CHAPTER V.
Meanwhile Marcella and her companion were sitting in the Stone Parlourside by side, save for a small table between them, which held thevarious papers Aldous had brought with him. At first, there had been onher side--as soon as they were alone--a feeling of stiflingembarrassment. All the painful, proud sensations with which she hadreceived the news of her father's action returned upon her; she wouldhave liked to escape; she shrank from what once more seemed anencroachment, a situation as strange as it was embarrassing.
But his manner very soon made it impossible, indeed ridiculous, tomaintain such an attitude of mind. He ran through his business with hisusual clearness and rapidity. It was not complicated; her views provedto be the same as his; and she was empowered to decide for her mother.Aldous took notes of one or two of her wishes, left some papers with herfor her mother's signature, and then his work was practically done.Nothing, throughout, could have been more reassuring or more everydaythan his demeanour.
Then, indeed, when the end of their business interview approached, andwith it the opportunity for conversation of a different kind, both wereconscious of a certain tremor. To him this old parlour was torturinglyfull of memories. In this very place where they sat he had given herhis mother's pearls, and taken a kiss in return from the cheek that wasonce more so near to him. With what free and exquisite curves the hairset about the white brow! How beautiful was the neck--the hand! Whatripened, softened charm in every movement! The touching and rebukingthought rose in his mind that from her nursing experience, and its frankcontact with the ugliest realities of the physical life--a contact hehad often shrunk from realising--there had come to her, not so muchadded strength, as a new subtlety and sweetness, some delicate,vibrating quality, that had been entirely lacking to her first splendidyouth.
Suddenly she said to him, with a certain hesitation:
"There was one more point I wanted to speak to you about. Can you adviseme about selling some of those railway shares?"
She pointed to an item in a short list of investments that lay besidethem.
"But why?" said Aldous, surprised. "They are excellent property already,and are going up in value."
"Yes, I know. But I want some ready money immediately--more than wehave--to spend on cottage-building in the village. I saw a builderyesterday and came to a first understanding with him. We are alteringthe water-supply too. They have begun upon it already, and it will costa good deal."
Aldous was still puzzled.
"I see," he said. "But--don't you suppose that the income of the estate,now that your father has done so much to free it, will be enough to meetexpenses of that kind, without trenching on investments? A certainamount, of course, should be systematically laid aside every year forrebuilding, and estate improvements generally."
"Yes; but you see I only regard half of the income as mine."
She looked up with a little smile.
He was now standing in front of her, against the fire, his grey eyes,which could be, as she well knew, so cold and inexpressive, bent uponher with eager interest.
"Only half the income?" he repeated. "Ah!"--he smiled kindly--"is thatan arrangement between you and your mother?"
Marcella let her hand fall with a little despairing gesture.
"Oh no!" she said--"oh no! Mamma--mamma will take nothing from me orfrom the estate. She has her own money, and she will live with me partof the year."
The intonation in the words touched Aldous profoundly.
"Part of the year?" he said, astonished, yet not knowing how to questionher. "Mrs. Boyce will not make Mellor her home?"
"She would be thankful if she had never seen it," said Marcella,quickly--"and she would never see it again if it weren't for me. It'sdreadful what she went through last year, when--when I was in London."
Her voice fell. Glancing up at him involuntarily, her eye looked withdread for some chill, some stiffening in him. Probably he condemned her,had always condemned her for deserting her home and her parents. Butinstead she saw nothing but sympathy.
"Mrs. Boyce has had a hard life," he said, with grave feeling.
Marcella felt a tear leap, and furtively raised her handkerchief tobrush it away. Then, with a natural selfishness, her quick thought tookanother turn. A wild yearning rose in her mind to tell him much morethan she had ever done in old days of the miserable home-circumstancesof her early youth; to lay stress on the mean unhappiness which haddepressed her own child-nature whenever she was with her parents, andhad withered her mother's character. Secretly, passionately, she oftenmade the past an excuse. Excuse for what? For the lack of delicacy andloyalty, of the best sort of breeding, which had marked the days of herengagement?
Never--_never_ to speak of it with him!--to pour out everything--to askhim to judge, to understand, to forgive!--
She pulled herself together by a strong effort, reminding herself in aflash of all that divided them:--of womanly pride--of Betty Macdonald'spresence at the Court--of that vain confidence to Hallin, of which herinmost being must have been ashamed, but that something calming andsacred stole upon her whenever she thought of Hallin, lifting everythingconcerned with him into a category of its own.
No; let her selfish weakness make no fettering claim upon the man beforeher. Let her be content with the friendship she had, after all,achieved, that was now doing its kindly best for her.
All these images, like a tumultuous procession, ran through the mind ina moment. He thought, as she sat there with her bent head, the handsclasped round the knee in the way he knew so well, that she was full ofher mother, and found it difficult to put what she felt into words.
"But tell me about your plan," he said gently, "if you will."
"Oh! it is nothing," she said hurriedly. "I am afraid you will think itimpracticable--perhaps wrong. It's only this: you see, as there is noone depending on me--as I am practically alone--it seemed to me I mightmake an experiment. Four thousand a year is a great deal more than Ineed ever spend--than I _ought_, of course, to spend on myself. I don'tthink altogether what I used to think. I mean to keep up this house--tomake it beautiful, to hand it on, perhaps _more_ beautiful than I foundit, to those that come after. And I mean to maintain enough service init both to keep it in order and to make it a social centre for all thepeople about--for everybody of all classes, so far as I can. I want itto be a place of amusement and delight and talk to us all--especially tothe very poor. After all"--her cheek flushed under the quickening of herthought--"_everybody_ on the estate, in their different degree, hascontributed to this house, in some sense, for generations. I want it tocome into their lives--to make it _their_ possession, _their_ pride,--aswell as mine. But then that isn't all. The people here can enjoynothing, use nothing, till they have a worthier life of their own. Wageshere, you know, are terribly low, much lower"--she added timidly--"thanwith you. They are, as a rule, eleven or twelve shillings a week. Nowthere seem to be about one hundred and sixty labourers on the estatealtogether, in the farmers' employment and in our own. Some, of course,are boys, and some old men earning a half-wage. Mr. Craven and I haveworked it out, and we find that an average weekly increase of fiveshillings per head--which would give the men of full age and in fullwork about a pound a week--would work out at about two thousand a year."
She paused a moment, trying to put her further statement into its bestorder.
"Your farmers, you know," he said, smiling, after a pause, "will be yourchief difficulty."
"Of course! But I thought of calling a meeting of them. I have discussedit with Mr. French--of course he thinks me mad!--but he gave me someadvice. I should propose to them all fresh leases, with certain smalladvantages that Louis Craven thinks would tempt them, at a reducedrental exactly answering to the rise in wages. Then, in return they mustaccept a sort of fair-wage clause, binding them to pay henceforward thestandard wage of the estate."
