CHAPTER III.
"I think I saw the letters arrive," said Mrs. Boyce to her daughter."And Donna Margherita seems to be signalling to us."
"Let me go for them, mamma."
"No, thank you, I must go in."
And Mrs. Boyce rose from her seat, and went slowly towards the hotel.Marcella watched her widow's cap and black dress as they passed alongthe _pergola_ of the hotel garden, between bright masses of geraniumsand roses on either side.
They had been sitting in the famous garden of the Cappucini Hotel atAmalfi. To Marcella's left, far below the high terrace of the hotel, thegreen and azure of the Salernian gulf shone and danced in the sun, toher right a wood of oak and arbutus stretched up into a purple cliff--awood starred above with gold and scarlet berries, and below withcyclamen and narcissus. From the earth under the leafy oaks--for theoaks at Amalfi lose and regain their foliage in winter and spring byimperceptible gradations--came a moist English smell. The air was dampand warm. A convent bell tolled from invisible heights above the garden;while the olives and vines close at hand were full of the chatteringvoices of gardeners and children, and broken here and there by clouds ofpink almond-blossom. March had just begun, and the afternoons were fastlengthening. It was little more than a fortnight since Mr. Boyce'sdeath. In the November of the preceding year Mrs. Boyce and Marcella hadbrought him to Naples by sea, and there, at a little villa on Posilippo,he had drawn sadly to his end. It had been a dreary time, from whichMarcella could hardly hope that her mother would ever fully recover. Sheherself had found in the long months of nursing--nursing of which, withquiet tenacity, she had gradually claimed and obtained her full share--adeep moral consolation. They had paid certain debts to conscience, andthey had for ever enshrined her father's memory in the silence of anunmeasured and loving pity.
But the wife? Marcella sorely recognised that to her mother these lastdays had brought none of the soothing, reconciling influences they hadinvolved for herself. Between the husband and wife there had been dumbfriction and misery--surely also a passionate affection!--to the end.The invalid's dependence on her had been abject, her devotion wonderful.Yet, in her close contact with them, the daughter had never been able toignore the existence between them of a wretched though tacitdebate--reproach on his side, self-defence or spasmodic effort onhers--which seemed to have its origin deep in the past, yet to bestimulated afresh by a hundred passing incidents of the present. Underthe blight of it, as under the physical strain of nursing, Mrs. Boycehad worn and dwindled to a white-haired shadow; while he had both clungto life and feared death more than would normally have been the case.At the end he had died in her arms, his head on her breast; she hadclosed his eyes and performed every last office without a tear; nor hadMarcella ever seen her weep from then till now. The letters she hadreceived, mostly, Marcella believed, from her own family, remainedunopened in her travelling-bag. She spoke very little, and wasconstantly restless, nor could Marcella as yet form any idea of thefuture.
After the funeral at Naples Mrs. Boyce had written immediately to herhusband's solicitor for a copy of his will and a statement of affairs.She had then allowed herself to be carried off to Amalfi, and had there,while entirely declining to admit that she was ill, been clearly doingher best to recover health and nerve sufficient to come to somedecision, to grapple with some crisis which Marcella also felt to beimpending--though as to why it should be impending, or what the natureof it might be, she could only dread and guess.
There was much bitter yearning in the girl's heart as she sat, breathedon by the soft Italian wind blowing from this enchanted sea. The innercry was that her mother did not love her, had never loved her, and mighteven now--weird, incredible thought!--be planning to desert her. Hallinwas dead--who else was there that cared for her or thought of her? BettyMacdonald wrote often, wild, "_schwaermerisch_" letters. Marcella lookedfor them with eagerness, and answered them affectionately. But Bettymust soon marry, and then all that would be at an end. MeanwhileMarcella knew well it was Betty's news that made Betty's adorationdoubly welcome. Aldous Raeburn--she never did or could think of himunder his new name--was apparently in London, much occupied in politics,and constantly, as it seemed, in Betty's society. What likelihood wasthere that her life and his would ever touch again? She thought often ofher confession to Hallin, but in great perplexity of feeling. She had,of course, said no word of secrecy to him at the time. Such a demand ina man's last hour would have been impossible. She had simply followed acertain mystical love and obedience in telling him what he asked toknow, and in the strong spontaneous impulse had thought of nothingbeyond. Afterwards her pride had suffered fresh martyrdom. Could he,with his loving instinct, have failed to give his friend some sign? Ifso, it had been unwelcome, for since the day of Hallin's funeral she andAldous had been more complete strangers than before. Lady Winterbourne,Betty, Frank Leven, had written since her father's death; but from him,nothing.
