CHAPTER I.
Ah! how purely, cleanly beautiful was the autumn sunrise! After her longhardening to the stale noisomeness of London streets, the taint ofLondon air, Marcella hung out of her window at Mellor in a thirstydelight, drinking in the scent of dew and earth and trees, watching theways of the birds, pouring forth a soul of yearning and of memory intothe pearly silence of the morning.
High up on the distant hill to the left, beyond the avenue, the paleapricots and golds of the newly-shorn stubbles caught the mountinglight. The beeches of the avenue were turning fast, and the chestnutsgirdling the church on her right hand were already thin enough to letthe tower show through. That was the bell--the old bell given to thechurch by Hampden's friend, John Boyce--striking half-past five; andclose upon it came the call of a pheasant in the avenue. There he was,fine fellow, with his silly, mincing run, redeemed all at once by thesudden whirr of towering flight.
To-day Mary Harden and the Rector would be at work in the church, andto-morrow was to be the Harvest Festival. Was it two years?--or in anhour or two would she be going with her basket from the Cedar Garden, tofind that figure in the brown shooting-coat standing with the Hardens onthe altar steps?
Alas!--alas!--her head dropped on her hands as she knelt by the openwindow. How changed were all the aspects of the world! Three weeksbefore, the bell in that little church had tolled for one who, in thebest way and temper of his own generation, had been God's servant andman's friend--who had been Marcella's friend--and had even, in his lastdays, on a word from Edward Hallin, sent her an old man's kindlyfarewell.
"Tell her," Lord Maxwell had written with his own hand to Hallin, "shehas taken up a noble work, and will make, I pray God, a noble woman. Shehad, I think, a kindly liking for an old man, and she will not disdainhis blessing."
He had died at Geneva, Aldous and Miss Raeburn with him. For instead ofcoming home in August, he had grown suddenly worse, and Aldous had goneout to him. They had brought him to the Court for burial, and the newLord Maxwell, leaving his aunt at the Court, had almost immediatelyreturned to town,--because of Edward Hallin's state of health.
Marcella had seen much of Hallin since he and his sister had come backto London in the middle of August. Hallin's apparent improvement hadfaded within a week or two of his return to his rooms; Aldous was atGeneva; Miss Hallin was in a panic of alarm; and Marcella found herselfboth nurse and friend. Day after day she would go in after her nursingrounds, share their evening meal, and either write for Hallin, or helpthe sister--by the slight extra weight of her professional voice--tokeep him from writing and thinking.
He would not himself admit that he was ill at all, and his wholeenergies at the time were devoted to the preparation of a series ofthree addresses on the subject of Land Reform, which were to bedelivered in October to the delegates of a large number of working-men'sclubs from all parts of London. So strong was Hallin's position amongworking-men reformers, and so beloved had been his personality, that assoon as his position towards the new land nationalising movement, nowgathering formidable strength among the London working men, had come tobe widely understood, a combined challenge had been sent him by somehalf-dozen of the leading Socialist and Radical clubs, asking him togive three weekly addresses in October to a congress of Londondelegates, time to be allowed after the lecture for questions anddebate.
Hallin had accepted the invitation with eagerness, and was throwing anintensity of labour into the writing of his three lectures which oftenseemed to his poor sister to be not only utterly beyond his physicalstrength, but to carry with it a note as of a last effort, a farewellmessage, such as her devoted affection could ill endure. For all thetime he was struggling with cardiac weakness and brain irritabilitywhich would have overwhelmed any one less accustomed to make his accountwith illness, or to balance against feebleness of body a marvellousdiscipline of soul.
Lord Maxwell was still alive, and Hallin, in the midst of his work, waslooking anxiously for the daily reports from Aldous, living in hisfriend's life almost as much as in his own--handing on the reports, too,day by day to Marcella, with a manner which had somehow slipped intoexpressing a new and sure confidence in her sympathy--when she oneevening found Minta Hurd watching for her at the door with a telegramfrom her mother: "Your father suddenly worse. Please come at once." Shearrived at Mellor late that same night.