She looked up, her face expressing urgent though silent interrogation.
"You must remember," he said quick
ly, "that though the estate isrecovering, and rents have been fairly paid about here during the lasteighteen months, you may be called upon at any moment to make thereductions which hampered your uncle. These reductions will, of course,fall upon you as before, seeing that the farmers, in a different way,will be paying as much as before. Have you left margin enough?"
"I think so," she said eagerly. "I shall live here very simply, andaccumulate all the reserve fund I can. I have set all my heart upon it.I know there are not many people _could_ do such a thing--otherobligations would, must, come first. And it may turn out a mistake.But--whatever happens--whatever any of us, Socialists or not, may hopefor in the future--here one _is_ with one's conscience, and one's money,and these people, who like oneself have but the one life? In all labour,it is the modern question, isn't it?--_how much_ of the product oflabour the workman can extract from the employer? About here there is nounion to act for the labourers--they have practically no power. But _inthe future_, we must surely _hope_ they will combine, that they will bestronger--strong enough to _force_ a decent wage. What ought to preventmy free will anticipating a moment--since I _can_ do it--that we allwant to see?"
She spoke with a strong feeling; but his ear detected a newnote--something deeper and wistfuller than of old.
"Well--as you say, you are for experiments!" he replied, not finding iteasy to produce his own judgment quickly. Then, in another tone--"it wasalways Hallin's cry."
She glanced up at him, her lips trembling.
"I know. Do you remember how he used to say--'the big changes maycome--the big Collectivist changes. But neither you nor I will see them.I pray _not_ to see them. Meanwhile--all still hangs upon, comes backto, the individual, Here are you with your money and power; there arethose men and women whom you can share with--in new and honourableways--_to-day_.'"
Then she checked herself suddenly.
"But now I want you to tell me--will you tell me?--all the objectionsyou see. You must often have thought such things over."
She was looking nervously straight before her. She did not see the flashof half-bitter, half-tender irony that crossed his face. Her tone ofhumility, of appeal, was so strange to him, remembering the past.
"Yes, very often," he answered. "Well, I think these are the kind ofarguments you will have to meet."
He went through the objections that any economist would be sure to weighagainst a proposal of the kind, as clearly as he could, and at somelength--but without zest. What affected Marcella all through was not somuch the matter of what he said, as the manner of it. It was socharacteristic of the two voices in him--the voice of the idealistchecked and mocked always by the voice of the observer and the student.A year before, the little harangue would have set her aflame withimpatience and wrath. Now, beneath the speaker, she felt and yearnedtowards the man.
Yet, as to the scheme, when all demurs were made, she was "of the sameopinion still"! His arguments were not new to her; the inward eagernessover-rode them.
"In my own case"--he said at last, the tone passing instantly intoreserve and shyness, as always happened when he spoke of himself--"myown wages are two or three shillings higher than those paid generally bythe farmers on the estate; and we have a pension fund. But so far, Ihave felt the risks of any wholesale disturbance of labour on theestate, depending, as it must entirely in my case, on the individuallife and will, to be too great to let me go further. I sometimes believethat it is the farmers who would really benefit most by experiments ofthe kind!"
She protested vehemently, being at the moment, of course, not at all inlove with mankind in general, but only with those members of mankind whocame within the eye of imagination. He was enchanted to see the old selfcome out again--positive, obstinate, generous; to see the old confidentpose of the head, the dramatic ease of gesture.
Meanwhile something that had to be said, that must, indeed, be said, ifhe were to give her serious and official advice, pressed uncomfortablyon his tongue.
"You know," he said, not looking at her, when at last she had for themoment exhausted argument and prophecy, "you have to think of those whowill succeed you here; still more you have to think--of marriage--beforeyou pledge yourself to the halving of your income."
Now he must needs look at her intently, out of sheer nervousness. Thedifficulty he had had in compelling himself to make the speech at allhad given a certain hardness and stiffness to his voice. She felt asudden shock and chill--resented what he had dismally felt to be animperative duty.
"I do not think I have any need to think of it--in this connection," shesaid proudly. And getting up, she began to gather her papers together.
The spell was broken, the charm gone. He felt that he was dismissed.
With a new formality and silence, she led the way into the hall, hefollowing. As they neared the library there was a sound of voices.
Marcella opened the door in surprise, and there, on either side of thefire, sat Betty Macdonald and Frank Leven.
"_That's_ a mercy!" cried Betty, running forward to Marcella and kissingher. "I really don't know what would have happened if Mr. Leven and Ihad been left alone any longer. As for the Kilkenny cats, my dear, don'tmention them!"
The child was flushed and agitated, and there was an angry light in herblue eyes. Frank looked simply lumpish and miserable.
"Yes, here I am," said Betty, holding Marcella, and chattering as fastas possible. "I made Miss Raeburn bring me over, that I might _just_catch a sight of you. She would walk home, and leave the carriage forme. Isn't it like all the topsy-turvy things nowadays? When _I'm_ herage I suppose I shall have gone back to dolls. Please to look at thoseponies!--they're pawing your gravel to bits. And as for my watch, justinspect it!"--She thrust it reproachfully under Marcella's eyes. "You'vebeen such a time in there talking, that Sir Frank and I have had time toquarrel for life, and there isn't a minute left for anything rational.Oh! good-bye, my dear, good-bye. I never kept Miss Raeburn waiting forlunch yet, did I, Mr. Aldous? and I mustn't begin now. Come along, Mr.Aldous! You'll have to come home with me. I'm frightened to death ofthose ponies. You shan't drive, but if they bolt, I'll give them to youto pull in. Dear, _dear_ Marcella, let me come again--soon--directly!"
A few more sallies and kisses, a few more angry looks at Frank andappeals to Aldous, who was much less responsive than usual, and thechild was seated, very erect and rosy, on the driving seat of the littlepony-carriage, with Aldous beside her.
"Are you coming, Frank?" said Aldous; "there's plenty of room."
His strong brow had a pucker of annoyance. As he spoke he looked, not atFrank, but at Marcella. She was standing a trifle back, among theshadows of the doorway, and her attitude conveyed to him an impressionof proud aloofness. A sigh that was half pain, half resignation, passedhis lips unconsciously.
"Thank you, I'll walk," said Frank, fiercely.
* * * * *
"Now, will you please explain to me why you look like that, and talklike that?" said Marcella, with cutting composure, when she was oncemore in the library, and Frank, crimson to the roots of his hair, andsaying incoherent things, had followed her there.
"I should think you might guess," said Frank, in reproachful misery, ashe hung over the fire.