By the way, Frank Leven had succeeded at Christmas, by old Sir CharlesLeven's unexpected death, to the baronetcy and estates. How would thataffect his chances with Betty?--if indeed there were any such chancesleft.
As to her own immediate future, Marcella knew from many indications thatMellor would be hers at once. But in her general tiredness of mind andbody she was far more conscious of the burden of her inheritance than ofits opportunities. All that vivid castle-building gift which wasspecially hers, and would revive, was at present in abeyance. She hadpined once for power and freedom, that she might make a Kingdom ofHeaven of her own, quickly. Now power and freedom, up to a certainpoint, were about to be put into her hands; and instead of plans foracting largely and bountifully on a plastic outer world, she was sayingto herself, hungrily, that unless she had something close to her to loveand live for, she could do nothing. If her mother would end theseunnatural doubts, if she would begin to make friends with her owndaughter, and only yield herself to be loved and comforted, why _then_it might be possible to think of the village and the straw-plaiting!Otherwise--the girl's attitude as she sat dreaming in the sun showed herdespondency.
She was roused by her mother's voice calling her from the other end ofthe _pergola_.
"Yes, mamma."
"Will you come in? There are some letters."
"It is the will," thought Marcella, as Mrs. Boyce turned back to thehotel, and she followed.
Mrs. Boyce shut the door of their sitting-room, and then went up to herdaughter with a manner which suddenly struck and startled Marcella.There was natural agitation and trouble in it.
"There is something in the will, Marcella, which will, I fear, annoy anddistress you. Your father inserted it without consulting me. I want toknow what you think ought to be done. You will find that Lord Maxwelland I have been appointed joint executors."
Marcella turned pale.
"Lord Maxwell!" she said, bewildered. "_Lord Maxwell--Aldous_! What doyou mean, mamma?"
Mrs. Boyce put the will into her hands, and, pointing the way among thetechnicalities she had been perusing while Marcella was still lingeringin the garden, showed her the paragraph in question. The words of thewill were merely formal: "I hereby appoint," &c., and no more; but in acommunication from the family solicitor, Mr. French, which Mrs. Boycesilently handed to her daughter after she had read the legaldisposition, the ladies were informed that Mr. Boyce had, beforequitting England, written a letter to Lord Maxwell, duly sealed andaddressed, with instructions that it should be forwarded to itsdestination immediately after the writer's burial. "Those instructions,"said Mr. French, "I have carried out. I understand that Lord Maxwell wasnot consulted as to his appointment as executor prior to the drawing upof the will. But you will no doubt hear from him at once, and as soon aswe know that he consents to act, we can proceed immediately to probate."
"Mamma, how _could_ he?" said Marcella, in a low, suffocated voice,letting will and letter fall upon her knee.
"Did he give you no warning in that talk you had with him at Mellor?"said Mrs. Boyce, after a minute
's silence.
"Not the least," said Marcella, rising restlessly and beginning to walkup and down. "He spoke to me about wishing to bring it on again--askedme to let him write. I told him it was all done with--for ever! As to myown feelings, I felt it was no use to speak of them; but I thought--I_believed_, I had proved to him that Lord Maxwell had absolutely givenup all idea of such a thing; and that it was already probable he wouldmarry some one else. I told him I would rather disappear from every oneI knew than consent to it--he could only humiliate us all by saying aword. And _now_, after that!--"
She stopped in her restless walk, pressing her hands miserably together.