On the same day Lord Maxwell died. Less than a week later he was buriedin the little Gairsley church. Mr. Boyce was then alarmingly ill, andMarcella sat in his darkened room or in her own all day, thinking fromtime to time of what was passing three miles away--of the great house inits mourning--of the figures round the grave. Hallin, of course, wouldbe there. It was a dripping September day, and she passed easily frommoments of passionate yearning and clairvoyance to worry herself aboutthe damp and the fatigue that Hallin must be facing.
Since then she had heard occasionally from Miss Hallin. Everything wasmuch as it had been, apparently. Edward was still hard at work, stillill, still serene. "Aldous"--Miss Hallin could not yet reconcile herselfto the new name--was alone in the Curzon Street house, much occupied andharassed apparently by the legal business of the succession, by theelection presently to be held in his own constituency, and by thewinding-up of his work at the Home Office. He was to resign hisunder-secretaryship; but with the new session and a certainrearrangement of offices it was probable that he would be brought backinto the Ministry. Meanwhile he was constantly with them; and shethought that his interest in Edward's work and anxiety about his healthwere perhaps both good for him as helping to throw off something of hisown grief and depression.
Whereby it will be noticed that Miss Hallin, like her brother, had bynow come to speak intimately and freely to Marcella of her old lover andtheir friend.
Now for some days, however, she had received no letter from eitherbrother or sister, and she was particularly anxious to hear. For thiswas the fourth of October, and on the second he was to have deliveredthe first of his addresses. How had the frail prophet sped? She had herfears. For her weekly "evenings" in Brown's Buildings had shown her agood deal of the passionate strength of feeling developed during thepast year in connection with this particular propaganda. She doubtedwhether the London working man at the present moment was likely to giveeven Hallin a fair hearing on the point. However, Louis Craven was to bethere. And he had promised to write even if Susie Hallin could find notime. Some report ought to reach Mellor by the evening.
Poor Cravens! The young wife, who was expecting a baby, had behaved withgreat spirit through the _Clarion_ trouble; and, selling their bits offurniture to pay their debts, they had gone to lodge near Anthony. Louishad got some odds and ends of designing and artistic work to do throughhis brother's influence; and was writing where he could, here and there.Marcella had introduced them to the Hallins, and Susie Hallin was takinga motherly interest in the coming child. Anthony, in his gloomy way, wasdoing all he could for them. But the struggle was likely to be a hardone, and Marcella had recognised of late that in Louis as in Anthonythere were dangerous possibilities of melancholy and eccentricity. Herheart was often sore over their trouble and her own impotence.
Meantime for some wounds, at any rate, time had brought swift cautery!Not three days after her final interview with Wharton, while thecatastrophe in the Labour party was still in every one's mouth, and theair was full of bitter speeches and recriminations, Hallin one eveninglaid down his newspaper with a sudden startled gesture, and then pushedit over to Marcella. There, in the columns devoted to personal news ofvarious sorts, appeared the announcement:
"A marriage has been arranged between Mr. H.S. Wharfon, M.P. for WestBrookshire, and Lady Selina Farrell, only surviving daughter of LordAlresford. The ceremony will probably take place somewhere about Easternext. Meanwhile Mr. Wharton, whose health has suffered of late from hisexertions in and out of the House, has been ordered to the East for restby his medical advisers. He and his friend Sir William Ffolliot startfor French Cochin China in a few
days. Their object is to explore thefamous ruined temples of Angkor in Cambodia, and if the season isfavourable they may attempt to ascend the Mekong. Mr. Wharton is pairedfor the remainder of the session."
"Did you know anything of this?" said Hallin, with that carefulcarelessness in which people dress a dubious question.
"Nothing," she said quietly.
Then an impulse not to be stood against, springing from very mingleddepths of feeling, drove her on. She, too, put down the paper, andlaying her finger-tips together on her knee she said with an odd slightlaugh:
"But I was the last person to know. About a fortnight ago Mr. Whartonproposed to me."
Hallin sprang from his chair, almost with a shout. "And you refusedhim?"