"Not at all!" said Marcella; "you are rude to Betty, and disagreeable tome, by which I suppose that you are unhappy. But why should _you_ beallowed to show your feelings, when other people don't?"
Frank fairly groaned.
"Well," he said, making efforts at a tragic calm, and looking for hishat, "you will, none of you, be troubled with me long. I shall go hometo-morrow, and take my ticket for California the day after."
_"You,"_ said Marcella, "go to California! What right have you to go toCalifornia?"
"What right?" Frank stared, then he went on impetuously. "If a girltorments a man, as Betty has been tormenting me, there is nothing forit, I should think, but to clear out of the way. I am going to clear outof the way, whatever anybody says."<
br />
"And shoot big game, I suppose--amuse yourself somehow?"
Frank hesitated.
"Well, a fellow can't do nothing," he said helplessly. "I suppose Ishall shoot."
"And what right have you to do it? Have you any more right than a publicofficial would have to spend public money in neglecting his duties?"
Frank stared at her.
"Well, I don't know what you mean," he said at last, angrily; "give itup."
"It's quite simple what I mean. You have inherited your father'sproperty. Your tenants pay you rent, that comes from their labour. Areyou going to make no return for your income, and your house, and yourleisure?"
"Ah! that's your Socialism!" cried the young fellow, roused by her tone."No return? Why, they have the land."
"If I were a thorough-going Socialist," said Marcella, steadily, "Ishould say to you, Go! The sooner you throw off all ties to yourproperty, the sooner you prove to the world that you and your class aremere useless parasites, the sooner we shall be rid of you. Butunfortunately _I_ am not such a good Socialist as that. I waver--I amnot sure of what I wish. But one thing I _am_ sure of, that unlesspeople like you are going to treat their lives as a profession, to taketheir calling seriously, there are no more superfluous drones, no moreidle plunderers than you, in all civilised society!"
Was she pelting him in this way that she might so get rid of some of herown inner smart and restlessness? If so, the unlucky Frank could notguess it. He could only feel himself intolerably ill-used. He had meantto pour himself out to her on the subject of Betty and his woes, andhere she was rating him as to his _duties_, of which he had hardly asyet troubled himself to think, being entirely taken up either with hisgrievances or his enjoyments.
"I'm sure you know you're talking nonsense," he said sulkily, though heshrank from meeting her fiery look. "And if I _am_ idle, there areplenty of people idler than me--people who live on their money, with noland to bother about, and nothing to do for it at all."
"On the contrary, it is they who have an excuse. They have no naturalopening, perhaps--no plain call. You have both, and, as I said before,you have no _right_ to take holidays before you have earned them. Youhave got to learn your business first, and then do it. Give your eighthours' day like other people! Who are you that you should have all thecake of the world, and other people the crusts?"
Frank walked to the window, and stood staring out, with his back turnedto her. Her words stung and tingled; and he was too miserable to fight.
"I shouldn't care whether it were cake or crusts," he said at last, in alow voice, turning round to her, "if only Betty would have me."
"Do you think she is any the more likely to have you," said Marcella,unrelenting, "if you behave as a loafer and a runaway? Don't you supposethat Betty has good reasons for hesitating when she sees the differencebetween you--and--and other people?"
Frank looked at her sombrely--a queer mixture of expressions on theface, in which the maturer man was already to be discerned at war withthe powerful young animal.
"I suppose you mean Lord Maxwell?"
There was a pause.
"You may take what I said," she said at last, looking into the fire, "asmeaning anybody who pays honestly with work and brains for what societyhas given him--as far as he can pay, at any rate."
"Now look here," said Frank, coming dolefully to sit down beside her;"don't slate me any more. I'm a bad lot, I know--well, an idle lot--Idon't think I am a _bad_ lot--But it's no good your preaching to mewhile Betty's sticking pins into me like this. Now just let me tell youhow she's been behaving."
Marcella succumbed, and heard him. He glanced at her surreptitiouslyfrom time to time, but he could make nothing of her. She sat very quietwhile he described the constant companionship between Aldous and Betty,and the evident designs of Miss Raeburn. Just as when he made his firstconfidences to her in London, he was vaguely conscious that he was doinga not very gentlemanly thing. But again, he was too unhappy to restrainhimself, and he longed somehow to make an ally of her.
"Well, I have only one thing to say," she said at last, with an oddnervous impatience--"go and ask her, and have done with it! She mighthave some respect for you then. No, I won't help you; but if you don'tsucceed, I'll pity you--I promise you that. And now you must go away."
He went, feeling himself hardly treated, yet conscious nevertheless of acertain stirring of the moral waters which had both stimulus and balm init.
She, left behind, sat quiet in the old library for a few lonely minutes.The boy's plight made her alternately scornful and repentant of hersharpness to him. As to his report, one moment it plunged her in ananguish she dared not fathom; the next she was incredulous--could notsimply make herself take the thing as real.
But one thing had been real--that word from Aldous to her of"_marriage_"! The nostril dilated, the breast heaved, as she lost allthought of Frank in a resentful passion that could neither justify norcalm itself. It seemed still as though he had struck her. Yet she knewwell that she had nothing to forgive.
* * * * *
Next morning she went down to the village meaning to satisfy herself ontwo or three points connected with the new cottages. On the way sheknocked at the Rectory garden-door, in the hope of finding Mary Hardenand persuading her to come with her.
She had not seen much of Mary since their return. Still, she had hadtime to be painfully struck once or twice with the white and bloodlesslook of the Rector's sister, and with a certain patient silence abouther which seemed to Marcella new. Was it the monotony of the life? orhad both of them been overworking and underfeeding as usual? The Rectorhad received Marcella with his old gentle but rather distant kindness.Two years before he had felt strongly about many of her proceedings, andhad expressed himself frankly enough, at least to Mary. Now he had puthis former disapprovals out of his mind, and was only anxious to worksmoothly with the owner of Mellor. He had a great respect for"dignities," and she, as far as the village was concerned, was to be his"dignity" henceforward. Moreover, he humbly and truly hoped that shemight be able to enlighten him as to a good many modern conceptions andideas about the poor, for which, absorbed as he was, either inalmsgiving of the traditional type, or spiritual ministration, orsacramental theory, he had little time, and, if the truth were known,little affinity.
In answer to her knock Marcella heard a faint "Come in" from theinterior of the house. She walked into the dining-room, and found Marysitting by the little table in tears. There were some letters beforeher, which she pushed away as Marcella entered, but she did not attemptto disguise her agitation.
"What is it, dear? Tell me," said Marcella, sitting down beside her, andkissing one of the hands she held.
