + +<p>Olivia looked at him, with her bosom heaving, her breath growing shorter and +louder with every word he spoke.</p> + +<p>"You mean to let this be, then?" she said, when he had finished speaking.</p> + +<p>"To let what be?"</p> + +<p>"This marriage. You will let it take place?"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly. Why should I prevent it?"</p> + +<p>"Why should you prevent it?" she cried fiercely; and then, in an altered +voice, in tones of anguish that were like a wail of despair, she exclaimed, "O +my God! my God! what a dupe I have been; what a miserable tool in this man's +hands! O my offended God! why didst Thou so abandon me, when I turned away from +Thee, and made Edward Arundel the idol of my wicked heart?"</p> + +<p>Paul sank into the nearest chair, with a faint sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>"She will wear herself out," he thought, "and then I shall be able to do +what I like with her."</p> + +<p>But Olivia turned to him again while he was thinking this.</p> + +<p>"Do you imagine that <em>I</em> will let this marriage take place?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"I do not think that you will be so mad as to prevent it. That little +mystery which you and I have arranged between us is not exactly child's play, +Mrs. John. We can neither of us afford to betray the other. Let Edward Arundel +marry, and work for his wife, and be happy; nothing could be better for us than +his marriage. Indeed, we have every reason to be thankful to Providence for the +turn that affairs have taken," Mr. Marchmont concluded, piously.</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" said Olivia; "and Edward Arundel is to have another bride. He is +to be happy with another wife; and I am to hear of their happiness, to see him +some day, perhaps, sitting by her side and smiling at her, as I have seen him +smile at Mary Marchmont. He is to be happy, and I am to know of his happiness. +Another baby–faced girl is to glory in the knowledge of his love; and I +am to be quiet––I am to be quiet. Is it for this that I have sold +my soul to you, Paul Marchmont? Is it for this I have shared your guilty +secrets? Is it for this I have heard <em>her</em> feeble wailing sounding in my +wretched feverish slumbers, as I have heard it every night, since the day she +left this house? Do you remember what you said to me? Do you remember +<em>how</em> you tempted me? Do you remember how you played upon my misery, and +traded on the tortures of my jealous heart? 'He has despised your love,' you +said: 'will you consent to see him happy with another woman?' That was your +argument, Paul Marchmont. You allied yourself with the devil that held +possession of my breast, and together you were too strong for me. I was set +apart to be damned, and you were the chosen instrument of my damnation. You +bought my soul, Paul Marchmont. You shall not cheat me of the price for which I +sold it. You shall hinder this marriage!"</p> + +<p>"You are a madwoman, Mrs. John Marchmont, or you would not propose any such +thing."</p> + +<p>"Go," she said, pointing to the door; "go to Edward Arundel, and do +something, no matter what, to prevent this marriage."</p> + +<p>"I shall do nothing of the kind."</p> + +<p>He had heard that a monomaniac was always to be subdued by indomitable +resolution, and he looked at Olivia, thinking to tame her by his unfaltering +glance. He might as well have tried to look the raging sea into calmness.</p> + +<p>"I am not a fool, Mrs. John Marchmont," he said, "and I shall do nothing of +the kind."</p> + +<p>He had risen, and stood by the lamp–lit table, trifling rather +nervously with its elegant litter of delicately–bound books, +jewel–handled paper–knives, newly–cut periodicals, and pretty +fantastical toys collected by the women of the household.</p> + +<p>The faces of the two were nearly upon a level as they stood opposite to each +other, with only the table between them.</p> + +<p>"Then <em>I</em> will prevent it!" Olivia cried, turning towards the +door.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont saw the resolution stamped upon her face. She would do what +she threatened. He ran to the door and had his hand upon the lock before she +could reach it.</p> + +<p>"No, Mrs. John," he said, standing at the door, with his back turned to +Olivia, and his fingers busy with the bolts and key. In spite of himself, this +woman had made him a little nervous, and it was as much as he could do to find +the handle of the key. "No, no, my dear Mrs. John; you shall not leave this +house, nor this room, in your present state of mind. If you choose to be +violent and unmanageable, we will give you the full benefit of your violence, +and we will give you a better sphere of action. A padded room will be more +suitable to your present temper, my dear madam. If you favour us with this sort +of conduct, we will find people more fitted to restrain you."</p> + +<p>He said all this in a sneering tone that had a trifling tremulousness in it, +while he locked the door and assured himself that it was safely secured. Then +he turned, prepared to fight out the battle somehow or other.</p> + +<p>At the very moment of his turning there was a sudden crash, a shiver of +broken glass, and the cold night–wind blew into the room. One of the long +French windows was wide open, and Olivia Marchmont was gone.</p> + +<p>He was out upon the terrace in the next moment; but even then he was too +late, for he could not see her right or left of him upon the long stone +platform. There were three separate flights of steps, three different paths, +widely diverging across the broad grassy flat before Marchmont Towers. How +could he tell which of these ways Olivia might have chosen? There was the great +porch, and there were all manner of stone abutments along the grim façade of +the house. She might have concealed herself behind any one of them. The night +was hopelessly dark. A pair of ponderous bronze lamps, which Paul had placed +before the principal doorway, only made two spots of light in the gloom. He ran +along the terrace, looking into every nook and corner which might have served +as a hiding–place; but he did not find Olivia.</p> + +<p>She had left the house with the avowed intention of doing something to +prevent the marriage. What would she do? What course would this desperate woman +take in her jealous rage? Would she go straight to Edward Arundel and tell +him––––?</p> + +<p>Yes, this was most likely; for how else could she hope to prevent the +marriage?</p> + +<p>Paul stood quite still upon the terrace for a few minutes, thinking. There +was only one course for him. To try and find Olivia would be next to hopeless. +There were half–a–dozen outlets from the park. There were ever so +many different pathways through the woody labyrinth at the back of the Towers. +This woman might have taken any one of them. To waste the night in searching +for her would be worse than useless.</p> + +<p>There was only one thing to be done. He must countercheck this desperate +creature's movements.</p> + +<p>He went back to the drawing–room, shut the window, and then rang the +bell.</p> + +<p>There were not many of the old servants who had waited upon John Marchmont +at the Towers now. The man who answered the bell was a person whom Paul had +brought down from London.</p> + +<p>"Get the chesnut saddled for me, Peterson," said Mr. Marchmont. "My poor +cousin's widow has left the house, and I am going after her. She has given me +very great alarm to–night by her conduct. I tell you this in confidence; +but you can say as much to Mrs. Simmons, who knows more about her mistress than +I do. See that there's no time lost in saddling the chesnut. I want to overtake +this unhappy woman, if I can. Go and give the order, and then bring me my +hat."</p> + +<p>The man went away to obey his master. Paul walked to the chimneypiece and +looked at the clock.</p> + +<p>"They'll be gone to bed at the Grange," he thought to himself. "Will she go +there and knock them up, I wonder? Does she know that Edward's there? I doubt +that; and yet Weston may have told her. At any rate, I can be there before her. +It would take her a long time to get there on foot. I think I did the right +thing in saying what I said to Peterson. I must have the report of her madness +spread everywhere. I must face it out. But how––but how? So long as +she was quiet, I could manage everything. But with her against me, and George +Weston––oh, the cur, the white–hearted villain, after all +that I've done for him and Lavinia! But what can a man expect when he's obliged +to put his trust in a fool?"</p> + +<p>He went to the window, and stood there looking out until he saw the groom +coming along the gravel roadway below the terrace, leading a horse by the +bridle. Then he put on the hat that the servant had brought him, ran down the +steps, and got into the saddle.</p> + +<p>"All right, Jeffreys," he said; "tell them not to expect me back till +to–morrow morning. Let Mrs. Simmons sit up for her mistress. Mrs. John +may return at any hour in the night."</p> + +<p>He galloped away along the smooth carriage–drive. At the lodge he +stopped to inquire if any one had been through that way. No, the woman said; +she had opened the gates for no one. Paul had expected no other answer. There +was a footpath that led to a little wicket–gate opening on the +high–road; and of course Olivia had chosen that way, which was a good +deal shorter than the carriage–drive.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER36" id="CHAPTER36">CHAPTER X.<br /> +THE TURNING OF THE TIDE.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>It was past two o'clock in the morning of the day which had been appointed +for Edward Arundel's wedding, when Paul Marchmont drew rein before the white +gate that divided Major Lawford's garden from the high–road. There was no +lodge, no pretence of grandeur here. An old–fashioned garden surrounded +an old–fashioned red–brick house. There was an apple–orchard +upon one side of the low white gate, and a flower–garden, with a lawn and +fish–pond, upon the other. The carriage–drive wound sharply round +to a shallow flight of steps, and a broad door with a narrow window upon each +side of it.</p> + +<p>Paul got off his horse at the gate, and went in, leading the animal by the +bridle. He was a Cockney, heart and soul, and had no sense of any enjoyments +that were not of a Cockney nature. So the horse he had selected for himself was +anything but a fiery creature. He liked plenty of bone and very little blood in +the steed he rode, and was contented to go at a comfortable, jog–trot, +seven–miles–an–hour pace, along the wretched country +roads.</p> + +<p>There was a row of old–fashioned wooden posts, with iron chains +swinging between them, upon both sides of the doorway. Paul fastened the +horse's bridle to one of these, and went up the steps. He rang a bell that went +clanging and jangling through the house in the stillness of the summer night. +All the way along the road he had looked right and left, expecting to pass +Olivia; but he had seen no sign of her. This was nothing, however; for there +were byways by which she might come from Marchmont Towers to Lawford Grange.</p> + +<p>"I must be before her, at any rate," Paul thought to himself, as he waited +patiently for an answer to his summons.</p> + +<p>The time seemed very long to him, of course; but at last he saw a light +glimmering through the mansion windows, and heard a shuffling foot in the hall. +Then the door was opened very cautiously, and a woman's scared face peered out +at Mr. Marchmont through the opening.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" the woman asked, in a frightened voice.</p> + +<p>"It is I, Mr. Marchmont, of Marchmont Towers. Your master knows me. Mr. +Arundel is here, is he not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and Mrs. Arundel too; but they're all abed."</p> + +<p>"Never mind that; I must see Major Lawford immediately."</p> + +<p>"But they're all abed."</p> + +<p>"Never mind that, my good woman; I tell you I must see him."</p> + +<p>"But won't to–morrow mornin' do? It's near three o'clock, and +to–morrow's our eldest miss's weddin'–day; and they're all +abed."</p> + +<p>"I <em>must</em> see your master. For mercy's sake, my good woman, do what I +tell you! Go and call up Major Lawford,––you can do it +quietly,––and tell him I must speak to him at once."</p> + +<p>The woman, with the chain of the door still between her and Mr. Marchmont, +took a timid survey of Paul's face. She had heard of him often enough, but had +never seen him before, and she was rather doubtful as to his identity. She knew +that thieves and robbers resorted to all sorts of tricks in the course of their +evil vocation. Mightn't this application for admittance in the dead of the +night be only a part of some burglarious plot against the spoons and forks, and +that hereditary silver urn with lions' heads holding rings in their mouths for +handles, the fame of which had no doubt circulated throughout all Lincolnshire? +Mr. Marchmont had neither a black mask nor a dark–lantern, and to Martha +Philpot's mind these were essential attributes of the legitimate burglar; but +he might be burglariously disposed, nevertheless, and it would be well to be on +the safe side.</p> + +<p>"I'll go and tell 'em," the discreet Martha said civilly; "but perhaps you +won't mind my leaving the chain oop. It ain't like as if it was winter," she +added apologetically.</p> + +<p>"You may shut the door, if you like," answered Paul; "only be quick and wake +your master. You can tell him that I want to see him upon a matter of life and +death."</p> + +<p>Martha hurried away, and Paul stood upon the broad stone steps waiting for +her return. Every moment was precious to him, for he wanted to be beforehand +with Olivia. He had no thought except that she would come straight to the +Grange to see Edward Arundel; unless, indeed, she was by any chance ignorant of +his whereabouts.</p> + +<p>Presently the light appeared again in the narrow windows, and this time a +man's foot sounded upon the stone–flagged hall. This time, too, Martha +let down the chain, and opened the door wide enough for Mr. Marchmont to enter. +She had no fear of burglarious marauders now that the valiant Major was at her +elbow.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marchmont," exclaimed the old soldier, opening a door leading into a +little study, "you will excuse me if I seem rather bewildered by your visit. +When an old fellow like me is called up in the middle of the night, he can't be +expected to have his wits about him just at first. (Martha, bring us a light.) +Sit down, Mr. Marchmont; there's a chair at your elbow. And now may I ask the +reason––––?"</p> + +<p>"The reason I have disturbed you in this abrupt manner. The occasion that +brings me here is a very painful one; but I believe that my coming may save you +and yours from much annoyance."</p> + +<p>"Save us from annoyance! Really, my dear sir, +you––––"</p> + +<p>"I mystify you for the moment, no doubt," Paul interposed blandly; "but if +you will have a little patience with me, Major Lawford, I think I can make +everything very clear,––only too painfully clear. You have heard of +my relative, Mrs. John Marchmont,––my cousin's widow?"</p> + +<p>"I have," answered the Major, gravely.</p> + +<p>The dark scandals that had been current about wretched Olivia Marchmont came +into his mind with the mention of her name, and the memory of those miserable +slanders overshadowed his frank face.</p> + +<p>Paul waited while Martha brought in a smoky lamp, with the +half–lighted wick sputtering and struggling in its oily socket. Then he +went on, in a calm, dispassionate voice, which seemed the voice of a benevolent +Christian, sublimely remote from other people's sorrows, but tenderly pitiful +of suffering humanity, nevertheless.</p> + +<p>"You have heard of my unhappy cousin. You have no doubt heard that she +is––mad?"</p> + +<p>He dropped his voice into so low a whisper, that he only seemed to shape +this last word with his thin flexible lips.</p> + +<p>"I have heard some rumour to that effect," the Major answered; "that is to +say, I have heard that Mrs. John Marchmont has lately become eccentric in her +habits."</p> + +<p>"It has been my dismal task to watch the slow decay of a very powerful +intellect," continued Paul. "When I first came to Marchmont Towers, about the +time of my cousin Mary's unfortunate elopement with Mr. Arundel, that mental +decay had already set in. Already the compass of Olivia Marchmont's mind had +become reduced to a monotone, and the one dominant thought was doing its +ruinous work. It was my fate to find the clue to that sad decay; it was my fate +very speedily to discover the nature of that all–absorbing thought which, +little by little, had grown into monomania."</p> + +<p>Major Lawford stared at his visitor's face. He was a plain–spoken man, +and could scarcely see his way clearly through all this obscurity of fine +words.</p> + +<p>"You mean to say you found out what had driven your cousin's widow mad?" he +said bluntly.</p> + +<p>"You put the question very plainly, Major Lawford. Yes; I discovered the +secret of my unhappy relative's morbid state of mind. That secret lies in the +fact, that for the last ten years Olivia Marchmont has cherished a hopeless +affection for her cousin, Mr. Edward Arundel."</p> + +<p>The Major almost bounded off his chair in horrified surprise.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" he exclaimed; "you surprise me, Mr. Marchmont, +and––and––rather unpleasantly."</p> + +<p>"I should never have revealed this secret to you or to any other living +creature, Major Lawford, had not circumstances compelled me to do so. As far as +Mr. Arundel is concerned, I can set your mind quite at ease. He has chosen to +insult me very grossly; but let that pass. I must do him the justice to state +that I believe him to have been from first to last utterly ignorant of the +state of his cousin's mind."</p> + +<p>"I hope so, sir; egad, I hope so!" exclaimed the Major, rather fiercely. "If +I thought that this young man had trifled with the lady's affection; if I +thought––––"</p> + +<p>"You need think nothing to the detriment of Mr. Arundel," answered Paul, +with placid politeness, "except that he is hot–headed, obstinate, and +foolish. He is a young man of excellent principles, and has never fathomed the +secret of his cousin's conduct towards him. I am rather a close +observer,––something of a student of human nature,––and +I have watched this unhappy woman. She loves, and has loved, her cousin Edward +Arundel; and hers is one of those concentrative natures in which a great +passion is nearly akin to a monomania. It was this hopeless, unreturned +affection that embittered her character, and made her a harsh stepmother to my +poor cousin Mary. For a long time this wretched woman has been very quiet; but +her tranquillity has been only a deceitful calm. To–night the storm +broke. Olivia Marchmont heard of the marriage that is to take place +to–morrow; and, for the first time, a state of melancholy mania developed +into absolute violence. She came to me, and attacked me upon the subject of +this intended marriage. She accused me of having plotted to give Edward Arundel +another bride; and then, after exhausting herself by a torrent of passionate +invective against me, against her cousin Edward, your +daughter,––every one concerned in to–morrow's +event,––this wretched woman rushed out of the house in a jealous +fury, declaring that she would do something––no matter +what––to hinder the celebration of Edward Arundel's second +marriage."</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens!" gasped the Major. "And you mean to +say––––"</p> + +<p>"I mean to say, that there is no knowing what may be attempted by a +madwoman, driven mad by a jealousy in itself almost as terrible as madness. +Olivia Marchmont has sworn to hinder your daughter's marriage. What has not +been done by unhappy creatures in this woman's state of mind? Every day we read +of such things in the newspapers––deeds of horror at which the +blood grows cold in our veins; and we wonder that Heaven can permit such +misery. It is not any frivolous motive that brings me here in the dead of the +night, Major Lawford. I come to tell you that a desperate woman has sworn to +hinder to–morrow's marriage. Heaven knows what she may do in her jealous +frenzy! She <em>may</em> attack your daughter."</p> + +<p>The father's face grew pale. His Linda, his darling, exposed to the fury of +a madwoman! He could conjure up the scene: the fair girl clinging to her +lover's breast, and desperate Olivia Marchmont swooping down upon her like an +angry tigress.</p> + +<p>"For mercy's sake, tell me what I am to do, Mr. Marchmont!" cried the Major. +"God bless you, sir, for bringing me this warning! But what am I to do? What do +you advise? Shall we postpone the wedding?"</p> + +<p>"On no account. All you have to do is to keep this wretched woman at bay. +Shut your doors upon her. Do not let her be admitted to this house upon any +pretence whatever. Get the wedding over an hour earlier than has been intended, +if it is possible for you to do so, and hurry the bride and bridegroom away +upon the first stage of their wedding–tour. If you wish to escape all the +wretchedness of a public scandal, avoid seeing this woman."</p> + +<p>"I will, I will," answered the bewildered Major. "It's a most awful +situation. My poor Belinda! Her wedding–day! And a mad woman to +attempt––Upon my word, Mr. Marchmont, I don't know how to thank you +for the trouble you have taken."</p> + +<p>"Don't speak of that. This woman is my cousin's widow: any shame of hers is +disgrace to me. Avoid seeing her. If by any chance she does contrive to force +herself upon you, turn a deaf ear to all she may say. She horrified me +to–night by her mad assertions. Be prepared for anything she may declare. +She is possessed by all manner of delusions, remember, and may make the most +ridiculous assertions. There is no limit to her hallucinations. She may offer +to bring Edward Arundel's dead wife from the grave, perhaps. But you will not, +on any account, allow her to obtain access to your daughter."</p> + +<p>"No, no––on no account. My poor Belinda! I am very grateful to +you, Mr. Marchmont, for this warning. You'll stop here for the rest of the +night? Martha's beds are always aired. You'll accept the shelter of our spare +room until to–morrow morning?"</p> + +<p>"You are very good, Major Lawford; but I must hurry away directly. Remember +that I am quite ignorant as to where my unhappy relative may be wandering at +this hour of the night. She may have returned to the Towers. Her jealous fury +may have exhausted itself; and in that case I have exaggerated the danger. But, +at any rate I thought it best to give you this warning."</p> + +<p>"Most decidedly, my dear sir; I thank you from the bottom of my heart. But +you'll take something––wine, tea, +brandy–and–water––eh?"</p> + +<p>Paul had put on his hat and made his way into the hall by this time. There +was no affectation in his eagerness to be away. He glanced uneasily towards the +door every now and then while the Major was offering hospitable hindrance to +his departure. He was very pale, with a haggard, ashen pallor that betrayed his +anxiety, in spite of his bland calmness of manner.</p> + +<p>"You are very kind. No; I will get away at once. I have done my duty here; I +must now try and do what I can for this wretched woman. Good night. Remember; +shut your doors upon her."</p> + +<p>He unfastened the bridle of his horse, mounted, and rode away slowly, so +long as there was any chance of the horse's tread being heard at the Grange. +But when he was a quarter of a mile away from Major Lawford's house, he urged +the horse into a gallop. He had no spurs; but he used his whip with a ruthless +hand, and went off at a tearing pace along a narrow lane, where the ruts were +deep.