She nodded, and then was angrily aware that, totally against her will orconsent, and for the most foolish and remote reasons, those two eyes ofhers had grown moist.
Hallin went straight over to her.
"Do you mind letting me shake hands with you?" he said, half ashamed ofhis outburst, a dancing light of pleasure transforming the thin face."There--I am an idiot! We won't say a word more--except about LadySelina. Have you seen her?"
"Three or four times."
"What is she like?"
Marcella hesitated.
"Is she fat--and forty?" said Hallin, fervently--she beat him?"
"Not at all. She is very thin--thirty-five, elegant, terribly of her ownopinion--and makes a great parade of 'papa.'"
She looked round at him, unsteadily, but gaily.
"Oh! I see," said Hallin, with disappointment, "she will only take carehe doesn't beat her--which I gather from your manner doesn't matter. Andher politics?"
"Lord Alresford was left out of the Ministry," said Marcella slily. "Heand Lady Selina thought it a pity."
"Alresford--_Alresford_? Why, of course! He was Lord Privy Seal in theirlast Cabinet--a narrow-minded old stick!--did a heap of mischief in theLords. _Well!_"--Hallin pondered a moment--"Wharton will go over!"
Marcella was silent. The tremor of that wrestler's hour had not yetpassed away. The girl could find no words in which to discuss Whartonhimself, this last amazing act, or its future.
As for Hallin, he sat lost in pleasant dreams of a whitewashed Wharton,comfortably settled at last below the gangway on the Conservative side,using all the old catch-words in slightly different connections, andliving gaily on his Lady Selina. Fragments from the talk ofNehemiah--Nehemiah the happy and truculent, that new "scourge of God"upon the parasites of Labour--of poor Bennett, of Molloy, and of variousothers who had found time to drop in upon him since the Labour smash,kept whirling in his mind. The same prediction he had just made toMarcella was to be discerned in several of them. He vowed to himselfthat he would write to Raeburn that night, congratulate him and theparty on the possibility of so eminent a recruit--and hint another itemof news by the way. She had trusted her confidence to him without anypledge--an act for which he paid her well thenceforward, in the coin ofa friendship far more intimate, expansive, and delightful than anythinghis sincerity had as yet allowed him to show her.
But these London incidents and memories, near as they were in time,looked many of them strangely remote to Marcella in this morningsilence. When she drew back from the window, after darkening the nowsun-flooded room in a very thorough business-like way, in order that shemight have four or five hours' sleep, there was something symbolic inthe act. She gave back her mind, her self, to the cares, the anxieties,the remorses of the past three weeks. During the night she had beensitting up with her father that her mother might rest. Now, as she laydown, she thought with the sore tension which had lately become habitualto her, of her father's state, her mother's strange personality, her ownshort-comings.
* * * * *
By the middle of the morning she was downstairs again, vigorous andfresh as ever. Mrs. Boyce's maid was for the moment in charge of thepatient, who was doing well. Mrs. Boyce was writing some household notesin the drawing-room. Marcella went in search of her.
The bare room, just as it ever was--with its faded antique charm--lookedbright and tempting in the sun. But the cheerfulness of it did butsharpen the impression of that thin form writing in the window. Mrs.Boyce looked years older. The figure had shrunk and flattened into thatof an old woman; the hair, which two years before had been still youngand abundant, was now easily concealed under the close white cap she hadadopted very soon after her daughter had left Mellor. The dress wasstill exquisitely neat; but plainer and coarser. Only the beautifulhands and the delicate stateliness of carriage remained--sole relics ofa loveliness which had cost its owner few pangs to part with.
Marcella hovered near her--a little behind her--looking at her from timeto time with a yearning compunction--which Mrs. Boyce seemed to be awareof, and to avoid.
"Mamma, can't I do those letters for you? I am quite fresh."
"No, thank you. They are just done."
When they were all finished and stamped, Mrs. Boyce made some carefulentries in a very methodical account-book, and then got up, locking thedrawers of her little writing-table behind her.
"We can keep the London nurse another week I think," she said.
"There is no need," said Marcella, quickly. "Emma and I could divide thenights now and spare you altogether. You see I can sleep at any time."