"What _does_ he want with us and our affairs?" she broke out. "Hewishes, of course, to have no more to do with me. And now we forcehim--_force_ him into these intimate relations. What can papa have saidin that letter to him? What _can_ he have said? Oh! it is unbearable!Can't we write at once?"
She pressed her hands over her eyes in a passion of humiliation anddisgust. Mrs. Boyce watched her closely.
"We must wait, anyway, for his letter," she said. "It ought to be hereby to-morrow morning."
Marcella sank on a chair by an open glass door, her eyes wandering,through the straggling roses growing against the wall of the stonebalcony outside, to the laughing purples and greens of the sea.
"Of course," she said unhappily, "it is most probable he will consent.It would not be like him to refuse. But, mamma, you must write. _I_ mustwrite and beg him not to do it. It is quite simple. We can manageeverything for ourselves. Oh! how _could_ papa?" she broke out again ina low wail, "how could he?"
Mrs. Boyce's lips tightened sharply. It seemed to her a foolishquestion. _She_, at least, had had the experience of twenty years out ofwhich to answer it. Death had made no difference. She saw her husband'scharacter and her own seared and broken life with the same tragicalclearness; she felt the same gnawing of an affection not to be pluckedout while the heart still beat. This act of indelicacy and injustice waslike many that had gone before it; and there was in it the same evasionand concealment towards herself. No matter. She had made her accountwith it all twenty years before. What astonished her was, that the forceof her strong coercing will had been able to keep him for so long withinthe limits of the smaller and meaner immoralities of this world.
"Have you read the rest of the will?" she asked, after a long pause.
Marcella lifted it again, and began listlessly to go through it.
"Mamma!" she said presently, looking up, the colour flushing back intoher face, "I find no mention of you in it throughout. There seems to beno provision for you."
"There is none," said Mrs. Boyce, quietly. "There was no need. I have myown income. We lived upon it for years before your father succeeded toMellor. It is therefore amply sufficient for me now."
"You cannot imagine," cried Marcella, trembling in every limb, "that Iam going to take the whole of my father's estate, and leavenothing--_nothing_ for his wife. It would be impossible--unseemly. Itwould be to do _me_ an injustice, mamma, as well as yourself," she addedproudly.
"No, I think not," said Mrs. Boyce, with her usual cold absence ofemotion. "You do not yet understand the situation. Your father'smisfortunes nearly ruined the estate for a time. Your grandfather wentthrough great trouble, and raised large sums to--" she paused for theright phrase--"to free us from the consequences of your father'sactions. I benefited, of course, as much as he did. Those sums crippledall your grandfather's old age. He was a man to whom I wasattached--whom I respected. Mellor, I believe, had never beenembarrassed before. Well, your uncle did a little towards recovery--buton the whole he was a fool. Your father has done much more, and you, nodoubt, will complete it. As for me, I have no claim to anything morefrom Mellor. The place itself is"--again she stopped for a word of whichthe energy, when it came, seemed to escape her--"hateful to me. I shallfeel freer if I have no tie to it. And at last I persuaded your fatherto let me have my way."
Marcella rose from her seat impetuously, walked quickly across the room,and threw herself on her knees beside her mother.
"Mamma, are you still determined--now that we two are alone in theworld--to act towards me, to treat me as though I were not yourdaughter--not your child at all, but a stranger?"
It was a cry of anguish. A sudden slight tremor swept over Mrs. Boyce'sthin and withered face. She braced herself to the inevitable.
"Don't let us make a tragedy of it, my dear," she said, with a lighttouch on Marcella's hands. "Let us discuss it reasonably. Won't you sitdown? I am not proposing anything very dreadful. But, like you, I havesome interests of my own, and I should be glad to follow them--now--alittle. I wish to spend some of the year in London; to make that,perhaps, my headquarters, so as to see something of some old friendswhom I have had no intercourse with for years--perhaps also of myrelations." She spoke of them with a particular dryness. "And I shouldbe glad--after this long time--to be somewhat taken out of oneself, toread, to hear what is going on, to feed one's mind a little."