</p> + +<p>He rode for fifteen miles; and it was grey morning when he drew rein at a +dilapidated five–barred gate leading into the great, tenantless yard of +an uninhabited farmhouse. The place had been unlet for some years; and the land +was in the charge of a hind in Mr. Marchmont's service. The hind lived in a +cottage at the other extremity of the farm; and Paul had erected new buildings, +with engine–houses and complicated machinery for pumping the water off +the low–lying lands. Thus it was that the old farmhouse and the old +farmyard were suffered to fall into decay. The empty sties, the ruined barns +and outhouses, the rotting straw, and pools of rank corruption, made this +tenantless farmyard the very abomination of desolation. Paul Marchmont opened +the gate and went in. He picked his way very cautiously through the mud and +filth, leading his horse by the bridle till he came to an outhouse, where he +secured the animal. Then he crossed the yard, lifted the rusty latch of a +narrow wooden door set in a plastered wall, and went into a dismal stone court, +where one lonely hen was moulting in miserable solitude.</p> + +<p>Long rank grass grew in the interstices of the flags. The lonely hen set up +a roopy cackle, and fluttered into a corner at sight of Paul Marchmont. There +were some rabbit–hutches, tenantless; a dovecote, empty; a +dog–kennel, and a broken chain rusting slowly in a pool of water, but no +dog. The courtyard was at the back of the house, looked down upon by a range of +latticed windows, some with closed shutters, others with shutters swinging in +the wind, as if they had been fain to beat themselves to death in very +desolation of spirit.</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont opened a door and went into the house. There were empty +cellars and pantries, dairies and sculleries, right and left of him. The rats +and mice scuttled away at sound of the intruder's footfall. The spiders ran +upon the damp–stained walls, and the disturbed cobwebs floated slowly +down from the cracked ceilings and tickled Mr. Marchmont's face.</p> + +<p>Farther on in the interior of the gloomy habitation Paul found a great +stone–paved kitchen, at the darkest end of which there was a rusty grate, +in which a minimum of flame struggled feebly with a maximum of smoke. An open +oven–door revealed a dreary black cavern; and the very manner of the +rusty door, and loose, half–broken handle, was an advertisement of +incapacity for any homely hospitable use. Pale, sickly fungi had sprung up in +clusters at the corners of the damp hearthstone. Spiders and rats, damp and +cobwebs, every sign by which Decay writes its name upon the dwelling man has +deserted, had set its separate mark upon this ruined place.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont looked round him with a contemptuous shudder. He called "Mrs. +Brown! Mrs. Brown!" two or three times, each time waiting for an answer; but +none came, and Mr. Marchmont passed on into another room.</p> + +<p>Here at least there was some poor pretence of comfort. The room was in the +front of the house, and the low latticed window looked out upon a neglected +garden, where some tall foxgloves reared their gaudy heads amongst the weeds. +At the end of the garden there was a high brick wall, with pear–trees +trained against it, and dragon's–mouth and wallflower waving in the +morning–breeze.</p> + +<p>There was a bed in this room, empty; an easy–chair near the window; +near that a little table, and a <em>set of Indian chessmen</em>. Upon the bed +there were some garments scattered, as if but lately flung there; and on the +floor, near the fireplace, there were the fragments of a child's first +toys––a tiny trumpet, bought at some village fair, a baby's rattle, +and a broken horse.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont looked about him––a little puzzled at first; then +with a vague dread in his haggard face.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Brown!" he cried, in a loud voice, hurrying across the room towards an +inner door as he spoke.</p> + +<p>The inner door was opened before Paul could reach it, and a woman appeared; +a tall, gaunt–looking woman, with a hard face and bare, brawny arms.</p> + +<p>"Where, in Heaven's name, have you been hiding yourself, woman?" Paul cried +impatiently. "And where's––your patient?"</p> + +<p>"Gone, sir."</p> + +<p>"Gone! Where?"</p> + +<p>"With her stepmamma, Mrs. Marchmont––not half an hour ago. As it +was your wish I should stop behind to clear up, I've done so, sir; but I did +think it would have been better for me to have gone +with––––"</p> + +<p>Paul clutched the woman by the arm, and dragged her towards him.</p> + +<p>"Are you mad?" he cried, with an oath. "Are you mad, or drunk? Who gave you +leave to let that woman go? Who––––?"</p> + +<p>He couldn't finish the sentence. His throat grew dry, and he gasped for +breath; while all the blood in his body seemed to rush into his swollen +forehead.</p> + +<p>"You sent Mrs. Marchmont to fetch my patient away, sir," exclaimed the +woman, looking frightened. "You did, didn't you? She said so!"</p> + +<p>"She is a liar; and you are a fool or a cheat. She paid you, I dare say! +Can't you speak, woman? Has the person I left in your care, whom you were paid, +and paid well, to take care of,––have you let her go? Answer me +that."</p> + +<p>"I have, sir," the woman faltered,––she was big and brawny, but +there was that in Paul Marchmont's face that frightened her +notwithstanding,––"seeing as it was your orders."</p> + +<p>"That will do," cried Paul Marchmont, holding up his hand and looking at the +woman with a ghastly smile; "that will do. You have ruined me; do you hear? You +have undone a work that has cost me––O my God! why do I waste my +breath in talking to such a creature as this? All my plots, my difficulties, my +struggles and victories, my long sleepless nights, my bad +dreams,––has it all come to this? Ruin, unutterable ruin, brought +upon me by a madwoman!"</p> + +<p>He sat down in the chair by the window, and leaned upon the table, +scattering the Indian chessmen with his elbow. He did not weep. That +relief––terrible relief though it be for a man's +breast––was denied him. He sat there with his face covered, moaning +aloud. That helpless moan was scarcely like the complaint of a man; it was +rather like the hopeless, dreary utterance of a brute's anguish; it sounded +like the miserable howling of a beaten cur.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER37" id="CHAPTER37">CHAPTER XI.<br /> +BELINDA'S WEDDING–DAY.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>The sun shone upon Belinda Lawford's wedding–day. The birds were +singing in the garden under her window as she opened her lattice and looked +out. The word lattice is not a poetical license in this case; for Miss +Lawford's chamber was a roomy, old–fashioned apartment at the back of the +house, with deep window–seats and diamond–paned casements.</p> + +<p>The sun shone, and the roses bloomed in all their summer glory. "'Twas in +the time of roses," as gentle–minded Thomas Hood so sweetly sang; surely +the time of all others for a bridal morning. The girl looked out into the +sunshine with her loose hair falling about her shoulders, and lingered a little +looking at the familiar garden, with a half–pensive smile.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how often, how often," she said, "I have walked up and down by those +laburnums, Letty!" There were two pretty white–curtained bedsteads in the +old–fashioned room, and Miss Arundel had shared her friend's apartment +for the last week. "How often mamma and I have sat under the dear old cedar, +making our poor children's frocks! People say monotonous lives are not happy: +mine has been the same thing over and over again; and yet how happy, how happy! +And to think that we"––she paused a moment, and the rosy colour in +her cheeks deepened by just one shade; it was so sweet to use that simple +monosyllable "we" when Edward Arundel was the other half of the +pronoun,––"to think that we shall be in Paris to–morrow!"</p> + +<p>"Driving in the Bois," exclaimed Miss Arundel; "and dining at the Maison +Dorée, or the Café de Paris. Don't dine at Meurice's, Linda; it's dreadfully +slow dining at one's hotel. And you'll be a young married woman, and can do +anything, you know. If I were a young married woman, I'd ask my husband to take +me to the Mabille, just for half an hour, with an old bonnet and a thick veil. +I knew a girl whose first–cousin married a cornet in the Guards, and they +went to the Mabille one night. Come, Belinda, if you mean to have your +back–hair done at all, you'd better sit down at once and let me commence +operations."</p> + +<p>Miss Arundel had stipulated that, upon this particular morning, she was to +dress her friend's hair; and she turned up the frilled sleeves of her white +dressing–gown, and set to work in the orthodox manner, spreading a +network of shining tresses about Miss Lawford's shoulders, prior to the weaving +of elaborate plaits that were to make a crown for the fair young bride. +Letitia's tongue went as fast as her fingers; but Belinda was very silent.</p> + +<p>She was thinking of the bounteous Providence that had given her the man she +loved for her husband. She had been on her knees in the early morning, long +before Letitia's awakening, breathing out innocent thanksgiving for the +happiness that overflowed her fresh young heart. A woman had need to be +country–bred, and to have been reared in the narrow circle of a happy +home, to feel as Belinda Lawford felt. Such love as hers is only given to +bright and innocent spirits, untarnished even by the knowledge of sin.</p> + +<p>Downstairs Edward Arundel was making a wretched pretence of breakfasting +<em>tête–à–tête</em> with his future father–in–law.</p> + +<p>The Major had held his peace as to the unlooked–for visitant of the +past night. He had given particular orders that no stranger should be admitted +to the house, and that was all. But being of a naturally frank, not to say +loquacious disposition, the weight of this secret was a very terrible burden to +the honest half–pay soldier. He ate his dry toast uneasily, looking at +the door every now and then, in the perpetual expectation of beholding that +barrier burst open by mad Olivia Marchmont.</p> + +<p>The breakfast was not a very cheerful meal, therefore. I don't suppose any +ante–nuptial breakfast ever is very jovial. There was the state +banquet––<em>the</em> wedding breakfast––to be eaten +by–and–by; and Mrs. Lawford, attended by all the females of the +establishment, was engaged in putting the last touches to the groups of fruit +and confectionery, the pyramids of flowers, and that crowning glory, the +wedding–cake.</p> + +<p>"Remember the Madeira and still Hock are to go round first, and then the +sparkling; and tell Gogram to be particular about the corks, Martha," Mrs. +Lawford said to her confidential maid, as she gave a nervous last look at the +table. "I was at a breakfast once where a champagne–cork hit the +bridegroom on the bridge of his nose at the very moment he rose to return +thanks; and being a nervous man, poor fellow,––in point of fact, he +was a curate, and the bride was the rector's daughter, with two hundred a year +of her own,––it quite overcame him, and he didn't get over it all +through the breakfast. And now I must run and put on my bonnet."</p> + +<p>There was nothing but putting on bonnets, and pinning lace–shawls, and +wild outcries for hair–pins, and interchanging of little feminine +services, upon the bedroom floor for the next half–hour.</p> + +<p>Major Lawford walked up and down the hall, putting on his white gloves, +which were too large for him,––elderly men's white gloves always +are too large for them,––and watching the door of the citadel. +Olivia must pass over a father's body, the old soldier thought, before she +should annoy Belinda on her bridal morning.</p> + +<p>By–and–by the carriages came round to the door. The girl +bridesmaids came crowding down the stairs, hustling each other's crisped +garments, and disputing a little in a sisterly fashion; then Letitia Arundel, +with nine rustling flounces of white silk ebbing and flowing and surging about +her, and with a pleased simper upon her face; and then followed Mrs. Arundel, +stately in silver–grey moire, and Mrs. Lawford, in violet +silk––until the hall was a show of bonnets and bouquets and +muslin.</p> + +<p>And last of all, Belinda Lawford, robed in cloudlike garments of spotless +lace, with bridal flowers trembling round her hair, came slowly down the broad +old–fashioned staircase, to see her lover loitering in the hall below.</p> + +<p>He looked very grave; but he greeted his bride with a tender smile. He loved +her, but he could not forget. Even upon this, his wedding–day, the +haunting shadow of the past was with him: not to be shaken off.</p> + +<p>He did not wait till Belinda reached the bottom of the staircase. There was +a sort of ceremonial law to be observed, and he was not to speak to Miss +Lawford upon this special morning until he met her in the vestry at +Hillingsworth church; so Letitia and Mrs. Arundel hustled the young man into +one of the carriages, while Major Lawford ran to receive his daughter at the +foot of the stairs.</p> + +<p>The Arundel carriage drove off about five minutes before the vehicle that +was to convey Major Lawford, Belinda, and as many of the girl bridesmaids as +could be squeezed into it without detriment to lace and muslin. The rest went +with Mrs. Lawford in the third and last carriage. Hillingsworth church was +about three–quarters of a mile from the Grange. It was a pretty irregular +old place, lying in a little nook under the shadow of a great yew–tree. +Behind the square Norman tower there was a row of poplars, black against the +blue summer sky; and between the low gate of the churchyard and the grey, +moss–grown porch, there was an avenue of good old elms. The rooks were +calling to each other in the topmost branches of the trees as Major Lawford's +carriage drew up at the churchyard gate.</p> + +<p>Belinda was a great favourite amongst the poor of Hillingsworth parish, and +the place had put on a gala–day aspect in honour of her wedding. Garlands +of honeysuckle and wild clematis were twined about the stout oaken +gate–posts. The school–children were gathered in clusters in the +churchyard, with their pinafores full of fresh flowers from shadowy lanes and +from prim cottage–gardens,––bright homely blossoms, with the +morning dew still upon them.</p> + +<p>The rector and his curate were standing in the porch waiting for the coming +of the bride; and there were groups of well–dressed people dotted about +here and there in the drowsy–sheltered pews near the altar. There were +humbler spectators clustered under the low ceiling of the +gallery––tradesmen's wives and daughters, radiant with new ribbons, +and whispering to one another in delighted anticipation of the show.</p> + +<p>Everybody round about the Grange loved pretty, genial Belinda Lawford, and +there was universal rejoicing because of her happiness.</p> + +<p>The wedding party came out of the vestry presently in appointed order: the +bride with her head drooping, and her face hidden by her veil; the bridesmaids' +garments making a fluttering noise as they came up the aisle, like the sound of +a field of corn faintly stirred by summer breezes.</p> + +<p>Then the grave voice of the rector began the service with the brief +preliminary exordium; and then, in a tone that grew more solemn with the +increasing solemnity of the words, he went on to that awful charge which is +addressed especially to the bridegroom and the bride:</p> + +<p>"I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of +judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of +you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in +matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well +assured––––"</p> + +<p>The rector read no further; for a woman's voice from out the dusky shadows +at the further end of the church cried "Stop!"</p> + +<p>There was a sudden silence; people stared at each other with scared faces, +and then turned in the direction whence the voice had come. The bride lifted +her head for the first time since leaving the vestry, and looked round about +her, ashy pale and trembling.</p> + +<p>"O Edward, Edward!" she cried, "what is it?"</p> + +<p>The rector waited, with his hand still upon the open book. He waited, +looking towards the other end of the chancel. He had no need to wait long: a +woman, with a black veil thrown back from a white, haggard face, and with dusty +garments dragging upon the church–floor, came slowly up the aisle.</p> + +<p>Her two hands were clasped upon her breast, and her breath came in gasps, as +if she had been running.</p> + +<p>"Olivia!" cried Edward Arundel, "what, in Heaven's name––"</p> + +<p>But Major Lawford stepped forward, and spoke to the rector.</p> + +<p>"Pray let her be got out of the way," he said, in a low voice. "I was warned +of this. I was quite prepared for some such disturbance." He sank his voice to +a whisper. "<em>She is mad!</em>" he said, close in the rector's ear.</p> + +<p>The whisper was like whispering in general,––more distinctly +audible than the rest of the speech. Olivia Marchmont heard it.</p> + +<p>"Mad until to–day," she cried; "but not mad to–day. O Edward +Arundel! a hideous wrong has been done by me and through me. Your +wife––your wife––"</p> + +<p>"My wife! what of her? She––"</p> + +<p>"She is alive!" gasped Olivia; "an hour's walk from here. I came on foot. I +was tired, and I have been long coming. I thought that I should be in time to +stop you before you got to the church; but I am very weak. I ran the last part +of the way––"</p> + +<p>She dropped her hands upon the altar–rails, and seemed as if she would +have fallen. The rector put his arm about her to support her, and she went +on:</p> + +<p>"I thought I should have spared her this," she said, pointing to Belinda; +"but I can't help it. <em>She</em> must bear her misery as well as others. It +can't be worse for her than it has been for others. She must +bear––"</p> + +<p>"My wife!" said Edward Arundel; "Mary, my poor sorrowful +darling––alive?"</p> + +<p>Belinda turned away, and buried her face upon her mother's shoulder. She +could have borne anything better than this.</p> + +<p>His heart––that supreme treasure, for which she had rendered up +thanks to her God––had never been hers after all. A word, a breath, +and she was forgotten; his thoughts went back to that other one. There was +unutterable joy, there was unspeakable tenderness in his tone, as he spoke of +Mary Marchmont, though <em>she</em> stood by his side, in all her foolish +bridal finery, with her heart newly broken.</p> + +<p>"O mother," she cried, "take me away! take me away, before I die!"</p> + +<p>Olivia flung herself upon her knees by the altar–rails. Where the pure +young bride was to have knelt by her lover's side this wretched sinner cast +herself down, sunk far below all common thoughts in the black depth of her +despair.</p> + +<p>"O my sin, my sin!" she cried, with clasped hands lifted up above her head. +"Will God ever forgive my sin? will God ever have pity upon me? Can He pity, +can He forgive, such guilt as mine? Even this work of to–day is no +atonement to be reckoned against my wickedness. I was jealous of this other +woman; I was jealous! Earthly passion was still predominant in this miserable +breast."</p> + +<p>She rose suddenly, as if this outburst had never been, and laid her hand +upon Edward Arundel's arm.</p> + +<p>"Come!" she said; "come!"</p> + +<p>"To her––to Mary––my wife?"</p> + +<p>They had taken Belinda away by this time; but Major Lawford stood looking +on. He tried to draw Edward aside; but Olivia's hand upon the young man's arm +held him like a vice.</p> + +<p>"She is mad," whispered the Major. "Mr. Marchmont came to me last night, and +warned me of all this. He told me to be prepared for anything; she has all +sorts of delusions. Get her away, if you can, while I go and explain matters to +Belinda. Edward, if you have a spark of manly feeling, get this woman away."</p> + +<p>But Olivia held the bridegroom's arm with a tightening grasp.</p> + +<p>"Come!" she said; "come! Are you turned to stone, Edward Arundel? Is your +love worth no more than this? I tell you, your wife, Mary Marchmont, is alive. +Let those who doubt me come and see for themselves."</p> + +<p>The eager spectators, standing up in the pews or crowding in the narrow +aisle, were only too ready to respond to this invitation.</p> + +<p>Olivia led her cousin out into the churchyard; she led him to the gate where +the carriages were waiting. The crowd flocked after them; and the people +outside began to cheer as they came out. That cheer was the signal for which +the school–children had waited; and they set to work scattering flowers +upon the narrow pathway, before they looked up to see who was coming to trample +upon the rosebuds and jessamine, the woodbine and seringa. But they drew back, +scared and wondering, as Olivia came along the pathway, sweeping those tender +blossoms after her with her trailing black garments, and leading the pale +bridegroom by his arm.</p> + +<p>She led him to the door of the carriage beside which Major Lawford's +gray–haired groom was waiting, with a big white satin favour pinned upon +his breast, and a bunch of roses in his button hole. There were favours in the +horses' ears, and favours upon the breasts of the Hillingsworth tradespeople +who supplied bread and butcher's meat and grocery to the family at the Grange. +The bell–ringers up in the church–tower saw the crowd flock out of +the porch, and thought the marriage ceremony was over. The jangling bells +pealed out upon the hot summer air as Edward stood by the +churchyard–gate, with Olivia Marchmont by his side.</p> + +<p>"Lend me your carriage," he said to Major Lawford, "and come with me. I must +see the end of this. It may be all a delusion; but I must see the end of it. If +there is any truth in instinct, I believe that I shall see my +wife––alive."</p> + +<p>He got into the carriage without further ceremony, and Olivia and Major +Lawford followed him.</p> + +<p>"Where is my wife?" the young man asked, letting down the front window as he +spoke.</p> + +<p>"At Kemberling, at Hester Jobson's."</p> + +<p>"Drive to Kemberling," Edward said to the coachman,––"to +Kemberling High Street, as fast as you can go."</p> + +<p>The man drove away from the churchyard–gate. The humbler spectators, +who were restrained by no niceties of social etiquette, hurried after the +vehicle, raising white clouds of dust upon the high road with their eager feet. +The higher classes lingered about the churchyard, talking to each other and +wondering.</p> + +<p>Very few people stopped to think of Belinda Lawford. "Let the stricken deer +go weep." A stricken deer is a very uninteresting object when there are hounds +in full cry hard by, and another deer to be hunted.</p> + +<p>"Since when has my wife been at Kemberling?" Edward Arundel asked Olivia, as +the carriage drove along the high road between the two villages.</p> + +<p>"Since daybreak this morning."</p> + +<p>"Where was she before then?"</p> + +<p>"At Stony–Stringford Farm."</p> + +<p>"And before then?"</p> + +<p>"In the pavilion over the boat–house at Marchmont."</p> + +<p>"My God! And––"</p> + +<p>The young man did not finish his sentence. He put his head out of the +window, looking towards Kemberling, and straining his eyes to catch the +earliest sight of the straggling village street.</p> + +<p>"Faster!" he cried every now and then to the coachman; "faster!"</p> + +<p>In little more than half an hour from the time at which it had left the +churchyard–gate, the carriage stopped before the little carpenter's shop. +Mr. Jobson's doorway was adorned by a painted representation of two very +doleful–looking mutes standing at a door; for Hester's husband combined +the more aristocratic avocation of undertaker with the homely trade of +carpenter and joiner.