"Your father seems to prefer Nurse Wenlock," said Mrs. Boyce.
Marcella took the little blow in silence. No doubt it was her due.During the past two years she had spent two separate months at Mellor;she had gone away in opposition to her father's wish; and had foundherself on her return more of a stranger to her parents than ever. Mr.Boyce's illness, involving a steady extension of paralytic weakness,with occasional acute fits of pain and danger, had made steady thoughvery gradual progress all the time. But it was not till some days afterher return home that Marcella had realised a tenth part of what hermother had undergone since the disastrous spring of the murder.
She passed now from the subject of the nurse with a half-timid remarkabout "expense."
"Oh! the expense doesn't matter!" said Mrs. Boyce, as she stood absentlybefore the lately kindled fire, warming her chilled fingers at theblaze.
"Papa is more at ease in those ways?" Marcella ventured. And kneelingdown beside her mother she gently chafed one of the cold hands.
"There seems to be enough for what is wanted," said Mrs. Boyce, bearingthe charing with patience. "Your father, I believe, has made greatprogress this year in freeing the estate. Thank you, my dear. I am notcold now."
And she gently withdrew her hand.
Marcella, indeed, had already noticed that there were now no weeds onthe garden-paths, that instead of one gardener there were three, thatthe old library had been decently patched and restored, that there wasanother servant, that William, grown into a very--tolerable footman,wore a reputable coat, and that a plain but adequate carriage and horsehad met her at the station. Her pity even understood that part of herfather's bitter resentment of his ever-advancing disablement came fromhis feeling that here at last--just as death was in sight--he, thatsqualid failure, Dick Boyce, was making a success of something.
Presently, as she knelt before the fire, a question escaped her, which,when it was spoken, she half regretted.
"Has papa been able to do anything for the cottages yet?"
"I don't think so," said Mrs. Boyce, calmly. After a minute's pause sheadded, "That will be for your reign, my dear."
Marcella looked up with a sharp thrill of pain.
"Papa is better, mamma, and--and I don't know what you mean. I shallnever reign here without you."
Mrs. Boyce began to fidget with the rings on her thin left hand.
"When Mellor ceases to be your father's it will be yours," she said, notwithout a certain sharp decision; "that was settled long ago. I must befree--and if you are to do anything with this place, you must give youryouth and strength to it. And your father is not better--except for themome
nt. Dr. Clarke exactly foretold the course of his illness to me twoyears ago, on my urgent request. He may live four months--six, if we canget him to the South. More is impossible."
There was something ghastly in her dry composure. Marcella caught herhand again and leant her trembling young cheek against it.
"I could not live here without you, mamma!"
Mrs. Boyce could not for once repress the inner fever which in generalher will controlled so well.
"I hardly think it would matter to you so much, my dear."
Marcella shrank.
"I don't wonder you say that!" she said in a low voice. "Do you think itwas all a mistake, mamma, my going away eighteen months ago--a wrongact?"
Mrs. Boyce grew restless.
"I judge nobody, my dear!--unless I am obliged. As you know, I am forliberty--above all"--she spoke with emphasis--"for letting the pastalone. But I imagine you must certainly have learnt to do without us.Now I ought to go to your father."
But Marcella held her.
"Do you remember in the _Purgatorio_, mamma, the lines about the loserin the game: 'When the game of dice breaks up, he who lost lingerssorrowfully behind, going over the throws, and _learning by his grief_'?Do you remember?"
Mrs. Boyce looked down upon her, involuntarily a little curious, alittle nervous, but assenting. It was one of the inconsistencies of herstrange character that she had all her life been a persistent Dantestudent. The taste for the most strenuous and passionate of poets haddeveloped in her happy youth; it had survived through the loneliness ofher middle life. Like everything else personal to herself she neverspoke of it; but the little worn books on her table had been familiar toMarcella from a child.
"_E tristo impara?_" repeated Marcella, her voice wavering. "Mamma"--she laid her face against her mother's dress again--"I have lost morethrows than you think in the last two years. Won't you believe I mayhave learnt a little?"