And Mary told her. It was the story of her life--a simple tale ofordinary things, such as wring the quiet hearts and train the unnoticedsaints of this world. In her first youth, when Charles Harden was for atime doing some divinity lecturing in his Oxford college, Mary had goneup to spend a year with him in lodgings. Their Sunday teas and othersmall festivities were frequented by her brother's friends, men of liketype with himself, and most of them either clergymen or about to beordained. Between one of them, a young fellow looking out for his firstcuracy, and Mary an attachment had sprung up, which Mary could not evennow speak of. She hurried over it, with a trembling voice, to thetragedy beyond. Mr. Shelton got his curacy, went off to a parish in theLincolnshire Fens, and there was talk of their being married in a yearor so. But the exposure of a bitter winter's night, risked in thestruggle across one of the bleakest flats of the district to carry theSacrament to a dying parishioner, had brought on a peculiar andagonising form of neuralgia. And from this pain, so nobly earned, hadsprung--oh! mystery of human fate!--a morphia-habit, with all that sucha habit means for mind and body. It was discovered by the poor fellow'sbrother, who brought him up to London and tried to cure him. Meanwhilehe himself had written to Mary to give her up. "I have no will left, andam no longer a man," he wrote to
her. "It would be an outrage on mypart, and a sin on yours, if we did not cancel our promise." Charles,who took a hard, ascetic view, held much the same language, and Marysubmitted, heart-broken.
Then came a gleam of hope. The brother's care and affection prevailed;there were rumours of great improvement, of a resumption of work. "Justtwo years ago, when you first came here, I was beginning tobelieve"--she turned away her head to hide the rise of tears--"that itmight still come right." But after some six or eight months of clericalwork in London fresh trouble developed, lung mischief showed itself, andthe system, undermined by long and deep depression, seemed to capitulateat once.
"He died last December, at Madeira," said Mary, quietly. "I saw himbefore he left England. We wrote to each other almost to the end. He wasquite at peace. This letter here was from the chaplain at Madeira, whowas kind to him, to tell me about his grave."
That was all. It was the sort of story that somehow might have beenexpected to belong to Mary Harden--to her round, plaintive face, to hernarrow, refined experience; and she told it in a way eminentlycharacteristic of her modes of thinking, religious or social, withold-fashioned or conventional phrases which, whatever might be the casewith other people, had lost none of their bloom or meaning for her.
Marcella's face showed her sympathy. They talked for half an hour, andat the end of it Mary flung her arms round her companion's neck.
"There!" she said, "now we must not talk any more about it. I am glad Itold you. It was a comfort. And somehow--I don't mean to be unkind; butI couldn't have told you in the old days--it's wonderful how much betterI like you now than I used to do, though perhaps we don't agree muchbetter."
Both laughed, though the eyes of both were full of tears.
* * * * *
Presently they were in the village together. As they neared the Hurds'old cottage, which was now empty and to be pulled down, a sudden look ofdisgust crossed Marcella's face.
"Did I tell you my news of Minta Hurd?" she said.
No; Mary had heard nothing. So Marcella told the grotesque and uglynews, as it seemed to her, which had reached her at Amalfi. Jim Hurd'swidow was to be married again, to the queer lanky "professor ofelocution," with the Italian name and shifty eye, who lodged on thefloor beneath her in Brown's Buildings, and had been wont to come in ofan evening and play comic songs to her and the children. Marcella wasvehemently sure that he was a charlatan--that he got his living by anumber of small dishonesties, that he had scented Minta's pension. Butapart from the question whether he would make Minta a decent husband, orlive upon her and beat her, was the fact itself of her re-marriage, initself hideous to the girl.
"_Marry_ him!" she said. "Marry any one! Isn't it incredible?"
They were in front of the cottage. Marcella paused a moment and lookedat it. She saw again in sharp vision the miserable woman fainting on thesettle, the dwarf sitting, handcuffed, under the eye of his captors;she felt again the rush of that whirlwind of agony through which she hadborne the wife's helpless soul in that awful dawn.
And after that--exit!--with her "professor of elocution." It made thegirl sick to think of. And Mary, out of a Puseyite dislike of secondmarriage, felt and expressed much the same repulsion.
Well--Minta Hurd was far away, and if she had been there to defendherself her powers of expression would have been no match for theirs.Nor does youth understand such pleas as she might have urged.
"Will Lord Maxwell continue the pension?" said Mary.
Marcella stopped again, involuntarily.
"So that was his doing?" she said. "I supposed as much."
"You did not know?" cried Mary, in distress. "Oh! I believe I ought notto have said anything about it."
"I always guessed it," said Marcella, shortly, and they walked on insilence.
Presently they found themselves in front of Mrs. Jellison's very trimand pleasant cottage, which lay farther along the common, to the left ofthe road to the Court. There was an early pear-tree in blossom over theporch, and a swelling greenery of buds in the little garden.
"Will you come in?" said Mary. "I should like to see Isabella Westall."
Marcella started at the name.
"How is she?" she asked.
"Just the same. She has never been in her right mind since. But she isquite harmless and quiet."
They found Mrs. Jellison on one side of the fire, with her daughter onthe other, and the little six-year-old Johnnie playing between them.Mrs. Jellison was straw-plaiting, twisting the straws with amazingrapidity, her fingers stained with red from the dye of them. Isabellawas, as usual, doing nothing. She stared when Marcella and Mary came in,but she took no other notice of them. Her powerful and tragic face hadthe look of something originally full of intention, from which spiritand meaning had long departed, leaving a fine but lifeless outline.Marcella had seen it last on the night of the execution, in ghastlyapparition at Minta Hurd's window, when it might have been caught bysome sculptor in quest of the secrets of violent expression, fixed inclay or marble, and labelled "Revenge," or "Passion."
Its passionless emptiness now filled her with pity and horror. She satdown beside the widow and took her hand. Mrs. Westall allowed it for amoment, then drew her own away suddenly, and Marcella saw a curious andsinister contraction of the eyes.
"Ah! yo never know how much Isabella unnerstan's, an' how much shedon't," Mrs. Jellison was saying to Mary. "I can't allus make her out,but she don't give no trouble. An' as for that boy, he's a chirruper, heis. He gives 'em fine times at school, he do. Miss Barton, she ast himin class, Thursday, 'bout Ananias and Sappira. 'Johnnie,' says she,'whatever made 'em do sich a wicked thing?' 'Well, _I_ do'n' know,' sayshe; 'it was jus' their nassty good-for-nothink,' says he; 'but they wasgreat sillies,' says he. Oh! he don't mean no harm!--lor' bless yer,the men is all born contrary, and they can't help themselves. Oh! thankyer, miss, my 'ealth is pretty tidy, though I 'ave been plagued thiswinter with a something they call the 'flenzy. I wor very bad! 'Yo go tobed, Mrs. Jellison,' says Dr. Sharpe, 'or yo'll know of it.' But Iworn't goin' to be talked to by 'im. Why, I knowed 'im when he wor no'igher nor Johnnie. An' I kep' puddlin' along, an' one mornin' I worfairly choked, an' I just crawled into that parlour, an' I took a sup o'brandy out o' the bottle"--she looked complacently at Mary, quiteconscious that the Rector's sister must be listening to her withdisapproving ears--"an', lor' bless yer, it cut the phlegm, it did, thatvery moment. My! I did cough. I drawed it up by the yard, I did--and Icrep' back along the wall, and yo cud ha' knocked me down wi' one o' myown straws. But I've been better iver since, an' beginnin' to eat myvittles, too, though I'm never no great pecker--I ain't--not at notime."