Marcella, looking at her, saw a kind of feverish light, a sparklingintensity in the pale blue eyes, that filled her with amazement. What,after all, did she know of this strange individuality from which her ownbeing had taken its rise? The same flesh and blood--what an irony ofnature!
"Of course," continued Mrs. Boyce, "I should go to you, and you wouldcome to me. It would only be for part of the year. Probably we shouldget more from each other's lives so. As you know, I long to see thingsas they are, not conventionally. Anyway, whether I were there or no, youwould probably want some companion to help you in your work and plans. Iam not fit for them. And it would be easy to find some one who could actas chaperon in my absence."
The hot tears sprang to Marcella's eyes. "Why did you send me away fromyou, mamma, all my childhood," she cried. "It was wrong--cruel. I haveno brother or sister. And you put me out of your life when I had nochoice, when I was too young to understand."
Mrs. Boyce winced, but made no reply. She sat with her delicate handacross her brow. She was the white shadow of her former self; but herfragility had always seemed to Marcella more indomitable than anybodyelse's strength.
Sobs began to rise in Marcella's throat.
"And now," she said, in half-coherent despair, "do you know what you aredoing? You are cutting yourself off from me--refusing to have any realbond to me just when I want it most. I suppose you think that I shall besatisfied with the property and the power, and the chance of doing whatI like. But"--she tried her best to gulp back her pain, her outragedfeeling, to speak quietly--"I am not like that really any more. I cantake it all up, with courage and heart, if you will stay with me, andlet me--let me--love you and care for you. But, by myself, I feel as ifI could not face it! I am not likely to be happy--for a longtime--except in doing what work I can. It is very improbable that Ishall marry. I dare say you don't believe me, but it is true. We areboth sad and lonely. We have no one but each other. And then you talk inthis ghastly way of separating from me--casting me off."
Her voice trembled and broke, she looked at her mother with a frowningpassion.
Mrs. Boyce still sat silent, studying her daughter with a strange,brooding eye. Under her unnatural composure there was in reality ahalf-mad impatience, the result of physical and moral reaction. Thisbeauty, this youth, talk of sadness, of finality! What folly! Still, shewas stirred, undermined in spite of herself.
"There!" she said, with a restless gesture, "let us, please, talk of itno more. I will come back with you--I will do my best. We will let thematter of my future settlement alone for some months, at any rate, ifthat will satisfy you or be any help to you."
She made a movement as though to rise from her low chair. But the greatwaters swelled in Marcella--swelled and broke. She fell on her kneesagain by her mother, and before Mrs. Boyce could stop her she had thrownher young arms close round the thin, shrunken form.
"Mother!" she said. "Mother, be good to me--love me--you are all Ihave!"
And s
he kissed the pale brow and cheek with a hungry, almost a violenttenderness that would not be gainsaid, murmuring wild incoherent things.
Mrs. Boyce first tried to put her away, then submitted, being physicallyunable to resist, and at last escaped from her with a sudden sob thatwent to the girl's heart. She rose, went to the window, struggled hardfor composure, and finally left the room.
But that evening, for the first time, she let Marcella put her on thesofa, tend her, and read to her. More wonderful still, she went to sleepwhile Marcella was reading. In the lamplight her face looked piteouslyold and worn. The girl sat for long with her hands clasped round herknees, gazing down upon it, in a trance of pain and longing.
* * * * *
Marcella was awake early next morning, listening to the full voice ofthe sea as it broke three hundred feet below, against the beach androcky walls of the little town. She was lying in a tiny white room, oneof the cells of the old monastery, and the sun as it rose above theSalernian mountains--the mountains that hold Paestum in their blue andpurple shadows--danced in gold on the white wall. The bell of thecathedral far below tolled the hour. She supposed it must be sixo'clock. Two hours more or so, and Lord Maxwell's letter might be lookedfor.