</p> + +<p>Olivia Marchmont got out of the carriage before either of the two men could +alight to assist her. Power was the supreme attribute of this woman's mind. Her +purpose never faltered; from the moment she had left Marchmont Towers until +now, she had known neither rest of body nor wavering of intention.</p> + +<p>"Come," she said to Edward Arundel, looking back as she stood upon the +threshold of Mr. Jobson's door; "and you too," she added, turning to Major +Lawford,––"follow us, and <em>see</em> whether I am MAD."</p> + +<p>She passed through the shop, and into that prim, smart parlour in which +Edward Arundel had lamented his lost wife.</p> + +<p>The latticed windows were wide open, and the warm summer sunshine filled the +room.</p> + +<p>A girl, with loose tresses of hazel–brown hair falling about her face, +was sitting on the floor, looking down at a beautiful fair–haired +nursling of a twelvemonth old.</p> + +<p>The girl was John Marchmont's daughter; the child was Edward Arundel's son. +It was <em>his</em> childish cry that the young man had heard upon that October +night in the pavilion by the water.</p> + +<p>"Mary Arundel," said Olivia, in a hard voice, "I give you back your +husband."</p> + +<p>The young mother got up from the ground with a low cry, tottered forward, +and fell into her husband's arms.</p> + +<p>"They told me you were dead! They made me believe that you were dead!" she +said, and then fainted on the young man's breast. Edward carried her to a sofa +and laid her down, white and senseless; and then knelt down beside her, crying +over her, and sobbing out inarticulate thanksgiving to the God who had given +his lost wife back to him.</p> + +<p>"Poor sweet lamb!" murmured Hester Jobson; "she's as weak as a baby; and +she's gone through so much a'ready this morning."</p> + +<p>It was some time before Edward Arundel raised his head from the pillow upon +which his wife's pale face lay, half hidden amid the tangled hair. But when he +did look up, he turned to Major Lawford and stretched out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Have pity upon me," he said. "I have been the dupe of a villain. Tell your +poor child how much I esteem her, how much I regret +that––that––we should have loved each other as we have. +The instinct of my heart would have kept me true to the past; but it was +impossible to know your daughter and not love her. The villain who has brought +this sorrow upon us shall pay dearly for his infamy. Go back to your daughter; +tell her everything. Tell her what you have seen here. I know her heart, and I +know that she will open her arms to this poor ill–used child."</p> + +<p>The Major went away very downcast. Hester Jobson bustled about bringing +restoratives and pillows, stopping every now and then in an outburst of +affection by the slippery horsehair couch on which Mary lay.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Jobson had prepared her best bedroom for her beloved visitor, and +Edward carried his young wife up to the clean, airy chamber. He went back to +the parlour to fetch the child. He carried the fair–haired little one +up–stairs in his own arms; but I regret to say that the infant showed an +inclination to whimper in his newly–found father's embrace. It is only in +the British Drama that newly discovered fathers are greeted with an outburst of +ready–made affection. Edward Arundel went back to the sitting–room +presently, and sat down, waiting till Hester should bring him fresh tidings of +his wife. Olivia Marchmont stood by the window, with her eyes fixed upon +Edward.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you speak to me?" she said presently. "Can you find no words that +are vile enough to express your hatred of me? Is that why you are silent?"</p> + +<p>"No, Olivia," answered the young man, calmly. "I am silent, because I have +nothing to say to you. Why you have acted as you have acted,––why +you have chosen to be the tool of a black–hearted +villain,––is an unfathomable mystery to me. I thank God that your +conscience was aroused this day, and that you have at least hindered the misery +of an innocent girl. But why you have kept my wife hidden from +me,––why you have been the accomplice of Paul Marchmont's +crime,––is more than I can even attempt to guess."</p> + +<p>"Not yet?" said Olivia, looking at him with a strange smile. "Even yet I am +a mystery to you?"</p> + +<p>"You are, indeed, Olivia."</p> + +<p>She turned away from him with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"Then I had better remain so till the end," she said, looking out into the +garden. But after a moment's silence she turned her head once more towards the +young man. "I will speak," she said; "I <em>will</em> speak, Edward Arundel. I +hope and believe that I have not long to live, and that all my shame and +misery, my obstinate wickedness, my guilty passion, will come to an end, like a +long feverish dream. O God, have mercy on my waking, and make it brighter than +this dreadful sleep! I loved you, Edward Arundel. Ah! you start. Thank God at +least for that. I kept my secret well. You don't know what that word 'love' +means, do you? You think you love that childish girl yonder, perhaps; but I can +tell you that you don't know what love is. <em>I</em> know what it is. I have +loved. For ten years,––for ten long, dreary, desolate, miserable +years, fifty–two weeks in every year, fifty–two Sundays, with long +idle hours between the two church services––I have loved you, +Edward. Shall I tell you what it is to love? It is to suffer, to hate, yes, to +hate even the object of your love, when that love is hopeless; to hate him for +the very attributes that have made you love him; to grudge the gifts and graces +that have made him dear. It is to hate every creature on whom his eyes look +with greater tenderness than they look on you; to watch one face until its +familiar lines become a perpetual torment to you, and you cannot sleep because +of its eternal presence staring at you in all your dreams. It is to be like +some wretched drunkard, who loathes the fiery spirit that is destroying him, +body and soul, and yet goes on, madly drinking, till he dies. Love! How many +people upon this great earth know the real meaning of that hideous word! I have +learnt it until my soul loathes the lesson. They will tell you that I am mad, +Edward, and they will tell you something near the truth; but not quite the +truth. My madness has been my love. From long ago, when you were little more +than a boy––you remember, don't you, the long days at the Rectory? +<em>I</em> remember every word you ever spoke to me, every sentiment you ever +expressed, every look of your changing face––you were the first +bright thing that came across my barren life; and I loved you. I married John +Marchmont––why, do you think?––because I wanted to make +a barrier between you and me. I wanted to make my love for you impossible by +making it a sin. So long as my husband lived, I shut your image out of my mind +as I would have shut out the Prince of Darkness, if he had come to me in a +palpable shape. But since then––oh, I hope I have been mad since +then; I hope that God may forgive my sins because I have been mad!"</p> + +<p>Her thoughts wandered away to that awful question which had been so lately +revived in her mind––Could she be forgiven? Was it within the +compass of heavenly mercy to forgive such a sin as hers?</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER38" id="CHAPTER38">CHAPTER XII.<br /> +MARY'S STORY.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>One of the minor effects of any great shock, any revolution, natural or +political, social or domestic, is a singular unconsciousness, or an exaggerated +estimate, of the passage of time. Sometimes we fancy that the common functions +of the universe have come to a dead stop during the tempest which has shaken +our being to its remotest depths. Sometimes, on the other hand, it seems to us +that, because we have endured an age of suffering, or half a lifetime of +bewildered joy, the terrestrial globe has spun round in time to the quickened +throbbing of our passionate hearts, and that all the clocks upon earth have +been standing still.</p> + +<p>When the sun sank upon the summer's day that was to have been the day of +Belinda's bridal, Edward Arundel thought that it was still early in the +morning. He wondered at the rosy light all over the western sky, and that great +ball of molten gold dropping down below the horizon. He was fain to look at his +watch, in order to convince himself that the low light was really the familiar +sun, and not some unnatural appearance in the heavens.</p> + +<p>And yet, although he wondered at the closing of the day, with a strange +inconsistency his mind could scarcely grapple with the idea that only last +night he had sat by Belinda Lawford's side, her betrothed husband, and had +pondered, Heaven only knows with what sorrowful regret, upon the unknown grave +in which his dead wife lay.</p> + +<p>"I only knew it this morning," he thought; "I only knew this morning that my +young wife still lives, and that I have a son."</p> + +<p>He was sitting by the open window in Hester Jobson's best bedroom. He was +sitting in an old–fashioned easy–chair, placed between the head of +the bed and the open window,––a pure cottage window, with diamond +panes of thin greenish glass, and a broad painted ledge, with a great jug of +homely garden–flowers standing on it. The young man was sitting by the +side of the bed upon which his newly–found wife and son lay asleep; the +child's head nestled on his mother's breast, one flushed cheek peeping out of a +tangled confusion of hazel–brown and babyish flaxen hair.</p> + +<p>The white dimity curtains overshadowed the loving sleepers. The pretty +fluffy knotted fringe––neat Hester's handiwork––made +fantastical tracery upon the sunlit counterpane. Mary slept with one arm folded +round her child, and with her face turned to her husband. She had fallen asleep +with her hand clasped in his, after a succession of fainting–fits that +had left her terribly prostrate.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel watched that tender picture with a smile of ineffable +affection.</p> + +<p>"I can understand now why Roman Catholics worship the Virgin Mary," he +thought. "I can comprehend the inspiration that guided Raphael's hand when he +painted the Madonna de la Chaise. In all the world there is no picture so +beautiful. From all the universe he could have chosen no subject more sublime. +O my darling wife, given back to me out of the grave, restored to +me,––and not alone restored! My little son! my baby–son! +whose feeble voice I heard that dark October night. To think that I was so +wretched a dupe! to think that my dull ears could hear that sound, and no +instinct rise up in my heart to reveal the presence of my child! I was so near +them, not once, but several times,––so near, and I never +knew––I never guessed!"</p> + +<p>He clenched his fists involuntarily at the remembrance of those purposeless +visits to the lonely boat–house. His young wife was restored to him. But +nothing could wipe away the long interval of agony in which he and she had been +the dupe of a villanous trickster and a jealous woman. Nothing could give back +the first year of that baby's life,––that year which should have +been one long holiday of love and rejoicing. Upon what a dreary world those +innocent eyes had opened, when they should have looked only upon sunshine and +flowers, and the tender light of a loving father's smile!</p> + +<p>"O my darling, my darling!" the young husband thought, as he looked at his +wife's wan face, upon which the evidence of all that past agony was only too +painfully visible,––"how bitterly we two have suffered! But how +much more terrible must have been your suffering than mine, my poor gentle +darling, my broken lily!"</p> + +<p>In his rapture at finding the wife he had mourned as dead, the young man had +for a time almost forgotten the villanous plotter who had kept her hidden from +him. But now, as he sat quietly by the bed upon which Mary and her baby lay, he +had leisure to think of Paul Marchmont.</p> + +<p>What was he to do with that man? What vengeance could he wreak upon the head +of that wretch who, for nearly two years, had condemned an innocent girl to +cruel suffering and shame? To shame; for Edward knew now that one of the most +bitter tortures which Paul Marchmont had inflicted upon his cousin had been his +pretended disbelief in her marriage.</p> + +<p>"What can I do to him?" the young man asked himself. "<em>What</em> can I do +to him? There is no personal chastisement worse than that which he has endured +already at my hands. The scoundrel! the heartless villain! the false, +cold–blooded cur! What can I do to him? I can only repeat that shameful +degradation, and I <em>will</em> repeat it. This time he shall howl under the +lash like some beaten hound. This time I will drag him through the +village–street, and let every idle gossip in Kemberling see how a +scoundrel writhes under an honest man's whip. I will––"</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel's wife woke while he was thinking what chastisement he should +inflict upon her deadly foe; and the baby opened his round innocent blue eyes +in the next moment, and sat up, staring at his new parent.</p> + +<p>Mr. Arundel took the child in his arms, and held him very tenderly, though +perhaps rather awkwardly. The baby's round eyes opened wider at sight of those +golden absurdities dangling at his father's watch–chain, and the little +pudgy hands began to play with the big man's lockets and seals.</p> + +<p>"He comes to me, you see, Mary!" Edward said, with naïve wonder.</p> + +<p>And then he turned the baby's face towards him, and tenderly contemplated +the bright surprised blue eyes, the tiny dimples, the soft moulded chin. I +don't know whether fatherly vanity prompted the fancy, but Edward Arundel +certainly did believe that he saw some faint reflection of his own features in +that pink and white baby–face; a shadowy resemblance, like a tremulous +image looking up out of a river. But while Edward was half–thinking this, +half–wondering whether there could be any likeness to him in that infant +countenance, Mary settled the question with womanly decision.</p> + +<p>"Isn't he like you, Edward?" she whispered. "It was only for his sake that I +bore my life all through that miserable time; and I don't think I could have +lived even for him, if he hadn't been so like you. I used to look at his face +sometimes for hours and hours together, crying over him, and thinking of you. I +don't think I ever cried except when he was in my arms. Then something seemed +to soften my heart, and the tears came to my eyes. I was very, very, very ill, +for a long time before my baby was born; and I didn't know how the time went, +or where I was. I used to fancy sometimes I was back in Oakley Street, and that +papa was alive again, and that we were quite happy together, except for some +heavy hammer that was always beating, beating, beating upon both our heads, and +the dreadful sound of the river rushing down the street under our windows. I +heard Mr. Weston tell his wife that it was a miracle I lived through that +time."</p> + +<p>Hester Jobson came in presently with a tea–tray, that made itself +heard, by a jingling of teaspoons and rattling of cups and saucers, all the way +up the narrow staircase.</p> + +<p>The friendly carpenter's wife had produced her best china and her silver +teapot,––an heirloom inherited from a wealthy maiden aunt of her +husband's. She had been busy all the afternoon, preparing that elegant little +collation of cake and fruit which accompanied the tea–tray; and she +spread the lavender–scented table–cloth, and arranged the cups and +saucers, the plates and dishes, with mingled pride and delight.</p> + +<p>But she had to endure a terrible disappointment by–and–by; for +neither of her guests was in a condition to do justice to her hospitality. Mary +got up and sat in the roomy easy–chair, propped up with pillows. Her +pensive eyes kept a loving watch upon the face of her husband, turned towards +her own, and slightly crimsoned by that rosy flush fading out in the western +sky. She sat up and sipped a cup of tea; and in that lovely summer twilight, +with the scent of the flowers blowing in through the open window, and a stupid +moth doing his best to beat out his brains against one of the diamond panes in +the lattice, the tortured heart, for the first time since the ruthless close of +that brief honeymoon, felt the heavenly delight of repose.</p> + +<p>"O Edward!" murmured the young wife, "how strange it seems to be happy!"</p> + +<p>He was at her feet, half–kneeling, half–sitting on a hassock of +Hester's handiwork, with both his wife's hands clasped in his, and his head +leaning upon the arm of her chair. Hester Jobson had carried off the baby, and +these two were quite alone, all in all to each other, with a cruel gap of two +years to be bridged over by sorrowful memories, by tender words of consolation. +They were alone, and they could talk quite freely now, without fear of +interruption; for although in purity and beauty an infant is first cousin to +the angels, and although I most heartily concur in all that Mr. Bennett and Mr. +Buchanan can say or sing about the species, still it must be owned that a baby +<em>is</em> rather a hindrance to conversation, and that a man's eloquence does +not flow quite so smoothly when he has to stop every now and then to rescue his +infant son from the imminent peril of strangulation, caused by a futile attempt +at swallowing one of his own fists.</p> + +<p>Mary and Edward were alone; they were together once more, as they had been +by the trout–stream in the Winchester meadows. A curtain had fallen upon +all the wreck and ruin of the past, and they could hear the soft, mysterious +music that was to be the prelude of a new act in life's drama.</p> + +<p>"I shall try to forget all that time," Mary said presently; "I shall try to +forget it, Edward. I think the very memory of it would kill me, if it was to +come back perpetually in the midst of my joy, as it does now, even now, when I +am so happy––so happy that I dare not speak of my happiness."</p> + +<p>She stopped, and her face drooped upon her husband's clustering hair.</p> + +<p>"You are crying, Mary!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear. There is something painful in happiness when it comes after such +suffering."</p> + +<p>The young man lifted his head, and looked in his wife's face. How deathly +pale it was, even in that shadowy twilight; how worn and haggard and wasted +since it had smiled at him in his brief honeymoon. Yes, joy is painful when it +comes after a long continuance of suffering; it is painful because we have +become sceptical by reason of the endurance of such anguish. We have lost the +power to believe in happiness. It comes, the bright stranger; but we shrink +appalled from its beauty, lest, after all, it should be nothing but a +phantom.</p> + +<p>Heaven knows how anxiously Edward Arundel looked at his wife's altered face. +Her eyes shone upon him with the holy light of love. She smiled at him with a +tender, reassuring smile; but it seemed to him that there was something almost +supernal in the brightness of that white, wasted face; something that reminded +him of the countenance of a martyr who has ceased to suffer the anguish of +death in a foretaste of the joys of Heaven.</p> + +<p>"Mary," he said, presently, "tell me every cruelty that Paul Marchmont or +his tools inflicted upon you; tell me everything, and I will never speak of our +miserable separation again. I will only punish the cause of it," he added, in +an undertone. "Tell me, dear. It will be painful for you to speak of it; but it +will be only once. There are some things I must know. Remember, darling, that +you are in my arms now, and that nothing but death can ever again part us."</p> + +<p>The young man had his arms round his wife. He felt, rather than heard, a low +plaintive sigh as he spoke those last words.</p> + +<p>"Nothing but death, Edward; nothing but death," Mary said, in a solemn +whisper. "Death would not come to me when I was very miserable. I used to pray +that I might die, and the baby too; for I could not have borne to leave him +behind. I thought that we might both be buried with you, Edward. I have dreamt +sometimes that I was lying by your side in a tomb, and I have stretched out my +dead hand to clasp yours. I used to beg and entreat them to let me be buried +with you when I died; for I believed that you were dead, Edward. I believed it +most firmly. I had not even one lingering hope that you were alive. If I had +felt such a hope, no power upon earth would have kept me prisoner."</p> + +<p>"The wretches!" muttered Edward between his set teeth; "the dastardly +wretches! the foul liars!"</p> + +<p>"Don't, Edward; don't, darling. There is a pain in my heart when I hear you +speak like that. I know how wicked they have been; how cruel––how +cruel. I look back at all my suffering as if it were some one else who +suffered; for now that you are with me I cannot believe that miserable, lonely, +despairing creature was really me, the same creature whose head now rests upon +your shoulder, whose breath is mixed with yours. I look back and see all my +past misery, and I cannot forgive them, Edward; I am very wicked, for I cannot +forgive my cousin Paul and his sister––yet. But I don't want you to +speak of them; I only want you to love me; I only want you to smile at me, and +tell me again and again and again that nothing can part us now––but +death."</p> + +<p>She paused for a few moments, exhausted by having spoken so long. Her head +lay upon her husband's shoulder, and she clung a little closer to him, with a +slight shiver.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, darling?"</p> + +<p>"I feel as if it couldn't be real."</p> + +<p>"What, dear?"</p> + +<p>"The present––all this joy. Edward, is it real? Is +it––is it? Or am I only dreaming? Shall I wake presently and feel +the cold air blowing in at the window, and see the moonlight on the wainscot at +Stony Stringford? Is it all real?"</p> + +<p>"It is, my precious one. As real as the mercy of God, who will give you +compensation for all you have suffered; as real as God's vengeance, which will +fall most heavily upon your persecutors. And now, darling, tell +me,––tell me all. I must know the story of these two miserable +years during which I have mourned for my lost love."</p> + +<p>Mr. Arundel forgot to mention that during those two miserable years he had +engaged himself to become the husband of another woman. But perhaps, even when +he is best and truest, a man is always just a shade behind a woman in the +matter of constancy.</p> + +<p>"When you left me in Hampshire, Edward, I was very, very miserable," Mary +began, in a low voice; "but I knew that it was selfish and wicked of me to +think only of myself. I tried to think of your poor father, who was ill and +suffering; and I prayed for him, and hoped that he would recover, and that you +would come back to me very soon. The people at the inn were very kind to me. I +sat at the window from morning till night upon the day after you left me, and +upon the day after that; for I was so foolish as to fancy, every time I heard +the sound of horses' hoofs or carriage–wheels upon the high–road, +that you were coming back to me, and that all my grief was over. I sat at the +window and watched the road till I knew the shape of every tree and housetop, +every ragged branch of the hawthorn–bushes in the hedge. At +last––it was the third day after you went away––I heard +carriage–wheels, that slackened as they came to the inn. A fly stopped at +the door, and oh, Edward, I did not wait to see who was in it,––I +never imagined the possibility of its bringing anybody but you. I ran +down–stairs, with my heart beating so that I could hardly breathe; and I +scarcely felt the stairs under my feet. But when I got to the +door––O my love, my love!