She raised her eyes to her mother's pinched and mask-like face. Mrs.Boyce's lips moved as though she would have asked a question. But shedid not ask it. She drew, instead, the stealthy breath Marcella knewwell--the breath of one who has measured precisely her own powers ofendurance, and will not risk them for a moment by any digression intoalien fields of emotion.
"Well, but one expects persons like you to learn," she said, with alight, cold manner, which made the words mere convention. There wassilence an instant; then, probably to release herself, her hand justtouched her daughter's hair. "Now, will you come up in half an hour?That was twelve striking, and Emma is never quite punctual with hisfood."
* * * * *
Marcella went to her father at the hour named. She found him in hiswheeled chair, beside a window opened to the sun, and overlooking theCedar Garden. The room in which he sat was the state bedroom of the oldhouse. It had a marvellous paper of branching trees and parrots andred-robed Chinamen, in the taste of the morning room downstairs, acarved four-post bed, a grate adorned with purplish Dutch tiles, anarray of family miniatures over the mantelpiece, and on a neighbouringwall a rack of old swords and rapiers. The needlework hangings of thebed were full of holes; the seats of the Chippendale chairs were frayedor tattered. But, none the less, the inalienable character and dignityof his sleeping-room were a bitter satisfaction to Richard Boyce, evenin his sickness. After all said and done, he was king here in hisfather's and grandfather's place; ruling where they ruled, and--whetherthey would or no--dying where they died, with the same family faces tobear him witness from the walls, and the same vault awaiting him.
When his daughter entered, he turned his head, and his eyes, deep andblack still as ever, but sunk in a yellow relic of a face, showed acertain agitation. She was disagreeably aware that his thoughts weremuch occupied with her; that he was full of grievance towards her, andwould probably before long bring the pathos of his situation as well asthe weight of his dying authority to bear upon her, for purposes shealready suspected with alarm.
"Are you a little easier, papa?" she said, as she came up to him.
"I should think as a nurse you ought to know better, my dear, than toask," he said testily. "When a person is in my condition, enquiries ofthat sort are a mockery!"
"But one may be in less or more pain," she said gently. "I hoped Dr.Clarke's treatment yesterday might have given you some relief."
He did not vouchsafe an answer. She took some work and sat down by him.Mrs. Boyce, who had been tidying a table of food and medicine, came andasked him if he would be wheeled into another room across the gallery,which had been arranged as a sitting-room. He shook his head irritably.
"I am not fit for it. Can't you see? And I want to speak to Marcella."
Mrs. Boyce went away. Marcella waited, not without a tremor. She wassitting in the sun, her head bent over the muslin strings she washemming for her nurse's bonnet. The window was wide open; outside, theleaves under a warm breeze were gently drifting down into the CedarGarden, amid a tangled mass of flowers, mostly yellow or purple. To oneside rose the dark layers of the cedars; to the other, the grey frontof the library wing.
Mr. Boyce looked at her with the frown which had now become habitual tohim, moved his lips once or twice without speaking; and at last made hiseffort.
"I should think, Marcella, you must often regret by now the step youtook eighteen months ago!"
She grew pale.
"How regret it, papa?" she said, without looking up.
"Why, good God!" he said angrily; "I should think the reasons for regretare plain enough. You threw over a man who was devoted to you, and couldhave given you the finest position in the county, for the mostnonsensical reasons in the world--reasons that by now, I am certain, youare ashamed of."
He saw her wince, and enjoyed his prerogative of weakness. In his normalhealth he would never have dared so to speak to her. But of late, duringlong fits of feverish brooding--intensified by her return home--he hadvowed to himself to speak his mind.
"Aren't you ashamed of them?" he repeated, as she was silent.
She looked up.
"I am not ashamed of anything I did to save Hurd, if that is what youmean, papa."
Mr. Boyce's anger grew.
"Of course you know what everybody said?"
She stooped over her work again, and did not reply.