She lay and thought of it--longed for it, and for the time of answeringit, with the same soreness that had marked all the dreams of a restlessnight. If she could only see her father's letter! It was inconceivablethat he should have mentioned _her_ name in his plea. He might haveappealed to the old friendship between the families. That was possible,and would have, at any rate, an _appearance_ of decency. But who couldanswer for it--or for him? She clasped her hands rigidly behind herhead, her brows frowning, bending her mind with an intensity of will tothe best means of assuring Aldous Raeburn that she and her mother wouldnot encroach upon him. She had a perpetual morbid vision of herself asthe pursuer, attacking him now through his friend, now through herfather. Oh! when would that letter come, and let her write her own!
She tried to read, but in reality listened for every sound of awakeninglife in the hotel. When at last her mother's maid came in to call her,she sprang up with a start.
"Deacon, are the letters come?"
"There are two for your mother, miss; none for you."
Marcella threw on her dressing-gown, watched her opportunity, andslipped in to her mother, who occupied a similar cell next door.
Mrs. Boyce was sitting up in bed, with a letter before her, her paleblue eyes fixed absently on the far stretch of sea.
She looked round with a start as Marcella entered. "The letter is to me,of course," she said.
Marcella read it breathlessly.
"Dear Mrs. Boyce,--I have this morning received from your solicitor, Mr.French, a letter written by Mr. Boyce to myself in November of lastyear. In it he asks me to undertake the office of executor, to which, Ihear from Mr. French, he has named me in his will. Mr. French alsoenquires whether I shall be willing to act, and asks me to communicatewith you.
"May I, then, venture to intrude upon you with these few words? Mr.Boyce refers in his touching letter to the old friendship between ourfamilies, and to the fact that similar offices have often been performedby his relations for mine, or _vice versa_. But no reminder of the kindwas in the least needed. If I can be of any service to yourself and toMiss Boyce, neither your poor husband nor you could do me any greaterkindness than to command me.
"I feel naturally some diffidence in the matter. I gather from Mr.French that Miss Boyce is her father's heiress, and comes at once intothe possession of Mellor. She may not, of course, wish me to act, inwhich case I should withdraw immediately; but I sincerely trust that shewill not forbid me the very small service I could so easily and gladlyrender.
"I cannot close my letter without venturing to express the deepsympathy I have felt for you and yours during the past six months. Ihave been far from forgetful of all that you have been going through,though I may have seemed so. I trust that you and your daughter will nothurry home for any business cause, if it is still best for your healthto stay in Italy. With your instructions Mr. French and I could arrangeeverything.
"Believe me,
"Yours most sincerely,
"MAXWELL."
"You will find it difficult, my dear, to write a snub in answer to thatletter," said Mrs. Boyce, drily, as Marcella laid it down.
Marcella's face was, indeed, crimson with perplexity and feeling.
"Well, we can think it over," she said as she went away.
Mrs. Boyce pondered the matter a good deal when she was left alone. Thesigns of reaction and change in Marcella were plain enough. What theyprecisely meant, and how much, was another matter. As to him, Marcella'sidea of another attachment might be true, or might be merely thecreation of her own irritable pride. Anyway, he was in the mood to writea charming letter. Mrs. Boyce's blanched lip had all its natural ironyas she thought it over. To her mind Aldous Raeburn's manners had alwaysbeen a trifle too good, whether for his own interests or for this wickedworld. And if he had any idea now of trying again, let him, forHeaven's sake, not be too yielding or too eager! "It was always theway," thought Mrs. Boyce, remembering a child in white frock and babyshoes--"if you wished to make her want anything, you had to take it awayfrom her."