––I cannot bear to think of +it; I cannot endure the recollection of it––"</p> + +<p>She stopped, gasping for breath, and clinging to her husband; and then, with +an effort, went on again:</p> + +<p>"Yes; I will tell you, dear; I must tell you. My cousin Paul and my +stepmother were standing in the little hall at the foot of the stairs. I think +I fainted in my stepmother's arms; and when my consciousness came back, I was +in our sitting–room,––the pretty rustic room, Edward, in +which you and I had been so happy together.</p> + +<p>"I must not stop to tell you everything. It would take me so long to speak +of all that happened in that miserable time. I knew that something must be +wrong, from my cousin Paul's manner; but neither he nor my stepmother would +tell me what it was. I asked them if you were dead; but they said, 'No, you +were not dead.' Still I could see that something dreadful had happened. But +by–and–by, by accident, I saw your name in a newspaper that was +lying on the table with Paul's hat and gloves. I saw the description of an +accident on the railway, by which I knew you had travelled. My heart sank at +once, and I think I guessed all that had happened. I read your name amongst +those of the people who had been dangerously hurt. Paul shook his head when I +asked him if there was any hope.</p> + +<p>"They brought me back here. I scarcely know how I came, how I endured all +that misery. I implored them to let me come to you, again and again, on my +knees at their feet. But neither of them would listen to me. It was impossible, +Paul said. He always seemed very, very kind to me; always spoke softly; always +told me that he pitied me, and was sorry for me. But though my stepmother +looked sternly at me, and spoke, as she always used to speak, in a harsh, cold +voice, I sometimes think she might have given way at last and let me come to +you, but for him––but for my cousin Paul. He could look at me with +a smile upon his face when I was almost mad with my misery; and he never +wavered; he never hesitated.</p> + +<p>"So they took me back to the Towers. I let them take me; for I scarcely felt +my sorrow any longer. I only felt tired; oh, so dreadfully tired; and I wanted +to lie down upon the ground in some quiet place, where no one could come near +me. I thought that I was dying. I believe I was very ill when we got back to +the Towers. My stepmother and Barbara Simmons watched by my bedside, day after +day, night after night. Sometimes I knew them; sometimes I had all sorts of +fancies. And often––ah, how often, darling!––I thought +that you were with me. My cousin Paul came every day, and stood by my bedside. +I can't tell you how hateful it was to me to have him there. He used to come +into the room as silently as if he had been walking upon snow; but however +noiselessly he came, however fast asleep I was when he entered the room, I +always knew that he was there, standing by my bedside, smiling at me. I always +woke with a shuddering horror thrilling through my veins, as if a rat had run +across my face.</p> + +<p>"By–and–by, when the delirium was quite gone, I felt ashamed of +myself for this. It seemed so wicked to feel this unreasonable antipathy to my +dear father's cousin; but he had brought me bad news of you, Edward, and it was +scarcely strange that I should hate him. One day he sat down by my bedside, +when I was getting better, and was strong enough to talk. There was no one +besides ourselves in the room, except my stepmother, and she was standing at +the window, with her head turned away from us, looking out. My cousin Paul sat +down by the bedside, and began to talk to me in that gentle, compassionate way +that used to torture me and irritate me in spite of myself.</p> + +<p>"He asked me what had happened to me after my leaving the Towers on the day +after the ball.</p> + +<p>"I told him everything, Edward––about your coming to me in +Oakley Street; about our marriage. But, oh, my darling, my husband, he wouldn't +believe me; he wouldn't believe. Nothing that I could say would make him +believe me. Though I swore to him again and again––by my dead +father in heaven, as I hoped for the mercy of my God––that I had +spoken the truth, and the truth only, he wouldn't believe me; he wouldn't +believe. He shook his head, and said he scarcely wondered I should try to +deceive him; that it was a very sad story, a very miserable and shameful story, +and my attempted falsehood was little more than natural.</p> + +<p>"And then he spoke against you, Edward––against you. He talked +of my childish ignorance, my confiding love, and your villany. O Edward, he +said such shameful things; such shameful, horrible things! You had plotted to +become master of my fortune; to get me into your power, because of my money; +and you had not married me. You had <em>not</em> married me; he persisted in +saying that.</p> + +<p>"I was delirious again after this; almost mad, I think. All through the +delirium I kept telling my cousin Paul of our marriage. Though he was very +seldom in the room, I constantly thought that he was there, and told him the +same thing––the same thing––till my brain was on fire. +I don't know how long it lasted. I know that, once in the middle of the night, +I saw my stepmother lying upon the ground, sobbing aloud and crying out about +her wickedness; crying out that God would never forgive her sin.</p> + +<p>"I got better at last, and then I went downstairs; and I used to sit +sometimes in poor papa's study. The blind was always down, and none of the +servants, except Barbara Simmons, ever came into the room. My cousin Paul did +not live at the Towers; but he came there every day, and often stayed there all +day. He seemed the master of the house. My stepmother obeyed him in everything, +and consulted him about everything.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes Mrs. Weston came. She was like her brother. She always smiled at +me with a grave compassionate smile, just like his; and she always seemed to +pity me. But she wouldn't believe in my marriage. She spoke cruelly about you, +Edward; cruelly, but in soft words, that seemed only spoken out of compassion +for me. No one would believe in my marriage.</p> + +<p>"No stranger was allowed to see me. I was never suffered to go out. They +treated me as if I was some shameful creature, who must be hidden away from the +sight of the world.</p> + +<p>"One day I entreated my cousin Paul to go to London and see Mrs. Pimpernel. +She would be able to tell him of our marriage. I had forgotten the name of the +clergyman who married us, and the church at which we were married. And I could +not tell Paul those; but I gave him Mrs. Pimpernel's address. And I wrote to +her, begging her to tell my cousin, all about my marriage; and I gave him the +note unsealed.</p> + +<p>"He went to London about a week afterwards; and when he came back, he +brought me my note. He had been to Oakley Street, he said; but Mrs. Pimpernel +had left the neighbourhood, and no one knew where she was gone."</p> + +<p>"A lie! a villanous lie!" muttered Edward Arundel. "Oh, the scoundrel! the +infernal scoundrel!"</p> + +<p>"No words would ever tell the misery of that time; the bitter anguish; the +unendurable suspense. When I asked them about you, they would tell me nothing. +Sometimes I thought that you had forgotten me; that you had only married me out +of pity for my loneliness; and that you were glad to be freed from me. Oh, +forgive me, Edward, for that wicked thought; but I was so very miserable, so +utterly desolate. At other times I fancied that you were very ill, helpless, +and unable to come to me. I dared not think that you were dead. I put away that +thought from me with all my might; but it haunted me day and night. It was with +me always like a ghost. I tried to shut it away from my sight; but I knew that +it was there.</p> + +<p>"The days were all alike,––long, dreary, and desolate; so I +scarcely know how the time went. My stepmother brought me religious books, and +told me to read them; but they were hard, difficult books, and I couldn't find +one word of comfort in them. They must have been written to frighten very +obstinate and wicked people, I think. The only book that ever gave me any +comfort, was that dear Book I used to read to papa on a Sunday evening in +Oakley Street. I read that, Edward, in those miserable days; I read the story +of the widow's only son who was raised up from the dead because his mother was +so wretched without him. I read that sweet, tender story again and again, until +I used to see the funeral train, the pale, still face upon the bier, the white, +uplifted hand, and that sublime and lovely countenance, whose image always +comes to us when we are most miserable, the tremulous light upon the golden +hair, and in the distance the glimmering columns of white temples, the +palm–trees standing out against the purple Eastern sky. I thought that He +who raised up a miserable woman's son chiefly because he was her only son, and +she was desolate without him, would have more pity upon me than the God in +Olivia's books: and I prayed to Him, Edward, night and day, imploring Him to +bring you back to me.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what day it was, except that it was autumn, and the dead +leaves were blowing about in the quadrangle, when my stepmother sent for me one +afternoon to my room, where I was sitting, not reading, not even +thinking––only sitting with my head upon my hands, staring stupidly +out at the drifting leaves and the gray, cold sky. My stepmother was in papa's +study; and I was to go to her there. I went, and found her standing there, with +a letter crumpled up in her clenched hand, and a slip of newspaper lying on the +table before her. She was as white as death, and she was trembling violently +from head to foot.</p> + +<p>"'See,' she said, pointing to the paper; 'your lover is dead. But for you he +would have received the letter that told him of his father's illness upon an +earlier day; he would have gone to Devonshire by a different train. It was by +your doing that he travelled when he did. If this is true, and he is dead, his +blood be upon your head; his blood be upon your head!'</p> + +<p>"I think her cruel words were almost exactly those. I did not hope for a +minute that those horrible lines in the newspaper were false. I thought they +must be true, and I was mad, Edward––I was mad; for utter despair +came to me with the knowledge of your death. I went to my own room, and put on +my bonnet and shawl; and then I went out of the house, down into that dreary +wood, and along the narrow pathway by the river–side. I wanted to drown +myself; but the sight of the black water filled me with a shuddering horror. I +was frightened, Edward; and I went on by the river, scarcely knowing where I +was going, until it was quite dark; and I was tired, and sat down upon the damp +ground by the brink of the river, all amongst the broad green flags and the wet +rushes. I sat there for hours, and I saw the stars shining feebly in a dark +sky. I think I was delirious, for sometimes I knew that I was there by the +water side, and then the next minute I thought that I was in my bedroom at the +Towers; sometimes I fancied that I was with you in the meadows near Winchester, +and the sun was shining, and you were sitting by my side, and I could see your +float dancing up and down in the sunlit water. At last, after I had been there +a very, very long time, two people came with a lantern, a man and a woman; and +I heard a startled voice say, 'Here she is; here, lying on the ground!' And +then another voice, a woman's voice, very low and frightened, said, 'Alive!' +And then two people lifted me up; the man carried me in his arms, and the woman +took the lantern. I couldn't speak to them; but I knew that they were my cousin +Paul and his sister, Mrs. Weston. I remember being carried some distance in +Paul's arms; and then I think I must have fainted away, for I can recollect +nothing more until I woke up one day and found myself lying in a bed in the +pavilion over the boat–house, with Mr. Weston watching by my bedside.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how the time passed; I only know that it seemed endless. I +think my illness was rheumatic fever, caught by lying on the damp ground nearly +all that night when I ran away from the Towers. A long time went +by––there was frost and snow. I saw the river once out of the +window when I was lifted out of bed for an hour or two, and it was frozen; and +once at midnight I heard the Kemberling church–bells ringing in the New +Year. I was very ill, but I had no doctor; and all that time I saw no one but +my cousin Paul, and Lavinia Weston, and a servant called Betsy, a rough country +girl, who took care of me when my cousins were away. They were kind to me, and +took great care of me."</p> + +<p>"You did not see Olivia, then, all this time?" Edward asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"No; I did not see my stepmother till some time after the New Year began. +She came in suddenly one evening, when Mrs. Weston was with me, and at first +she seemed frightened at seeing me. She spoke to me kindly afterwards, but in a +strange, terror–stricken voice; and she laid her head down upon the +counterpane of the bed, and sobbed aloud; and then Paul took her away, and +spoke to her cruelly, very cruelly––taunting her with her love for +you. I never understood till then why she hated me: but I pitied her after +that; yes, Edward, miserable as I was, I pitied her, because you had never +loved her. In all my wretchedness I was happier than her; for you had loved me, +Edward––you had loved me!"</p> + +<p>Mary lifted her face to her husband's lips, and those dear lips were pressed +tenderly upon her pale forehead.</p> + +<p>"O my love, my love!" the young man murmured; "my poor suffering angel! Can +God ever forgive these people for their cruelty to you? But, my darling, why +did you make no effort to escape?"</p> + +<p>"I was too ill to move; I believed that I was dying."</p> + +<p>"But afterwards, darling, when you were better, stronger,––did +you make no effort then to escape from your persecutors?"</p> + +<p>Mary shook her head mournfully.</p> + +<p>"Why should I try to escape from them?" she said. "What was there for me +beyond that place? It was as well for me to be there as anywhere else. I +thought you were dead, Edward; I thought you were dead, and life held nothing +more for me. I could do nothing but wait till He who raised the widow's son +should have pity upon me, and take me to the heaven where I thought you and +papa had gone before me. I didn't want to go away from those dreary rooms over +the boat–house. What did it matter to me whether I was there or at +Marchmont Towers? I thought you were dead, and all the glories and grandeurs of +the world were nothing to me. Nobody ill–treated me; I was let alone. +Mrs. Weston told me that it was for my own sake they kept me hidden from +everybody about the Towers. I was a poor disgraced girl, she told me; and it +was best for me to stop quietly in the pavilion till people had got tired of +talking of me, and then my cousin Paul would take me away to the Continent, +where no one would know who I was. She told me that the honour of my father's +name, and of my family altogether, would be saved by this means. I replied that +I had brought no dishonour on my dear father's name; but she only shook her +head mournfully, and I was too weak to dispute with her. What did it matter? I +thought you were dead, and that the world was finished for me. I sat day after +day by the window; not looking out, for there was a Venetian blind that my +cousin Paul had nailed down to the window–sill, and I could only see +glimpses of the water through the long, narrow openings between the laths. I +used to sit there listening to the moaning of the wind amongst the trees, or +the sounds of horses' feet upon the towing–path, or the rain dripping +into the river upon wet days. I think that even in my deepest misery God was +good to me, for my mind sank into a dull apathy, and I seemed to lose even the +capacity of suffering.</p> + +<p>"One day,––one day in March, when the wind was howling, and the +smoke blew down the narrow chimney and filled the room,––Mrs. +Weston brought her husband, and he talked to me a little, and then talked to +his wife in whispers. He seemed terribly frightened, and he trembled all the +time, and kept saying, 'Poor thing; poor young woman!' but his wife was cross +to him, and wouldn't let him stop long in the room. After that, Mr. Weston came +very often, always with Lavinia, who seemed cleverer than he was, even as a +doctor; for she dictated to him, and ordered him about in everything. Then, +by–and–by, when the birds were singing, and the warm sunshine came +into the room, my baby was born, Edward; my baby was born. I thought that God, +who raised the widow's son, had heard my prayer, and had raised you up from the +dead; for the baby's eyes were like yours, and I used to think sometimes that +your soul was looking out of them and comforting me.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember that poor foolish German woman who believed that the spirit +of a dead king came to her in the shape of a blackbird? She was not a good +woman, I know, dear; but she must have loved the king very truly, or she never +could have believed anything so foolish. I don't believe in people's love when +they love 'wisely,' Edward: the truest love is that which loves 'too well.'</p> + +<p>"From the time of my baby's birth everything was changed. I was more +miserable, perhaps, because that dull, dead apathy cleared away, and my memory +came back, and I thought of you, dear, and cried over my little angel's face as +he slept. But I wasn't alone any longer. The world seemed narrowed into the +little circle round my darling's cradle. I don't think he is like other babies, +Edward. I think he has known of my sorrow from the very first, and has tried in +his mute way to comfort me. The God who worked so many miracles, all separate +tokens of His love and tenderness and pity for the sorrows of mankind, could +easily make my baby different from other children, for a wretched mother's +consolation.</p> + +<p>"In the autumn after my darling's birth, Paul and his sister came for me one +night, and took me away from the pavilion by the water to a deserted farmhouse, +where there was a woman to wait upon me and take care of me. She was not unkind +to me, but she was rather neglectful of me. I did not mind that, for I wanted +nothing except to be alone with my precious boy––your son, Edward; +your son. The woman let me walk in the garden sometimes. It was a neglected +garden, but there were bright flowers growing wild, and when the spring came +again my pet used to lie on the grass and play with the buttercups and daisies +that I threw into his lap; and I think we were both of us happier and better +than we had been in those two close rooms over the boat–house.</p> + +<p>"I have told you all now, Edward, all except what happened this morning, +when my stepmother and Hester Jobson came into my room in the early daybreak, +and told me that I had been deceived, and that you were alive. My stepmother +threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and asked me to forgive her, for she +was a miserable sinner, she said, who had been abandoned by God; and I forgave +her, Edward, and kissed her; and you must forgive her too, dear, for I know +that she has been very, very wretched. And she took the baby in her arms, and +kissed him,––oh, so passionately!––and cried over him. +And then they brought me here in Mr. Jobson's cart, for Mr. Jobson was with +them, and Hester held me in her arms all the time. And then, darling, then +after a long time you came to me."</p> + +<p>Edward put his arms round his wife, and kissed her once more. "We will never +speak of this again, darling," he said. "I know all now; I understand it all. I +will never again distress you by speaking of your cruel wrongs."</p> + +<p>"And you will forgive Olivia, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my pet, I will forgive––Olivia."</p> + +<p>He said no more, for there was a footstep on the stair, and a glimmer of +light shone through the crevices of the door. Hester Jobson came into the room +with a pair of lighted wax–candles, in white crockery–ware +candlesticks. But Hester was not alone; close behind her came a lady in a +rustling silk gown, a tall matronly lady, who cried out,––</p> + +<p>"Where is she, Edward? Where is she? Let me see this poor ill–used +child."</p> + +<p>It was Mrs. Arundel, who had come to Kemberling to see her newly–found +daughter–in–law.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear mother," cried the young man, "how good of you to come! Now, +Mary, you need never again know what it is to want a protector, a tender +womanly protector, who will shelter you from every harm."</p> + +<p>Mary got up and went to Mrs. Arundel, who opened her arms to receive her +son's young wife. But before she folded Mary to her friendly breast, she took +the girl's two hands in hers, and looked earnestly at her pale, wasted face.</p> + +<p>She gave a long sigh as she contemplated those wan features, the shining +light in the eyes, that looked unnaturally large by reason of the girl's hollow +cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear," cried Mrs. Arundel, "my poor long–suffering child, how +cruelly they have treated you!"</p> + +<p>Edward looked at his mother, frightened by the earnestness of her manner; +but she smiled at him with a bright, reassuring look.</p> + +<p>"I shall take you home to Dangerfield with me, my poor love," she said to +Mary; "and I shall nurse you, and make you as plump as a partridge, my poor +wasted pet. And I'll be a mother to you, my motherless child. Oh, to think that +there should be any wretch vile enough to––But I won't agitate you, +my dear. I'll take you away from this bleak horrid county by the first train +to–morrow morning, and you shall sleep to–morrow night in the blue +bedroom at Dangerfield, with the roses and myrtles waving against your window; +and Edward shall go with us, and you shan't come back here till you are well +and strong; and you'll try and love me, won't you, dear? And, oh, Edward, I've +seen the boy! and he's a <em>superb</em> creature, the very <em>image</em> of +what you were at a twelvemonth old; and he came to me, and smiled at me, almost +as if he knew I was his grandmother; and he has got FIVE teeth, but I'm +<em>sorry</em> to tell you he's cutting them crossways, the top first instead +of the bottom, Hester says."</p> + +<p>"And Belinda, mother dear?" Edward said presently, in a grave undertone.</p> + +<p>"Belinda is an angel," Mrs. Arundel answered, quite as gravely. "She has +been in her own room all day, and no one has seen her but her mother; but she +came down to the hall as I was leaving the house this evening, and said to me, +'Dear Mrs. Arundel, tell him that he must not think I am so selfish as to be +sorry for what has happened. Tell him that I am very glad to think his young +wife has been saved.' She put her hand up to my lips to stop my speaking, and +then went back again to her room; and if that isn't acting like an angel, I +don't know what is."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER39" id="CHAPTER39">CHAPTER XIII.<br /> +"ALL WITHIN IS DARK AS NIGHT."</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont did not leave Stony–Stringford Farmhouse till dusk upon +that bright summer's day; and the friendly twilight is slow to come in the +early days of July, however a man may loathe the sunshine. Paul Marchmont +stopped at the deserted farmhouse, wandering in and out of the empty rooms, +strolling listlessly about the neglected garden, or coming to a dead stop +sometimes, and standing stock–still for ten minutes at a time, staring at +the wall before him, and counting the slimy traces of the snails upon the +branches of a plum–tree, or the flies in a spider's web. Paul Marchmont +was afraid to leave that lonely farmhouse. He was afraid as yet. He scarcely +knew what he feared, for a kind of stupor had succeeded the violent emotions of +the past few hours; and the time slipped by him, and his brain grew bewildered +when he tried to realise his position.