Mary managed to smother her emotions on the subject of the brandy, andthe old woman chattered on, throwing out the news of the village in aseries of humorous fragments, tinged in general with the lowest opinionof human nature.
When the girls took leave of her, she said slily to Marcella:
"An' 'ow about your plaitin', miss?--though I dessay I'm a bold 'un forastin'."
Marcella coloured.
"Well, I've got it to think about, Mrs. Jellison. We must have a meetingin the village and talk it over one of these days."
The old woman nodded in a shrewd silence, and watched them depart.
"Wull, I reckon Jimmy Gedge ull lasst my time," she said to herself witha chuckle.
* * * * *
If Mrs. Jellison had this small belief in the powers of the new mistressof Mellor over matters which, according to her, had been settledgenerations ago by "the Lord and natur'," Marcella certainly was in nomood to contradict her. She walked through the village on her returnscanning everything about her--the slatternly girls plaiting on thedoorsteps, the children in the lane, the loungers round the various"publics," the labourers, old and young, who touched their caps toher--with a moody and passionate eye.
"Mary!" she broke out as they neared the Rectory, "I shall betwenty-four dire
ctly. How much harm do you think I shall have done hereby the time I am sixty-four?"
Mary laughed at her, and tried to cheer her. But Marcella was in thedepths of self-disgust.
"What is wanted, really wanted," she said with intensity, "is not _my_help, but _their_ growth. How can I make them _take forthemselves_--take, roughly and selfishly even, if they will only take!As for my giving, what relation has it to anything real or lasting?"
Mary was scandalised.
"I declare you are as bad as Mr. Craven," she said. "He told Charlesyesterday that the curtseys of the old women in the village to him andCharles--women old enough to be their grandmothers--sickened him of thewhole place, and that he should regard it as the chief object of hiswork here to make such things impossible in the future. Or perhapsyou're still of Mr.--Mr. Wharton's opinion--you'll be expecting Charlesand me to give up charity. But it's no good, my dear. We're not'advanced,' and we never shall be."
At the mention of Wharton Marcella threw her proud head back; wave afterwave of changing expression passed over the face.
"I often remember the things Mr. Wharton said in this village," she saidat last. "There was life and salt and power in many of them. It's notwhat he said, but what he was, that one wants to forget."
They parted presently, and Marcella went heavily home. The rising of thespring, the breath of the April air, had never yet been sad andoppressive to her as they were to-day.
CHAPTER VI.
"Oh! Miss Boyce, may I come in?"
The voice was Frank Leven's. Marcella was sitting in the old libraryalone late on the following afternoon. Louis Craven, who was now herpaid agent and adviser, had been with her, and she had accounts andestimates before her.
"Come in," she said, startled a little by Frank's tone and manner, andlooking at him interrogatively.
Frank shut the heavy old door carefully behind him. Then, as he advancedto her she saw that his flushed face wore an expression unlike anythingshe had yet seen there--of mingled joy and fear.
She drew back involuntarily.
"Is there anything--anything wrong?"
"No," he said impetuously, "no! But I have something to tell you, and Idon't know how. I don't know whether I ought. I have run almost all theway from the Court."
And, indeed, he could hardly get his breath. He took a stool she pushedto him, and tried to collect himself. She heard her heart beat as shewaited for him to speak.
"It's about Lord Maxwell," he said at last, huskily, turning his headaway from her to the fire. "I've just had a long walk with him. Then heleft me; he had no idea I came on here. But something drove me; I feltI must come, I must tell. Will you promise not to be angry with me--tobelieve that I've thought about it--that I'm doing it for the best?"
He looked at her nervously.
"If you wouldn't keep me waiting so long," she said faintly, while hercheeks and lips grew white.
"Well,--I was mad this morning! Betty hasn't spoken to me sinceyesterday. She's been always about with him, and Miss Raeburn let me seeonce or twice last night that she thought I was in the way. I neverslept a wink last night, and I kept out of their sight all the morning.Then, after lunch, I went up to him, and I asked him to come for a walkwith me. He looked at me rather queerly--I suppose I was pretty savage.Then he said he'd come. And off we went, ever so far across the park.And I let out. I don't know what I said; I suppose I made a beast ofmyself. But anyway, I asked him to tell me what he meant, and to tellme, if he could, what Betty meant. I said I knew I was a cool hand, andhe might turn me out of the house, and refuse to have anything more todo with me if he liked. But I was going to rack and ruin, and shouldnever be any good till I knew where I stood--and Betty would never beserious--and, in short, was he in love with her himself? for any onecould see what Miss Raeburn was thinking of."
The boy gulped down something like a sob, and tried to give himself timeto be coherent again. Marcella sat like a stone.
"When he heard me say that--'in love with her yourself,' he stoppeddead. I saw that I had made him angry. 'What right have you or any oneelse,' he said, very short, 'to ask me such a question?' Then I justlost my head, and said anything that came handy. I told him everybodytalked about it--which, of course, was rubbish--and at last I said, 'Askanybody; ask the Winterbournes, ask Miss Boyce--they all think it asmuch as I do.' '_Miss Boyce_!' he said--'Miss Boyce thinks I want tomarry Betty Macdonald?' Then I didn't know what to say--for, of course,I knew I'd taken your name in vain; and he sat down on the grass besidea little stream there is in the park, and he didn't speak to me for along time--I could see him throwing little stones into the water. And atlast he called me. 'Frank!' he said; and I went up to him. And then--"
The lad seemed to tremble all over. He bent forward and laid his hand onMarcella's knee, touching her cold ones.