Meanwhile the mere thought that matters might even yet so settlethemselves drew from the mother a long breath of relief. She had spentan all but sleepless night, tormented by Marcella's claim upon her.After twenty years of self-suppression this woman of forty-five,naturally able, original, and independent, had seen a glimpse ofliberty. In her first youth she had been betrayed as a wife, degraded asa member of society. A passion she could not kill, combined with somestoical sense of inalienable obligation, had combined to make her boththe slave and guardian of her husband up to middle life; and her familyand personal pride, so strong in her as a girl, had found its onlyoutlet in this singular estrangement she had achieved between herselfand every other living being, including her own daughter. Now herhusband was dead, and all sorts of crushed powers and desires, mostly ofthe intellectual sort, had been strangely reviving within her. Justemerged, as she was, from the long gloom of nursing, she already wishedto throw it all behind her--to travel, to read, to makeacquaintances--she who had lived as a recluse for twenty years! Therewas in it a last clutch at youth, at life. And she had no desire toenter upon this new existence--in comradeship with Marcella. They wereindependent and very different human beings. That they were mother anddaughter was a mere physical accident.
Moreover, though she was amply conscious of the fine development inMarcella during the past two years, it is probable that she felt herdaughter even less congenial to her now than of old. For the rich,emotional nature had, as we have seen, "suffered conviction," had turnedin the broad sense to "religion," was more and more sensitive,especially since Hallin's death, to the spiritual things and symbols inthe world. At Naples she had haunted churches; had read, as her motherknew, many religious books.
Now Mrs. Boyce in these matters had a curious history. She had begunlife as an ardent Christian, under evangelical influences. Her husband,on the other hand, at the time she married him was a man of purelysceptical opinions, a superficial disciple of Mill and Comte, and fondof an easy profanity which seemed to place him indisputably with thesuperior persons of this world. To the amazement and scandal of herfriends, Evelyn Merritt had not been three months his wife before shehad adopted his opinions _en bloc_, and was carrying them out to theirlogical ends with a sincerity and devotion quite unknown to her teacher.Thenceforward her conception of things--of which, however, she seldomspoke--had been actively and even vehemently rationalist; and it hadbeen one of the chief sorenesses and shames of her life at Mellor that,in order to suit his position as country squire, Richard Boyce had sunkto what, in her eyes, were a hundred mean compliances with thingsorthodox and established.
Then, in his last illness, he had finally broken away from her, and hisown past. "Evel
yn, I should like to see a clergyman," he had said toher in his piteous voice, "and I shall ask him to give me theSacrament." She had made every arrangement accordingly; but her bittersoul could see nothing in the step but fear and hypocrisy; and he knewit. And as he lay talking alone with the man whom they had summoned, twoor three nights before the end, she, sitting in the next room, had beenconscious of a deep and smarting jealousy. Had not the hard devotion oftwenty years made him at least her own? And here was this black-coatedreciter of incredible things stepping into her place. Only in death sherecovered him wholly. No priest interfered while he drew his last breathupon her bosom.
And now Marcella! Yet the girl's voice and plea tugged at her witheredheart. She felt a dread of unknown softnesses--of being invaded andweakened by things in her akin to her daughter, and so captured afresh.Her mind fell upon the bare idea of a revival of the Maxwell engagement,and caressed it.
Meanwhile Marcella stood dressing by the open window in the sunlight,which filled the room with wavy reflections caught from the sea.Fishing-boats were putting off from the beach, three hundred feet belowher; she could hear the grating of the keels, the songs of the boatmen.On the little breakwater to the right an artist's white umbrella shonein the sun; and a half-naked boy, poised on the bows of a boat mooredbeside the painter, stood bent in the eager attitude of one about todrop the bait into the blue wave below. His brown back burnt against thewater. Cliff, houses, sea, glowed in warmth and light; the air was fullof roses and orange-blossom; and to an English sense had already themagic of summer.
And Marcella's hands, as she coiled and plaited her black hair, movedwith a new lightness; for the first time since her father's death herlook had its normal fire, crossed every now and then by something thatmade her all softness and all woman. No! as her mother said, one couldnot snub that letter or its writer. But how to answer it! In imaginationshe had already penned twenty different replies. How not to be graspingor effusive, and yet to show that you could feel and repaykindness--there was the problem!
Meanwhile, from that letter, or rather in subtle connection with it, herthoughts at last went wandering off with a natural zest to her new realmof Mellor, and to all that she would and could do for the dwellerstherein.