</p> + +<p>It was very difficult for him to do this. The calamity that had come upon +him was a calamity that he had never anticipated. He was a clever man, and he +had put his trust in his own cleverness. He had never expected to be <em>found +out</em>.</p> + +<p>Until this hour everything had been in his favour. His dupes and victims had +played into his hands. Mary's grief, which had rendered her a passive creature, +utterly indifferent to her own fate,––her peculiar education, which +had taught her everything except knowledge of the world in which she was to +live,––had enabled Paul Marchmont to carry out a scheme so infamous +and daring that it was beyond the suspicion of honest men, almost too base for +the comprehension of ordinary villains.</p> + +<p>He had never expected to be found out. All his plans had been deliberately +and carefully prepared. Immediately after Edward's marriage and safe departure +for the Continent, Paul had intended to convey Mary and the child, with the +grim attendant whom he had engaged for them, far away, to one of the remotest +villages in Wales.</p> + +<p>Alone he would have done this; travelling by night, and trusting no one; for +the hired attendant knew nothing of Mary's real position. She had been told +that the girl was a poor relation of Paul's, and that her story was a very +sorrowful one. If the poor creature had strange fancies and delusions, it was +no more than might be expected; for she had suffered enough to turn a stronger +brain than her own. Everything had been arranged, and so cleverly arranged, +that Mary and the child would disappear after dusk one summer's evening, and +not even Lavinia Weston would be told whither they had gone.</p> + +<p>Paul had never expected to be found out. But he had least of all expected +betrayal from the quarter whence it had come. He had made Olivia his tool; but +he had acted cautiously even with her. He had confided nothing to her; and +although she had suspected some foul play in the matter of Mary's +disappearance, she had been certain of nothing. She had uttered no falsehood +when she swore to Edward Arundel that she did not know where his wife was. But +for her accidental discovery of the secret of the pavilion, she would never +have known of Mary's existence after that October afternoon on which the girl +left Marchmont Towers.</p> + +<p>But here Paul had been betrayed by the carelessness of the hired girl who +acted as Mary Arundel's gaoler and attendant. It was Olivia's habit to wander +often in that dreary wood by the water during the winter in which Mary was kept +prisoner in the pavilion over the boat–house. Lavinia Weston and Paul +Marchmont spent each of them a great deal of their time in the pavilion; but +they could not be always on guard there. There was the world to be hoodwinked; +and the surgeon's wife had to perform all her duties as a matron before the +face of Kemberling, and had to give some plausible account of her frequent +visits to the boat–house. Paul liked the place for his painting, Mrs. +Weston informed her friends; and he was <em>so</em> enthusiastic in his love of +art, that it was really a pleasure to participate in his enthusiasm; so she +liked to sit with him, and talk to him or read to him while he painted. This +explanation was quite enough for Kemberling; and Mrs. Weston went to the +pavilion at Marchmont Towers three or four times a week without causing any +scandal thereby.</p> + +<p>But however well you may manage things yourself, it is not always easy to +secure the careful co–operation of the people you employ. Betsy Murrel +was a stupid, narrow–minded young person, who was very safe so far as +regarded the possibility of any sympathy with, or compassion for, Mary Arundel +arising in her stolid nature; but the stupid stolidity which made her safe in +one way rendered her dangerous in another. One day, while Mrs. Weston was with +the hapless young prisoner, Miss Murrel went out upon the water–side to +converse with a good–looking young bargeman, who was a connexion of her +family, and perhaps an admirer of the young lady herself; and the door of the +painting–room being left wide open, Olivia Marchmont wandered listlessly +into the pavilion––there was a dismal fascination for her in that +spot, on which she had heard Edward Arundel declare his love for John +Marchmont's daughter––and heard Mary's voice in the chamber at the +top of the stone steps.</p> + +<p>This was how Olivia had surprised Paul's secret; and from that hour it had +been the artist's business to rule this woman by the only weapon which he +possessed against her,––her own secret, her own weak folly, her mad +love of Edward Arundel and jealous hatred of the woman whom he had loved. This +weapon was a very powerful one, and Paul used it unsparingly.</p> + +<p>When the woman who, for seven–and–twenty years of her life, had +lived without sin; who from the hour in which she had been old enough to know +right from wrong, until Edward Arundel's second return from India, had sternly +done her duty,––when this woman, who little by little had slipped +away from her high standing–point and sunk down into a morass of sin; +when this woman remonstrated with Mr. Marchmont, he turned upon her and lashed +her with the scourge of her own folly.</p> + +<p>"You come and upbraid me," he said, "and you call me villain and +arch–traitor, and say that you cannot abide this, your sin; and that your +guilt, in keeping our secret, cries to you in the dead hours of the night; and +you call upon me to undo what I have done, and to restore Mary Marchmont to her +rights. Do you remember what her highest right is? Do you remember that which I +must restore to her when I give her back this house and the income that goes +along with it? If I restore Marchmont Towers, I must restore to her <em>Edward +Arundel's love!</em> You have forgotten that, perhaps. If she ever +re–enters this house, she will come back to it leaning on his arm. You +will see them together––you will hear of their happiness; and do +you think that <em>he</em> will ever forgive you for your part of the +conspiracy? Yes, it is a conspiracy, if you like; if you are not afraid to call +it by a hard name, why should I fear to do so? Will he ever forgive you, do you +think, when he knows that his young wife has been the victim of a senseless, +vicious love? Yes, Olivia Marchmont; any love is vicious which is given +unsought, and is so strong a passion, so blind and unreasoning a folly, that +honour, mercy, truth, and Christianity are trampled down before it. How will +you endure Edward Arundel's contempt for you? How will you tolerate his love +for Mary, multiplied twentyfold by all this romantic business of separation and +persecution?</p> + +<p>"You talk to me of my sin. Who was it who first sinned? Who was it who drove +Mary Marchmont from this house,––not once only, but twice, by her +cruelty? Who was it who persecuted her and tortured her day by day and hour by +hour, not openly, not with an uplifted hand or blows that could be warded off, +but by cruel hints and inuendoes, by unwomanly sneers and hellish taunts? Look +into your heart, Olivia Marchmont; and when you make atonement for your sin, I +will make restitution for mine. In the meantime, if this business is painful to +you, the way lies open before you: go and take Edward Arundel to the pavilion +yonder, and give him back his wife; give the lie to all your past life, and +restore these devoted young lovers to each other's arms."</p> + +<p>This weapon never failed in its effect. Olivia Marchmont might loathe +herself, and her sin, and her life, which was made hideous to her because of +her sin; but she <em>could</em> not bring herself to restore Mary to her +lover–husband; she could not tolerate the idea of their happiness. Every +night she grovelled on her knees, and swore to her offended God that she would +do this thing, she would render this sacrifice of atonement; but every morning, +when her weary eyes opened on the hateful sunlight, she cried, "Not +to–day––not to–day."</p> + +<p>Again and again, during Edward Arundel's residence at Kemberling Retreat, +she had set out from Marchmont Towers with the intention of revealing to him +the place where his young wife was hidden; but, again and again, she had turned +back and left her work undone. She <em>could</em> not––she could +not. In the dead of the night, under pouring rain, with the bleak winds of +winter blowing in her face, she had set out upon that unfinished journey, only +to stop midway, and cry out, "No, no, no––not to–night; I +cannot endure it yet!"</p> + +<p>It was only when another and a fiercer jealousy was awakened in this woman's +breast, that she arose all at once, strong, resolute, and undaunted, to do the +work she had so miserably deferred. As one poison is said to neutralise the +evil power of another, so Olivia Marchmont's jealousy of Belinda seemed to blot +out and extinguish her hatred of Mary. Better anything than that Edward Arundel +should have a new, and perhaps a fairer, bride. The jealous woman had always +looked upon Mary Marchmont as a despicable rival. Better that Edward should be +tied to this girl, than that he should rejoice in the smiles of a lovelier +woman, worthier of his affection. <em>This</em> was the feeling paramount in +Olivia's breast, although she was herself half unconscious how entirely this +was the motive power which had given her new strength and resolution. She tried +to think that it was the awakening of her conscience that had made her strong +enough to do this one good work; but in the semi–darkness of her own mind +there was still a feeble glimmer of the light of truth, and it was this that +had prompted her to cry out on her knees before the altar in Hillingsworth +church, and declare the sinfulness of her nature.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont stopped several times before the ragged, untrimmed +fruit–trees in his purposeless wanderings in the neglected garden at +Stony Stringford, before the vaporous confusion cleared away from his brain, +and he was able to understand what had happened to him.</p> + +<p>His first reasonable action was to take out his watch; but even then he +stood for some moments staring at the dial before he remembered why he had +taken the watch from his pocket, or what it was that he wanted to know. By Mr. +Marchmont's chronometer it was ten minutes past seven o'clock; but the watch +had been unwound upon the previous night, and had run down. Paul put it back in +his waistcoat–pocket, and then walked slowly along the weedy pathway to +that low latticed window in which he had often seen Mary Arundel standing with +her child in her arms. He went to this window and looked in, with his face +against the glass. The room was neat and orderly now; for the woman whom Mr. +Marchmont had hired had gone about her work as usual, and was in the act of +filling a little brown earthenware teapot from a kettle on the hob when Paul +stared in at her.</p> + +<p>She looked up as Mr. Marchmont's figure came between her and the light, and +nearly dropped the little brown teapot in her terror of her offended +employer.</p> + +<p>But Paul pulled open the window, and spoke to her very quietly. "Stop where +you are," he said; "I want to speak to you. I'll come in."</p> + +<p>He went into the house by a door, that had once been the front and principal +entrance, which opened into a low wainscoted hall. From this room he went into +the parlour, which had been Mary Arundel's apartment, and in which the hired +nurse was now preparing her breakfast. "I thought I might as well get a cup of +tea, sir, whiles I waited for your orders," the woman murmured, apologetically; +"for bein' knocked up so early this morning, you see, sir, has made my head +<em>that</em> bad, I could scarcely bear myself; +and––––"</p> + +<p>Paul lifted his hand to stop the woman's talk, as he had done before. He had +no consciousness of what she was saying, but the sound of her voice pained him. +His eyebrows contracted with a spasmodic action, as if something had hurt his +head.</p> + +<p>There was a Dutch clock in the corner of the room, with a long pendulum +swinging against the wall. By this clock it was half–past eight.</p> + +<p>"Is your clock right?" Paul asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. Leastways, it may be five minutes too slow, but not more."</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont took out his watch, wound it up, and regulated it by the Dutch +clock.</p> + +<p>"Now," he said, "perhaps you can tell me clearly what happened. I want no +excuses, remember; I only want to know what occurred, and what was +said––word for word, remember."</p> + +<p>He sat down but got up again directly, and walked to the window; then he +paced up and down the room two or three times, and then went back to the +fireplace and sat down again. He was like a man who, in the racking torture of +some physical pain, finds a miserable relief in his own restlessness.</p> + +<p>"Come," he said; "I am waiting."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; which, begging your parding, if you wouldn't mind sitting still +like, while I'm a–telling of you, which it do remind me of the wild +beastes in the Zoological, sir, to that degree, that the boil, to which I am +subjeck, sir, and have been from a child, might prevent me bein' as truthful as +I should wish. Mrs. Marchmont, sir, she come before it was light, <em>in</em> a +cart, sir, which it was a shaycart, and made comfortable with cushions and +straw, and suchlike, or I should not have let the young lady go away in it; and +she bring with her a respectable, homely–looking young person, which she +call Hester Jobling or Gobson, or somethink of that sound like, which my memory +is treechrous, and I don't wish to tell a story on no account; and Mrs. +Marchmont she go straight up to my young lady, and she shakes her by the +shoulder; and then the young woman called Hester, she wakes up my young lady +quite gentle like, and kisses her and cries over her; and a man as drove the +cart, which looked a small tradesman well–to–do, brings his trap +round to the front–door,––you may see the trax of the wheels +upon the gravel now, sir, if you disbelieve me. And Mrs. Marchmont and the +young woman called Hester, between 'em they gets my young lady up, and dresses +her, and dresses the child; and does it all so quick, and overrides me to such +a degree, that I hadn't no power to prevent 'em; but I say to Mrs. Marchmont, I +say: 'Is it Mr. Marchmont's orders as his cousin should be took away this +morning?' and she stare at me hard, and say, 'Yes;' and she have allus an +abrumpt way, but was abrumpter than ordinary this morning. And, oh sir, bein' a +poor lone woman, what was I to do?"</p> + +<p>"Have you nothing more to tell me?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, sir; leastways, except as they lifted my young lady into the cart, +and the man got in after 'em, and drove away as fast as his horse would go; and +they had been gone two minutes when I began to feel all in a tremble like, for +fear as I might have done wrong in lettin' of 'em go."</p> + +<p>"You have done wrong," Paul answered, sternly; "but no matter. If these +officious friends of my poor weak–witted cousin choose to take her away, +so much the better for me, who have been burdened with her long enough. Since +your charge has gone, your services are no longer wanted. I shan't act +illiberally to you, though I am very much annoyed by your folly and stupidity. +Is there anything due to you?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brown hesitated for a moment, and then replied, in a very insinuating +tone,––</p> + +<p>"Not <em>wages</em>, sir; there ain't no <em>wages</em> doo to +me,––which you paid me a quarter in advance last Saturday was a +week, and took a receipt, sir, for the amount. But I have done my dooty, sir, +and had but little sleep and rest, which my 'ealth ain't what it was when I +answered your advertisement, requirin' a respectable motherly person, to take +charge of a invalid lady, not objectin' to the country––which I +freely tell you, sir, if I'd known that the country was a rheumatic old place +like this, with rats enough to scare away a regyment of soldiers, I would not +have undertook the situation; so any present as you might think sootable, +considerin' all things, and––––"</p> + +<p>"That will do," said Paul Marchmont, taking a handful of loose money from +his waistcoat pocket; "I suppose a ten–pound note would satisfy you?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed it would, sir, and very liberal of you +too––––"</p> + +<p>"Very well. I've got a five–pound note here, and five sovereigns. The +best thing you can do is to get back to London at once; there's a train leaves +Milsome Station at eleven o'clock––Milsome's not more than a mile +and a half from here. You can get your things together; there's a boy about the +place who will carry them for you, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; there's a boy by the name of William."</p> + +<p>"He can go with you, then; and if you look sharp, you can catch the +eleven–o'clock train."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; and thank you kindly, sir."</p> + +<p>"I don't want any thanks. See that you don't miss the train; that's all you +have to take care of."</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont went out into the garden again. He had done something, at any +rate; he had arranged for getting this woman out of the way.</p> + +<p>If––if by any remote chance there might be yet a possibility of +keeping the secret of Mary's existence, here was one witness already got rid +of.</p> + +<p>But was there any chance? Mr. Marchmont sat down on a rickety old +garden–seat, and tried to think––tried to take a deliberate +survey of his position.</p> + +<p>No; there was no hope for him. Look which way he could, there was not one +ray of light. With George Weston and Olivia, Betsy Murrel the +servant–girl, and Hester Jobson to bear witness against him, what could +he hope?</p> + +<p>The surgeon would be able to declare that the child was Mary's son, her +legitimate son, sole heir to that estate of which Paul had taken possession.</p> + +<p>There was no hope. There was no possibility that Olivia should waver in her +purpose; for had she not brought with her two witnesses––Hester +Jobson and her husband?</p> + +<p>From that moment the case was taken out of her hands. The honest carpenter +and his wife would see that Mary had her rights.</p> + +<p>"It will be a glorious speculation for them," thought Paul Marchmont, who +naturally measured other people's characters by a standard derived from an +accurate knowledge of his own.</p> + +<p>Yes, his ruin was complete. Destruction had come upon him, swift and sudden +as the caprice of a madwoman––or––the thunderbolt of an +offended Providence. What should he do? Run away, sneak away by +back–lanes and narrow footpaths to the nearest railway–station, +hide himself in a third–class carriage going Londonwards, and from London +get away to Liverpool, to creep on board some emigrant vessel bound for New +York?</p> + +<p>He could not even do this, for he was without the means of getting so much +as the railway–ticket that should carry him on the first stage of his +flight. After having given ten pounds to Mrs. Brown, he had only a few +shillings in his waistcoat–pocket. He had only one article of any great +value about him, and that was his watch, which had cost fifty pounds. But the +Marchmont arms were emblazoned on the outside of the case; and Paul's name in +full, and the address of Marchmont Towers, were ostentatiously engraved inside, +so that any attempt to dispose of the watch must inevitably lead to the +identification of the owner.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont had made no provision for this evil day. Supreme in the +consciousness of his own talents, he had never imagined discovery and +destruction. His plans had been so well arranged. On the very day after +Edward's second marriage, Mary and her child would have been conveyed away to +the remotest district in Wales; and the artist would have laughed at the idea +of danger. The shallowest schemer might have been able to manage this poor +broken–hearted girl, whose many sorrows had brought her to look upon life +as a thing which was never meant to be joyful, and which was only to be endured +patiently, like some slow disease that would be surely cured in the grave. It +had been so easy to deal with this ignorant and gentle victim that Paul had +grown bold and confident, and had ignored the possibility of such ruin as had +now come down upon him.</p> + +<p>What was he to do? What was the nature of his crime, and what penalty had he +incurred? He tried to answer these questions; but as his offence was of no +common kind, he knew of no common law which could apply to it. Was it a felony, +this appropriation of another person's property, this concealment of another +person's existence; or was it only a conspiracy, amenable to no criminal law; +and would he be called upon merely to make restitution of that which he had +spent and wasted? What did it matter? Either way, there was nothing for him but +ruin––irretrievable ruin.</p> + +<p>There are some men who can survive discovery and defeat, and begin a new +life in a new world, and succeed in a new career. But Paul Marchmont was not +one of these. He could not stick a hunting–knife and a brace of revolvers +in his leathern belt, sling a game–bag across his shoulders, take up his +breech–loading rifle, and go out into the backwoods of an uncivilised +country, to turn sheep–breeder, and hold his own against a race of +agricultural savages. He was a Cockney, and for him there was only one +world––a world in which men wore varnished boots and enamelled +shirt–studs with portraits of La Montespan or La Dubarry, and lived in +chambers in the Albany, and treated each other to little dinners at Greenwich +and Richmond, or cut a grand figure at a country–house, and collected a +gallery of art and a museum of <em>bric à brac</em>. This was the world upon +the outer edge of which Paul Marchmont had lived so long, looking in at the +brilliant inhabitants with hungry, yearning eyes through all the days of his +poverty and obscurity. This was the world into which he had pushed himself at +last by means of a crime.</p> + +<p>He was forty years of age; and in all his life he had never had but one +ambition,––and that was to be master of Marchmont Towers. The +remote chance of that inheritance had hung before him ever since his boyhood, a +glittering prize, far away in the distance, but so brilliant as to blind him to +the brightness of all nearer chances. Why should he slave at his easel, and +toil to become a great painter? When would art earn him eleven thousand a year? +The greatest painter of Mr. Marchmont's time lived in a miserable lodging at +Chelsea. It was before the days of the "Railway Station" and the "Derby Day;" +or perhaps Paul might have made an effort to become that which Heaven never +meant him to be––a great painter. No; art was only a means of +living with this man. He painted, and sold his pictures to his few patrons, who +beat him down unmercifully, giving him a small profit upon his canvas and +colours, for the encouragement of native art; but he only painted to live.</p> + +<p>He was waiting. From the time when he could scarcely speak plain, Marchmont +Towers had been a familiar word in his ears and on his lips. He knew the number +of lives that stood between his father and the estate, and had learned to say, +naïvely enough then,––</p> + +<p>"O pa, don't you wish that Uncle Philip and Uncle Marmaduke and Cousin John +would die soon?"