"It's no good being sullen over it," he said in exasperation; "I'm yourfather, and I'm dying. I have a right to question you. It's my duty tosee something settled, if I can, before I go. Is it _true_ that all thetime you were attacking Raeburn about politics and the reprieve, andwhat not, you were really behaving as you never ought to have behaved,with Harry Wharton?"
He gave out the words with sharp emphasis, and, bending towards her, helaid an emaciated hand upon her arm.
"What use is there, papa, in going back to these things?" she said,driven to bay, her colour going and coming. "I may have been wrong in ahundred ways, but you never understood that the real reason for it allwas that--that--I never was in love with Mr. Raeburn."
"Then why did you accept him?" He fell back against his pillows with ajerk.
"As to that, I will confess my sins readily enough," she said, while herlip trembled, and he saw the tears spring into her eyes. "I accepted himfor what you just now called his position in the county, though notquite in that way either."
He was silent a little, then he began again in a voice which graduallybecame unsteady from self-pity.
"Well, now look here! I have been thinking about this matter a greatdeal--and God knows I've time to think and cause to think, consideringthe state I'm in--and I see no reason whatever why I should nottry--before I die--to put this thing _straight_. That man was head overears in love with you, _madly_ in love with you. I used to watch him,and I know. Of course you offended and distressed him greatly. He couldnever have expected such conduct from you or any one else. But _he's_not the man to change round easily, or to take up with any one else.Now, if you regret what you did or the way in which you did it
, whyshouldn't I--a dying man may be allowed a little licence I shouldthink!--give him a hint?"
"_Papa!_" cried Marcella, dropping her work, and looking at him with apale, indignant passion, which a year ago would have quelled himutterly. But he held up his hand.
"Now just let me finish. It would be no good my doing a thing of thiskind without saying something to you first, because you'd find it out,and your pride would be the ruin of it. You always had a demoniacalpride, Marcella, even when you were a tiny child; but if you make upyour mind now to let me tell him you regret what you did--justthat--you'll make him happy, and yourself, for you know very well he's aman of the highest character--and your poor father, who never did _you_much harm anyway!" His voice faltered. "I'd manage it so that thereshould be nothing humiliating to you in it whatever. As if there couldbe anything humiliating in confessing such a mistake as that; besides,what is there to be ashamed of? You're no pauper. I've pulled Mellor outof the mud for you, though you and your mother do give me credit for soprecious little!"
He lay back, trembling with fatigue, yet still staring at her withglittering eyes, while his hand on the invalid table fixed to the sideof his chair shook piteously. Marcella dreaded the effect the wholescene might have upon him; but, now they were in the midst of it, bothfeeling for herself and prudence for him drove her into the strongestspeech she could devise.
"Papa, if _anything_ of that sort were done, I should take care Mr.Raeburn knew I had had nothing to do with it--in such a way that itwould be _impossible_ for him to carry it further. Dear papa, don'tthink of such a thing any more. Because I treated Mr. Raeburn unjustlylast year, are we now to harass and persecute him? I would soonerdisappear from everybody I know--from you and mamma, from England--andnever be heard of again."
She stopped a moment--struggling for composure--that she might notexcite him too much.
"Besides, it would be absurd! You forget I have seen a good deal of Mr.Raeburn lately--while I have been with the Winterbournes. He hasentirely given up all thought of me. Even my vanity could see thatplainly enough. His best friends expect him to marry a bright,fascinating little creature of whom I saw a good deal in James Street--aMiss Macdonald."
"Miss how--much?" he asked roughly.
She repeated the name, and then dwelt, with a certain amount ofconfusion and repetition, upon the probabilities of the matter--halfconscious all the time that she was playing a part, persuading herselfand him of something she was not at all clear about in her own innermind--but miserably, passionately determined to go through with it allthe same.
He bore with what she said to him, half disappointed and depressed, yetalso half incredulous. He had always been obstinate, and the approach ofdeath had emphasised his few salient qualities, as decay had emphasisedthe bodily frame. He said to himself stubbornly that he would find someway yet of testing the matter in spite of her. He would think it out.