"And then he said, 'I can't understand yet, Frank, how you or anybodyelse can have mistaken my friendship for Betty Macdonald. At any rate, Iknow there's been no mistake on her part. And if you take my advice,you'll go and speak to her like a man, with all your heart, and see whatshe says. You don't deserve her yet, that I can tell you. As for me'--Ican't describe the look of his face; I only know I wanted to goaway--'you and I will be friends for many years, I hope, so perhaps youmay just understand this, once for all. For me there never has been, andthere never will be, but one woman in the world--to love. And you know,'he said after a bit, 'or you ought to know, very well, who that womanis.' And then he got up and walked away. He did not ask me to come, andI felt I dared not go after him. And then I lay and thought. Iremembered being here; I thought of what I had said to you--of what Ihad fancied now and then about--about you. I felt myself a brute allround; for what right had I to come and tell you what he told me? Andyet, there it was--I had to come. And if it was no good my coming, why,we needn't say anything about it ever, need we? But--but--just lookhere, Miss Boyce; if you--if you could begin over again, and make Aldoushappy, then there'd be a good many other people happy too--I can tellyou that."
He could hardly speak plainly. Evidently there was on him anovermastering impulse of personal devotion, gratitude, remorse, whichfor the moment even eclipsed his young passion. It was but vaguelyexplained by anything he had said; it rested clearly on the whole of hisafternoon's experience.
But neither could Marcella speak, and her pallor began to alarm him.
"I say!" he cried; "you're not angry with me?"
She moved away from him, and with her shaking finger began to cut thepages of a book that lay open on the mantelpiece. The little mechanicalaction seemed gradually to restore her to self-control.
"I don't think I can talk about it," she said at last, with an effort;"not now."
"Oh! I know," said Frank, in penitence, looking at her black dress;"you've been upset, and had such a lot of trouble. But I--"
She laid her hand on his shoulder. He thought he had never seen her sobeautiful, pale as she was.
"I'm not the least angry. I'll tell you so--another day. Now, are yougoing to Betty?"
The young fellow sprang up, all his expression changing, answering tothe stimulus of the word.
"They'll be home directly, Miss Raeburn and Betty," he said steadily,buttoning his coat; "they'd gone out calling somewhere. Oh! she'll leadme a wretched life, will Betty, before she's done!"
A charming little ghost of a smile crossed Marcella's white lips.
"Probably Betty knows her business," she said; "if she's quiteunmanageable, send her to me."
In his general turmoil of spirits the boy caught her hand and kissedit--would have liked, indeed, to kiss her and all the world. But shelaughed, and sent him away, and with a sly, lingering look at her hedeparted.
She sank into her chair and never moved for long. The April sun was justsinking behind the cedars, and through the open south window of thelibrary came little spring airs and scents of spring flowers. There wasan endless twitter of birds, and beside her the soft chatter of the woodfire. An hour before, her
mood had been at open war with the spring, andwith all those impulses and yearnings in herself which answered to it.Now it seemed to her that a wonderful and buoyant life, akin to all thevast stir, the sweet revivals of Nature, was flooding her whole being.
She gave herself up to it, in a trance interwoven with all the loveliestand deepest things she had ever felt--with her memory of Hallin, withher new gropings after God. Just as the light was going she got uphurriedly and went to her writing-table. She wrote a little note, satover it a while, with her face hidden in her hands, then sealed,addressed, and stamped it. She went out herself to the hall to put it inthe letter-box. For the rest of the evening she went about in a state ofdream, overcome sometimes by rushes of joy, which yet had in themexquisite elements of pain; hungering for the passage of the hours, forsleep that might cancel some of them; picturing the road to the Courtand Widrington, along which the old postman had by now carried herletter--the bands of moonlight and shade lying across it, the quiet ofthe budding woods, and the spot on the hillside where he had spoken toher in that glowing October. It must lie all night in a dull office--herletter; she was impatient and sorry for it. And when he got it, it wouldtell him nothing, though she thought it would rather surprise him. Itwas the merest formal request that he would, if he could, come and seeher again the following morning on business.
During the evening Mrs. Boyce lay on the sofa and read. It always stillgave the daughter a certain shock of surprise when she saw the slightform resting in this way. In words Mrs. Boyce would allow nothing, andher calm composure had been unbroken from the moment of their returnhome, though it was not yet two months since her husband's death. Inthese days she read enormously, which again was a new trait--especiallynovels. She read each through rapidly, laid it down without a word ofcomment, and took up another. Once or twice, but very rarely, Marcellasurprised her in absent meditation, her hand covering the page. From thehard, satiric brightness of her look on these occasions it seemedprobable that she was speculating on the discrepancies between fictionand real life, and on the falsity of most literary sentiment.
To-night Marcella sat almost silent--she was making a frock for avillage child she had carried off from its mother, who was very ill--andMrs. Boyce read. But as the clock approached ten, the time when theygenerally went upstairs, Marcella made a few uncertain movements, andfinally got up, took a stool, and sat down beside the sofa.
* * * * *
An hour later Marcella entered her own room. As she closed the doorbehind her she gave an involuntary sob, put down her light, and hurryingup to the bed, fell on her knees beside it and wept long. Yet her motherhad not been unkind to her. Far from it. Mrs. Boyce had praised her--infew words, but with evident sincerity--for the courage that could, ifnecessary, put convention aside; had spoken of her own relief; had saidpleasant things of Lord Maxwell; had bantered Marcella a little on hersocial schemes, and wished her the independence to stick to them.Finally, as they got up to go to bed, she kissed Marcella twice insteadof once, and said:
"Well, my dear, I shall not be in your way to-morrow morning; I promiseyou that."
The speaker's satisfaction was plain; yet nothing could have been lessmaternal. The girl's heart, when she found herself alone, was very sore,and the depression of a past which had been so much of a failure, solacking in any satisfied emotion and the sweet preludes of familyaffection, darkened for a while even the present and the future.
After a time she got up, and leaving her room, went to sit in a passageoutside it. It was the piece of wide upper corridor leading to thewinding stairs she had descended on the night of the ball. It was one ofthe loneliest and oddest places in the house, for it communicated onlywith her room and the little staircase, which was hardly ever used. Itwas, indeed, a small room in itself, and was furnished with a few hugeold chairs with moth-eaten frames and tattered seats. A flowery paper oflast-century date sprawled over the walls, the carpet had many holes init, and the shallow, traceried windows, set almost flush in the outersurface of the wall, were curtainless now, as they had been two yearsbefore.
She drew one of the old chairs to a window, and softly opened it. Therewas a young moon, and many stars, seen uncertainly through the rush ofApril cloud. Every now and then a splash of rain moved the creepers andswept across the lawn, to be followed by a spell of growing andbreathing silence. The scent of hyacinths and tulips mounted through thewet air. She could see a long ghostly line of primroses, from which rosethe grey base of the Tudor front, checkered with a dim light and shade.Beyond the garden, with its vague forms of fountain and sun-dial, thecedars stood watching; the little church slept to her left.
So, face to face with Nature, the old house, and the night, she tookpassionate counsel with herself. After to-night surely, she would be nomore lonely! She was going for ever from her own keeping to that ofanother. For she never, from the moment she wrote her letter, had thesmallest doubt as to what his answer to her would be; never the smallestdread that he would, even in the lightest passing impression, connectwhat she was going to do with any thought of blame or wonder. Her prideand fear were gone out of her; only, she dared not think of how he wouldlook and speak when the moment came, because it made her sick and faintwith feeling.