</p> + +<p>He was two–and–twenty years of age when his father died; and he +felt a faint thrill of satisfaction, even in the midst of his sorrow, at the +thought that there was one life the less between him and the end of his hopes. +But other lives had sprung up in the interim. There was young Arthur, and +little Mary; and Marchmont Towers was like a caravanserai in the desert, which +seems to be farther and farther away as the weary traveller strives to reach +it.</p> + +<p>Still Paul hoped, and watched, and waited. He had all the instincts of a +sybarite, and he fancied, therefore, that he was destined to be a rich man. He +watched, and waited, and hoped, and cheered his mother and sister when they +were downcast with the hope of better days. When the chance came, he seized +upon it, and plotted, and succeeded, and revelled in his brief success.</p> + +<p>But now ruin had come to him, what was he to do? He tried to make some plan +for his own conduct; but he could not. His brain reeled with the effort which +he made to realise his own position.</p> + +<p>He walked up and down one of the pathways in the garden until a quarter to +ten o'clock; then he went into the house, and waited till Mrs. Brown had +departed from Stony–Stringford Farm, attended by the boy, who carried two +bundles, a bandbox, and a carpet–bag.</p> + +<p>"Come back here when you have taken those things to the station," Paul said; +"I shall want you."</p> + +<p>He watched the dilapidated five–barred gate swing to after the +departure of Mrs. Brown and her attendant, and then went to look at his horse. +The patient animal had been standing in a shed all this time, and had had +neither food nor water. Paul searched amongst the empty barns and outhouses, +and found a few handfuls of fodder. He took this to the animal, and then went +back again to the garden,––to that quiet garden, where the bees +were buzzing about in the sunshine with a drowsy, booming sound, and where a +great tabby–cat was sleeping stretched flat upon its side, on one of the +flower–beds.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont waited here very impatiently till the boy came back.</p> + +<p>"I must see Lavinia," he thought. "I dare not leave this place till I have +seen Lavinia. I don't know what may be happening at Hillingsworth or +Kemberling. These things are taken up sometimes by the populace. They may make +a party against me; they may––"</p> + +<p>He stood still, gnawing the edges of his nails, and staring down at the +gravel–walk.</p> + +<p>He was thinking of things that he had read in the +newspapers,––cases in which some cruel mother who had ill-used her +child, or some suspected assassin who, in all human probability, had poisoned +his wife, had been well–nigh torn piecemeal by an infuriated mob, and had +been glad to cling for protection to the officers of justice, or to beg leave +to stay in prison after acquittal, for safe shelter from honest men and women's +indignation.</p> + +<p>He remembered one special case in which the populace, unable to get at a +man's person, tore down his house, and vented their fury upon unsentient bricks +and mortar.</p> + +<p>Mr. Marchmont took out a little memorandum book, and scrawled a few lines in +pencil:</p> + +<p>"I am here, at Stony–Stringford Farmhouse," he wrote. "For God's sake, +come to me, Lavinia, and at once; you can drive here yourself. I want to know +what has happened at Kemberling and at Hillingsworth. Find out everything for +me, and come. P. M."</p> + +<p>It was nearly twelve o'clock when the boy returned. Paul gave him this +letter, and told the lad to get on his own horse, and ride to Kemberling as +fast as he could go. He was to leave the horse at Kemberling, in Mr. Weston's +stable, and was to come back to Stony–Stringford with Mrs. Weston. This +order Paul particularly impressed upon the boy, lest he should stop in +Kemberling, and reveal the secret of Paul's hiding–place.</p> + +<p>Mr. Paul Marchmont was afraid. A terrible sickening dread had taken +possession of him, and what little manliness there had ever been in his nature +seemed to have deserted him to–day.</p> + +<p>Oh, the long dreary hours of that miserable day! the hideous sunshine, that +scorched Mr. Marchmont's bare head, as he loitered about the +garden!––he had left his hat in the house; but he did not even know +that he was bareheaded. Oh, the misery of that long day of suspense and +anguish! The sick consciousness of utter defeat, the thought of the things that +he might have done, the purse that he might have made with the money that he +had lavished on pictures, and decorations, and improvements, and the profligate +extravagance of splendid entertainments. This is what he thought of, and these +were the thoughts that tortured him. But in all that miserable day he never +felt one pang of remorse for the agonies that he had inflicted upon his +innocent victim; on the contrary, he hated her because of this discovery, and +gnashed his teeth as he thought how she and her young husband would enjoy all +the grandeur of Marchmont Towers,––all that noble revenue which he +had hoped to hold till his dying day.</p> + +<p>It was growing dusk when Mr. Marchmont heard the sound of wheels in the +dusty lane outside the garden–wall. He went through the house, and into +the farmyard, in time to receive his sister Lavinia at the gate. It was the +wheels of her pony–carriage he had heard. She drove a pair of ponies, +which Paul had given her. He was angry with himself as he remembered that this +was another piece of extravagance,––another sum of money recklessly +squandered, when it might have gone towards the making of a rich provision for +this evil day.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston was very pale; and her brother could see by her face that she +brought him no good news. She left her ponies to the care of the boy, and went +into the garden with her brother.</p> + +<p>"Well, Lavinia?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Paul, it is a dreadful business," Mrs. Weston said, in a low +voice.</p> + +<p>"It's all George's doing! It's all the work of that infernal scoundrel!" +cried Paul, passionately. "But he shall pay bitterly +for––––"</p> + +<p>"Don't let us talk of him, Paul; no good can come of that. What are you +going to do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I sent for you because I wanted your help and advice. What's +the good of your coming if you bring me no help?"</p> + +<p>"Don't be cruel, Paul. Heaven knows, I'll do my best. But I can't see what's +to be done––except for you to get away, Paul. Everything's known. +Olivia stopped the marriage publicly in Hillingsworth Church; and all the +Hillingsworth people followed Edward Arundel's carriage to Kemberling. The +report spread like wildfire; and, oh Paul, the Kemberling people have taken it +up, and our windows have been broken, and there's been a crowd all day upon the +terrace before the Towers, and they've tried to get into the house, declaring +that they know you're hiding somewhere. Paul, Paul, what are we to do? The +people hooted after me as I drove away from the High Street, and the boys threw +stones at the ponies. Almost all the servants have left the Towers. The +constables have been up there trying to get the crowd off the terrace. But what +are we to do, Paul? what are we to do?"</p> + +<p>"Kill ourselves," answered the artist savagely. "What else should we do? +What have we to live for? You have a little money, I suppose; I have none. Do +you think I can go back to the old life? Do you think I can go back, and live +in that shabby house in Charlotte Street, and paint the same rocks and +boulders, the same long stretch of sea, the same low lurid streaks of +light,––all the old subjects over again,––for the same +starvation prices? Do you think I can ever tolerate shabby clothes again, or +miserable make–shift dinners,––hashed mutton, with +ill–cut hunks of lukewarm meat floating about in greasy slop called +gravy, and washed down with flat porter fetched half an hour too soon from a +public–house,––do you think I can go back to <em>that</em>? +No; I have tasted the wine of life: I have lived; and I'll never go back to the +living death called poverty. Do you think I can stand in that passage in +Charlotte Street again, Lavinia, to be bullied by an illiterate +tax–gatherer, or insulted by an infuriated baker? No, Lavinia; I have +made my venture, and I have failed."</p> + +<p>"But what will you do, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he answered, moodily.</p> + +<p>This was a lie. He knew well enough what he meant to do: he would kill +himself.</p> + +<p>That resolution inspired him with a desperate kind of courage. He would +escape from the mob; he would get away somewhere or other quietly and there +kill himself. He didn't know how, as yet; but he would deliberate upon that +point at his leisure, and choose the death that was supposed to be least +painful.</p> + +<p>"Where are my mother and Clarissa?" he asked presently.</p> + +<p>"They are at our house; they came to me directly they heard the rumour of +what had happened. I don't know how they heard it; but every one heard of it, +simultaneously, as it seemed. My mother is in a dreadful state. I dared not +tell her that I had known it all along."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course not," answered Paul, with a sneer; "let me bear the burden of +my guilt alone. What did my mother say?"</p> + +<p>"She kept saying again and again, 'I can't believe it. I can't believe that +he could do anything cruel; he has been such a good son.'"</p> + +<p>"I was not cruel," Paul cried vehemently; "the girl had every comfort. I +never grudged money for her comfort. She was a miserable, apathetic creature, +to whom fortune was almost a burden rather than an advantage. If I separated +her from her husband––bah!––was that such a cruelty? +She was no worse off than if Edward Arundel had been killed in that railway +accident; and it might have been so."</p> + +<p>He didn't waste much time by reasoning on this point. He thought of his +mother and sisters. From first to last he had been a good son and a good +brother.</p> + +<p>"What money have you, Lavinia?"</p> + +<p>"A good deal; you have been very generous to me, Paul; and you shall have it +all back again, if you want it. I have got upwards of two thousand pounds +altogether; for I have been very careful of the money you have given me."</p> + +<p>"You have been wise. Now listen to me, Lavinia. I <em>have</em> been a good +son, and I have borne my burdens uncomplainingly. It is your turn now to bear +yours. I must get back to Marchmont Towers, if I can, and gather together +whatever personal property I have there. It isn't much––only a few +trinkets, and suchlike. You must send me some one you can trust to fetch those +to–night; for I shall not stay an hour in the place. I may not even be +admitted into it; for Edward Arundel may have already taken possession in his +wife's name. Then you will have to decide where you are to go. You can't stay +in this part of the country. Weston must be liable to some penalty or other for +his share in the business, unless he's bought over as a witness to testify to +the identity of Mary's child. I haven't time to think of all this. I want you +to promise me that you will take care of your mother and your invalid +sister."</p> + +<p>"I will, Paul; I will indeed. But tell me what you are going to do yourself, +and where you are going?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," Paul Marchmont answered, in the same tone as before; "but +whatever I do, I want you to give me your solemn promise that you will be good +to my mother and sister."</p> + +<p>"I will, Paul; I promise you to do as you have done."</p> + +<p>"You had better leave Kemberling by the first train to–morrow morning; +take my mother and Clarissa with you; take everything that is worth taking, and +leave Weston behind you to bear the brunt of this business. You can get a +lodging in the old neighbourhood, and no one will molest you when you once get +away from this place. But remember one thing, Lavinia: if Mary Arundel's child +should die, and Mary herself should die childless, Clarissa will inherit +Marchmont Towers. Don't forget that. There's a chance yet for you: it's far +away, and unlikely enough; but it <em>is</em> a chance."</p> + +<p>"But you are more likely to outlive Mary and her child than Clarissa is," +Mrs. Weston answered, with a feeble attempt at hopefulness; "try and think of +that, Paul, and let the hope cheer you."</p> + +<p>"Hope!" cried Mr. Marchmont, with a discordant laugh. "Yes; I'm forty years +old, and for five–and–thirty of those years I've hoped and waited +for Marchmont Towers. I can't hope any longer, or wait any longer. I give it +up; I've fought hard, but I'm beaten."</p> + +<p>It was nearly dark by this time, the shadowy darkness of a midsummer's +evening; and there were stars shining faintly out of the sky.</p> + +<p>"You can drive me back to the Towers," Paul Marchmont said. "I don't want to +lose any time in getting there; I may be locked out by Mr. Edward Arundel if I +don't take care."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston and her brother went back to the farmyard. It was sixteen miles +from Kemberling to Stony Stringford; and the ponies were steaming, for Lavinia +had come at a good rate. But it was no time for the consideration of +horseflesh. Paul took a rug from the empty seat, and wrapped himself in it. He +would not be likely to be recognised in the darkness, sitting back in the low +seat, and made bulky by the ponderous covering in which he had enveloped +himself. Mrs. Weston took the whip from the boy, gathered up the reins, and +drove off. Paul had left no orders about the custody of the old farmhouse. The +boy went home to his master, at the other end of the farm; and the +night–winds wandered wherever they listed through the deserted +habitation.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER40" id="CHAPTER40">CHAPTER XIV.<br /> +THERE IS CONFUSION WORSE THAN DEATH.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>The brother and sister exchanged very few words during the drive between +Stony Stringford and Marchmont Towers. It was arranged between them that Mrs. +Weston should drive by a back–way leading to a lane that skirted the edge +of the river, and that Paul should get out at a gate opening into the wood, and +by that means make his way, unobserved, to the house which had so lately been +to all intents and purposes his own.</p> + +<p>He dared not attempt to enter the Towers by any other way; for the indignant +populace might still be lurking about the front of the house, eager to inflict +summary vengeance upon the persecutor of a helpless girl.</p> + +<p>It was between nine and ten o'clock when Mr. Marchmont got out at the little +gate. All here was very still; and Paul heard the croaking of the frogs upon +the margin of a little pool in the wood, and the sound of horses' hoofs a mile +away upon the loose gravel by the water–side.</p> + +<p>"Good night, Lavinia," he said. "Send for the things as soon as you go back; +and be sure you send a safe person for them."</p> + +<p>"O yes, dear; but hadn't you better take any thing of value yourself?" Mrs. +Weston asked anxiously. "You say you have no money. Perhaps it would be best +for you to send me the jewellery, though, and I can send you what money you +want by my messenger."</p> + +<p>"I shan't want any money––at least I have enough for what I +want. What have you done with your savings?"</p> + +<p>"They are in a London bank. But I have plenty of ready money in the house. +You must want money, Paul?"</p> + +<p>"I tell you, no; I have as much as I want."</p> + +<p>"But tell me your plans, Paul; I must know your plans before I leave +Lincolnshire myself. Are <em>you</em> going away?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Immediately?"</p> + +<p>"Immediately."</p> + +<p>"Shall you go to London?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. I don't know yet."</p> + +<p>"But when shall we see you again, Paul? or how shall we hear of you?"</p> + +<p>"I'll write to you."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"At the Post–office in Rathbone Place. Don't bother me with a lot of +questions to–night Lavinia; I'm not in the humour to answer them."</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont turned away from his sister impatiently, and opened the gate; +but before she had driven off, he went back to her.</p> + +<p>"Shake hands, Lavinia," he said; "shake hands, my dear; it may be a long +time before you and I meet again."</p> + +<p>He bent down and kissed his sister.</p> + +<p>"Drive home as fast as you can, and send the messenger directly. He had +better come to the door of the lobby, near Olivia's room. Where is Olivia, +by–the–bye? Is she still with the stepdaughter she loves so +dearly?"</p> + +<p>"No; she went to Swampington early in the afternoon. A fly was ordered from +the Black Bull, and she went away in it."</p> + +<p>"So much the better," answered Mr. Marchmont. "Good night, Lavinia. Don't +let my mother think ill of me. I tried to do the best I could to make her +happy. Good–bye."</p> + +<p>"Good–bye, dear Paul; God bless you!"</p> + +<p>The blessing was invoked with as much sincerity as if Lavinia Weston had +been a good woman, and her brother a good man. Perhaps neither of those two was +able to realise the extent of the crime which they had assisted each other to +commit.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Weston drove away; and Paul went up to the back of the Towers, and +under an archway leading into the quadrangle. All about the house was as quiet +as if the Sleeping Beauty and her court had been its only occupants.</p> + +<p>The inhabitants of Kemberling and the neighbourhood were an orderly people, +who burnt few candles between May and September; and however much they might +have desired to avenge Mary Arundel's wrongs by tearing Paul Marchmont to +pieces, their patience had been exhausted by nightfall, and they had been glad +to return to their respective abodes, to discuss Paul's iniquities comfortably +over the nine–o'clock beer.</p> + +<p>Paul stood still in the quadrangle for a few moments, and listened. He could +hear no human breath or whisper; he only heard the sound of the +corn–crake in the fields to the right of the Towers, and the distant +rumbling of wagon–wheels on the high–road. There was a glimmer of +light in one of the windows belonging to the servants' +offices,––only one dim glimmer, where there had usually been a row +of brilliantly–lighted casements. Lavinia was right, then; almost all the +servants had left the Towers. Paul tried to open the half–glass door +leading into the lobby; but it was locked. He rang a bell; and after about +three minutes' delay, a buxom country–girl appeared in the lobby carrying +a candle. She was some kitchenmaid or dairymaid or scullerymaid, whom Paul +could not remember to have ever seen until now. She opened the door, and +admitted him, dropping a curtsey as he passed her. There was some relief even +in this. Mr. Marchmont had scarcely expected to get into the house at all; +still less to be received with common civility by any of the servants, who had +so lately obeyed him and fawned upon him.</p> + +<p>"Where are all the rest of the servants?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"They're all gone, sir; except him as you brought down from +London,––Mr. Peterson,––and me and mother. Mother's in +the laundry, sir; and I'm scullerymaid."</p> + +<p>"Why did the other servants leave the place?"</p> + +<p>"Mostly because they was afraid of the mob upon the terrace, I think, sir; +for there's been people all the afternoon throwin' stones, and breakin' the +windows; and I don't think as there's a whole pane of glass in the front of the +house, sir; and Mr. Gormby, sir, he come about four o'clock, and he got the +people to go away, sir, by tellin' 'em as it wern't your property, sir, but the +young lady's, Miss Mary Marchmont,––leastways, Mrs. +Airendale,––as they was destroyin' of; but most of the servants had +gone before that, sir, except Mr. Peterson; and Mr. Gormby gave orders as me +and mother was to lock all the doors, and let no one in upon no account +whatever; and he's coming to–morrow mornin' to take possession, he says; +and please, sir, you can't come in; for his special orders to me and mother +was, no one, and you in particklar."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, girl!" exclaimed Mr. Marchmont, decisively; "who is Mr. Gormby, +that he should give orders as to who comes in or stops out? I'm only coming in +for half an hour, to pack my portmanteau. Where's Peterson?"</p> + +<p>"In the dinin'–room, sir; but please, sir, you +mustn't––––"</p> + +<p>The girl made a feeble effort to intercept Mr. Marchmont, in accordance with +the steward's special orders; which were, that Paul should, upon no pretence +whatever, be suffered to enter the house. But the artist snatched the +candlestick from her hand, and went towards the dining–room, leaving her +to stare after him in amazement.</p> + +<p>Paul found his valet Peterson, taking what he called a snack, in the +dining–room. A cloth was spread upon the corner of the table; and there +was a fore–quarter of cold roast–lamb, a bottle of French brandy, +and a decanter half–full of Madeira before the valet.</p> + +<p>He started as his master entered the room, and looked up, not very +respectfully, but with no unfriendly glance.</p> + +<p>"Give me half a tumbler of that brandy, Peterson," said Mr. Marchmont.</p> + +<p>The man obeyed; and Paul drained the fiery spirit as if it had been so much +water. It was four–and–twenty hours since meat or drink had crossed +his dry white lips.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you go away with the rest?" he asked, as he set down the empty +glass.</p> + +<p>"It's only rats, sir, that run away from a falling house. I stopped, +thinkin' you'd be goin' away somewhere, and that you'd want me."</p> + +<p>The solid and unvarnished truth of the matter was, that Peterson had taken +it for granted that his master had made an excellent purse against this evil +day, and would be ready to start for the Continent or America, there to lead a +pleasant life upon the proceeds of his iniquity. The valet never imagined his +master guilty of such besotted folly as to be <em>un</em>prepared for this +catastrophe.</p> + +<p>"I thought you might still want me, sir," he said; "and wherever you're +going, I'm quite ready to go too. You've been a good master to me, sir; and I +don't want to leave a good master because things go against him."</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont shook his head, and held out the empty tumbler for his +servant to pour more brandy into it.</p> + +<p>"I am going away," he said; "but I want no servant where I'm going; but I'm +grateful to you for your offer, Peterson. Will you come upstairs with me? I +want to pack a few things."</p> + +<p>"They're all packed, sir. I knew you'd be leaving, and I've packed +everything."</p> + +<p>"My dressing–case?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. You've got the key of that."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I know, I know."</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont was silent for a few minutes, thinking. Everything that he +had in the way of personal property of any value was in the dressing–case +of which he had spoken. There was five or six hundred pounds' worth of +jewellery in Mr. Marchmont's dressing–case; for the first instinct of the +<em>nouveau riche</em> exhibits itself in diamond shirt–studs, cameo +rings, malachite death's–heads with emerald eyes; grotesque and pleasing +charms in the form of coffins, coal–scuttles, and hobnailed boots; +fantastical lockets of ruby and enamel; wonderful bands of massive yellow gold, +studded with diamonds, wherein to insert the two ends of flimsy lace cravats. +Mr. Marchmont reflected upon the amount of his possessions, and their security +in the jewel–drawer of his dressing–case. The dressing–case +was furnished with a Chubb's lock, the key of which he carried in his +waistcoat–pocket. Yes, it was all safe.