Meanwhile, step by step, she brought the conversation to less dangerousthings, and she was finally gliding into some chat about theWinterbournes when he interrupted her abruptly--
"And that other fellow--Wharton. Your mother tells me you have seen himin London. Has he been making love to you?"
"Suppose I won't be catechised!" she said gaily, determined to allow nomore tragedy of any kind. "Besides, papa, you can't read your gossip asgood people should. Mr. Wharton's engagement to a certain Lady SelinaFarrell--a distant cousin of the Winterbournes--was announced, inseveral papers with great plainness three weeks ago."
At that moment her mother came in, looking anxiously at them both, andhalf resentfully at Marcella. Marcella, sore and bruised in every moralfibre, got up to go.
Something in the involuntary droop of her beautiful head as she left theroom drew her father's eyes after her, and for the time his feelingtowards her softened curiously. Well, _she_ had not made very much ofher life so far! That old strange jealousy of her ability, her beauty,and her social place, he had once felt so hotly, died away. He wishedher, indeed, to be Lady Maxwell. Yet for the moment there was a certainbalm in the idea that she too--her mother's daughter--with her Merrittblood--could be unlucky.
Marcella went about all day under a vague sense of impendingtrouble--the result, no doubt, of that intolerable threat of herfather's, against which she was, after all, so defenceless.
But whatever it was, it made her all the more nervous and sensitiveabout the Hallins; about her one true friend, to whom she was slowlyrevealing herself, even without speech; whose spiritual strength hadbeen guiding and training her; whose physical weakness had drawn to himthe maternal, the _spending_ instincts which her nursing life had sorichly developed.
She strolled down the drive to meet the post. But there were no lettersfrom London, and she came in, inclined to be angry indeed with LouisCraven for deserting her, but saying to herself at the same time thatshe must have heard if anything had gone wrong.
An hour or so later, just as the October evening was closing in, she wassitting dreaming over a dim wood-fire in the drawing-room. Her father,as might have been expected, had been very tired and comatose all day.Her mother was with him; the London nurse was to sit up, and Marcellafelt herself forlorn and superfluous.
Suddenly, in the silence of the house, she heard the front-door bellring. There was a step in the hall--she sprang up--the door opened, andWilliam, with fluttered emphasis, announced--
"Lord Maxwell!"
In the dusk she could just see his tall form--the short pause as heperceived her--then her hand was in his, and the paralysing astonishmentof that first instant had disappeared under the grave emotion of hislook.
"Will you excuse me," he said, "for coming at this hour? But I amafraid you have heard nothing yet of our bad news--and Hallin himselfwas anxious I should come and tell you. Miss Hallin could not write, andMr. Craven, I was to tell you, had been ill for a week with a chill. Youhaven't then seen any account of the lecture in the papers?"
"No; I have looked yesterday and to-day in our paper, but there wasnothing--"
"Some of the Radical papers reported it. I hoped you might have seen it.But when we got down here this afternoon, and there was nothing fromyou, both Miss Hallin and Edward felt sure you had not heard--and Iwalked over. It was a most painful, distressing scene, and he--is veryill."
"But you have brought him to the Court?" she said trembling, lost in thethought of Hallin, her quick breath coming and going. "He was able tobear the journey? Will you tell me?--will you sit down?"
He thanked her hurriedly, and took a seat opposite to her, within thecircle of the firelight, so that she saw his deep mourning and the lookof repressed suffering.
"The whole thing was extraordinary--I can hardly now describe it," hesaid, holding his hat in his hands and staring into the fire. "It beganexcellently. There was a very full room. Bennett was in the chair--andEdward seemed much as usual. He had been looking desperately ill, but hedeclared that he was sleeping better, and that his sister and I coddledhim. Then,--directly he was well started!--I felt somehow that theaudience was very hostile. And _he_ evidently felt it more and more.There was a good deal of interruption and hardly any cheers--and I sawafter a little--I was sitting not far behind him--that he wasdiscouraged--that he had lost touch. It was presently clear, indeed,that the real interest of the meeting lay not in the least in what hehad to say, but in the debate that was to follow. They meant to let himhave his hour--but not a minute more. I watched the men about me, and Icould see them following the clock--thirsting for their turn. Nothingthat he said seemed to penetrate them in the smallest degree. He wasthere merely as a ninepin to be knocked over. I never saw a meeting so_possessed_ with a madness of fanatical conviction--it was amazing!"