How strange to imagine what, no doubt, would be said and thought abouther return to him by the outside world! His great place in society, hiswealth, would be the obvious solution of it for many--too obvious evento be debated. Looking back upon her thoughts of this night in afteryears, she could not remember that the practical certainty of such aninterpretation had even given her a moment's pain. It was too remotefrom all her now familiar ways of thinking--and his. In her early Mellordays the enormous importance that her feverish youth attached to wealthand birth might have been seen in her very attacks upon them. Now allher standards were spiritualised. She had come to know what happinessand affection are possible in three rooms, or two, on twenty-eightshillings a week; and, on the other hand, her knowledge of Aldous--a manof stoical and simple habit, thrust, with a student's tastes, into theposition of a great landowner--had shown her, in the case at least ofone member of the rich class, how wealth may be a true moral burden andtest, the source of half the difficulties and pains--of half thenobleness also--of a man's life. Not in mere wealth and poverty, shethought, but in things of quite another order--things of social sympathyand relation--alterable at every turn, even under existing conditions,by the human will, lie the real barriers that divide us man from man.
Had they ever really formed a part of historical time, those eightmonths of their engagement? Looking back upon them, she saw herselfmoving about in them like a creature without eyes, worked, blindfold, bya crude inner mechanism that took no account really of impressions fromwithout. Yet that passionate sympathy with the poor--that hatred ofoppression? Even these seemed to her to-night the blind, spasmodicefforts of a mind that all through _saw_ nothing--mistook its ownviolences and self-wills for eternal right, and was but traitor to whatshould have been its own first loyalties, in seeking to save and reform.
Was _true_ love now to deliver her from that sympathy, to deaden in herthat hatred? Her whole soul cried out in denial. By daily life innatural relations with the poor, by a fruitful contact with fact, by theclash of opinion in London, by the influence of a noble friendship, bythe education of awakening passion--what had once been mere tawdry andviolent hearsay had passed into a true devotion, a true thirst forsocial good. She had ceased to take a system cut and dried from theVenturists, or any one else; she had ceased to think of whole classesof civilised society with abhorrence and contempt; and there had dawnedin her that temper which is in truth implied in all the more majesticconceptions of the State--the temper that regards the main institutionsof every great civilisation, whether it be property, or law, orreligious custom, as necessarily, in some degree, divine and sacred. Forman has not been their sole artificer! Throughout there has been workingwith him "the spark that fires our clay."
&nb
sp; Yes!--but modification, progress, change, there must be, for us as forour fathers! Would marriage fetter her? It was not the least probablethat he and she, with their differing temperaments, would think alike inthe future, any more than in the past. She would always be forexperiments, for risks, which his critical temper, his larger brain,would of themselves be slow to enter upon. Yet she knew well enough thatin her hands they would become bearable and even welcome to him. And forhimself, she thought with a craving, remorseful tenderness of thatpessimist temper of his towards his own work and function that she knewso well. In old days it had merely seemed to her inadequate, if nothypocritical. She would have liked to drive the dart deeper, to make himstill unhappier! Now, would not a wife's chief function be to reconcilehim with himself and life, to cheer him forward on the lines of his ownnature, to believe, understand, help?
Yet always in the full liberty to make her own sacrifices, to realiseher own dreamlands! She thought with mingled smiles and tears of herplans for this bit of earth that fate had brought under her hand; shepledged herself to every man, woman, and child on it so to live her lifethat each one of theirs should be the richer for it; she set out, so faras in her lay, to "choose equality." And beyond Mellor, in the greatchanging world of social speculation and endeavour, she prayed alwaysfor the open mind, the listening heart.
"There is one conclusion, one cry, I always come back to at last," sheremembered hearing Hallin say to a young Conservative with whom he hadbeen having a long economic and social argument. "_Never resignyourself_!--that seems to be the main note of it. Say, if youwill--believe, if you will, that human nature, being what it is, andwhat, so far as we can see, it always must be, the motives which workthe present social and industrial system can never be largelysuperseded; that property and saving--luck, too!--struggle, success, andfailure, must go on. That is one's intellectual conclusion; and one hasa right to it--you and I are at one in it. But then--on the heels of itcomes the moral imperative! 'Hold what you please about systems andmovements, and fight for what you hold; only, as an individual--_neversay--never think!_--that it is in the order of things, in the purpose ofGod, that one of these little ones--this Board-School child, this manhonestly out of work, this woman "sweated" out of her life--shouldperish!' A contradiction, or a commonplace, you say? Well and good. Theonly truths that burn themselves into the conscience, that workthemselves out through the slow and manifold processes of the personalwill into a pattern of social improvement, are the contradictions andthe commonplaces!"
So here, in the dark, alone with the haunting, uplifting presences of"admiration, hope, and love," Marcella vowed, within the limits of herpersonal scope and power, never to give up the struggle for a noblerhuman fellowship, the lifelong toil to understand, the passionate effortto bring honour and independence and joy to those who had them not. Butnot alone; only, not alone! She had learnt something of the darkaspects, the crushing complexity of the world. She turned from themto-night, at last, with a natural human terror, to hide herself in herown passion, to make of love her guide and shelter. Her whole rich beingwas wrought to an intoxication of self-giving. Oh! let the night gofaster! faster! and bring his step upon the road, her cry of repentanceto his ear.
* * * * *
"I trust I am not late. Your clocks, I think, are ahead of ours. Yousaid eleven?"
Aldous advanced into the room with hand outstretched. He had beenushered into the drawing-room, somewhat to his surprise.
Marcella came forward. She was in black as before, and pale, but therewas a knot of pink anemones fastened at her throat, which, in the playthey made with her face and hair, gave him a start of pleasure.
"I wanted," she said, "to ask you again about those shares--how tomanage the sale of them. Could you--could you give me the name of someone in the City you trust?"
He was conscious of some astonishment.
"Certainly," he said. "If you would rather not entrust it to Mr. French,I can give you the name of the firm my grandfather and I have alwaysemployed; or I could manage it for you if you would allow me. You havequite decided?"
"Yes," she said mechanically,--"quite. And--and I think I could do itmyself. Would you mind writing the address for me, and will you readwhat I have written there?"
She pointed to the little writing-table and the writing materials uponit, then turned away to the window. He looked at her an instant withuneasy amazement.
He walked up to the table, put down his hat and gloves beside it, andstooped to read what was written.