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Peterson," said Paul Marchmont; "I think I shall sleep at Mrs. +Weston's to–night. I should like you to take my dressing–case down +there at once."</p> + +<p>"And how about the other luggage, sir,––the portmanteaus and +hat–boxes?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind those. I want you to put the dressing–case safe in my +sister's hands. I can send here for the rest to–morrow morning. You +needn't wait for me now. I'll follow you in half an hour."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. You want the dressing–case carried to Mrs. Weston's house, +and I'm to wait for you there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; you can wait for me."</p> + +<p>"But is there nothing else I can do, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever. I've only got to collect a few papers, and then I shall +follow you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>The discreet Peterson bowed, and retired to fetch the dressing–case. +He put his own construction upon Mr. Marchmont's evident desire to get rid of +him, and to be left alone at the Towers. Paul had, of course, made a purse, and +had doubtless put his money away in some very artful hiding–place, whence +he now wanted to take it at his leisure. He had stuffed one of his pillows with +bank–notes, perhaps; or had hidden a cash–box behind the tapestry +in his bedchamber; or had buried a bag of gold in the flower–garden below +the terrace. Mr. Peterson went upstairs to Paul's dressing–room, put his +hand through the strap of the dressing–case, which was very heavy, went +downstairs again, met his master in the hall, and went out at the +lobby–door.</p> + +<p>Paul locked the door upon his valet, and then went back into the lonely +house, where the ticking of the clocks in the tenantless rooms sounded +unnaturally loud in the stillness. All the windows had been broken; and though +the shutters were shut, the cold night–air blew in at many a crack and +cranny, and well–nigh extinguished Mr. Marchmont's candle as he went from +room to room looking about him.</p> + +<p>He went into the western drawing–room, and lighted some of the lamps +in the principal chandelier. The shutters were shut, for the windows here, as +well as elsewhere, had been broken; fragments of shivered glass, great jagged +stones, and handfuls of gravel, lay about upon the rich +carpet,––the velvet–pile which he had chosen with such +artistic taste, such careful deliberation. He lit the lamps and walked about +the room, looking for the last time at his treasures. Yes, <em>his</em> +treasures. It was he who had transformed this chamber from a prim, +old–fashioned sitting–room––with quaint japanned +cabinets, shabby chintz–cushioned cane–chairs, cracked Indian +vases, and a faded carpet––into a saloon that would have been no +discredit to Buckingham Palace or Alton Towers.</p> + +<p>It was he who had made the place what it was. He had squandered the savings +of Mary's minority upon pictures that the richest collector in England might +have been proud to own; upon porcelain that would have been worthy of a place +in the Vienna Museum or the Bernal Collection. He had done this, and these +things were to pass into the possession of the man he hated,––the +fiery young soldier who had horsewhipped him before the face of wondering +Lincolnshire. He walked about the room, thinking of his life since he had come +into possession of this place, and of what it had been before that time, and +what it must be again, unless he summoned up a desperate +courage––and killed himself.</p> + +<p>His heart beat fast and loud, and he felt an icy chill creeping slowly +through his every vein as he thought of this. How was he to kill himself? He +had no poison in his possession,––no deadly drug that would reduce +the agony of death to the space of a lightning–flash. There were pistols, +rare gems of choicest workmanship, in one of the buhl–cabinets in that +very room; there were both fowling–piece and ammunition in Mr. +Marchmont's dressing–room: but the artist was not expert with the use of +firearms, and he might fail in the attempt to blow out his brains, and only +maim or disfigure himself hideously. There was the river,––the +black, sluggish river: but then, drowning is a slow death, and Heaven only +knows how long the agony may seem to the wretch who endures it! Alas! the +ghastly truth of the matter is that Mr. Marchmont was afraid of death. Look at +the King of Terrors how he would, he could not discover any pleasing aspect +under which he could meet the grim monarch without flinching.</p> + +<p>He looked at life; but if life was less terrible than death, it was not less +dreary. He looked forward with a shudder to see––what? Humiliation, +disgrace, perhaps punishment,––life–long transportation, it +may be; for this base conspiracy might be a criminal offence, amenable to +criminal law. Or, escaping all this, what was there for him? What was there for +this man even then? For forty years he had been steeped to the lips in poverty, +and had endured his life. He looked back now, and wondered how it was that he +had been patient; he wondered why he had not made an end of himself and his +obscure troubles twenty years before this night. But after looking back a +little longer, he saw the star which had illumined the darkness of that +miserable and sordid existence, and he understood the reason of his endurance. +He had hoped. Day after day he had got up to go through the same troubles, to +endure the same humiliations: but every day, when his life had been hardest to +him, he had said, "To–morrow I may be master of Marchmont Towers." But he +could never hope this any more; he could not go back to watch and wait again, +beguiled by the faint hope that Mary Arundel's son might die, and to hear +by–and–by that other children were born to her to widen the great +gulf betwixt him and fortune.</p> + +<p>He looked back, and he saw that he had lived from day to day, from year to +year, lured on by this one hope. He looked forward, and he saw that he could +not live without it.</p> + +<p>There had never been but this one road to good fortune open to him. He was a +clever man, but his was not the cleverness which can transmute itself into +solid cash. He could only paint indifferent pictures; and he had existed long +enough by picture–painting to realise the utter hopelessness of success +in that career.</p> + +<p>He had borne his life while he was in it, but he could not bear to go back +to it. He had been out of it, and had tasted another phase of existence; and he +could see it all now plainly, as if he had been a spectator sitting in the +boxes and watching a dreary play performed upon a stage before him. The +performers in the remotest provincial theatre believe in the play they are +acting. The omnipotence of passion creates dewy groves and moonlit atmospheres, +ducal robes and beautiful women. But the metropolitan spectator, in whose mind +the memory of better things is still fresh, sees that the moonlit trees are +poor distemper daubs, pushed on by dirty carpenters, and the moon a green +bottle borrowed from a druggist's shop, the ducal robes threadbare cotton +velvet and tarnished tinsel, and the heroine of the drama old and ugly.</p> + +<p>So Paul looked at the life he had endured, and wondered as he saw how +horrible it was.</p> + +<p>He could see the shabby lodging, the faded furniture, the miserable handful +of fire struggling with the smoke in a shallow grate, that had been +half–blocked up with bricks by some former tenant as badly off as +himself. He could look back at that dismal room, with the ugly paper on the +walls, the scanty curtains flapping in the wind which they pretended to shut +out; the figure of his mother sitting near the fireplace, with that pale, +anxious face, which was a perpetual complaint against hardship and discomfort. +He could see his sister standing at the window in the dusky twilight, patching +up some worn–out garment, and straining her eyes for the sake of +economising in the matter of half an inch of candle. And the street below the +window,––the shabby–genteel street, with a dingy shop +breaking out here and there, and children playing on the doorsteps, and a +muffin–bell jingling through the evening fog, and a melancholy Italian +grinding "Home, sweet Home!" in the patch of lighted road opposite the +pawnbroker's. He saw it all; and it was all alike––sordid, +miserable, hopeless.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont had never sunk so low as his cousin John. He had never +descended so far in the social scale as to carry a banner at Drury Lane, or to +live in one room in Oakley Street, Lambeth. But there had been times when to +pay the rent of three rooms had been next kin to an impossibility to the +artist, and when the honorarium of a shilling a night would have been very +acceptable to him. He had drained the cup of poverty to the dregs; and now the +cup was filled again, and the bitter draught was pushed once more into his +unwilling hand.</p> + +<p>He must drink that, or another potion,––a +sleeping–draught, which is commonly called Death. He must die! But how? +His coward heart sank as the awful alternative pressed closer upon him. He must +die!––to–night,––at once,––in that +house; so that when they came in the morning to eject him, they would have +little trouble; they would only have to carry out a corpse.</p> + +<p>He walked up and down the room, biting his finger–nails to the quick, +but coming to no resolution, until he was interrupted by the ringing of the +bell at the lobby–door. It was the messenger from his sister, no doubt. +Paul drew his watch from his waistcoat–pocket, unfastened his chain, took +a set of gold–studs from the breast of his shirt, and a signet–ring +from his finger; then he sat down at a writing–table, and packed the +watch and chain, the studs and signet–ring, and a bunch of keys, in a +large envelope. He sealed this packet, and addressed it to his sister; then he +took a candle, and went to the lobby. Mrs. Weston had sent a young man who was +an assistant and pupil of her husband's––a good–tempered +young fellow, who willingly served her in her hour of trouble. Paul gave this +messenger the key of his dressing–case and packet.</p> + +<p>"You will be sure and put that in my sister's hands," he said.</p> + +<p>"O yes, sir. Mrs. Weston gave me this letter for you, sir. Am I to wait for +an answer?"</p> + +<p>"No; there will be no answer. Good night."</p> + +<p>"Good night, sir."</p> + +<p>The young man went away; and Paul Marchmont heard him whistle a popular +melody as he walked along the cloistered way and out of the quadrangle by a low +archway commonly used by the tradespeople who came to the Towers.</p> + +<p>The artist stood and listened to the young man's departing footsteps. Then, +with a horrible thrill of anguish, he remembered that he had seen his last of +humankind––he had heard his last of human voices: for he was to +kill himself that night. He stood in the dark lobby, looking out into the +quadrangle. He was quite alone in the house; for the girl who had let him in +was in the laundry with her mother. He could see the figures of the two women +moving about in a great gaslit chamber upon the other side of the +quadrangle––a building which had no communication with the rest of +the house. He was to die that night; and he had not yet even determined how he +was to die.</p> + +<p>He mechanically opened Mrs. Weston's letter: it was only a few lines, +telling him that Peterson had arrived with the portmanteau and +dressing–case, and that there would be a comfortable room prepared for +him. "I am so glad you have changed your mind, and are coming to me, Paul," +Mrs. Weston concluded. "Your manner, when we parted to–night, almost +alarmed me."</p> + +<p>Paul groaned aloud as he crushed the letter in his hand. Then he went back +to the western drawing–room. He heard strange noises in the empty rooms +as he passed by their open doors, weird creaking sounds and melancholy moanings +in the wide chimneys. It seemed as if all the ghosts of Marchmont Towers were +astir to–night, moved by an awful prescience of some coming horror.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont was an atheist; but atheism, although a very pleasant theme +for a critical and argumentative discussion after a lobster–supper and +unlimited champagne, is but a poor staff to lean upon when the worn–out +traveller approaches the mysterious portals of the unknown land.</p> + +<p>The artist had boasted of his belief in annihilation; and had declared +himself perfectly satisfied with a materialistic or pantheistic arrangement of +the universe, and very indifferent as to whether he cropped up in future years +as a summer–cabbage, or a new Raphael; so long as the ten stone or so of +matter of which he was composed was made use of somehow or other, and did its +duty in the great scheme of a scientific universe. But, oh! how that empty, +soulless creed slipped away from him now, when he stood alone in this +tenantless house, shuddering at strange spirit–noises, and horrified by a +host of mystic fears––gigantic, shapeless terrors––that +crowded in his empty, godless mind, and filled it with their hideous +presence!</p> + +<p>He had refused to believe in a personal God. He had laughed at the idea that +there was any Deity to whom the individual can appeal, in his hour of grief or +trouble, with the hope of any separate mercy, any special grace. He had +rejected the Christian's simple creed, and now––now that he had +floated away from the shores of life, and felt himself borne upon an +irresistible current to that mysterious other side, what did he <em>not</em> +believe in?</p> + +<p>Every superstition that has ever disturbed the soul of ignorant man lent +some one awful feature to the crowd of hideous images uprising in this man's +mind:––awful Chaldean gods and Carthaginian goddesses, thirsting +for the hot blood of human sacrifices, greedy for hecatombs of children flung +shrieking into fiery furnaces, or torn limb from limb by savage beasts; +Babylonian abominations; Egyptian Isis and Osiris; classical divinities, with +flaming swords and pale impassible faces, rigid as the Destiny whose type they +were; ghastly Germanic demons and witches.––All the dread avengers +that man, in the knowledge of his own wickedness, has ever shadowed for himself +out of the darkness of his ignorant mind, swelled that ghastly crowd, until the +artist's brain reeled, and he was fain to sit with his head in his hands, +trying, by a great effort of the will, to exorcise these loathsome phantoms.</p> + +<p>"I must be going mad," he muttered to himself. "I am going mad."</p> + +<p>But still the great question was unanswered––How was he to kill +himself?</p> + +<p>"I must settle that," he thought. "I dare not think of anything that may +come afterwards. Besides, what <em>should</em> come? I <em>know</em> that there +is nothing. Haven't I heard it demonstrated by cleverer men than I am? Haven't +I looked at it in every light, and weighed it in every +scale––always with the same result? Yes; I know that there is +nothing <em>after</em> the one short pang, any more than there is pain in the +nerve of a tooth when the tooth is gone. The nerve was the soul of the tooth, I +suppose; but wrench away the body, and the soul is dead. Why should I be +afraid? One short pain––it will seem long, I dare +say––and then I shall lie still for ever and ever, and melt slowly +back into the elements out of which I was created. Yes; I shall lie +still––and be <em>nothing</em>."</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont sat thinking of this for a long time. Was it such a great +advantage, after all, this annihilation, the sovereign good of the atheist's +barren creed? It seemed to–night to this man as if it would be better to +be anything––to suffer any anguish, any penalty for his sins, than +to be blotted out for ever and ever from any conscious part in the grand +harmony of the universe. If he could have believed in that Roman Catholic +doctrine of purgatory, and that after cycles of years of suffering he might +rise at last, purified from his sins, worthy to dwell among the angels, how +differently would death have appeared to him! He might have gone away to hide +himself in some foreign city, to perform patient daily sacrifices, humble acts +of self–abnegation, every one of which should be a new figure, however +small a one, to be set against the great sum of his sin.</p> + +<p>But he could not believe. There is a vulgar proverb which says, "You cannot +have your loaf and eat it;" or if proverbs would only be grammatical, it might +be better worded, "You cannot eat your loaf, and have it to eat on some future +occasion." Neither can you indulge in rationalistic discussions or epigrammatic +pleasantry about the Great Creator who made you, and then turn and cry aloud to +Him in the dreadful hour of your despair: "O my God, whom I have insulted and +offended, help the miserable wretch who for twenty years has obstinately shut +his heart against Thee!" It may be that God would forgive and hear even at that +last supreme moment, as He heard the penitent thief upon the cross; but the +penitent thief had been a sinner, not an unbeliever, and he <em>could</em> +pray. The hard heart of the atheist freezes in his breast when he would repent +and put away his iniquities. When he would fain turn to his offended Maker, the +words that he tries to speak die away upon his lips; for the habit of blasphemy +is too strong upon him; he can <em>blague</em> upon all the mighty mysteries of +heaven and hell, but he <em>cannot</em> pray.</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont could not fashion a prayer. Horrible witticisms arose up +between him and the words he would have spoken––ghastly <em>bon +mots</em>, that had seemed so brilliant at a lamp–lit dinner–table, +spoken to a joyous accompaniment of champagne–corks and laughter. Ah, me! +the world was behind this man now, with all its pleasures; and he looked back +upon it, and thought that, even when it seemed gayest and brightest, it was +only like a great roaring fair, with flaring lights, and noisy showmen +clamoring for ever to a struggling crowd.</p> + +<p>How should he die? Should he go upstairs and cut his throat?</p> + +<p>He stood before one of his pictures––a pet picture; a girl's +face by Millais, looking through the moonlight, fantastically beautiful. He +stood before this picture, and he felt one small separate pang amid all his +misery as he remembered that Edward and Mary Arundel were now possessors of +this particular gem.</p> + +<p>"They sha'n't have it," he muttered to himself; "they sha'n't have +<em>this</em>, at any rate."</p> + +<p>He took a penknife from his pocket, and hacked and ripped the canvas +savagely, till it hung in ribbons from the deep gilded frame.</p> + +<p>Then he smiled to himself, for the first time since he had entered that +house, and his eyes flashed with a sudden light.</p> + +<p>"I have lived like Sardanapalus for the last year," he cried aloud; "and I +will die like Sardanapalus!"</p> + +<p>There was a fragile piece of furniture near him,––an +<em>étagère</em> of marqueterie work, loaded with costly <em>bric à brac</em>, +Oriental porcelain, Sèvres and Dresden, old Chelsea and crown Derby cups and +saucers, and quaint teapots, crawling vermin in Pallissy ware, Indian +monstrosities, and all manner of expensive absurdities, heaped together in +artistic confusion. Paul Marchmont struck the slim leg of the <em>étagère</em> +with his foot, and laughed aloud as the fragile toys fell into a ruined heap +upon the carpet. He stamped upon the broken china; and the frail cups and +saucers crackled like eggshells under his savage feet.</p> + +<p>"I will die like Sardanapalus!" he cried; "the King Arbaces shall never rest +in the palace I have beautified.</p> + +<p>'Now order here<br /> +Fagots, pine–nuts, and wither'd leaves, and such<br /> +Things as catch fire with one sole spark;<br /> +Bring cedar, too, and precious drugs, and spices,<br /> +And mighty planks, to nourish a tall pile;<br /> +Bring frankincense and myrrh, too; for it is<br /> +For a great sacrifice I build the pyre.'</p> + +<p>I don't think much of your blank verse, George Gordon Noel Byron. Your lines +end on lame syllables; your ten–syllable blank verse lacks the fiery ring +of your rhymes. I wonder whether Marchmont Towers is insured? Yes, I remember +paying a premium last Christmas. They may have a sharp tussle with the +insurance companies though. Yes, I will die like Sardanapalus––no, +not like him, for I have no Myrrha to mount the pile and cling about me to the +last. Pshaw! a modern Myrrha would leave Sardanapalus to perish alone, and be +off to make herself safe with the new king."</p> + +<p>Paul snatched up the candle, and went out into the hall. He laughed +discordantly, and spoke in loud ringing tones. His manner had that feverish +excitement which the French call exaltation. He ran up the broad stairs leading +to the long corridor, out of which his own rooms, and his mother's and sister's +rooms, opened.</p> + +<p>Ah, how pretty they were! How elegant he had made them in his reckless +disregard of expense, his artistic delight in the task of beautification! There +were no shutters here, and the summer breeze blew in through the broken +windows, and stirred the gauzy muslin curtains, the gay chintz draperies, the +cloudlike festoons of silk and lace. Paul Marchmont went from room to room with +the flaring candle in his hand; and wherever there were curtains or draperies +about the windows, the beds, the dressing–tables, the low +lounging–chairs, and cosy little sofas, he set alight to them. He did +this with wonderful rapidity, leaving flames behind him as he traversed the +long corridor, and coming back thus to the stairs. He went downstairs again, +and returned to the western drawing–room. Then he blew out his candle, +turned out the gas, and waited.</p> + +<p>"How soon will it come?" he thought.</p> + +<p>The shutters were shut, and the room was quite dark.</p> + +<p>"Shall I ever have courage to stop till it comes?"</p> + +<p>Paul Marchmont groped his way to the door, double–locked it, and then +took the key from the lock.</p> + +<p>He went to one of the windows, clambered upon a chair, opened the top +shutter, and flung the key out through the broken window. He heard it strike +jingling upon the stone terrace and then bound away, Heaven knows where.</p> + +<p>"I shan't be able to go out by the door, at any rate," he thought.</p> + +<p>It was quite dark in the room, but the reflection of the spreading flames +was growing crimson in the sky outside. Mr. Marchmont went away from the +window, feeling his way amongst the chairs and tables. He could see the red +light through the crevices of the shutters, and a lurid patch of sky through +that one window, the upper half of which he had left open. He sat down, +somewhere near the centre of the room, and waited.</p> + +<p>"The smoke will kill me," he thought. "I shall know nothing of the fire."</p> + +<p>He sat quite still. He had trembled violently while he had gone from room to +room doing his horrible work; but his nerves seemed steadier now. Steadier! +why, he was transformed to stone! His heart seemed to have stopped beating; and +he only knew by a sick anguish, a dull aching pain, that it was still in his +breast.</p> + +<p>He sat waiting and thinking. In that time all the long story of the past was +acted before him, and he saw what a wretch he had been. I do not know whether +this was penitence; but looking at that enacted story, Paul Marchmont thought +that his own part in the play was a mistake, and that it was a foolish thing to +be a villain.