He paused, looking sadly before him. She made a little movement, and heroused himself instantly.
"It was just a few minutes before he was to sit down--I wasthankful!--when suddenly--I heard his voice change. I do not know nowwhat happened--but I believe he completely lost consciousness of th
escene before him--the sense of strain, of exhaustion, of making no way,must have snapped something. He began a sort of confession--a reverie inpublic--about himself, his life, his thoughts, his prayers, hishopes--mostly his religious hopes--for the working man, for England--I_never_ heard anything of the kind from him before--you know hisreserve. It was so intimate--so painful--oh! so painful!"--he drewhimself together with an involuntary shudder--"before this crowd, thiseager hostile crowd which was only pining for him to sit down--to getout of their way. The men near me began to look at each other andtitter. They wondered what he meant by maundering on like that--'damnedcanting stuff'--I heard one man near me call it. I tore off a bit ofpaper, and passed a line to Bennett asking him to get hold of Edward, tostop it. But I think Bennett had rather lost his presence of mind, and Isaw him look back at me and shake his head. Then time was up, and theybegan to shout him down."
Marcella made an exclamation of horror. He turned to her.
"I think it was the most tragic scene I ever saw," he said with afeeling as simple as it was intense. "This crowd so angry andexcited--without a particle of understanding or sympathy--laughing, andshouting at him--and he in the midst--white as death--talking thisstrange nonsense--his voice floating in a high key, quite unlike itself.At last just as I was getting up to go to him, I saw Bennett rise. Butwe were both too late. He fell at our feet!"
Marcella gave an involuntary sob! "What a horror!" she said, "what amartyrdom!"
"It was just that," he answered in a low voice--"It was a martyrdom. Andwhen one thinks of the way in which for years past he has held these bigmeetings in the hollow of his hand, and now, because he crosses theirpassion, their whim,--no kindness!--no patience--nothing but a blindhostile fury! Yet _they_ thought him a traitor, no doubt. Oh! it was alla tragedy!"
There was silence an instant. Then he resumed:
"We got him into the back room. Luckily there was a doctor on theplatform. It was heart failure, of course, with brain prostration. Wemanaged to get him home, and Susie Hallin and I sat up. He was deliriousall night; but yesterday he rallied, and last night he begged us to movehim out of London if we could. So we got two doctors and an invalidcarriage, and by three this afternoon we were all at the Court. My auntwas ready for him--his sister is there--and a nurse. Clarke was there tomeet him. He thinks he cannot possibly live more than a fewweeks--possibly even a few days. The shock and strain have beenirreparable."
Marcella lay back in her chair, struggling with her grief, her head andface turned away from him, her eyes hidden by her handkerchief. Then insome mysterious way she was suddenly conscious that Aldous was no longerthinking of Hallin, but of her.
"He wants very much to see you," he said, bending towards her; "but Iknow that you have yourself serious illness to nurse. Forgive me for nothaving enquired after Mr. Boyce. I trust he is better?"
She sat up, red-eyed, but mistress of herself. The tone had been allgentleness, but to her quivering sense some slight indefinablechange--coldness--had passed into it.
"He _is_ better, thank you--for the present. And my mother does not letme do very much. We have a nurse too. When shall I come?"
He rose.
"Could you--come to-morrow afternoon? There is to be a consultation ofdoctors in the morning, which will tire him. About six?--that was whathe said. He is very weak, but in the day quite conscious and rational.My aunt begged me to say how glad she would be--"
He paused. An invincible awkwardness took possession of both of them.She longed to speak to him of his grandfather but could not find thecourage.
When he was gone, she, standing alone in the firelight, gave onepassionate thought to the fact that so--in this tragic way--they had metagain in this room where he had spoken to her his last words as a lover;and then, steadily, she put everything out of her mind but herfriend--and death.