_"It was in this room you told me I had done you a great wrong. Butwrongdoers may be pardoned sometimes, if they ask it. Let me know by asign, a look, if I may ask it. If not it would be kind to go awaywithout a word."_
She heard a cry. But she did not look up. She only knew that he hadcrossed the room, that his arms were round her, her head upon hisbreast.
"Marcella!--wife!" was all he said, and that in a voice so low, sochoked, that she could hardly hear it.
He held her so for a minute or more, she weeping, his own eyes dim withtears, her cheek laid against the stormy beating of his heart.
At last he raised her face, so that he could see it.
"So this--this was what you had in your mind towards me, while I havebeen despairing--fighting with myself, walking in darkness. Oh, mydarling! explain it. How can it be? Am I real? Is this face--these lipsreal?"--he kissed both, trembling. "Oh! when a man is raised thus--in amoment--from torture and hunger to full joy, there are no words--"
His head sank on hers, and there was silence again, while he wrestledwith himself.
At last she looked up, smiling.
"You are to please come over here," she said, and leading him by thehand, she took him to the other side of the room. "That is the chair yousat in that morning. Sit down!"
He sat down, wondering, and before he could guess what she was going todo she had sunk on her knees beside him.
"I am going to tell you," she said, "a hundred things I never told youbefore. You are to hear me confess; you are to give me penance; you areto say the hardest things possible to me. If you don't I shall distrustyou."
She smiled at him again through her tears. "Marcella," he cried indistress, trying to lift her, to rise himself, "you can't imagine that Ishould let _you_ kneel to _me_!"
"You must," she said steadily; "well, if it will make you happier, Iwill take a stool and sit by you. But you are there above me--I am atyour feet--it is the same chair, and you shall not move"--she stooped ina hasty passion, as though atoning for her "shall," and kissed hishand--"till I have said it all--every word!"
So she began it--her long confession, from the earliest days. He wincedoften--she never wavered. She carried through the sharpest analysis ofher whole mind with regard to him; of her relations to him and Whartonin the old days; of the disloyalty and lightness with which she hadtreated the bond, that yet she had never, till quite the end, thoughtseriously of breaking; of her selfish indifference to, even contemptfor, his life, his interests, his ideals; of her calm forecasts of amarried state in which she was always to take the lead and always to bein the right--then of the real misery and struggle of the Hurd trial.
"That was my first true _experience_," she said; "it made me wild andhard, but it burnt, it purified. I began to live. Then came the daywhen--when we parted--the time in hospital--the nursing--the evening onthe terrace. I had been thinking of you--because remorse made me thinkof you--solitude--Mr. Hallin--everything. I wanted you to be kind to me,to behave as though you had forgotten everything, because it would havemade me comfortable and happy; or I thought it would. And then, thatnight you wouldn't be kind, you wouldn't forget--instead, you made mepay my penalty."
She stared at him an instant, her dark brows drawn together, strugglingto keep her tears back, yet lightening from moment to moment into adivine look of happiness. He tried to take possession of her, to stopher, to silence all this self-condemnation on his breast. But she wouldnot have i
t; she held him away from her.
"That night, though I walked up and down the terrace with Mr. Whartonafterwards, and tried to fancy myself in love with him--that night, forthe first time, I began to love you! It was mean and miserable, wasn'tit, not to be able to appreciate the gift, only to feel when it wastaken away? It was like being good when one is punished, because onemust--"
She laid down her head against his chair with a long sigh. He could bearit no longer. He lifted her in his arms, talking to her passionately ofthe feelings which had been the counterpart to hers, the longings,jealousies, renunciations--above all, the agony of that moment at theMastertons' party.
"Hallin was the only person who understood," he said; "he knew all thetime that I should love you to my grave. I could talk to him."
She gave a little sob of joy, and pushing herself away from him aninstant, she laid a hand on his shoulder.
"I told him," she said--"I told him, that night he was dying."
He looked at her with an emotion too deep even for caresses.
"He never spoke--coherently--after you left him. At the end he motionedto me, but there were no words. If I could possibly love you more, itwould be because you gave him that joy."
He held her hand, and there was silence. Hallin stood beside them,living and present again in the life of their hearts.
Then, little by little, delight and youth and love stole again upontheir senses.
"Do you suppose," he exclaimed, "that I yet understand in the least howit is that I am here, in this chair, with you beside me? You have toldme much ancient history!--but all that truly concerns me this morninglies in the dark. The last time I saw you, you were standing at thegarden-door, with a look which made me say to myself that I was the sameblunderer I had always been, and had far best keep away. Bridge me thegap, please, between that hell and this heaven!"
She held her head high, and changed her look of softness for a frown.
"You had spoken of '_marriage!_'" she said. "Marriage in the abstract,with a big _M_. You did it in the tone of my guardian giving me away.Could I be expected to stand that?"
He laughed. The joy in the sound almost hurt her.
"So one's few virtues smite one," he said as he captured her hand again."Will you acknowledge that I played my part well? I thought to myself,in the worst of tempers, as I drove away, that I could hardly have beenmore official. But all this is evasion. What I desire to know,categorically, is, what made you write that letter to me last night,after--after the day before?"
She sat with her chin on her hand, a smile dancing.
"Whom did you walk with yesterday afternoon?" she said slowly.
He looked bewildered.
"There!" she cried, with a sudden wild gesture; "when I have told you itwill undo it all. Oh! if Frank had never said a word to me; if I had hadno excuse, no assurance, nothing to go upon, had just called to you inthe dark, as it were, there would be some generosity, some atonement inthat! Now you will think I waited to be meanly sure, instead of--"
She dropped her dark head upon his hand again with an abandonment whichunnerved him, which he had almost to brace himself against.
"So it was Frank," he said--"_Frank!_ Two hours ago, from my window, Isaw him and Betty down by the river in the park. They were supposed tobe fishing. As far as I could see they were sifting or walking hand inhand, in the face of day and the keepers. I prepared wise things to sayto them. None of them will be said now, or listened to. As Frank'smentor I am undone."
He held her, looking at her intently.
"Shall I tell you," he asked, in a lower voice--"shall I show yousomething--something that I had on my heart as I was walking here?"
He slipped his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and drew out alittle plain black leather case. When he opened it she saw that itcontained a pen-and-ink sketch of herself that had been done one eveningby a young artist staying at the Court, and--a bunch of traveller's joy.
She gazed at it with a mixture of happiness and pain. It reminded her ofcold and selfish thoughts, and set them in relief against his constancy.But she had given away all rights--even the right to hate herself.Piteously, childishly, with seeking eyes, she held out her hand to him,as though mutely asking him for the answer to her outpouring--the lastword of it all. He caught her whisper.
"Forgive?" he said to her, scorning her for the first and only time intheir history. "Does a man _forgive_ the hand that sets him free, thevoice that recreates him? Choose some better word--my wife!"
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