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>When a great flock of frightened people, with a fire–engine out of +order, and drawn by whooping men and boys, came hurrying up to the Towers, they +found a blazing edifice, which looked like an enchanted +castle––great stone–framed windows vomiting flame; tall +chimneys toppling down upon a fiery roof; molten lead, like water turned to +fire, streaming in flaming cataracts upon the terrace; and all the sky lit up +by that vast pile of blazing ruin. Only salamanders, or poor Mr. Braidwood's +own chosen band, could have approached Marchmont Towers that night. The +Kemberling firemen and the Swampington firemen, who came by–and–by, +were neither salamanders nor Braidwoods. They stood aloof and squirted water at +the flames, and recoiled aghast by–and–by when the roof came down +like an avalanche of blazing timber, leaving only a gaunt gigantic skeleton of +red–hot stone where Marchmont Towers once had been.</p> + +<p>When it was safe to venture in amongst the ruins––and this was +not for many hours after the fire had burnt itself out––people +looked for Paul Marchmont; but amidst all that vast chaos of smouldering ashes, +there was nothing found that could be identified as the remains of a human +being. No one knew where the artist had been at the time of the fire, or indeed +whether he had been in the house at all; and the popular opinion was, that Paul +had set fire to the mansion, and had fled away before the flames began to +spread.</p> + +<p>But Lavinia Weston knew better than this. She knew now why her brother had +sent her every scrap of valuable property belonging to him. She understood now +why he had come back to her to bid her good–night for the second time, +and press his cold lips to hers.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="CHAPTER41" id="CHAPTER41">CHAPTER THE LAST.<br /> +"DEAR IS THE MEMORY OF OUR WEDDED LIVES."</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Mary and Edward Arundel saw the awful light in the sky, and heard the voices +of the people shouting in the street below, and calling to one another that +Marchmont Towers was on fire.</p> + +<p>The young mistress of the burning pile had very little concern for her +property. She only kept saying, again and again, "O Edward! I hope there is no +one in the house. God grant there may be no one in the house!"</p> + +<p>And when the flames were highest, and it seemed by the light in the sky as +if all Lincolnshire had been blazing, Edward Arundel's wife flung herself upon +her knees, and prayed aloud for any unhappy creature that might be in peril.</p> + +<p>Oh, if we could dare to think that this innocent girl's prayer was heard +before the throne of an Awful Judge, pleading for the soul of a wicked man!</p> + +<p>Early the next morning Mrs. Arundel came from Lawford Grange with her +confidential maid, and carried off her daughter–in–law and the +baby, on the first stage of the journey into Devonshire. Before she left +Kemberling, Mary was told that no dead body had been found amongst the ruins of +the Towers; and this assertion deluded her into the belief that no unhappy +creature had perished. So she went to Dangerfield happier than she had ever +been since the sunny days of her honeymoon, to wait there for the coming of +Edward Arundel, who was to stay behind to see Richard Paulette and Mr. Gormby, +and to secure the testimony of Mr. Weston and Betsy Murrel with a view to the +identification of Mary's little son, who had been neither registered nor +christened.</p> + +<p>I have no need to dwell upon this process of identification, registration, +and christening, through which Master Edward Arundel had to pass in the course +of the next month. I had rather skip this dry–as–dust business, and +go on to that happy time which Edward and his young wife spent together under +the oaks at Dangerfield––that bright second honeymoon season, while +they were as yet houseless; for a pretty villa–like mansion was being +built on the Marchmont property, far away from the dank wood and the dismal +river, in a pretty pastoral little nook, which was a fair oasis amidst the +general dreariness of Lincolnshire.</p> + +<p>I need scarcely say that the grand feature of this happy time was THE BABY. +It will be of course easily understood that this child stood alone amongst +babies. There never had been another such infant; it was more than probable +there would never again be such a one. In every attribute of babyhood he was a +twelvemonth in advance of the rest of his race. Prospective greatness was +stamped upon his brow. He would be a Clive or a Wellington, unless indeed he +should have a fancy for the Bar and the Woolsack, in which case he would be a +little more erudite than Lyndhurst, a trifle more eloquent than Brougham. All +this was palpable to the meanest capacity in the very manner in which this +child crowed in his nurse's arms, or choked himself with farinaceous food, or +smiled recognition at his young father, or performed the simplest act common to +infancy.</p> + +<p>I think Mr. Sant would have been pleased to paint one of those summer scenes +at Dangerfield––the proud soldier–father; the pale young +wife; the handsome, matronly grandmother; and, as the mystic centre of that +magic circle, the toddling flaxen–haired baby, held up by his father's +hands, and taking caricature strides in imitation of papa's big steps.</p> + +<p>To my mind, it is a great pity that children are not children for +ever––that the pretty baby–boy by Sant, all rosy and flaxen +and blue–eyed, should ever grow into a great angular pre–Raphaelite +hobadahoy, horribly big and out of drawing. But neither Edward nor Mary nor, +above all, Mrs. Arundel were of this opinion. They were as eager for the child +to grow up and enter for the great races of this life, as some speculative turf +magnate who has given a fancy price for a yearling, and is pining to see the +animal a far–famed three–year–old, and winner of the double +event.</p> + +<p>Before the child had cut a double–tooth Mrs. Arundel senior had +decided in favour of Eton as opposed to Harrow, and was balancing the +conflicting advantages of classical Oxford and mathematical Cambridge; while +Edward could not see the baby–boy rolling on the grass, with blue ribbons +and sashes fluttering in the breeze, without thinking of his son's future +appearance in the uniform of his own regiment, gorgeous in the splendid crush +of a levee at St. James's.</p> + +<p>How many airy castles were erected in that happy time, with the baby for the +foundation–stone of all of them! <em>The</em> BABY! Why, that definite +article alone expresses an infinity of foolish love and admiration. Nobody says +<em>the</em> father, the husband, the mother; it is "my" father, my husband, as +the case may be. But every baby, from St. Giles's to Belgravia, from Tyburnia +to St. Luke's, is "the" baby. The infant's reign is short, but his royalty is +supreme, and no one presumes to question his despotic rule.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel almost worshipped the little child whose feeble cry he had +heard in the October twilight, and had <em>not</em> recognised. He was never +tired of reproaching himself for this omission. That baby–voice +<em>ought</em> to have awakened a strange thrill in the young father's +breast.</p> + +<p>That time at Dangerfield was the happiest period of Mary's life. All her +sorrows had melted away. They did not tell her of Paul Marchmont's suspected +fate; they only told her that her enemy had disappeared, and that no one knew +whither he had gone. Mary asked once, and once only, about her stepmother; and +she was told that Olivia was at Swampington Rectory, living with her father, +and that people said she was mad. George Weston had emigrated to Australia, +with his wife, and his wife's mother and sister. There had been no prosecution +for conspiracy; the disappearance of the principal criminal had rendered that +unnecessary.</p> + +<p>This was all that Mary ever heard of her persecutors. She did not wish to +hear of them; she had forgiven them long ago. I think that in the inner depths +of her innocent heart she had forgiven them from the moment she had fallen on +her husband's breast in Hester's parlour at Kemberling, and had felt his strong +arms clasped about her, sheltering her from all harm for evermore.</p> + +<p>She was very happy; and her nature, always gentle, seemed sublimated by the +sufferings she had endured, and already akin to that of the angels. Alas, this +was Edward Arundel's chief sorrow! This young wife, so precious to him in her +fading loveliness, was slipping away from him, even in the hour when they were +happiest together––was separated from him even when they were most +united. She was separated from him by that unconquerable sadness in his heart, +which was prophetic of a great sorrow to come.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, when Mary saw her husband looking at her with a mournful +tenderness, an almost despairing love in his eyes, she would throw herself into +his arms, and say to him:</p> + +<p>"You must remember how happy I have been, Edward. O my darling! promise me +always to remember how happy I have been."</p> + +<p>When the first chill breezes of autumn blew among the Dangerfield oaks, +Edward Arundel took his wife southwards, with his mother and the inevitable +baby in her train. They went to Nice, and they were very quiet, very happy, in +the pretty southern town, with snow–clad mountains behind them, and the +purple Mediterranean before.</p> + +<p>The villa was building all this time in Lincolnshire. Edward's agent sent +him plans and sketches for Mrs. Arundel's approval; and every evening there was +some fresh talk about the arrangement of the rooms, and the laying–out of +gardens. Mary was always pleased to see the plans and drawings, and to discuss +the progress of the work with her husband. She would talk of the +billiard–room, and the cosy little smoking–room, and the nurseries +for the baby, which were to have a southern aspect, and every advantage +calculated to assist the development of that rare and marvellous blossom; and +she would plan the comfortable apartments that were to be specially kept for +dear grandmamma, who would of course spend a great deal of her time at the +Sycamores––the new place was to be called the Sycamores. But Edward +could never get his wife to talk of a certain boudoir opening into a tiny +conservatory, which he himself had added on to the original architect's plan. +He could never get Mary to speak of this particular chamber; and once, when he +asked her some question about the colour of the draperies, she said to him, +very gently,––</p> + +<p>"I would rather you would not think of that room, darling."</p> + +<p>"Why, my pet?"</p> + +<p>"Because it will make you sorry afterwards."</p> + +<p>"Mary, my darling––––"</p> + +<p>"O Edward! you know,––you must know, dearest,––that +I shall never see that place?"</p> + +<p>But her husband took her in his arms, and declared that this was only a +morbid fancy, and that she was getting better and stronger every day, and would +live to see her grandchildren playing under the maples that sheltered the +northern side of the new villa. Edward told his wife this, and he believed in +the truth of what he said. He could not believe that he was to lose this young +wife, restored to him after so many trials. Mary did not contradict him just +then; but that night, when he was sitting in her room reading by the light of a +shaded lamp after she had gone to bed,––Mary went to bed very +early, by order of the doctors, and indeed lived altogether according to +medical <em>régime</em>,––she called her husband to her.</p> + +<p>"I want to speak to you, dear," she said; "there is something that I must +say to you."</p> + +<p>The young man knelt down by his wife's bed.</p> + +<p>"What is it, darling?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"You know what we said to–day, Edward?"</p> + +<p>"What, darling? We say so many things every day––we are so happy +together, and have so much to talk about."</p> + +<p>"But you remember, Edward,––you remember what I said about never +seeing the Sycamores? Ah! don't stop me, dear love," Mary said reproachfully, +for Edward put his lips to hers to stay the current of mournful +words,––"don't stop me, dear, for I must speak to you. I want you +to know that <em>it must be</em>, Edward darling. I want you to remember how +happy I have been, and how willing I am to part with you, dear, since it is +God's will that we should be parted. And there is something else that I want to +say, Edward. Grandmamma told me something––all about Belinda. I +want you to promise me that Belinda shall be happy by–and–by; for +she has suffered so much, poor girl! And you will love her, and she will love +the baby. But you won't love her quite the same way that you loved me, will +you, dear? because you never knew her when she was a little child, and very +poor. She has never been an orphan, and quite lonely, as I have been. You have +never been <em>all the world</em> to her."</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>* * * * *</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>The Sycamores was finished by the following midsummer, but no one took +possession of the newly–built house; no brisk upholsterer's men came, +with three–foot rules and pencils and memorandum–books, to take +measurements of windows and floors; no wagons of splendid furniture made havoc +of the gravel–drive before the principal entrance. The only person who +came to the new house was a snuff–taking crone from Stanfield, who +brought a turn–up bedstead, a Dutch clock, and a few minor articles of +furniture, and encamped in a corner of the best bedroom.</p> + +<p>Edward Arundel, senior, was away in India, fighting under Napier and Outram; +and Edward Arundel, junior, was at Dangerfield, under the charge of his +grandmother.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most beautiful monument in one of the English cemeteries at Nice +is that tall white marble cross and kneeling figure, before which strangers +pause to read an inscription to the memory of Mary, the beloved wife of Edward +Dangerfield Arundel.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + +<h4><a name="EPILOGUE." id="EPILOGUE.">THE EPILOGUE.</a></h4> + +<p></p> + +<p>Four years after the completion of that pretty stuccoed villa, which seemed +destined never to be inhabited, Belinda Lawford walked alone up and down the +sheltered shrubbery–walk in the Grange garden in the fading September +daylight.</p> + +<p>Miss Lawford was taller and more womanly–looking than she had been on +the day of her interrupted wedding. The vivid bloom had left her cheeks; but I +think she was all the prettier because of that delicate pallor, which gave a +pensive cast to her countenance. She was very grave and gentle and good; but +she had never forgotten the shock of that broken bridal ceremonial in +Hillingsworth Church.</p> + +<p>The Major had taken his eldest daughter abroad almost immediately after that +July day; and Belinda and her father had travelled together very peacefully, +exploring quiet Belgian cities, looking at celebrated altar–pieces in +dusky cathedrals, and wandering round battle–fields, which the +intermingled blood of rival nations had once made one crimson swamp. They had +been nearly a twelvemonth absent, and then Belinda returned to assist at the +marriage of a younger sister, and to hear that Edward Arundel's wife had died +of a lingering pulmonary complaint at Nice.</p> + +<p>She was told this: and she was told how Olivia Marchmont still lived with +her father at Swampington, and how day by day she went the same round from +cottage to cottage, visiting the sick; teaching little children, or sometimes +rough–bearded men, to read and write and cipher; reading to old decrepit +pensioners; listening to long histories of sickness and trial, and exhibiting +an unwearying patience that was akin to sublimity. Passion had burnt itself out +in this woman's breast, and there was nothing in her mind now but remorse, and +the desire to perform a long penance, by reason of which she might in the end +be forgiven.</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Marchmont never visited anyone alone. Wherever she went, Barbara +Simmons accompanied her, constant as her shadow. The Swampington people said +this was because the Rector's daughter was not quite right in her mind; and +there were times when she forgot where she was, and would have wandered away in +a purposeless manner, Heaven knows where, had she not been accompanied by her +faithful servant. Clever as the Swampington people and the Kemberling people +might be in finding out the business of their neighbours, they never knew that +Olivia Marchmont had been consentient to the hiding–away of her +stepdaughter. They looked upon her, indeed, with considerable respect, as a +heroine by whose exertions Paul Marchmont's villany had been discovered. In the +hurry and confusion of the scene at Hillingsworth Church, nobody had taken heed +of Olivia's incoherent self–accusations: Hubert Arundel was therefore +spared the misery of knowing the extent of his daughter's sin.</p> + +<p>Belinda Lawford came home in order to be present at her sister's wedding; +and the old life began again for her, with all the old duties that had once +been so pleasant. She went about them very cheerfully now. She worked for her +poor pensioners, and took the chief burden of the housekeeping off her mother's +hands. But though she jingled her keys with a cheery music as she went about +the house, and though she often sang to herself over her work, the old happy +smile rarely lit up her face. She went about her duties rather like some +widowed matron who had lived her life, than a girl before whom the future lies, +mysterious and unknown.</p> + +<p>It has been said that happiness comes to the sleeper––the +meaning of which proverb I take to be, that Joy generally comes to us when we +least look for her lovely face. And it was on this September afternoon, when +Belinda loitered in the garden after her round of small duties was finished, +and she was free to think or dream at her leisure, that happiness came to +her,––unexpected, unhoped–for, supreme; for, turning at one +end of the sheltered alley, she saw Edward Arundel standing at the other end, +with his hat in his hand, and the summer wind blowing amongst his hair.</p> + +<p>Miss Lawford stopped quite still. The old–fashioned garden reeled +before her eyes, and the hard–gravelled path seemed to become a quaking +bog. She could not move; she stood still, and waited while Edward came towards +her.</p> + +<p>"Letitia has told me about you, Linda," he said; "she has told me how true +and noble you have been; and she sent me here to look for a wife, to make new +sunshine in my empty home,––a young mother to smile upon my +motherless boy."</p> + +<p>Edward and Belinda walked up and down the sheltered alley for a long time, +talking a great deal of the sad past, a little of the fair–seeming +future. It was growing dusk before they went in at the old–fashioned +half–glass door leading into the drawing–room, where Mrs. Lawford +and her younger daughters were sitting, and where Lydia, who was next to +Belinda, and had been three years married to the Curate of Hillingsworth, was +nursing her second baby.</p> + +<p>"Has she said 'yes'?" this young matron cried directly; for she had been +told of Edward's errand to the Grange. "But of course she has. What else should +she say, after refusing all manner of people, and giving herself the airs of an +old–maid? Yes, um pressus Pops, um Aunty Lindy's going to be +marriedy–pariedy," concluded the Curate's wife, addressing her +three–months–old baby in that peculiar patois which is supposed to +be intelligible to infants by reason of being unintelligible to everybody +else.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you are not aware that my future brother–in–law is a +major?" said Belinda's third sister, who had been struggling with a variation +by Thalberg, all octaves and accidentals, and who twisted herself round upon +her music–stool to address her sister. "I suppose you are not aware that +you have been talking to Major Arundel, who has done all manner of splendid +things in the Punjaub? Papa told us all about it five minutes ago."</p> + +<p>It was as much as Belinda could do to support the clamorous felicitations of +her sisters, especially the unmarried damsels, who were eager to exhibit +themselves in the capacity of bridesmaids; but by–and–by, after +dinner, the Curate's wife drew her sisters away from that shadowy window in +which Edward Arundel and Belinda were sitting, and the lovers were left to +themselves.</p> + +<p>That evening was very peaceful, very happy, and there were many other +evenings like it before Edward and Belinda completed that ceremonial which they +had left unfinished more than five years before.</p> + +<p>The Sycamores was very prettily furnished, under Belinda's superintendence; +and as Reginald Arundel had lately married, Edward's mother came to live with +her younger son, and brought with her the idolised grandchild, who was now a +tall, yellow–haired boy of six years old.</p> + +<p>There was only one room in the Sycamores which was never tenanted by any one +of that little household except Edward himself, who kept the key of the little +chamber in his writing–desk, and only allowed the servants to go in at +stated intervals to keep everything bright and orderly in the apartment.</p> + +<p>The shut–up chamber was the boudoir which Edward Arundel had planned +for his first wife. He had ordered it to be furnished with the very furniture +which he had intended for Mary. The rosebuds and butterflies on the walls, the +guipure curtains lined with pale blush–rose silk, the few chosen books in +the little cabinet near the fireplace, the Dresden breakfast–service, the +statuettes and pictures, were things he had fixed upon long ago in his own mind +as the decorations for his wife's apartment. He went into the room now and +then, and looked at his first wife's picture––a crayon sketch taken +in London before Mary and her husband started for the South of France. He +looked a little wistfully at this picture, even when he was happiest in the new +ties that bound him to life, and all that is brightest in life.</p> + +<p>Major Arundel took his eldest son into this room one day, when young Edward +was eight or nine years old, and showed the boy his mother's portrait.</p> + +<p>"When you are a man, this place will be yours, Edward," the father said. +"<em>You</em> can give your wife this room, although I have never given it to +mine. You will tell her that it was built for your mother, and that it was +built for her by a husband who, even when most grateful to God for every new +blessing he enjoyed, never ceased to be sorry for the loss of his first +love."</p> + +<p>And so I leave my soldier–hero, to repose upon laurels that have been +hardly won, and secure in that modified happiness which is chastened by the +memory of sorrow. I leave him with bright children crowding round his knees, a +loving wife smiling at him across those fair childish heads. I leave him happy +and good and useful, filling his place in the world, and bringing up his +children to be wise and virtuous men and women in the days that are to come. I +leave him, above all, with the serene lamp of faith for ever burning in his +soul, lighting the image of that other world in which there is neither marrying +nor giving in marriage, and where his dead wife will smile upon him from amidst +the vast throng of angel faces––a child for ever and ever before +the throne of God!</p> + +<p></p> + +<p>THE END.</p> + +<p></p> + +<p></p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of John Marchmont's Legacy, Volumes I-III, by +Mary E. 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